The Ancient Use of Stone by Ray DiPalma, Seismicity Editions, 2009. (Distributed by SPD)
While contemporary poets and critics opine and debate about whether or not originality is still possible, contemporary poet Ray DiPalma has been quietly at work on a project for 10 years that demonstrates that not only is creativity and originality by poets alive and well, but Otis Books/Seismicity Editions has presented The Ancient Use of Stone, DiPalma’s superb new book, subtitled Journals and Daybooks 1998-2008, in a form that defies comparison with any other book of new writing for sheer visual and typographical beauty. The book includes six separate journals, all considerably varied in their approaches, and arranged in chronological order: The Ancient Use of Stone (1998), Jihadgraphy (2002), An August Daybook (2005), Mules at the Wake (2006), Ascoso (2006) and Salt in the Rock (2008), 213 pages in all, published in an ample 8" by 10" softcover format. Two of the sections contain considerable visual work. In addition to writings both Jihadgraphy and An August Daybook include DiPalma's graphically complex and frequently witty collages throughout. Jihadgraphy, a 43 page long journal, was written in a succession of 3 juxtaposed vertical entries per page. It has a series of collages running down the right hand side of all the pages in 2" by 8" columns. These have a cinematic and iconographic quality, while the text reflects on DiPalma’s life and literary concerns, including poems and comments on the piece itself as it emerges. DiPalma writes in the opening lines of Ascoso [Hermetic Anonymity], the sixth piece in the book: “There is nothing here to be measured—/simply take your share. Pensa, lettor”. As DiPalma explained to me recently, this means, “reader, give this some thought”; and this is then balanced in turn by the words a few lines later: “Prenda, lettor”—“reader, take this occasion in hand.” Both invitations are essentially derived from DiPalma’s reading of Dante. Collected here are opportunities I am sure many present readers as well as readers to come will avail themselves of with great pleasure as they delve into DiPalma’s generous and masterful The Ancient Use of Stone.
Distribution Automatique
Saturday, August 15
Friday, July 31
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
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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.
* * * * *
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.
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
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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
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Somerset Maugham on Life and Art
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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
Sunday, May 31
Happy Birthday, Walt Whitman
Possible sound recording of Walt Whitman reading from "America"
*************
Twitter Poetry
Baby Trotsky reviewed on Lemon Hound
Possible sound recording of Walt Whitman reading from "America"
*************
Twitter Poetry
Baby Trotsky reviewed on Lemon Hound
Saturday, May 30
Elaine Equi Photographs
at Turtle Point Press. Two of Elaine Equi's latest photograph series A Guide to the Cinema Tarot and Votive Candy, with accompanying poems, were on display at the opening at Turtle Point Press in the beautiful Woolworth Building at Park Place and Broadway.Two examples, first from A Guide: "Use your powers for good/and one day they'll name a robot/in a theme park after you" and second, from Votive: "Somewhere between/three wise men and three stooges/an epiphany comes." Elaine's photos encompass both the wit and the double-take insight her poems have become rightfully famous for. On hand to celebrate these terrific works were Turtle Point publisher Jonathan Rabinowitz, Elaine Equi and her husband poet Jerome Sala, as well as many poetry and art notables including Dirk Rountree, Wayne Koestenbaum, Geoffrey O'Brien. Star Black, Corinne Robins, Sal Romano. Coffee House publisher Allen Kornblum, Joanna Fuhrman, Toni Simon and many others.
When I was there, by the way, Sal Romano gave me an invitation to a group show opening May 27 6-8pm called Wiser Than God ("born before 1927, working and living") at the BLT Gallery (270 Bowery) right across the street from the New Museum show Younger than Jesus featuring 50 artists from 25 countries under age 33.
*******************
Freud's Office and a Zombie Parade
Toni Simon's slide shows from our recent trip to Prague and VIennainclude photos from the Vienna Freud Museum and the Prague Zombie parade.
at Turtle Point Press. Two of Elaine Equi's latest photograph series A Guide to the Cinema Tarot and Votive Candy, with accompanying poems, were on display at the opening at Turtle Point Press in the beautiful Woolworth Building at Park Place and Broadway.Two examples, first from A Guide: "Use your powers for good/and one day they'll name a robot/in a theme park after you" and second, from Votive: "Somewhere between/three wise men and three stooges/an epiphany comes." Elaine's photos encompass both the wit and the double-take insight her poems have become rightfully famous for. On hand to celebrate these terrific works were Turtle Point publisher Jonathan Rabinowitz, Elaine Equi and her husband poet Jerome Sala, as well as many poetry and art notables including Dirk Rountree, Wayne Koestenbaum, Geoffrey O'Brien. Star Black, Corinne Robins, Sal Romano. Coffee House publisher Allen Kornblum, Joanna Fuhrman, Toni Simon and many others.
When I was there, by the way, Sal Romano gave me an invitation to a group show opening May 27 6-8pm called Wiser Than God ("born before 1927, working and living") at the BLT Gallery (270 Bowery) right across the street from the New Museum show Younger than Jesus featuring 50 artists from 25 countries under age 33.
*******************
Freud's Office and a Zombie Parade
Toni Simon's slide shows from our recent trip to Prague and VIennainclude photos from the Vienna Freud Museum and the Prague Zombie parade.
Friday, May 29
Music on Twitter
The Music of Jukka- Pekka Kervinen located today on Twitter
JPK
**************
The Twitter Poets
OCHO 24-the Twitter Poets
*************
10 OCHOs AGO
OCHO 14 Did you miss this one?
************
Or This One?
OCHO 21
The Music of Jukka- Pekka Kervinen located today on Twitter
JPK
**************
The Twitter Poets
OCHO 24-the Twitter Poets
*************
10 OCHOs AGO
OCHO 14 Did you miss this one?
************
Or This One?
OCHO 21
Friday, May 22
Salt of The Earth: Saving A Press One Book at a Time
[Check out Salt's impressive catalogue: I just bought this book:
I Am You
Anne Tardos
Paperback
2008
I Am You collects three new poems: “The Aim of All Nature Is Beauty,” which Tardos wrote soon after the death or her husband and frequent collaborator Jackson Mac Low; “Letting Go,” a 100-page poem which combines memoir and self-examination in the face of loss, and the 50-page “The Letter: A Bloodbath.”]
