"You had almost forgotten the tranquil moon above the
empty streets. Every year, the beauties of nature reveal
themselves anew, and the emotion they evoke is always: 'You had
almost forgotten...'

The difficulty of art is to present things you know well
in such a way that they are surprising. If you did not know
them well, you would not be sufficiently interested in them
re treat them in a way that makes them surprising.

The delight of art: perceiving that one's own way of
life can determine a method of expression."

Cesare Pavese
*The Burning Brand*
Diaries 1935-1950

Every night this month, I've been struck,
even dazed, by the loveliness of the
of the phases of the moon.

A constant pleasure: to realize, without yet comprehending
the specifics, that some specific understanding is
unfolding; to notice it instead, in the little forward
and backward emotional fluctuations; what used to
be called, in a more sympathetic literary/ philosophical
era, spirit.

The connected pleasure of discovering parallel insights
in others. Why diaries, journals, blogs, have for so long
completely enthralled me. Why psychoanalysis and
psychotherapy have almost always done the same.

Pavese realized, or hoped, he could piece together
an understanding, a grip on life out of such insights.
What a moving struggle to see so sadly end in suicide.

The phases of the moon: the necessity of priorities;
the necessity of occasionally forgetting them; the
inexorable, yet paradoxical companionship of the
inevitable. On the verge of Aurelius' stoical,
transcendent insight:
to find calm and solace, even reassurance
in all the cycles,
large and small, not disappointment.
Why? Because this is , in fact,
what life is composed of, and life
is all we have.

Two quotes from Marcus Aurelius:

"Always remember the saying of
Heraclitus: that the death of earth
is to become water, and the death of
water to become air, and the death
of air is to become fire, and reversely.
And think too of those who forget
whither the way leads, and that people
quarrel with that with which they are
most constantly in communion, the reason
which governs the universe; and the things
which they daily meet with seem to them
strange: and consider that we ought
not to act and speak as if we were
asleep, for even in sleep we seem
to act and speak; and that we ought
not, like children who learn from their
parents, simply to act and speak as
we have been taught."

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

"There is no nature which is inferior
to art, for the arts imitate the nature
of things. But if this is so, that nature
which is the most perfect and the most
comprehensive of all natures cannot
fall short of the skill of art. Now all arts
do the inferior things for the sake of the
superior; therefore the universal nature
does so too. And, indeed, hence is the
origin of justice, and in justice the other
virtues have their foundation: for justice
will not be observed if we either care for
middle things [things indifferent], or are
easily deceived and careless and
changeable."

This just in from Toni Simon:

"Last night, after seeing the overrated Brancusi exhibit we went down to the Cafe Orlin for dinner. The new poll numbers had put me in a bad mood. So we're sitting outside eating dinner when suddenly hundreds and hundreds of bicyclists ride by yelling fuck Bush. It went by for half an hour- like a dream. I'm thinking this is freedom-we still live in a democracy and there's still hope. Soon the riot police and helicopters arrived however at 9th and 2nd ave. and arrested 250, confiscating their bicycles. The sidewalks were jammed with people yelling let them go. Second ave was blocked off with police buses, vans and cars-bicycle riders being handcuffed in the middle of the street-your tax dollars at work. By the time we got home the phony AP news report blaming the protesters was in place."
**************************************************************************
::fait accompli:: summer reruns
Thursday, August 28, 2003

:: Thursday, August 28 ::

Thanks to Mikarrhea...Michaela Cooper for mentioning -fait accompli- and welcome to Blogland! It appears she has the requisite sense of humor to survive in this strange new world.
Here are a few more of my favorite aphorisms:

"There is hardly any grief that an
hour's reading will not dissipate."
Montesquieu, -Mes Pensees- 1722-55

"To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others."
Albert Camus, -The Fall-, 1956

"There is a certain distance at which
each person we know is naturally
placed from us. It varies with each,
and we must not attempt to alter
it. We may clasp him who is close,
and we are not to pull closer to him who
is more remote."
Mark Rutherford, -More Pages from a Journal-, 1910

"What a fine comedy this world would
be if one did not play a part in it."
Diderot, -Letters to Sophie Vollard-

"if only we could treat ourselves
as we treat other men, looking at their
withdrawn faces and crediting them with
some mysterious, irresistable power. Instead,
we know all our own thoughts, our misgivings,
and we are reduced to hoping for some
unconscious force to surge up from our
inmost being and act with a subtlety all its own."
Cesare Pavese-This Business of Living: Diaries-1935-1950

:: Nick Piombino 9:26 AM [+] ::
. . . . . .

8/1/99 Amsterdam
Homo Sapiens Non Urinat In Ventum

8/10/99
inching
anticipation
foresight foretaste forethought forewarning
preconception premonition prescience
presentiment
prolepsis

8/12
Almost immediately, "The
Music Lesson" transposed itself
from a narrative into a series
of brief episodes in the
form of a series of aphorisms.
The first of which is: don't
expect the student to be in
any hurry for the lesson.
Perhaps if he or she rushed to
it we might expect them to be
too eager, too accomodating.
The teacher wants good students, not
necessarily compliant ones.

8/16/99
What makes change so
difficult? I've a mind to
smooth out some rough edges,
but there is always this
resistance. My behavior- or
the connection between how I
take action and how I am
feeling, it's this equation I
would like to adjust. Part of
this, I see is related to the
unpredictability of the external
conditions at any given moment.
I overreact, or rigidly react
to these external conditions as
if they were human, that is,
purposeful. This is, of course, the
theme of "Zen In The Art of
Motorcycle Maintenance" as I
remember. I ought to rereread
this book.
As I understand, and develop, what
I enjoy reading, I better understand
what I want to write. I remember
Fielding once suggesting that
the difficulty I have is not so
much with how I react to people
but how I respond to how
they respond to me. So
this is where neutrality
to outcomes comes in.
The automatic reaction
to disappointment, for
example, is to feel
frustrated. My reaction frequently
contains the need to reveal,
and often even to
sustain this frustration.
Maybe part of this urge is
to examine the feelings- and,
if it's a wound, to sort
of pick at the scab, or
press the bruise. But another
side of this is to take
offence- to be displeased and
to express the displeasure.
Getting better is feeling
better, feeling better is having
more, having more is having
more to give.
Wincing- why so much?
Asking for something, asking for
support; "something hurt me- help me."
Memories imply a break
with what took place in
the past. But there was no
break. Day after day, every day
since the first you have been
who you are. To remember you
need only look at what you
are doing at any given moment.
Probably you were doing something
very similar to what you are
doing right now back then.
Maybe a few details have changed,
something you used to do into
a different version of what you
were doing back then.
Misunderstandings can only
come from unmet needs.
Each understanding is like a
rung on the ladder. Yet
every day you have to find
the impetus to climb the
ladder again. First the
ladder- and then the
climbing. Then seeing
something-then more ladders,
more climbing.
So- how to manage this
annoyance- disappointment
thing better. This is what I was
studying with stoicism and
Seneca. These annoyance-
disappointment spells have
actually wasted an awful lot
of time in my life.

8/17/99
I just understood that sometimes
I interpret some unfortunate
experience as if it were a reflection of my
destiny and therefore- somehow- as
a reflection on my self-worth or value.
An example. this year, in the
school I work in there was a
considerable amount of construction
work. This bothered my hearing because
of a hearing condition I have
called tinnitus. Once I speculated
that a very loud construction
project which took place
right next to another school
I worked in over 10 years ago
caused my problem. When they drove
in the foundation it sounded like
explosions. A year later
the ear noises started. So
these misfortunes get grouped
under bad luck surrounding
construction nearby me. Then,
when there is a much quieter
construction project right
acorss from me in Amsterdam,
it all gets clustered
under "bad luck I get
around construction projects."
And somehow this bad luck
is deserved. The fact
that it feels deserved depresses
me. But, in actuality, the
amount of focus I give
something is chosen by me,
not the external environment.
This is Seneca's message.
Yesterday I tried to push through
this. I am very interested in
mastering this and it seems like
an extremely valuable project.
*
I realized, listening to
Debussy the last few days-
but it also applies to the
Beethoven I've been listening
to: to create according to
very basic kinds of
steps, and gradually to allow
the feelings to overtake me,
and then watch what happens
next. This often involves
considerable waiting. All through
the years I've noticed there are
times I do not write. Many
years ago I might have
gotten upset about these
periods. At times I
can even shed the mantle
of "writer." Why wear
this interest so loudly like a
uniform? It is more interesting
to change identities sometimes,
like costumes. We all do
this naturally, to some
extent, in everyday life.
At a job or professional
activity we have to don this
mantle or we
will not be able to accomplish
very much. Often this
question is one of setting limits
with other people. If we
fail to set these limits,
we will be unable to
manage our activities vis-a
vis other people.
Even the Beethoven- simple steps,
one progressing naturally from
the previous one and the next one.
But, compared with Debussy,
Beethoven is very forceably
moving forward with each step
and sequence of steps. These
middle quartets glide easily
between moods- but there
are rarely the "complete
silences" I hear in Debussy.
The more smoothly one can
change the masks, the quicker
can things move forward. The
times of waiting are clothes-
changing periods. Or sometimes,
with me, it is a stubborn
refusal to don any mask at
all.
In a mirage, I can
don any costume at will.
It may seem so, but I
am not dressing hurriedly.
No, because I am thinking
about what I want to wear.
I knew where my hatred of
uniforms comes from. It
comes from my father.
Since he was a soldier,
an officer, he wore a
uniform every day. I
think he loved them so
much, that when he retired
the only activity he could
enjoy was managing the
uniforms for students
in an army training
program [ROTC, at City College of New York,
in the early 60's].
What is the impatience ever
about? It is about equating
procedures with rigid uniforms,
unconsciously. But certainly
because I've dwelled so long
in a horror of uniforms, that
I can certainly detect the
rigid aspects of "uniform"
behavior- particularly of
importance to me in writing,
but I also detect it frequently
in other areas of being.