[Check out Salt's impressive catalogue: I just bought this book:
I Am You
Anne Tardos
Paperback
2008
I Am You collects three new poems: “The Aim of All Nature Is Beauty,” which Tardos wrote soon after the death or her husband and frequent collaborator Jackson Mac Low; “Letting Go,” a 100-page poem which combines memoir and self-examination in the face of loss, and the 50-page “The Letter: A Bloodbath.”]
Saturday, May 2
Movie Nite (Saturday May 2) at Dixon Place
[for Movie Nite on Friday, May 1 See Nada Gordon's Capsule Reviews on Ululations]
Movie Nite took place this past Saturday evening at Dixon Place. Neo-Benshi by Brandon Downing, David Larsen, Tisa Bryant, Nada Gordon, Gary Sullivan, Eileen Myles, Linh Dinh, Bruce Andrews (with Brandon Downing), Mac McGinnes and Konrad Steiner and Drew Gardner and Risa Puno.
For those of you who have not yet heard about or experienced this relatively new form (already very popular on the West Coast), here poets add their own dialogue, sound effects, comments, sound tracks, etc to already existing films. While the themes, in general, were satiric and parodic send-ups, still, there was much intense poetic ambience to immerse oneself in, as one might expect of a line-up like the one above. There were so many surprising, artistically complex and satisfying, even exhilarating moments throughout the evening that I would love to describe for you, but due to my newness to the form, this might be difficult. But at least I can mention Brandon Downing's (who introduced and organized these presentations) "After Eileen Myles' Hell, Pterodactyl I, The Ship,The Anchor, and Pterodactyl II", David Larsen's stirring, heroic "Paris of Troy", Tisa Bryant's "Inspiration," sizzling B movie noir renditions, Nada Gordon's "Navrang," labyrinthine and operatic Bollywood recitations, Gary Sullivan's "Darby O'Gill and the Little People," Irish giants and midget leprechauns at odds in a magic poetry cave, accompanied by sly, hilarious references to the contemporary poetry scene, Eileen Myles' witty "Satyricon" with handmade original sound effects (at the end she joyfully rolled across the floor), Linh Dinh's "Smooth Life," fatal attractions behind a stack of modern classics (I kept trying to read the titles, while constantly being distracted by the heavy breathing in the movie), Bruce Andrews and Brandon Downing's ' "Gossip Bruce," one liner darts to the tune of endless conversations between two preening, priviliged Upper East Side girl friends (great fun for me as I am a fan of chick lit), McGinnes and Steiner's "Love Before Breakfast: An Interstellar Interlude", with a text by James Schuyler, starring Norma Cole as MOON, Edith Kramer as LAKE LONESOME GAL, David Larsen as CANOE and Roham Shakhani as SPACE, including the moon, stars and ducks in lyrical dialogues, and Drew Gardner and Risa Puno's Untitled piece focussing on violent video game targets, accompanied by a first, a haunting Drew Gardner movie soundtrack.
While academics continue to dispute the number of avant-guard angels that can stand on the head of a pin, the flesh and blood personnel like those who performed so brilliantly at Dixon Place last night will continue to create and perform works that astonish, confound, and provoke their grateful and delighted audiences.
[Comments, corrections or additions from Flarfists or audience members will be gladly published in the comments field].
[for Movie Nite on Friday, May 1 See Nada Gordon's Capsule Reviews on Ululations]
Movie Nite took place this past Saturday evening at Dixon Place. Neo-Benshi by Brandon Downing, David Larsen, Tisa Bryant, Nada Gordon, Gary Sullivan, Eileen Myles, Linh Dinh, Bruce Andrews (with Brandon Downing), Mac McGinnes and Konrad Steiner and Drew Gardner and Risa Puno.
For those of you who have not yet heard about or experienced this relatively new form (already very popular on the West Coast), here poets add their own dialogue, sound effects, comments, sound tracks, etc to already existing films. While the themes, in general, were satiric and parodic send-ups, still, there was much intense poetic ambience to immerse oneself in, as one might expect of a line-up like the one above. There were so many surprising, artistically complex and satisfying, even exhilarating moments throughout the evening that I would love to describe for you, but due to my newness to the form, this might be difficult. But at least I can mention Brandon Downing's (who introduced and organized these presentations) "After Eileen Myles' Hell, Pterodactyl I, The Ship,The Anchor, and Pterodactyl II", David Larsen's stirring, heroic "Paris of Troy", Tisa Bryant's "Inspiration," sizzling B movie noir renditions, Nada Gordon's "Navrang," labyrinthine and operatic Bollywood recitations, Gary Sullivan's "Darby O'Gill and the Little People," Irish giants and midget leprechauns at odds in a magic poetry cave, accompanied by sly, hilarious references to the contemporary poetry scene, Eileen Myles' witty "Satyricon" with handmade original sound effects (at the end she joyfully rolled across the floor), Linh Dinh's "Smooth Life," fatal attractions behind a stack of modern classics (I kept trying to read the titles, while constantly being distracted by the heavy breathing in the movie), Bruce Andrews and Brandon Downing's ' "Gossip Bruce," one liner darts to the tune of endless conversations between two preening, priviliged Upper East Side girl friends (great fun for me as I am a fan of chick lit), McGinnes and Steiner's "Love Before Breakfast: An Interstellar Interlude", with a text by James Schuyler, starring Norma Cole as MOON, Edith Kramer as LAKE LONESOME GAL, David Larsen as CANOE and Roham Shakhani as SPACE, including the moon, stars and ducks in lyrical dialogues, and Drew Gardner and Risa Puno's Untitled piece focussing on violent video game targets, accompanied by a first, a haunting Drew Gardner movie soundtrack.
While academics continue to dispute the number of avant-guard angels that can stand on the head of a pin, the flesh and blood personnel like those who performed so brilliantly at Dixon Place last night will continue to create and perform works that astonish, confound, and provoke their grateful and delighted audiences.