:: Nick Piombino 1:45 AM [+] ::

Wasgonna

My father used to like to tease me with
this word, whever I said I "was gonna"
do something and never got around
to it.

I've been telling myself for awhile now
that sometime I'm going to spend a whole
day reading the links on
:::wood s lot::: the fitful tracings of a portal (Mark Woods) {click here}
I've been thinking about how much I rely on this
blog for blogland sustenance. And finally
last night I got around to looking at just
a few of the dozens of great links there.

One that caught my eye is called
the future of the book {click here}.
It mentions an upcoming conference on that topic
in China. Another featured an interview with
Ronald Sukenik, but unfortunately I can't find it
right now.

But I know I'll keep reading this
amazingly informative blog everyday
and one day I'll get around to checking
out Mark Woods' voluminous resources.

(By the way, "the fitful tracings of a portal"-
you knew it, didn't you?
is a quote from Wallace Stevens.)

The Bully's Cycle of Intimidation

Isn't it interesting that individuals or groups who
like to frequently warn tend to be
the same ones who frequently
threaten?

The Cycle

Patronize, preach, pressure

Cajole, carp, criticize

Scold, warn, threaten, deprive, punish

Begin again.
******************************************

Caterina {click here} takes time out for
Oliver Sacks
******************************************
::fait accompli:: summer reruns
August 26, 2003

"In everything there is an unexplored
element because we are prone by habit
to use our eyes only in combination
with the memory of what others before us
have thought about the thing we are looking at.
The most insignificant thing contains some
little unknown element. We must find it."
Maupassant, Preface to Pierre et Jean, 1887

:: Nick Piombino 10:41 PM [+] ::
. . . . . .

Afterglow

"Spoke, spoke.
Was, was."
Paul Celan

The real is impenetrable.
Every day we accept the given reports.
Sun, gray skies, rain.
In back of the house the metal swing is rusting.
The day is so hot nothing moves.
Even time doesn't move.
Escape the official remarks and expressions.
Into what? Green? Or eyes?
Words don't welcome, but they are warm,
Warmer than voices. The whole extent.
The whole object or memory.
Continuance.
Contrivance: echoes.
Universe: all bare.
Wonders: caring.
Hands.
6/4/93

:: Nick Piombino 8:19 PM [+] ::
**********************************************
Are the derangements of modernism
still efficacious? While still fascinating,
and occasionally shockingly
and powerfully beautiful,
can they release us from the fun-house
mirrors of contemporary disinformation?
Is it still revolutionary to counter lies and deceit
with chaos and confusion?
Is atonality, for example,
still more forceful, more
authentic than
melody or silence?

Those who live life as if
it could never be
protected or protective enough,
who feel obliged to endlessly repeat sad
warnings, remind all and any of terrible events
and scoff at "childish,"
dreams and joys, who live for
becoming tough and "realistic",
who constantly long to be no longer afraid, may never
come to understand, with
Antonio Porchia that:

"When one does not love the impossible,
one does not love anything."

Thanks to Lanny Quarles
for linking

phaneronoemikon {click here}
to my poem
*Career of the Poet*

Career of the Poet

(written for, and first published on
As Is {click here})

The poet, lying in silver, athwart.
The poet, O moon begotten.
The poet, in sadness abetted.
The poet, mad in shadow.
The poet, being seeming.
The poet, impolitic observed.
The poet, breath curator.
The poet, imperative antidote.
The poet, lost in thought, finding the lost thought.
The poet, missing in inaction.
The poet, savorer of sustenance.
The poet, systematization of nuance.
The poet, monarch of forgotten will.
The poet, static statistician.
The poet, anticipation of bartered dream, battered dream.
The poet, treasures of iincomprehension.
The poet, gold plated listlessness.
The poet, cusp of denouments.
The poet, pain stinginess.
The poet, temporal derangement.
The poet, courageous loneliness.
The poet, deconstruction of doubt.
The poet, tireless critic of rusty reasoning.
The poet, proverbial delays.
The poet, maximal mutations.
The poet, trilling scientist.
The poet, Collected Embraces.
The poet, algebraic admonishment.
The poet, anonymous advocate.
The poet, stillborn stabs.
The poet, contradictory confessions.
The poet, temptation loyalty.
The poet, hybrid hubris.
The poet, grammatical glissandoes.
The poet, hilarious hesitations.
The poet, manic musings.
The poet, career hypnosis.
The poet, lapsed logician.
The poet, priestess of possibilities
The poet, hope insurance.
The poet, jack of all thoughts.
The poet, subtlty action hero.
The poet, stabilized incongruity.
The poet, endangered eternities.
The poet, infinity infiltrator.
The poet, rhythm rhetoritician.
The poet, melodic ministrations.
The poet, luck enticement.
The poet, to be continued.

(pencilled note on top of page): A last page

Stet

What I didn't tell you is that I can sit for literally hundreds, maybe
thousands of hours totally amazed that it all turned out this way.

Maybe that just means I can't "respectfully dismiss" anything, but maybe Frank
O'Hara was right always addressing what he says to some person. A party
line, who's going to be let in on the conversation. Even if I resort to gulls,
to seashores and sandy beaches and tormented love affairs it is all part of the
news I was telling you about. A mix, I better steer clear of the phenomenological
phrases. He thinks maybe I meant get it wrecked trying to prove its validity.
I can see by your face that you're directly involved in this. It's not that
I'm being purely let outside...it's just that. The magazines. All or none
personal reference. A machine. Lots of space. Don't call. You did it. I
sat by and watched. Me a terrible person. Do something bad, in the abstactness
of language constantly referring to its own nouns I died inside a suit trying
to make it longer. Stuck. In the laundromat, can't.

An. It by getting sevens. Of happened. One ace seven door. Dry like a lick.


I've been stuck for what seems like thousands and thoughsends of days.

No language in the exact color I want it. But I notice by the intent that
the thousands of empty hours are not an accretion. It is the one frozen
second of a poem.

I have for 17 years cast in the frozen composition of one poem. The poem and
the hours and the lifeless sentences are static. Frozen slice of composition.
Terror of the end phrase in the immobillity of finite meanings.

No definition.

The map belongs to me. It is my map., my words, my borrowed typwriter.
I don't want to meet sentences I want to meet people. Your sentences are
people and your conversation is included in this conversation. Stereotyped
fiction. A tape.

Another night that my heart won't go there. Another day that I'm not permitted
near the city.

Today I was angry at everyone.

Notebook: circa 1975-77

The Tao of Blogging

"Blog This!" ?

Yes, but only
if and when
I feel like it.

from *Diaries: Robert Musil
1899-1942
Translated by Philip Payne
edited by Mark Mirsky

"62) I have a minimal need to
communicate: I am a deviation
from the standard type of writer."

Notebook: 33: 1937 to about
the end of 1941
p. 451
Basic Books, 1999

Lanny Quarles of
phaneronoemikon {click here}
enjoyed a poem of William Bronk
I posted, so here's another one:

Recession

In the late summer, the sky begins to grow
Larger. Noticeably. Melons. the blue
recedes into mid-fall, The things in it, clouds
or whatever, are not more, but more distinct
and further apart. You have to maintain a watch
for such effects. You have to be looking to see.

from
*The Empty Hands*
received from *Serendipity*
published by
The Elizabeth Press
1969 (this copy signed
by Bronk to Gilbert Sorrentino)
*********************************
Atrios
{click here} blogs John Kerry's complete 1974 speech
denouncing US war crimes in Vietnam

Olympic Memory Feats


GENEVA CONVENTION {click here}
essays a Mayhew-style memory collage

From a
Rain Taxi interview {click here}
with Gerard Malanga

ELP: You've mentioned Duchamp previously in other interviews. How was he an influence on your writing?

GM: Well, Duchamp's influence, which was a very concrete influence, had to do with discovery. Recognizing the poetry in something even if it doesn't have to do with words. The courage of discovery, whether it has to do with language or images or whatever. And the naming of things to a certain degree. If you feel what you're doing has to do with poetry then that's a very valid assumption of how you're creating the work.

ELP: Did you talk about poetry with Duchamp?

GM: Yes--he was the one who gave me the idea of writing a poem without my actually having to write it, i.e., using appropriation. This was in 1963.