[Comments, corrections or additions from Flarfists or audience members will be gladly published in the comments field].
Friday, May 1
Rain
Once, a long time ago, Toni and I got caught in a heavy downpour in Central Park. We waited, watched and listened, not saying much, under a huge tree. Eventually the storm passed, but for some reason, the moment stayed. Many years, storms and memories have, since then. come and gone. But this one stayed.
*****
Rain- 140 character version on Babytrotsky
Once, a long time ago, Toni and I got caught in a heavy downpour in Central Park. We waited, watched and listened, not saying much, under a huge tree. Eventually the storm passed, but for some reason, the moment stayed. Many years, storms and memories have, since then. come and gone. But this one stayed.
*****
Rain- 140 character version on Babytrotsky
Saturday, April 25
Friday, April 24
Troubles Swapped for Something Fresh edited by Rupert Loydell, an anthology of manifestoes and antimanifestoes to be published in September, 2009 has just been announced by Salt Publishing. The book will contain 8 of my automatic manifestoes.
Wednesday, April 22
My Lunch With Sala
After some of the more personal items were touched on over sandwiches, coffee and Jerome's diet coke with a twist of lemon (health, friends, work and lit life) Jerome and I talked about poetry, the arts and the lives and careers of the younger generations. Finally Jerome revealed he had been publishing on a blog provocatively titled,The Best American Poetry. His ideas about Hegel, Creeley and William Carlos Williams' dictum "no ideas but in things" offers much to think -and talk about further- at our next lunch, which I hope is very soon.
After some of the more personal items were touched on over sandwiches, coffee and Jerome's diet coke with a twist of lemon (health, friends, work and lit life) Jerome and I talked about poetry, the arts and the lives and careers of the younger generations. Finally Jerome revealed he had been publishing on a blog provocatively titled,The Best American Poetry. His ideas about Hegel, Creeley and William Carlos Williams' dictum "no ideas but in things" offers much to think -and talk about further- at our next lunch, which I hope is very soon.
Saturday, April 18
The Flarf/Conceptual reading at the Whitney Friday 4/17 was terrific, fun, a great success, featuring readings by Bok, Goldsmith, Wershler, Rosenfield, Gordon, Mesmer, Mohammad, Sullivan, introduced smartly by the organizer, Conceptual poet/artist Kenny Goldsmth. Hard to believe that each poet read for only 5 minutes, so much happened. Very concentrated thought, laughter, language, verbal and body, quite a charismatic bunch. Goldsmith, bearded in an orange tie, Sullivan in t shirt and suit jacket, Mesmer and Rosenfield, Wershler and Bok dressed to the nines, Nada in a striking cartoony dress she made herself, Mohammad in a costume composed of an astronaut's uniform. Each of the eight offered a thoroughly enjoyable performance of distinctively inspired writing enacted/ framed by a clearly conceived and energetically presented dramatic persona. Much applause for individual poems, much laughter. We will undoubtedly be hearing and seeing more from the flarf/conceptual groups. They were welcomed in a way that telegraphed that they are here to stay. Audience sightings: Susan Bee, Charles Bernstein, Star Black, Katie Degentesh, Jordan Davis, Laura Elrick, Rob Fitterman, Chris Funkhouser, Kristen Gallagher, Drew Gardner, Mitch Highfill, Tan Lin, Sean Killian, Marianne Shaneen, Toni Simon, Stephanie Strickland, Christina Strong, Rodrigo Toscano and many other familiar faces. The room was completely packed, and some stayed until they had to get out of the way of the closing crew. Sorry I couldn't make it to the downtown party later on. Perhaps there will be more about this on other blogs, that of Drew Gardener, Gary Sullivan, Nada Gordon or Sharon Mesmer, let's see.
*****************
flarf vs conceptual poetry: the vids via Nada Gordon's Ululations
*****************
flarf vs conceptual poetry: the vids via Nada Gordon's Ululations
Friday, April 17
Thursday, April 16
Search Cube
******
Nico Vassilakis New York Art Show opens April 16
Rhizome
******
Nico Vassilakis reading at the Poetry Project April 24
******
Poets and Writers Interview
By Pamela ?oler
(repostiing: original posting 4/1
******
Nico Vassilakis New York Art Show opens April 16
Rhizome
******
Nico Vassilakis reading at the Poetry Project April 24
******
Poets and Writers Interview
By Pamela ?oler
(repostiing: original posting 4/1
Tuesday, April 14
"We" Follow
twitter: we follow
****
Half an hour of browsing led to one twitter worth following
Al Gore
thus:
The Extreme Ice Survey
twitter: we follow
****
Half an hour of browsing led to one twitter worth following
Al Gore
thus:
The Extreme Ice Survey
Saturday, April 11
The Two Bright Doves- Laura Carter
*******
Jackie Lipton's New Paintings are on exhibit at Corinne Robbins Gallery
147 Atlantic Avenue (between Clinton and Henry Streets) April 16-May 17, 2009
Opening Reception is Thursday, April 16th 6-8pm
Gallery hours are Wed-Sat, 11-6 and Sun 12-5
718.855.1672
Directions: 2,3 or 4,5 to Borough Hall (or R to Court Street), walk down Joralemon Street
into Brooklyn Heights until you come to Clinton Street, then walk on Clinton to
Atlantic Avenue.
Turn right and you are there. Or walk down Court Street To Atlantic Avenue, then on Atlantic
past Clinton Street to 147 Atlantic Avenue.
*******
Jackie Lipton's New Paintings are on exhibit at Corinne Robbins Gallery
147 Atlantic Avenue (between Clinton and Henry Streets) April 16-May 17, 2009
Opening Reception is Thursday, April 16th 6-8pm
Gallery hours are Wed-Sat, 11-6 and Sun 12-5
718.855.1672
Directions: 2,3 or 4,5 to Borough Hall (or R to Court Street), walk down Joralemon Street
into Brooklyn Heights until you come to Clinton Street, then walk on Clinton to
Atlantic Avenue.