ELP: That's interesting because appropriation was more common after that.

GM: Appropriation by the early 1970s was basically the norm, and that was all from Duchamp's influence.

Pleased to report that my current
very favorite novelist
Jonathan Lethem (*Motherless Brooklyn*,
*Gun, With Occasional Music*, *Amnesiac Moon*)
had this to say at a recent Kerry/Edwards fundraiser:

"even the novelists are filled with passionate intensity. And when you have roused even the novelists to the barricades against you, I am here to suggest that your days are truly numbered."

Maud Newton {click here}

via Wood s Lot {click here}

Bad With Titles {click here}
links to Locana {click here}
that featured an extensive discussion of Alex Cumberbatch's *Poem in 940 Parts*

A Pleasant Event
for Unpleasant Event
Daniel Nester's new blogspot:
God Save My Blog {click here}

Received from *Serendipity*, Berkeley, CA:

*Shadows of the Sun:
The Diaries of Harry Crosby*
edited by Edward Germain
Black Sparrow, 1977

from "1924, June

15. Words: arctic, absurd, bleak, barbaric, coarse, crude, chaos, couch,
desolate, defenceless, disconsolate, disillusion, envenomed, emerald,
embers, entangled, fragrant, feudal, fragment, gnarled, gracious, grandeur,
hazardous, hawk, heraldic, illustrious, illusion, icicle, irresolute,
iimpregnate, idolatry,ineffectual, imaginative, knight-errant, labyrinth, littleness,
loveliness, loyalty, legend, lurid, leviathan, medieval, mysterious,
mushroom, macabre, merciless, massacre, nostalgia, noon, nakedness,
obolete, orchid, overarch, owl, oasis, primeval, posterity, perfume, pagan,
phantom, pool, pronged, peacock, python, provocative, preposterous,
pregnant, quaint, quagmire, quarry, queenliness, royal, refractory,
restrengthened, remote, reverberate, ruin, rust, rocking-horse, stronghold,
sacred, sunnygolden, sadness, skeleton, sunembroidered, Sun, smoke,
softness, seer, sorceress, shipwreck, stallion, steppingstone, turquoise,
tapestry, tempest, turbulent, tea-chest, toadstool, tigress, thrust, tortoise,
traceried, triumphant, unfrequented, unmuzzled, urn-shaped, untangled,
unicorn, unquestioning, uncoffined, unchaste, unanswered, unchallenged,
virgin, vampiric, vagrant, veil, vastness, vagueness, weariness, wistful,
wagon, watch-fire, wayward, yoke, youngness, yield, zodiac."

::fait accompli::
summer reruns

f****************
from a letter to
Gary Sullivan-
subsequently
published on
Elsewhere {click here}

Hi Gary,

Really enjoyed reading about your conversation with Drew and your
description of Drew's performance at the Bowery Poetry Club (you wrote
Double Happiness-nostalgia?).


> Gary Sullivan's latest post on his blog Elsewhere (see link at left) raises
> some points about the enterprise of blogging that overlap with my own
> thoughts. At this point in its development, blogging is sort of like having a
> cell phone: much of the time spent on it is spent talking about the fact that
> you're on it. ("Yeah, hi, I'm calling you from my cell phone. Hello? Can you
> hear me? I'm on my cell."

(from K. Silem Mohammed's blog site)


I've been looking at various blogs, realizing that sooner or later I will
certainly dive in. But I remember going through long periods of first
resisting getting a computer (after having my first one stolen, then
realizing that I felt relieved-I already missed using the typewriter),
second, not even wanting to get a metro card, not wanting to give up tokens,
taking years to get a new cable box, etc, etc. I know I should get a digital
camera for my collage work, I want to move my collage making towards the
computer. But to do these things means to accept change, and I am such a
nostalgia buff. I wouldn't need to "meet with my photographer" then watch
her work and work with her in the strange old labs at the School Of Visual
Arts. I miss the sound of telephones actually ringing, and having the
receiver feel heavy in your hand. I miss the smell of mimeograph paper and
those soda machines on the subway where the cup plopped down and was filled
automatically. Eventually kids learned to put holes in them so the soda
spilled out and then they disappeared. I miss tiny tokens that you kept in a
metal gadget where you could keep 10 or 20. I miss automats, and trying to
open the little door fast enough the see the person who was filling the
boxes. I miss black and white movies, then black and white television. I
miss when there was no television, only radio and the whole family would
listen while Dad read the newspaper. I miss "The Shadow" and "The Fat Man"
and "Amos 'n Andy." I miss 78 speed records which were ridiculously fragile,
but all the more likeable because when you handled the records more
carefully it seemed they were so much more dignified and then it seemed you
listened more carefully and treasured them more. I miss the funny (strange)
photographs on the "33" speed record albums. I miss "liner notes." I miss
"45's." I miss those little machines you played them on, making a stack and
then listening to the whole stack over and over. I miss the click of hearing
each key hit the paper on a typewriter and the amazing sound of dozens of
them clicking when you entered an office. I miss "corrasable paper" and
whiteout paper and whiteout. I miss "intercoms." I miss looking into
electronic store windows at "transistor radios." I miss "Crazy Eddie's." (I
know I sound like Joe Brainard but all these things happened to me too- and
much more). I miss having to look things up at the 42nd Street library where
I first read Ted Berrigan's sonnets, writing them with a pencil on three
hole lined paper after hearing him read at the Poetry Project. I miss buying
mimeographed poetry magazines at the "Eighth Street" Bookstore. I miss going
to the "Gotham Book Mart" to check out what was happening in
poetry-sometimes I ran into poets I knew there but they were always shy and
I was also and much later going to "Books and Company" to read the latest
books of poetry, philosophy and literary theory. Paul Auster happily signed
his new book "The Invention of Solitude" to me there and now he gets annoyed
if I ask him to sign a book- he seemed proud then. I miss "Dial a Poem"
where you called a number that John Giorno set up so you could hear scratchy
poems read over the telephone. I miss trying to record music and the tinny
sound you got when putting a "mike" in front of a "speaker" and then record
some rock 'n roll like "Buffalo Springfield" before they became "Crosby,
Stills and Nash", with a name like a law firm. I miss "underground"
newspapers like the "San Francisco Oracle" and "The East Village Other." I
miss telephone "booths" that smelled of all the people who had ever used
them. I miss cigarette lighters that you filled with "lighter fluid" but
when you used them the fluid spoiled the taste of the cigarette. I miss
subway cars with woven seats that faced away from each other, and sometimes
perverts hid in corners and scared people. I miss flash bulbs that pop and
then you would see blue spots in your eyes. I miss "roach holders." I miss
"news reels" in movie theaters with their announcers with melodramatic deep
voices. I miss little "record shops" (there were so many more then). I miss
how strangely hypnotic electric guitars sounded the first few hundred times
you heard them. I miss "feedback." I miss people bragging about the sound of
their "new speakers" and showing off their "hi-fi" sets ("listen to the bass
on this1") I miss trick buzzers that goofy kids stuck in your hands- nobody
shook hands anyway so you knew what was up. I miss "telegraph sets" and
using the Morse code I memorized for the boy scouts. I miss
"walkie-talkies." I miss "3 D" movies and "3 D comic books"...see what I
mean? The more I go on, the more I remember...

I'm wondering what my blogs will be like when I write them, but I already
miss the poetics list before there were blogs. The blogs you and Nada are
doing feel warm and I more and more I look forward to listening in. I want
to keep enjoying them, to take it all in and keep it, before it all changes
again and becomes something else ... I just realized how much all this was
brought on by reading Gaston Bachelard's beautiful book "The Dialectic of
Duration" newly translated for the first time into English (Clinamen Press,
2000)...

-Nick-

On Gary Sullivan and Nada Gordon's
honeymoon trip to Tokyo, Gary
filled his notebook with found poetry:
here is the final selection:

Elsewhere {click here}

Her hair I said quiet, rip, tide, hearth grid
Green, greenest, time
Wet, hill, lean, learn, yearn
Barn, thistle, lark

Vehicular breath
Mid-western composure
Side bark sign play
Beaming fast- now a slow full
Storm chat (or, moments between, wtihin compare
Light so shrill, the air
Vehement wind, nestles in)

Atom, appetite, grin
Neighborly bore shoulders by
Smiles- this thrill
Unites, all who call,
Spills, thump

A bump, normally nothing, kills
Largesse, triumph, space
Darkness, pious, bridge (siege)

Riotous nocturne semblance of yon
Your yore is Latin, late bloomers
Suffice to puff

Premium premisses, clickety, clackety
Promises, promises, yackety, yackety



[Notebook (untitled poem): 1/12/86]

from Kevin Hart interview
in *Verse*
vol 30 nos. 2 & 3
2004

"'The limits beyond experience...' Since we've been talking about Heidegger,
I might be forgiven for indulging in a little bit of etymology. The word
'experience' comes from the Latin *experiri*, the radical of which is
*periri*. You find it in *periculum*, danger. If you go back to before
Latin, you come to the Indo-European root, *per*, which is used in all
sorts of words meaning 'travel' or 'test.' In Greek you find both *pera*,
'beyond,' and *peras*, 'limit.' Deep down, 'experience' speaks
of undertaking a journey, of being tested, perhaps of being exposed
to a limit. But it speaks of it as having already happened: one has had
experience when one survived a journey. For English speakers, experience
has already happened or is drawing to a close. We've had some experience,
thank you very much, and we're not sure we want any more of it. [Laughter.]
There's not that sense in the German *die Erfahrung*. So when Jungel talks
of *eine Ergahrung*, he's evoking a path that opens before us, one with its
own dangers, to be sure. Insofar as this experience opens before us,
reaches into the unknown, it might already contain the limits beyond what
we have experienced up till now."

when we are not on famiiar terms
the names seem distant
some of the greatest ones
even places I have been:
Rome, Banja Luka, Woodstock, San Luis Obispo
I have lost them or they have been taken away
in the scrap-heap of names that don't belong to me,
the belong to the map:
Jasper, Nurnberg, Aix-en-Provence

History is memory
The future recedes as we overtake it
Experience becomes more important
At the top of a hillside
Events collapse, terms are dissolved
And a ribbon of visions
Winds itself around the names,
ein, one, un.