Turn right and you are there. Or walk down Court Street To Atlantic Avenue, then on Atlantic
past Clinton Street to 147 Atlantic Avenue.
Friday, April 10
This Just In from Nico Vassilakis
My first Visual Poetry Show
Runs April 16th – May 9th, 2009
at
AC [Institute Direct] Chapel
547 W. 27th St, 5th Floor, #519-529
Gallery Hours: Wed, Fri. & Sat: 1-6pm, Thurs.: 1-8pm
The opening is on April 16th
Rhizome
Brochure Pdf included
(I’ll be around early evening April 23rd)
&
A Reading at the Poetry Project – April 24th, 10pm
Lawrence Giffin & Nico Vassilakis
thanks for your time,
n
My first Visual Poetry Show
Runs April 16th – May 9th, 2009
at
AC [Institute Direct] Chapel
547 W. 27th St, 5th Floor, #519-529
Gallery Hours: Wed, Fri. & Sat: 1-6pm, Thurs.: 1-8pm
The opening is on April 16th
Rhizome
Brochure Pdf included
(I’ll be around early evening April 23rd)
&
A Reading at the Poetry Project – April 24th, 10pm
Lawrence Giffin & Nico Vassilakis
thanks for your time,
n
Tuesday, April 7
Not In Service (words scribbled on a napkin)
It is no longer even interesting for me to wonder why for such long periods I have grown silent. But I do keep wondering what that silence is saying , because it is clear to me that it is saying something more precise and encompassing that I can now put into words. What is it telling me? Is it telling me that writing does so much more for the reader than it does for the writer? Is it saying that often, with writing I feel that I am painting myself into a corner? Is it murmuring to me that my words are a drop in the bucket, not even that-- a drop in the ocean, in an avalanche, a tidal wave? Is it telling me that the conclusions are mostly I-told-you-sos, been there done that, whatever, anything you can say I can say better? Is it saying that the written or blogged or printed word way too often does not enlighten, but, like a match in an underground cave, momentarily dazzles and then leaves the darkness darker? Is it saying that words are not like notes in a classical symphony, but more like sardonic echoes in an institutional lunchroom?
It is no longer even interesting for me to wonder why for such long periods I have grown silent. But I do keep wondering what that silence is saying , because it is clear to me that it is saying something more precise and encompassing that I can now put into words. What is it telling me? Is it telling me that writing does so much more for the reader than it does for the writer? Is it saying that often, with writing I feel that I am painting myself into a corner? Is it murmuring to me that my words are a drop in the bucket, not even that-- a drop in the ocean, in an avalanche, a tidal wave? Is it telling me that the conclusions are mostly I-told-you-sos, been there done that, whatever, anything you can say I can say better? Is it saying that the written or blogged or printed word way too often does not enlighten, but, like a match in an underground cave, momentarily dazzles and then leaves the darkness darker? Is it saying that words are not like notes in a classical symphony, but more like sardonic echoes in an institutional lunchroom?
Wednesday, April 1
Tuesday, March 24
Saturday, March 21
Suddenly!
Did You Miss the Buzz at the Mira Schor Opening at Momenta Art?
Too bad, because that was last night, folks. Now you have only until April 20 to go see this not-to-be-missed show.
Also, check out the announcement of two books by Mira Schor that will be out soon, a book of her essays, and she has also edited a selection from the journals and other writings of the important abstract expressionist artist, Jack Tworkov.
**********************
Contradicta
It is much too noisy. I can't hear myself being quiet.
*******
It is hard to think after trying so hard not to think.
[PS I wrote these after coming home from Mira Schor's opening last night, and only realized just now, that they were very likely inspired by her terrific show!]
*********************
Poetry Project Newsletter Review of Fait Accompli (Factory School, 2007) by Dustin Williamson
is now available as a PDF(Pages 25-27)
Did You Miss the Buzz at the Mira Schor Opening at Momenta Art?
Too bad, because that was last night, folks. Now you have only until April 20 to go see this not-to-be-missed show.
Also, check out the announcement of two books by Mira Schor that will be out soon, a book of her essays, and she has also edited a selection from the journals and other writings of the important abstract expressionist artist, Jack Tworkov.
**********************
Contradicta
It is much too noisy. I can't hear myself being quiet.
*******
It is hard to think after trying so hard not to think.
[PS I wrote these after coming home from Mira Schor's opening last night, and only realized just now, that they were very likely inspired by her terrific show!]
*********************
Poetry Project Newsletter Review of Fait Accompli (Factory School, 2007) by Dustin Williamson
is now available as a PDF(Pages 25-27)
Tuesday, March 17
Chopin E minor Prelude (#4)
****************
This just in from Michael Cross (Atticus/Finch):
If you live near NYC, please join us on Tuesday, March 31st at 6:00 pm for the east coast book
launch at ACA Galleries (529 W. 20th St., 5th Floor) as part of Boog City's Renegade Press series,
featuring readings by David Larsen, Judith Goldman, Thom Donovan, Kyle Schlesinger, and music and poetry
by Julian Brolaski.
***************
New from Nico Vassilakis!
starReduction
****************
This just in from Michael Cross (Atticus/Finch):
If you live near NYC, please join us on Tuesday, March 31st at 6:00 pm for the east coast book
launch at ACA Galleries (529 W. 20th St., 5th Floor) as part of Boog City's Renegade Press series,
featuring readings by David Larsen, Judith Goldman, Thom Donovan, Kyle Schlesinger, and music and poetry
by Julian Brolaski.
***************
New from Nico Vassilakis!
starReduction
Monday, March 16
Friday, March 13
Thursday, March 12
A Must-See Art Show!
Mira Schor
Momenta Art
momentaart.org
359 Bedford Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 218-8058
March 20 through April 20, 2009
Reception: Friday, March 20, 7-9 pm
Gallery hours: Thursday through Monday, 12-6
What would the self-portrait of a thought look like?
Momenta Art is pleased to announce “Suddenly,” New Paintings by Mira Schor, Schor’s first one-person show in New York in over a decade. These works mark a departure in Schor’s work, from the depiction of language as image to the suggestion of its lack in a space where we expect to see it. “Suddenly,” marks the moment when personal loss or political babble creates a loss for words. Schor has turned to the most basic form that came to mind: the empty thought balloon, where language was or will or should be.
Richly surfaced, bold, witty, notational, provisional, the paintings in this show were made in quick gestures, taking five minutes to an afternoon. They function unpredictably, as existential encounters that emerge from political absurdities or epochal tragedies – experienced in the everyday.
A conceptual artist who is a painter’s painter, a feminist who is an odd inheritor of the approaches to painting of the New York School, a noted writer on both feminism and painting, Mira Schor has long worked at the razor’s edge between visual and verbal languages. Her paintings have been foregrounded by these various disciplines: by painting, with shows such as Slow Art: Painting in New York Now, at P.S.1; by feminism, with shows such as Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party" in Feminist Art History, at the Armand Hammer Museum; and by language, with shows such as Poetry Plastique, at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. Schor is the author of Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture and co-editor with Susan Bee of M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Theory, and Criticism (both from Duke University Press) and of M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online at http://writing.upenn.edu/pepc/meaning/ Schor has two new books coming out in 2009, The Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov, which she has edited, from Yale University Press, and a new collection of her own writings on art and culture, A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life, to be published by Duke University Press.
Momenta Art is supported by the Harriet Ames Charitable Trust, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, The Greenwall Foundation, Greenwich Collection, Ltd., The Jerome Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and individual contributors.
Mira Schor
Momenta Art
momentaart.org
359 Bedford Ave
Brooklyn, NY 11211
(718) 218-8058
March 20 through April 20, 2009
Reception: Friday, March 20, 7-9 pm
Gallery hours: Thursday through Monday, 12-6
What would the self-portrait of a thought look like?
Momenta Art is pleased to announce “Suddenly,” New Paintings by Mira Schor, Schor’s first one-person show in New York in over a decade. These works mark a departure in Schor’s work, from the depiction of language as image to the suggestion of its lack in a space where we expect to see it. “Suddenly,” marks the moment when personal loss or political babble creates a loss for words. Schor has turned to the most basic form that came to mind: the empty thought balloon, where language was or will or should be.
Richly surfaced, bold, witty, notational, provisional, the paintings in this show were made in quick gestures, taking five minutes to an afternoon. They function unpredictably, as existential encounters that emerge from political absurdities or epochal tragedies – experienced in the everyday.
A conceptual artist who is a painter’s painter, a feminist who is an odd inheritor of the approaches to painting of the New York School, a noted writer on both feminism and painting, Mira Schor has long worked at the razor’s edge between visual and verbal languages. Her paintings have been foregrounded by these various disciplines: by painting, with shows such as Slow Art: Painting in New York Now, at P.S.1; by feminism, with shows such as Sexual Politics: Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party" in Feminist Art History, at the Armand Hammer Museum; and by language, with shows such as Poetry Plastique, at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York. Schor is the author of Wet: On Painting, Feminism, and Art Culture and co-editor with Susan Bee of M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings, Theory, and Criticism (both from Duke University Press) and of M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online at http://writing.upenn.edu/pepc/meaning/ Schor has two new books coming out in 2009, The Extreme of the Middle: Writings of Jack Tworkov, which she has edited, from Yale University Press, and a new collection of her own writings on art and culture, A Decade of Negative Thinking: Essays on Art, Politics, and Daily Life, to be published by Duke University Press.
Momenta Art is supported by the Harriet Ames Charitable Trust, Lily Auchincloss Foundation, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, The Greenwall Foundation, Greenwich Collection, Ltd., The Jerome Foundation, The National Endowment for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA), The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and individual contributors.
Monday, March 9
Sunday, March 8
Review of Susan Bee's Eye of The Storm show at the A.I.R. Gallery in
The Brooklyn Rail
******
Elizabeth Fodaski's LIfe Sentences is just out in The Brooklyn Rail
Fodaski's long work Document appears in our recently published OCHO 21
*****
Martin Kippenberger show at MOMA is well worth seeing.
The Brooklyn Rail
******
Elizabeth Fodaski's LIfe Sentences is just out in The Brooklyn Rail
Fodaski's long work Document appears in our recently published OCHO 21
*****
Martin Kippenberger show at MOMA is well worth seeing.
Wednesday, March 4
Contradicta
The average American male has an overdeveloped instinct for knowing who he can successfully dupe and push around. The others remain astounded at how stupid and wasteful this is. Stalemate, endless debate and temporizing. courting disaster.
*****
Although it sometimes doesn't feel this way, but the appropriate response in many situations is to not know what to say and therefore to listen carefully and keep thinking it through.
The average American male has an overdeveloped instinct for knowing who he can successfully dupe and push around. The others remain astounded at how stupid and wasteful this is. Stalemate, endless debate and temporizing. courting disaster.
*****
Although it sometimes doesn't feel this way, but the appropriate response in many situations is to not know what to say and therefore to listen carefully and keep thinking it through.
Thursday, February 26
Friday, February 20
Wednesday, February 11
Today is fait accompli's 6th birthday
Coming soon: essays on Simon Pettet's Hearth (selected poems) (Talisman)
Raphael Levy's 2251 (Somogy, 2004)
The Journal as Art:"Impossible Text" by Victor Munoz
via wood s lot
Coming soon: essays on Simon Pettet's Hearth (selected poems) (Talisman)
Raphael Levy's 2251 (Somogy, 2004)
The Journal as Art:"Impossible Text" by Victor Munoz
via wood s lot
Saturday, February 7
Mayhew's Dreams at MOMA
Bemsha Swing (Free subscription) | 05/02/2009
1. I was visiting New York. I went into a large room at the MOMA where there was going to be a poetry reading. I was greeted very warmly by Drew Gardner and Nick Piombino, and it seemed that others were waiting in the wings to greet me as well, probably Gary Sullivan and Jordan Davis and David Shapiro (though Nick in my dream did not look like the real life Nick at all; he had a beard for one thing)....