What would return words to me,
what promise, what attitude, what endearment?
A platitude disguises intent,
A room reels out of place,
Music becomes static, utterances collide
With meaning, significance steps outside
Or breaks, like Humpty-Dumpty
On a schematic of differences.

This is silence: the years, bridges,
Notifications, regrets. Persistence
Oozes out of its hiding place, the chromatic
Measurement of the narrative is interrupted
By an explosion of pain so loud and specific
It is not necessary to refer to it again for decades.
A backdrop is finally removed, a leaf falls pathetically
From a tree already meager, replaced by a wall of blur,
Our smiles and laughter frozen audible

"A picture held us captive," we moved away,
A voice grew suddenly sombre, we inched closer to it.
The alphabet is first, then the near and far,
Then the infinitesimal spiralling inwards,
The limits of thought, the boundary of seeing.

notebook (untitled poem): 7/20/86

a ::fait accompli::
summer rerun

(published on *fait accompli*
about one year ago:8/16/03)


Thanks to Heriberto Yepez for quoting and translating my recent aphorism on his Spanish blog RealiTi

DE OTROS BLOGS

1
De Nick Piombino:

When publishers fail, they fail at being readers.
When readers fail, they fail at being listeners.
When writers fail, they fail at being lovers.

(Cuando los editores fallan, fallan como lectores.
Cuando los lectores fallan, fallan como interlocutores.
Cuando los escritores fallan, fallan como amantes).

Here's a part of Rob Fitterman's
book *Metropolis*, published in

onedit {click here}

This issue includes
Jackson Mac Low (complete *125 Postcard Poems*),
Lisa Jarnot, Miles Champion, Tim Davis,
Judith Goldman and others
******************************
Rob Fitterman Poet's Sampler
Intro by Bruce Andrews

Boston Review Poet's Sampler {click here}
******************************
This past Spring, Brian Kim Stefans,
who has recently moved to Providence,
Ri, edited an edition of UBU online
that included a long work of Rob Fitterman

This Window Makes Me Feel {click here}

Flash!!!!! Summertime is sizzling in BlogLand!!!!
Ghostworld: Bollywood Noir{click here}

Essays on noir-inflected Bollywood cinema from the 1940s to the present by Gary Sullivan
**********************
From *How To Proceed In The Arts*
by Gary Sullivan (Faux Press, 2001)

from *Dream, March 6, 2001*

"John Ashbery looks at me like I'm the most pathetic excuse for a human
being- nevermind poet-on the planet. His voice is dripping with sarcasm
and contempt. "Yeah, " he says, crushing his cigarette beneath his heel, "I've
got a poem on the internet, too."

I feel this rush llke I'm gearing up for one of those "print" versus "web"
discussions, but before I can get a single word out, the great poet grabs me in
a headlock, his breath reeking of cigarette smoke and he says, "Just fucking
write the shit down, man, you've got all night. Write it down. You don't *go* to the
poem, the poem doesn't *come* to you, the poem is *always* there, and if you're
anything like the poet you no doubt imagine you are, you just *write it down*."

There's nothing I can say to that. I look around at the otherwise peaceful
scene, the families and lovers dotting the sloping hillside, and as I turn my
gaze back to meet his, John Ashbery shoves me, face first, into the soil."

Somewhat making up for his long absence from Blogworld,
David Hess (Heathens in Heat) {click here} offers an epic report
on the Boston Massacre.

And, where have you been, bonnie David?
**********************************************
Speaking, perhaps for the last time,
of the Boston poetry reading marathon
strangely titled the Boston Massacre
(was it we "older" poets who were to be
symbolically and, so sweetly, massacred?)
here are two links to some more of Shanna Compton's
charming photos:
Brand New Insects {click here}
and Brand New Insects {click here}
**********************************************
The World Says No To The Bush Agenda
rally on Sunday, August 29th
United for Peace {click here}

"There are persons who cannot make friends. Who are they?
Those who cannot be friends. It is not the want of understanding
or good-nature, of entertaining or useful qualities, that you complain
of: on the contrary, they have probably many points of attraction;
but they have one that neutralizes all these- they care nothing about
you, and are neither better nor worse for what you think of them.
They manifest no joy at your approach; and when you leave them, it
is with a feeling that they can do just as well without you. This is
not sullenness, nor indifference, nor absence of mind; but they are
intent solely on their own thoughts, and you are merely one one of the
subjects they excercise them upon. They live in a society as in a
solitude; and, however their brain works, their pulse beats neither
faster nor slower for the common elements of life. There is,
therefore, something cold and repulsive in the air that is about them
-like that of marble. In a word, they are *modern philosophers*; and
the modern philosopher is what the pedant was of old- a being who
lives in a world of his own, and has no correspondence with this. It
is not that such persons have not done you services- you acknowledge
it; it is not that they have said severe things of you- you submit to
it as a necessary evil: but it is the cool manner in which the whole
is done that annoys you- the speculating on you as if you were
nobody- the regarding you with a view to experiment *in corpore vili*--
the principle of dissection- the determination to spare no blemishes-
to cut you down to your real standard;- in short, the utter absence
of the partiality of friendship, the blind enthusiasm of affection, or the
delicacy of common decency, that whether they 'hew you as a carcase
for hounds, or carve you as a dish fit for the gods,' the operation
on your feelings and your sense of obligation is just the same; and,
whether they are demons or angels in themselves, you wish them
equally *at the devil*!"

*On Disagreeable People*
William Hazlitt
*The Monthly Magazine*
August, 1827

Seeing It Through

Geof Huth's critical, visual, aural and conceptual translation
(to be more precise, interpretation) of David Nemeth's
homophonic translation project (a la C. Bernstein and B. Mayer)
(including audblog readings of his own contribution)
right now on
dbqp Visualizing Poetics {click here}
**************************************
Politics in a Froth

Maryanne Shaneen (Froth) {click here}
offers an update on the protest march planned
re: the Republican Convention
**************************************
Thanks for the Memories

Some cool jazz riff poetry collages by Jonathan Mayhew
just right for a summer day on
Bemsha Swing {click here}
**************************************
Keep 'Em Coming

Alex Cumberbatch's *Piece in 940 Parts*
on
exzentrick libretti {click here}

Although his vision is often dark,
I still like the poems of William Bronk.
Received from *Serendipity*
*The Empty Hands*:

"The Failure To Devise A Better World

If failure is what you mean to call it, it's the mind,
I suppose, that fails, but what a word. It fails
by succeeding. A sneaky triumph. The mind spies
upon itself and sees its subterfuge,
its feints and camouflage, its helpless flank.
It always defeats itself at tic-tac-toe.
Quite true, it doesn't win...
But the heart is hopeful..."
*************************************************
A sore throat and a cold today.
Not fun, but it gives me an excuse
(as if I needed it) to lose myself
in books...(and blogs and websites)
*************************************************
Nada Gordon concludes this lively, revealing
and thoughtful interview in Jacket (23)
with the pleasures of blogging
Tom Beckett
interviews Nada Gordon {click here}
*************************************************
Some poetic time travelling by
Mike Snider {click here}

Received from *Serendipity*, Berkeley, CA,
Caterpillar 8/9, with back and front covers
by Jess.

From *Man's Fulfillment in Order
and State", by Robert Duncan:

"By the time of the Second World War I
saw the reality of Hitler America was
fighting as lying in what America was
becoming. The United States would
emerge as the power in Europe and
Asia that Germany and Japan had been.
I had formed a mystical pacifism: all
national allegiances--my own order as
an American--seemed to be really
betrayals of the larger order of Man.
In time we defeated Hitler, and live now
in a world where not only does Hitler
spring anew in his homeground which
our war did nothing to transform, but
we find our own government more and
more in his place. Butchering Germans
and Japanese had not exterminated the
will to power through terror but extended it."

April--November 1968

Shanna Compton scoops the Massacre:
Check out these photos!