MOMA news on Wikio (from Bemsha Swing- Jonathan Mayhew)[scroll down]
********
Googlemania Unmasked
Google Reader: An Abecedarium pt. 1 (Steve Halle)
" It's been over a month now since Nick Piombino published a Contradicta on fait accompli (dec 17). Nick more contradicta that's really the only reason I read your blog. His last Contradicta read thusly:
When things get too complicated the starting point disappears into the google leaving me in confusion with glum hits staring into snowy infinitude.
*******
Count one friend for every time you google yourself."
**********************
Flarfinator
Lime Tree
Bemsha Swing (Free subscription) | 05/02/2009
1. I was visiting New York. I went into a large room at the MOMA where there was going to be a poetry reading. I was greeted very warmly by Drew Gardner and Nick Piombino, and it seemed that others were waiting in the wings to greet me as well, probably Gary Sullivan and Jordan Davis and David Shapiro (though Nick in my dream did not look like the real life Nick at all; he had a beard for one thing)....
MOMA news on Wikio (from Bemsha Swing- Jonathan Mayhew)[scroll down]
********
Googlemania Unmasked
Google Reader: An Abecedarium pt. 1 (Steve Halle)
" It's been over a month now since Nick Piombino published a Contradicta on fait accompli (dec 17). Nick more contradicta that's really the only reason I read your blog. His last Contradicta read thusly:
When things get too complicated the starting point disappears into the google leaving me in confusion with glum hits staring into snowy infinitude.
*******
Count one friend for every time you google yourself."
**********************
Flarfinator
Lime Tree
Tuesday, February 3
Saturday, January 31
Sunday, January 25
OCHO 21, published by CASA MENENDEZ is now available
with poets: Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Laynie Browne, Abigail Child, Joe Elliot, Laura Elrick, Elizabeth Fodaski, Joanna Fuhrman, Anthony Hawley, Drew Gardner, Jessica Grim, Michael Lally, Douglas Messerli, Bill Marsh, Christina Strong
Nick Piombino (Editor) Toni Simon (Cover artist)
OCHO 21
*****************
Nada replies to my question about how Japan has changed:
"I noticed on my last two visits there that Japan, already techno-sleek, was getting even techno-sleeker. On the train, it seemed that everyone was writing a cellphone novel. More trains are equipped with screens showing commercials, news flashes, weather reports, etiquette reminders (a lot of these in Japan!), etc..." More...
Ululations
with poets: Gregory Vincent St. Thomasino, Laynie Browne, Abigail Child, Joe Elliot, Laura Elrick, Elizabeth Fodaski, Joanna Fuhrman, Anthony Hawley, Drew Gardner, Jessica Grim, Michael Lally, Douglas Messerli, Bill Marsh, Christina Strong
Nick Piombino (Editor) Toni Simon (Cover artist)
OCHO 21
*****************
Nada replies to my question about how Japan has changed:
"I noticed on my last two visits there that Japan, already techno-sleek, was getting even techno-sleeker. On the train, it seemed that everyone was writing a cellphone novel. More trains are equipped with screens showing commercials, news flashes, weather reports, etiquette reminders (a lot of these in Japan!), etc..." More...
Ululations
Tuesday, January 13
Ron Silliman's Links
At at art opening at Cue a few months ago (Cynthia Miller-April to May, 2008, curated by Ron] I told Ron Silliman how much I was enjoying his link lists and asked him- thinking I wouldn't blame him if he didn't answer me- how he does it. Come on- does Macy's tell Gimbel's? (that reference might go right by some of my readers). But lately I've been noticing that I haven't missed going through Ron's link lists for a very long time.
Often when I talk with a poet at length I feel like writing, and I remember going home and putting up a post about Goodreads, a site I was enjoying quite a lot just then.
Looking through today's repast on Ron's links I read Adam Fieled and others on the post avant, Tom Mandel talking to Tom Beckett about autobiography and death, the fact that Jack Spicer's new collection is sold out (damn, I meant to be a first printing of that!), Jerome Rothenberg on Emma Bee's passing, about the Cleave Anthology, today's exchanges on Kenny Goldsmith, the latest thoughts on lango, SoQ, flarf, Mesmer, Kasey Mohammad, Bolano, Wittgenstein, Poe, Derrida and so much more. The thing is, I enjoy knowing about the links I don't open and I usually come back to open most of them by the end of the week. On a good week, anyway.
Soon fait accompli will reach its 6th birthday and I have to admit I don't have anywhere near the enthusiasm for blogging that I felt when I started this blog in February 2003. I don't read very many blogs regularly anymore though now and again I have the occasion to feast on them for a few hours at a time. Still, there is something about Ron's link list that fascinates me. I'm beginning to read them as poems in themselves. As in reading any poem, I might pause on a particular passage and read more deeply into it. In this case, however, I will simply open the link and read the post it opens. If I have a bit of time, and the link is to another blog, I might start surfing as in days of old. But that is rare. But what never happens is that I stop reading through the whole link list until I've finished it. As with any absorbing poem, I always leave wanting to read more thereby looking forward to the next one, usually in a day or two.
I read Ron's link list the way I used to read the New York Times, which I read rarely now, beyond the few headlines and stories on Google. Since I happen to be married to a total news junkie, I have nearly every significant story reported to me with either wit or outrage or both during dinner.
I'm trying to understand why I find Ron's link lists so...no other word will suffice here except... soothing, except they are soothing with a good dose of excitement in the old sense of "something is happening but you don't know what it is/do you Mr Jones?" But now I wax nostalgic. Lets face it, I'm addicted, and they are free, legal and non fattening.
Ron's link lists are the best of what blogging has always been to me. A feeling of hanging out in the poet's cafe, running into lots of familiar friends, making new acquaintances, catching up on the gossip, and leaving with plenty to think about.
At at art opening at Cue a few months ago (Cynthia Miller-April to May, 2008, curated by Ron] I told Ron Silliman how much I was enjoying his link lists and asked him- thinking I wouldn't blame him if he didn't answer me- how he does it. Come on- does Macy's tell Gimbel's? (that reference might go right by some of my readers). But lately I've been noticing that I haven't missed going through Ron's link lists for a very long time.
Often when I talk with a poet at length I feel like writing, and I remember going home and putting up a post about Goodreads, a site I was enjoying quite a lot just then.
Looking through today's repast on Ron's links I read Adam Fieled and others on the post avant, Tom Mandel talking to Tom Beckett about autobiography and death, the fact that Jack Spicer's new collection is sold out (damn, I meant to be a first printing of that!), Jerome Rothenberg on Emma Bee's passing, about the Cleave Anthology, today's exchanges on Kenny Goldsmith, the latest thoughts on lango, SoQ, flarf, Mesmer, Kasey Mohammad, Bolano, Wittgenstein, Poe, Derrida and so much more. The thing is, I enjoy knowing about the links I don't open and I usually come back to open most of them by the end of the week. On a good week, anyway.
Soon fait accompli will reach its 6th birthday and I have to admit I don't have anywhere near the enthusiasm for blogging that I felt when I started this blog in February 2003. I don't read very many blogs regularly anymore though now and again I have the occasion to feast on them for a few hours at a time. Still, there is something about Ron's link list that fascinates me. I'm beginning to read them as poems in themselves. As in reading any poem, I might pause on a particular passage and read more deeply into it. In this case, however, I will simply open the link and read the post it opens. If I have a bit of time, and the link is to another blog, I might start surfing as in days of old. But that is rare. But what never happens is that I stop reading through the whole link list until I've finished it. As with any absorbing poem, I always leave wanting to read more thereby looking forward to the next one, usually in a day or two.
I read Ron's link list the way I used to read the New York Times, which I read rarely now, beyond the few headlines and stories on Google. Since I happen to be married to a total news junkie, I have nearly every significant story reported to me with either wit or outrage or both during dinner.
I'm trying to understand why I find Ron's link lists so...no other word will suffice here except... soothing, except they are soothing with a good dose of excitement in the old sense of "something is happening but you don't know what it is/do you Mr Jones?" But now I wax nostalgic. Lets face it, I'm addicted, and they are free, legal and non fattening.
Ron's link lists are the best of what blogging has always been to me. A feeling of hanging out in the poet's cafe, running into lots of familiar friends, making new acquaintances, catching up on the gossip, and leaving with plenty to think about.
Saturday, January 10
Tuesday, January 6
Saturday, January 3
The Portable Boog City Reader 3
Thank You Maestro David Kirschenbaum
***************
Contradicta
Where plan, point and purpose end, melody begins.
******
I am the instrument, you are the song.
**********
Chopin- Berceuse Opus 57 Evgeny Kissin
Thank You Maestro David Kirschenbaum
***************
Contradicta
Where plan, point and purpose end, melody begins.
******
I am the instrument, you are the song.
**********
Chopin- Berceuse Opus 57 Evgeny Kissin
Tuesday, December 30
Sunday, December 21
Friday, December 19
Old Crap Mulch Pile- Steve Tills (Black Spring)
Poem 12-04-08- Steve Tills
*************
Recent dreams by Chris Tiefel, Ryan Vine, Stan Apps, Anne Boyer, Brian Salchert, Robert Kelly and Anne Gorrick on
Annandale Dream Gazette
**
-from Ron Silliman's Blog Thursday, December 18
"3. What other poetry-related blog or website should I check out?
There are so many. But let's point to The Annandale Dream Gazette, the only site I know of devoted to the unconscious of poets."
Poem 12-04-08- Steve Tills
*************
Recent dreams by Chris Tiefel, Ryan Vine, Stan Apps, Anne Boyer, Brian Salchert, Robert Kelly and Anne Gorrick on
Annandale Dream Gazette
**
-from Ron Silliman's Blog Thursday, December 18
"3. What other poetry-related blog or website should I check out?
There are so many. But let's point to The Annandale Dream Gazette, the only site I know of devoted to the unconscious of poets."
Thursday, December 18
Monday, December 15
Monday, December 8
Two Dreams
Annandale Dream Gazette
Thanks to Lynn Behrendt
**
Jan Peerce singing Bluebird of Happiness (You Tube)
Annandale Dream Gazette
Thanks to Lynn Behrendt
**
Jan Peerce singing Bluebird of Happiness (You Tube)
Sunday, December 7
Saturday, December 6
Jacob Russell on Silliman's Alphabet
" What is sadder than the small book of well-wrought
poems, none spilling over to the next page even, each pretending to its own completeness."
Ron Silliman: The Alphabet. ZYXT, 985
" What is sadder than the small book of well-wrought
poems, none spilling over to the next page even, each pretending to its own completeness."
Ron Silliman: The Alphabet. ZYXT, 985
Sunday, November 23
LIfe by Ernst Herbeck translated by Gary Sullivan and Oya Ataman
"Life
The life of the chickens is red.
The seism of compassion is red.
Life is beautiful.
Seism of the hearts in the body of dogs.
The life of the heart is dear.
The life makes the heavens heer.
Life would like to be longer.
may love live slower.
slowest life is long."
read more on Gary Sullivan's Ernst Herbeck site
***************************
Il Pleut by Apollinaire conceived by Gregory Vincent St Thomasino, digitalized by Mary Ann Sullivan
Il Pleut
*************************
Derailing The Sublime: On Alan Davies Odes
Joe Brainard's Pyjamas
via Pantaloons
*************************
In October 2008, Stephen McLaughlin, Gregory Laynor, and Vladimir Zykov published Issue 1, a 3,785-page document featuring almost as many poets. The pdf was posted at forgodot.com. The poems were produced by a poem generator called Erika, or Erica T. Carter.
The ISSUE 2 document is a collection of the blog posts and comments that responded to the project and/or responded to responses about the project and/or responded to issues that were raised within the discussion (419 pages).
Issue 2
via Pantaloons
"Life
The life of the chickens is red.
The seism of compassion is red.
Life is beautiful.
Seism of the hearts in the body of dogs.
The life of the heart is dear.
The life makes the heavens heer.