Brand New Insects {click here}

David Bromige kindly gave me copies of
his fascinating collaboration with the poet
and publisher Richard Denner. They are
*Spade* (cantos 1-33) and *The Petrarch
Project* (cantos 34-66) both from
dPress {click here}

A few have been published on
Poetic Inhalation (two quickly downloaded pdf files)
Cantos
7 to 9 from *Spade* {click here}
***************************************
Among the treasures received from
*Serendipity Books* (Berkeley, CA)
is the first edition of Samuel Butler's
*Notebooks*, long a favorite.

"My Books

I never make them: they grow; they come to me and
insist on being written, and on being such and such. I did not
want to write *Erewhon*, I wanted to go on painting and found
it an abominable nuisance, being dragged willy-nilly into
writing it. So with all my books- the subjects were never
of my own choosing; they pressed themselves upon me
with more force than I could resist. If I had not liked the
subjects I should have kicked , and nothing would have got
me to do them at all. As I did like the subjects and the
books came and said they were to be written, I grumbled a
little and wrote them."
*************************
Also received: Clark Coolidge's *The Rova
Improvisations* (Sun and Moon, 1994)

Like so many of Coolidge's books, if you
love contemporary innovative poetry this
book is a page turner. It seems I stopped
the habit, started in the late 60's, of often
reading Coolidge- i wanted to give other
poets a chance, so I mostly stopped reading
him since the early 90's. But this
one, once begun, is irresistable:

"Just at the last possible moment for it
time's forms quit clouding the mass"

Having inspired, for decades, nearly every
poet I know, and probably most others,
Coolidge is, without doubt, among the most important.
living abstractionists in poetry.

In the unlikely event that you don't already
know all this very well, check out his work at
The Electronic
Poetry Center {click here}

Inspired by Charles Bernstein's experiments list,
who in turn was inspired by Bernadette Mayer's,
David Nemeth has published a homophonic
translation chain including a number
of familiar bloggers, available as a quickly
downloaded pdf right now on
Nemski.com {click here}
****
Speaking of Sextus Propertius (born about
48 b.c.) Princeton University Press has
just published Vincent Katz' fine translation
of the complete elegies, with extensive
notes to the text.

This just in:

Shanna Compton (Brand New Insects)
{click here}
announces she is
editor and assoc.
publisher of Jerome Sala's new
book out soon from Softskull Press
***********************************
Martin Tamny, the philosopher,
many years the chairman of the
Philosophy Department at CCNY,
likes to tease us about our excitement
about coincidences. Can't resist
mentioning that today, when I received
two books by Ray DiPalma from
*Serendipity Books*, Berkeley,
Ca (*Between the Shapes* and
*Clinches*, both published in
1970) I ran into Ray nearby
where he lives, near Columbia
U, not having seen him in a long
while. Many have been asking me,
where he's been, and I just found
out he's been having a health
problem which had him off
his feet for awhile, but he's much
better now.

From *Between The Shapes*:

*In the heart's tent
Not looking for something to do
But looking to do it right"

from *Clinches*

"Tired of sentiment
we read "the Ancient Mariner"
and rehearse the illuminations
we'll later forget"
******************
By the way, a new long
poem by Ray is out right now on
Verse {click here}

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

Among some other
books received today
from *Serendipity:

Jordon Davis
*A Little Gold Book*

"Encouragement. The precipice of history
Awaits! Rigor shouts "Feel!"
But it is a suede of yourself."
******************
George-Therese Dickenson

*STRIATIONS*
1976

"distances
the Pacific Ocean
cars on Grant St.
bus stop at Castro
a woman with henna hair descends the steps
and moves to the park

saxophone notes rise on air"

(((((the))))
(((((fait))))(((((accompli))))
(((((BLOGLINK)))))
(((((CRUSHLIST)))))
(new links)
for August 9, 2004
((((THESE)))))(((((BLOGS)))))
(((((ARE))))))(((((HOT)))))

Ivy Is Here {click here}

harry k. stammer {click here}

NEGATIVE WING SPAN {click here}

mark young's series magritte {click here}

hey davey! {click here}

Textual Conjectures {click here}

Bad With Titles {click here}

tributary {click here}

Cosmopoetica {click here}

She Just Wanted To Blend In {click here}

Blood of the White Words {click here}

Destinesia {click here}

Blindheit: clarity is overrated {click here}

Phaneronoemikon {click here}

Hanging LIke A Ragdoll {click here}

In The Works {click here}

Nonlinear Poetry {click here}

Verse {click here}

exzentrick libretti {click here}

[Joe London] {click here}

Lisablog {click here}

Really Bad Movies {click here}

Postmodern Collage Poetry {click here}

Unprotected Texts {click here}

Every form of magic has been satisfactorily explained-
except friendship.

Another translation of Propertius,
by WG Shepherd (Penguin, 1985)
renders the passage below quite
differently:

"I can bring together parted lovers;
I can open your mistress' sluggish doors;
I can physic another's recent wounds-
The medicine in my words is no slight thing.

Cynthia has always taught me what each should seek
And what beware: Love has done *something* for me.
Beware of opposing your mistress when she's cross;
Of lofty speeches; of staying silent long;
If she asks for something, don't refuse and frown;

Don't let kind words descend on you in vain.
When she's contemned, she arrives in a rage.
When hurt, she'll not forget her righteous threats.
The more you're humble, surrendered to love,
The oftener you'll enjoy your good achieved.

The man whose heart shall never be whole and free,
He can continue blest in just one girl."
*********************************************************
Here's Vincent Katz' version:

"I can rejoin separated lovers,
I know how to open a woman's slow doors.
I can cure any recent pain,
not light is the medicine in my words.
Cynthia always taught me which things to pursue
and which to avoid: Love has a certain effect.

Beware of fighting and making her unhappy,
don't boast too much nor be too long silent.
If she has asked for something, don't make a face.
Never let kind words leave her unanswered.
She gets irritated when disrespected,
makes unjust threats in her rage.

The more you are humble, love's subject,
the more you will reap a good harvest.
He will remain happy with one girl
who will never be free, never thoughtless."

Hard to take a train to Union Square
and not take a turn in the Strand bookshop,
if you have a little time, which we did.
Found two books, one by Karl Shapiro,
a first edition of his *Trial of a Poet*,
hardback, Reynal & Hitchcock,
1947, $10. Couldn't resist after
reading these lines:

"We waged a war within a war,
A cause within a cause;
The glory of it was withheld
In keeping with the laws
Whereby the public need not know
The pitfalls of the status quo.

Love was the reason for the blood
The black men of our land
Were seen to walk with pure white girls
Lauging and hand in hand.
This most unreasonable state
No feeling White would tolerate."

Shapiro's sharp anti-war irony, reminscent for
me of A.E. Housman's *A Shropshire Lad*
can be further seen in the following passage
from the same work:

""Doctor, doctor, a little of your love
And a little of your skill,
I can no longer sight my gun,
No longer can I kill.'

"Soldier, soldier, I cannot find the cause
And I will not set you free,
But take this pill and go your way
To your own company."

"Chaplain, chaplain, a little of your love
And a little of your grace,
I can no longer think my thoughts
Nor bear the demon's face."

"My son, my son, I cannot find the cause
And I will not set your free,
But take this book and go your way
To your own company."
**

I also bought another translation
(my third) of The Poems of
Sextus Propertius. Riding back
home from visiting our friends
Elaine Equi and Jerome Sala
I read:

"Lovers that part I can unite again,
And open doors when suitors knock in vain;
And cure another's fresh-contracted smart
With words that hold a potent healing art.
I know how lovers should and should not woo:
This Cynthia taught me: Love did something too.
Don't be contentious when your girl's annoyed:
Don't use bold speech, nor silence unalloyed.
Refuse her nothing: give without a frown:
Let no kind word fall unregarded down.
If when she comes she's chafing at some slight,
And bent on scolding to assert her right,
You must be meek, and bow as love requires,
So may the outcome answer your desires.
None can live happy with one girl but he
Who's never whole of heart and fancy-free."

(translation by A. E. Watts,
Centaur Press, 1961)

In 1995, Sun and Moon published
Vincent Katz's translation of
Propertius, that he titled *Charm*

My other edition, a Penguin book,
seems to have eluded me at the moment,
Cynthia style.

"Nonlinear. Discontinuous. Collage-like. An assemblage."

*Vanishing Point*
David Markson
Shoemaker & Hoard
2004

You can't always get what you want,
but sometimes you can!
Check out Jonathan Mayhew's {click here}
translation of Heriberto Yepez's powerful writing.
****
And while you're there,
read Jonathan Mayhew's
latest poem just below.

Do you like, or love, Rilke's Duino Elegies?
Then read Allen Bramhall's parodies, quietly titled
*Songs* {click here}
Very funny!

This just in from
David Nemeth: Nemski.com {click here}
ALex Cumberbatch
exzentrick libretti {click here}
is back online.
***
Coming soon on
Nemski.com:
homophonic translation
experiments a la
Charles Bernstein
***
August may be the hottest month:
Mark Lamoureux on
Verse {click here}
***
Saying goodbye to Catier-Bresson, aged 95,
Boynton {click here}
style.
***
By the way, at Patrick 'Durgin''s
Berkeley goodbye barbecue
last week, David Larsen told
me he has a book due soon from
Jack Kimball's Faux Press {click here}
which published
Nada Gordon's gorgeous
*v.imp*

"poetry...I too
my head...won't go into it.
The movement is bird. Sure, all's dire,
but look! What comes out! Dark as grapes,
but sounding, hot-hot-persisting in wanting
to be wanted."

Learning Spanish is one of the
many important things to do when
there is never enough time.

Clearly, Babel Fish is not much
of a translator, but who is when
it comes to poetry?

Here is a brief passage from
a much longer post that needs real
translating desperately:
from e.n.s.a.m.b.l.e. (Herberto Yepez) {click here}

I cannot let write like who cannot leave the alcoholism. I have tried the love and the academy, the Gestalt psycotherapy and the Tecate beer, the aphorism and zen, the photography and the bicycle, but nothing. I always return, I add more text to a work that it wanted to consist of one joint done of pure pieces of silence. But I cannot. Whenever I write a word comes an intermediate silence, it is certain, but soon other words come, too many. If somebody observes and listens to well this text it can give account of this. But also extrañ can be given account of something enough: in all text there are many words but also much silence, many empty syllables, syllables of silence that they avoid that all the language becomes a single word and, simultaneously, that silence is a secret triumph. But that triumph is not mine, because whenever I want to write an empty syllable leaves a word to me. To write is a lost battle. #
*************************************************************************
The most recent issue of the magazine
*Verse*, devoted to prose, contains an
interview with Charles North {click here} and {click here}
in which he says:
"...I agree that the American poetry scene is dominated
by "false reputations." Why this is the case is probably
a combination of things: the Establishment is in the
business of award-giving, critics (there are exceptions
of course) seem more comfortable with already
established names, the most interesting poetry
by and large (and I don't think I am saying anything
particulary radical) is published by small, and sometimes
very small, presses--again, it's the unhealthy ideas
in the air that seem to be received with no resistance.
I don't believe populism is the only way to go, though
I know it's unfashionable in some circles to say that.
By the way, Ashbery's book *Other Traditions* (his
Norton lectures at Harvard) deals with negelected poets
like the wonderful David Schubert and John Wheelright.
The big anthoogies used by the colleges-ironically
Norton is one of the chief culprits- are part of the problem.
Did you know they dropped Schuyler from the second
edition of their *Anthology of Modern Poetry*? You need
to look at anthologies like Sun & Moon's *From The Other
Side of the Century* to get a sense of what some of the
"other traditions" are and how exciting they are."

After a couple of weeks in weather's minor keys,
Zeus relented and let Berkeley offer us a sunny farewell.

Tributary (Allen Bramhall){click here} discusses the Boston Poetry Marathon in detail

"milk and honey within easy reach
Honesty & it passes
on from its objects those exquisites"

*The Petrarch Project*
Rychard Bromige
and David Denner
dPress
2004
Sebastopol

****
*Thanks For The Memory*
Bemsha Swing {click here}
Jonathan Mayhew, Serendipity and time travel
****
It's been freezing
and foggy here in Berkeley for two weeks
and it's nice to look at somewhere sunny
Topher's Tunes Times {click here}
*****
Listen to all the warnings
and still your heart will have its say.

Gary Sullivan (Elsewhere) focusses on Jerome Sala's Selected Poems.

A bit of silence here on *fait accompli*
due to computer problems in the house
we are staying in here in the Berkeley hills.
Tried twice to write about a visit to
Serendipity, the amazing bookstore on
University near Chestnut. The owner
and I chatted a bit, then the next
day at a goodbye party for Patrick
Durgin and Andrea (hurray! Patrick
completed his dissertation and defends
it in August) who are moving back
to Minnesota. At their party at the
Berkeley Rose garden, Laura Moriarty
told me (first, that she is completing
a science fiction novel!Wow! can't wait
to see this) but second, that Peter B. Howard,
Serendipity's owner, was one of the
founders of SPD. At the store I found
an amazing collection, tøtally amazing
collection of literary books,including
a cache of books by David Bromige, and
naturally I purchased a number of these.
OK, I also bought an early edition of
Wallace Stevens, which was expensive,
but I could do it because Steve Clay
in New York recently sold some of
my books when we moved to Brooklyn.
More stuff to do today on our next
to last day in Berkeley, so must sign
off now. Don't even have time right
now to get the update on the Cambridge
Poetry Massacre.

More soon!

Visit to Cecelia and David Bromige
in Sebastopol. Great luck, a rare sunny
day for this season this year. Cydney
Chadwick and Richard Denner, David's
collaborator and publisher joined
us for an excellent lunch in a local
restaurant garden. David gave me a copy
of his latest book(s), written with Richard
Denner: *Spade* and *The Petrarch Project.* Each is
180 pages and contains 33 Cantos; they are
working on the third volume.

A quick look of these books- love at
first sight! Can't wait to read them.
Learned also that Richard has published
over 60 books of his own, and 100 books in
his press dPress.
*************************************************

Boynton {click here} takes off on a suggestion we made
concerning a certain
case of the flu
{Watch a few
Marx Brothers
movies,
Quai Brothers
movies,
or any funny
movies.

Roll your eyes.
Then
close your eyes

Sleep.}

*fait accompli* hopes you all
have great time today and tomorrow
at the Cambridge, Mass
Wordsworth Boston Massacre
Poetry Marathon
(The "Blogocratic Convention")
Check out the sidebar right now
for the reader/delegates:
The Jimside (click here}
**************************



"Tears for fears"

A memoir from
Elsewhere (Gary Sullivan) {click here}

**********
Joe from London opines on narcissism
and blogging right now on
p-ramblings {click here}
(comment#26)
Do I hear 27?
**********
Get stuck reading Hegel
and/or Kojeve on Hegel?
Check out
Bad with Titles {click here}

notebook:7/25/04

...the tiniest spray of meaning starts to
cover the day as canvas. The surface
(=the day) is scanned again and again.
This is also a pleasure, watching for
those specks which (what did you expect,
doesn't meaning go away and come back, permanently?)
flicker, then hide.

OK, then, perpective is everything. It
dominates everything we think about or
do. Again and again, scanning, spotting
and refocusing. It doesn't matter that it
repeats itself incessantly, like cries. The
important thing is to come back to the fact
that what is covered is a complete segment
of one horizon.

This time, for example, there is a flock of
four birds going by, in patterned formation.

Anyway, meaning is one such speck, forever
dissolving and appearing again. The amount
of focus determines meaning's visual spray.
******************

Thursday: Moss Beach produces not only
an immersed, dark sprial jetty of rocky reef
(thoughts of Smithson's here)
but spiral energies everywhere, swirls
of amemones, snail shells, holy rocks,
a grand, primordial, unchanging spiral
dance of birth and change, dawn and night.
And not far away, Half Moon Bay
and Pescadero.

There's something particularly
interesting about writing
that reveals, in an open way,
what is unique
about writing or "trying"
to write poetry.
Red Thread(s) {click here}
********************************************
Nada Gordon responds to Well Nourished Moon (Stephanie Young) re: automated phone systems, weeping and more
********************************************
A long poem by Ray DiPalma online in
Verse {click here}
********************************************
Noah of vertical mattress.com brings the dreaded
(n)arcissism word into the discussion
on blogging right now on
p-ramblings (Bill Allgrezza)

Muir Woods with the sun on my face.
In a revery, yesterday
afternoon I listened to an owl,
and later a woodpecker.

Thoughts about knocking."Knocking
on heaven's gate," in the sense
of thoughts wanting to be heard, in
the sense of wanting someone to respond,
in the sense of
knocking on the door to another
world.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!
Jim Behrle hosts a weekend poetry marathon-expected to
be better attended than the Demo Convention!!!
(Better security too)

Al JimZeera {click here}
********************
Third Factory (Steve Evans) {click here} That inveterate poetry reader and reviewer,
is busy reading the new issue of The Poker- possibly the
hottest poetry mag around

The writer Joe Amato, blogging at the Democratic Convention, and more...
"And I'm very afraid of what will happen next in Blog Capitalism..."
Read the whole story right now on
Poop Chute (Brooke Nelson) {clck here}

Well Nourished Moon (Stephanie Young) {click here} continues publishing complete texts from the New Brutalism Cabaret at 21 Grand on Sunday July 18.

Today's offering:
The text of Myrtle Poe by
K. Silem Mohammad,(wonderfully)
performed last
Sunday at the New Brutalism
Cabaret by Patrick Durgin and Jen Hofer
****************************************
Though Bill Allegrezza has once again let those
bunnies out for a long overdue walk on
p- ramblings {click here}
that interesting discussion on blogging and publishing
continues with comments from Jordan Davis, Joe in London,
Tim Peterson, Bill A and others-now up to comment #22!
Wd love to know what YOU think...
*****************************************
Gary at home, taking care of Nada with
the flu, goes through tons of comics,
dvd's, books and poems, and takes the
trouble to tell us all about them. Wow!
click here:Elsewhere (Gary Sullivan)

"like it or not, the internet (& especially the blogosphere part
of it) now is the functional equivalent of the small press twenty
or twenty five years ago. but i think the differences have not
yet affected poetic practice as much as they are going to..."
(from poetic grimoire and notions {click here})

The discussion on blogging and publishing
continues right now on

p-ramblings (Bill Allegrezza) {click here}

If you haven't yet seen this
excellent show, try to go,
it's really worth a visit.
It's in a ample, very bright & airy
space, and you'll get to see
the light and etherial metal
mesh mini-tower of our
friend Nikki Schrager {click here}.
The art critic Kenneth Baker,
despite his somewhat fussy complaining
about the choosing and installation process,
made some fine choices for this show as
you will see if you make it over there.
And why not?

Pacific Rim Sculptors Group
Annual Members Exhibition
July 22 thru August 27 at
the Atrium Gallery
600 Townsend Street @ 7th

Kenneth Baker, juror
******************************
Toni has some wonderful artist
friends in the Bay area, among
them, the charming
Leonie Guyer, whose work
is utterly unique, and will not
conform to contemporary expectations
or categories, but is haunting, subtle
and unforgettable.

Leonie
Guyer {click here}

Leonie Guyer at Marjorie Wood (online) Gallery {click here{
*********************************************
Also, I really wish you could see the
mosaic planters, small
end tables and mosaic
full size table by Toni's friend
Zee Zeleski. You've never seen mosaics
like these. Zee creates these witty mosaic
collages out of broken crockery, many
of which are now stepping stones in the
tropical garden paradise she created
in her back yard. As Toni's friends chatted
& talked art
over drinks and appetizers, I realized as
Toni showed her friends her own quizzical
& kinetic textile designs
(which all her friends enthusiastically
agreed easily qualify
as great fine art), I realized that this is
a very special group of artists that ought
to be seen together as an example of what I
might call: Shapes of Light, in my afternoon
of a faun, woozy, schmoozy curatorial fantasy.
***********************************************
Then, after a quick drive home and a little rest,
we drove to Enrico's (in North Beach)
to hear our friend Macy Blackman
play & sing rock'n roll. Macy, whose
rhythm and blues piano playing derives from a
true devotion to the history of blues in all
its ramifications (as he explained to me one night
as we enjoyed the view from window of he and his
wife Marsha's home in Kensington), also sometimes
reveals some pleasurable echoes of his friend Doctor
John, the Night Tripper's playing.
Macy played an album for me of possibly the first
blues singer, Charlie Patton,
then brought me one and I played it all the way
to Stinson Beach today, Sunday (the fog burned off!)
and back to Berkeley.
As it turns out, Macy's piano
work and singing, like Dr.John's,
is rooted in a true Lousiana bayou
tradition, one might say, despite the fact that like
me, Macy is a New York person all the way. Macy
is playing again at Enrico's in August.
****************************************
Dinner later Sunday night at the Mediterranean Cafe
in Berkeley with Laynie Browne and her
scientist husband,Brad. We spent a lot
of time telling each other ghost stories.
Turns out that more scientists are interested
in ghosts and the occult these days than
I might have guessed.

Tod Thiellman will
be publishing a book of Laynie's poetry
soon, I also learned.

Brad, a marine biologist discovered that
a tiny marine animal developed the first prototype
of the heart organ.

Brad also mentioned something that may have
some significance for time travel (of a sort).
When I mentioned that Macy Blackman had reminded
me that the earliest recordings involved using a megaphone
over a crystal, Brad said that now computer scientists
can photograph the grooves on old wax recorded cylinders,
and then are able to replay the sounds once recorded there.
I reminded Laynie of my quote in my Boundary of Blur
book from Rilke, who, on first hearing recorded sound,
imagined that one day we might be able to hear the
sounds recorded from the thoughts inside human skulls!

"I am not altogether honest when I write.
I find myself giving up my intentions
for beauty of phrase."...

"Inhibition, that is the problem. Always. Once
I've broken through, I'm back where I started
and another poem is needed to break through again."

Carl Rakosi
*Ex Cranium, Night"
Black Sparrow Press, Los Angeles
1975

The Breakfast Room

trembling flowers
hours
ours

Discussion on
Collage and depression (click here}via
wood s lot (Mark Woods) {click here}

Today, on our drive around Point
Reyes, Toni spotted a White Deer {click here}
*********************************

We interrupt our regular programming
to direct your attention to a crucial
discussion taking place right now on
p- ramblings (Bill Allegrezza)

We're goin' to San Francisco
San Francisco here we come...

to see the
Pacific Rim Sculptors Group
Annual Members Exhibition
July 22 thru August 27 at
the Atrium Gallery
600 Townsend Street @ 7th

Kenneth Baker, juror

Nikki Schrager
Jane Johnson
Peter Eller
Jane B. Grimm
Rene Dayan-Whitehead
Ralph Holker
Gina Telcocci
Susan Nutter
William D. Iaculla
Jane Burton
Nancy Ziegler-Nodelman
Deborah Colcotti
Karen Devich
Patricis Bengtson-Jones
Mel Lyons
Rebecca Fox
Vince Koloski
Leslie Cantor-Fallihee
Pamela Merory Dernham
Jia Jun Lu
******

Visiting Toni's friend Nikki Shrager
yesterday, we also met and enjoyed the
photographic work of Roy Berkowitz
who has tons of equipment for processing his
photos but has always worked with the same 35mm
toy camera!

Dog Days Narcissism

Karl-Merleau Marcuse (Semioanalysis Discoteche {click here} and Gary Sullivan (Elsewhere) {click here} take commentary for a much needed walk off the leash.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger

Bill Allegrezza (P-Ramblings) {click here}
A discussion on blogging and community gets kicked off on P-Ramblings.


It's Got A Back Beat You Can't Lose It

Silliman and Mayhew opine on CC's rhythms.
Silliman's Blog {click here}

*The New Brutalism Cabaret*

the play goes on right now on
The Well-Nourished Moon

featuring a playlet by
Del Ray Cross:
*Loretta*

Fresh from its world-wide premier performance
at the New Brutalism Cabaret on Sunday, July 18


The complete text of *The Poet Deflated* right now on
The Well-Nourished Moon (Stephanie Young)

a play by Cynthia Sailers and Brent Cunningham
featuring Taylor Brady, Stephanie Young, Brent
Cunningham, Cynthia Sailers, Brandon Brown,
and Shonna
***********************************************
New poem by Charles Bernstein on
Arm/Sasser{click here}
***********************************************

Gata likes the back of the couch for sleeping.  I might try the rest in a bit.

Right now on
Ironstone Whirligig {click here}
 

Fellow bloggers!
Do you know what day it is today?
Hint: which famous blogger
has the same birthday as Petrarch?

Yes, you guessed it!
It's Laura Willey, otherwise
known as Laurable

As Mr. Silliman noted on his blog
recently, we have not heard from
Laurable for awhile.

Happy Birthday Laurable!
We miss you.
**

After a beautiful day
on the Point Reyes
Pacific beaches
zipping around the highways
in our rented bright red
Touring convertible,
(by the way, I haven't seen
beaches this gorgeous since
going to Normandy and Brittany
in the 80's!)
top down, I am still thinking about
the New Brutalism Cabaret
on Sunday night. Images
of movement:

The audience and players staying
outside as long as possible
before the performance,
talking and enjoying the
cool summer air

Saying a quick "hi" to Juliana Spahr
(now teaching at Mills)
Bill Luoma, Mary Burger,
Taylor Brady, and Patrick Durgin
before the show

Del Ray Cross doing the
only actual "reading" in the whole show,
of his play "Loretta"
with just a touch of
Southern accent

Patrick Durgin's perfectly timed,
graceful, pantomimed
dancing with Jen Hofer
as he sang Fred Astaire
style. Patrick patiently asking
a few times for the CD for his
act to be started up

Tanya Brolaski standing rock
still, in mustache, cowboy boots
and complete Western outfit,
crooning Hank Williams style
singing along with her band
*The Cherries*.

Sean Finney, doing his Billy
Crystal style patter between
acts, complete with faux jokes,
holding the mike in his
hand

Brent Cunningham playing boring
academic poet Thackerey
somebody, attending yet another
poetry reading while automatons
Stephanie Young and Shonni stroke his
collar.

Kevin Killian as Nico, creating true time
travel, returning us to the 60's, with
Geofrey Dyer in Lou Reed sunglasses
playing guitar

Rodney Koeneke reading "rap style" about a few
of his favorite and non-favorite
things with Lesley Poitier's excellent
electronic keyboard playing

Poet Judith Goldman and her band in black
belting out
anti-fascist lyrics, behind posters
with statistics telling us the true economic
and political situation in Amerika
today

The audience, joining in with
excited applause or whistling
or verbal response whenever
possible

James Meetze serving up beer
and all around good cheer.
Toni and I enjoying that cool
beer taking a seat in
the last row after the break

Being introduced, with Toni,
by Kevin K to Dodie
Bellamy after the show.
Kevin handing out some copies
of his and DB's magazine
Mirage (more on that issue coming
soon)

Talking with Kasey Mohammad about how
much we liked his
piece for Patrick and Jen,
him proud as a new father,
afterwards telling me and Toni about his
new tenure track job in
Oregon

Cynthia Sailers coming in from
back stage, out of costume after
her play *The Poet Deflated*

quick conversation with Tanya, out
of costume after the show

More, more New Brutalism Cabaret!

Bring it on!
Take it to the Apple!

We're getting out to Point Reyes
early today, so I don't have time
to tell you about the New Brutalism
Cabaret in all the detail it so richly
deserves. If you were there, you already
know how much fun it was, and how much
terrific talent took that ample stage
at 21 Grand last night. I'll just mention
now that when I told Tanya Brolaski
after the show how much I enjoyed
it she said that she knew that poets
had so many other talents and she wanted
this to be seen and experienced. By this
time she had removed the faux mustache that
had been part of her country singer costume
to sing with her terrific country band,
*The Cherries.*
There's much more to tell as the
evening consisted of
8 acts including a very hauntingly
charming Vaudvilllian
song and dance number by
Kasey Mohammad performed by
Patrick Durgin and Jen Hofer
(that reminded me somehow of
Fred Astaire and Ginger
Rogers), *The Poet Deflated* by
Cynthia Sailers and
Brent Cunningham,
a sharp satire of certain puffed up
male Academic poets, that included
Taylor Brady and Stephanie Young
as accomodating robot-
students, and a powerfully
stirring finale,
*The Force Majeur*, billed
as a "dystopic rock opera*,
with Judith Goldman, Maggie
Zurowsky, Joel Nickels
and Brandon Brown.
But there's so much more to
tell you about last evening,
including Kevin Killian
singing as Nico and Geoffrey
Dyer as Lou Reed and
Del Ray Cross reading his playlet
about Loretta Lynn, I'll
have to come back and tell you
more later. Stay tuned!
Back soon with more about
the New Brualism Cabaret.

"I never had a good idea that didn't start
with feeling. And a really good image
has never come to me except by accident.
My destiny lies in the hands of these two."

"I had an assignation with the spirit of man
but I was weak and in love with the spirit of
language and kept him waiting."

"The more impossible the problem, the more
poetical the possibilities. An ideal
situation."

Carl Rakosi
*Ex Cranium, Night*
Black Sparrow Press
Los Angeles, 1975

Putting the there
there
Tonight, Sunday, July 18
Oakland, California
The New Brutalism
Cabaret
21 Grand
7 pm

*Serendipity*, the amazing bookstore on
University in Berkeley, takes my breath
away, and on this occasion, a few dollars
also, but I didn't mind.

Both were Black Sparrow books, one by
Jackson Mac Low, *22 Light Poems*, gorgeous,
fascinating book from 1968 (I met Jackson
in 1967, in jail, but that's another story).

The other book, *Ex Cranium, Night* by
Carl Rakosi, was signed by the author to
the poet Stephen Rodefer. It contains this
powerful passage, a notion that, for me,
cannot be repeated too often:

"The practice of ranking poets as major or
minor, the bastard offspring of grading students,
freezes the poet in his tracks and makes him
a nobody if he is less than great. This situation
tempts him unduly into lofty postures,the breeding
ground of rhetoric and abstraction, and intimidates
his most precious asset, his individuality.

What does ranking have to do with poetry anyhow? The term, *major*,
when it is not a sales gimmick, is the
creation of those who like the power of dispensing
judgment and need a medium in which to display their
intellectual talent.

It has become a great plaything and a way to silence
poetry and put it away.

This world has more parrots than the jungles of Brazil."
**

Also saw the reprint of Ron Silliman's beautiful book
*Tjanting* in Moe's yesterday with preface by Barrett
Watten. Also, a copy of the first edition of Charles
Bernstein's *Controlling Interests* at a very good price.
**

Less advice, more response, support, encouragement and recognition.
**

The chickens were less fun yesterday; we
had to run around for half an hour forcing
them back in the pen. How quickly we living beings
become spoiled!

The Dream Bay

I am quietly certain
in a night's empty sound
that all that may
in its own way come to be
mine or yours or
anyone else's
may be found
or will one day
find an opening
and get its way
to me

And surely by
now the evening
bell has struck
if the sky has
turned brown
and the sun has
set black
and has
fallen into
the gray
and sunk
into the muck
for the dream
I had lost has suddenly
come back:

I fall the floating
spiral down
and sightless
see the moon
is cold
and know the way
somehow untold
to find a world
ungrown

Then running
unaware of night
unknown I pass
the line of day
to find a mist
the morning light
and touch
a clear blue bay

And if I said
I saw a face
in the wave
as I turned
in the dream's
own place
what sorrow tears
to have found
my way
with the sight
of the depths
of the bay

notebook (poem): circa 1964
**

The Year of The Chicken; or,
If You're Going to San Francisco
Be Sure To Wear Some Chicken Feathers
In Your Hair

As I looked out on the gorgeous
sunset over
the bay from our perch in the
Berkeley hills yesterday,
I remembered one of
my earliest poems,*The Dream Bay*
that I happened to have memorized.
I am attached to it, despite
the glaring influences of Blake,
Eliot, Housman, Gray, Poe,
Coleridge, and
other youthful favorites.
It's a joy to be here this
summer. Sorry to have missed
Jean Vengua, who seems to
have slipped away to Missouri.

The owner of the house has
added one responsibility this
year- the care of 6 chickens!
(I noticed the coincidental, recent
-synchronistic?-
encounter with a chicken referred
to on Katie D's {click here}
blog by the way.)
The chickens, who had been
given the run of the lower
part of the house, have
been placed in a pen in
the back yard. Our assignment
is to let them out of the
pen every day- so I guess
we are -"chicken sitting"-
replace their water and
straw, etc. This is more
fun then I expected. (Yet again
it was a relief to learn
that the rooster, afer some
local complaints, was recently
farmed out to a local suburban family.)
I noticed that the red
one kept running away from
the others, and Toni pointed out
it is the smallest. So I
gave it a little pep talk
(think big, don't let them
push you around,etc). Then it climbed
up on a log and stared down,
mightily, at the others.

Also, when Toni made dinner
she made you know what. When
she kept mentioning this in
front of our charges, I complained.
Doesn't she understand
chickens have feelings too?...
**

If you're in Oakland on
Sunday, hope to see you at
the Gala New Brutalist
Cabaret. For
details see the link on the
sidebar to your left.

Thanks to
Immolation.org {click here}
for the link
and kind comments about
*fait accompli* and
our EPC Blog List.

Love checking out new
blogs.

And, yes, the EPC Blog List
is due for an update.

Silenced

Without the employment of intensified focus, alternated with
a fully accepted loss of focus, nothing.

**
The "willing suspension of disbelief."

**

An equivalence, an attainment of balance between
the willingness to listen and the willingness
to speak; part and parcel of the greatest
conversation.

**

Cite meter, sight meter, site meter

**

Silenced by being unresponded to;
silenced by being echoed in a
resounding voice.

The meaninglessness of'
meaning.

**

Silenced by sarcasm.
Silenced by silence.

**

Silenced by indifference,
ridicule, deliberate
misinterpretation,
exclusion, prejudice,
gossip, group
formation, elitism,
Big Brotherism,
poverty, intimidation,
seduction.
**

Silenced by
Disenfranchisement {click here}
**

Silenced by
Martial law {click here}

**
Silenced by Critical indifference {click here}
**

Silenced by political manipulation {click here}
**

Silenced by the deafening roar of the
noise of bombing, war, shooting,
news reports, misinformation, disinformation,
fighting, arguing, moral indictment,
advertising, celebrity mongering,
hectoring, violent physical intrusion.
**

Silenced by exhaustion, physical
and psychological illness,
fear of death and death.
**

Silenced by lack of response,
silenced by being ranked
and sidelined.

***

Silenced by the economics,
the driving insistence,
the gender conflicts
of sexuality.
**

Slenced by discrimination.
**

Silenced by one-upsmanship,
competitiveness,
exclusion by means of
critical categorization,
moral sanctions
badgering.
**
Silenced by starvation,
physical or
psychological
**

Silenced by confusion,
inarticulateness, lack
of vocabulary,language
skills, numbness,
shock.
**

Silenced by lack of
social skills, sense of
irony and humor.
**

Silenced by address unknown,
nonlisted number, code 404
blog not found.
**

Silenced by "lack of
sufficient funds", "we
are sending this bill
to our credit department",
"account closed."
**
Silenced by, "please
leave a message,"
"your call is valuable
to us please stay
on the line."
**
Silenced by "line
forms here", by
"sold out", by "bus out
of service"
"last stop."
**
Silenced by
"how are you?",
"congratulations",
"happy birthday"
"what's new?"
"what's happening"
""I'm so jealous!"
""Guess what?"
**
Silenced by
"Anything
you can do I can
do better,
**
Silenced by
"Award-winning
poet"
**
Silenced by
the short list
**
Silenced by
"no refunds"
**
Silenced by
"toilet only
for customers"
**
Silenced by
"whatever"