Life would like to be longer.
may love live slower.
slowest life is long."
read more on Gary Sullivan's Ernst Herbeck site
***************************
Il Pleut by Apollinaire conceived by Gregory Vincent St Thomasino, digitalized by Mary Ann Sullivan
Il Pleut
*************************
Derailing The Sublime: On Alan Davies Odes
Joe Brainard's Pyjamas
via Pantaloons
*************************
In October 2008, Stephen McLaughlin, Gregory Laynor, and Vladimir Zykov published Issue 1, a 3,785-page document featuring almost as many poets. The pdf was posted at forgodot.com. The poems were produced by a poem generator called Erika, or Erica T. Carter.
The ISSUE 2 document is a collection of the blog posts and comments that responded to the project and/or responded to responses about the project and/or responded to issues that were raised within the discussion (419 pages).
Issue 2
via Pantaloons
Saturday, November 22
Tuesday, November 18
Friday, November 14
Stan Apps on Sarcasm
"There are few legitimate responses to a world in which idealistic narratives are repeatedly used to devastate communities, where devastation is routinely applauded as long as it is for the sake of ideals. With ideals like these we don’t need enemies..."
Read more:
elective annoyance
"There are few legitimate responses to a world in which idealistic narratives are repeatedly used to devastate communities, where devastation is routinely applauded as long as it is for the sake of ideals. With ideals like these we don’t need enemies..."
Read more:
elective annoyance
Wednesday, November 12
Notes from Underground
Life as it is lived today underground at times feels impersonal to the point of sterility. This atmosphere results not only from the dire warnings loudly and constantly announced over the loudspeakers in every car, contrasted with wistful advertisements recommending schools for dental assistants or college degrees, but also the atmosphere of trauma within which we have regularly lived has dampened nearly any sort of spirit of connectedness that might be mustered. No one can remain light for very long under these conditions, while the efforts of the nightly tv comics elicit more of a sense of generosity and determination than shared hilarity. The homeless on the train asking for change this week seemed a notch more desperate than usual. Maybe it's just the full moon. Obama's promises of hope notwithstanding, now hovering on the edges of the future, even spontaneous pleasantness and brief polite interchanges, while intensely welcome, still feel strangely alien, or even surreal, after a few moments. Next to me, near my seat, two very small children cling to a vertical metal supporting bar and act themselves, that is, very silly. The parents smile warmly towards them and chat about quitting caffeine. The wackier the children behave, the more serious the passengers become, certainly not annoyed, since the kids were not in the least bit being disturbing. The children were happy, that was all. These moments reveal our social conditions far more than any news broadcast will ever be able to encompass. I think about the bank teller that I go to regularly who demanded I rewrite my signature to match my ATM card even to withdraw a small sum of money and the man who asked for five dollars for the seat he has vacated in Barnes and Noble. It was a try at a joke, and my silence made him add; "Only in New York." Crossing the street in Brooklyn after leaving the train station a car cuts me off rudely. As we hurtle towards a holiday unlike few in many decades in New York, it will be awhile until we feel the emotions that we might expect after such a startlingly uplifting election. I think about my visit with my old friend Alan today and how the conversation, once again, turned towards the Weimar era. We talked about novels by Alan Furst, Tana French, Joseph Kanon and Candace Bushnell that point up moral ambiguities in times like these, recent and long ago. On the bus home, I think the subway is a good metaphor for how I see this period. For the moment, most emotions have gone underground, and as we move inexorably down a dark tunnel, over a route we know all too well, while images of light at the end of that tunnel have yet to appear, we think about them as they have been suggested, yet we seem to endlessly slow before arriving anywhere, holding mainly to an attitude set to endure what is likely to remain a bumpy ride for quite some time.
Life as it is lived today underground at times feels impersonal to the point of sterility. This atmosphere results not only from the dire warnings loudly and constantly announced over the loudspeakers in every car, contrasted with wistful advertisements recommending schools for dental assistants or college degrees, but also the atmosphere of trauma within which we have regularly lived has dampened nearly any sort of spirit of connectedness that might be mustered. No one can remain light for very long under these conditions, while the efforts of the nightly tv comics elicit more of a sense of generosity and determination than shared hilarity. The homeless on the train asking for change this week seemed a notch more desperate than usual. Maybe it's just the full moon. Obama's promises of hope notwithstanding, now hovering on the edges of the future, even spontaneous pleasantness and brief polite interchanges, while intensely welcome, still feel strangely alien, or even surreal, after a few moments. Next to me, near my seat, two very small children cling to a vertical metal supporting bar and act themselves, that is, very silly. The parents smile warmly towards them and chat about quitting caffeine. The wackier the children behave, the more serious the passengers become, certainly not annoyed, since the kids were not in the least bit being disturbing. The children were happy, that was all. These moments reveal our social conditions far more than any news broadcast will ever be able to encompass. I think about the bank teller that I go to regularly who demanded I rewrite my signature to match my ATM card even to withdraw a small sum of money and the man who asked for five dollars for the seat he has vacated in Barnes and Noble. It was a try at a joke, and my silence made him add; "Only in New York." Crossing the street in Brooklyn after leaving the train station a car cuts me off rudely. As we hurtle towards a holiday unlike few in many decades in New York, it will be awhile until we feel the emotions that we might expect after such a startlingly uplifting election. I think about my visit with my old friend Alan today and how the conversation, once again, turned towards the Weimar era. We talked about novels by Alan Furst, Tana French, Joseph Kanon and Candace Bushnell that point up moral ambiguities in times like these, recent and long ago. On the bus home, I think the subway is a good metaphor for how I see this period. For the moment, most emotions have gone underground, and as we move inexorably down a dark tunnel, over a route we know all too well, while images of light at the end of that tunnel have yet to appear, we think about them as they have been suggested, yet we seem to endlessly slow before arriving anywhere, holding mainly to an attitude set to endure what is likely to remain a bumpy ride for quite some time.
Saturday, November 8
Green Integer Review- Contradicta collaboration with Toni Simon
Green Integer Review
**************
Nada Gordon Decorates The World
Ululations
Green Integer Review
**************
Nada Gordon Decorates The World
Ululations
Monday, November 3
Phillip K. Dick Predicted a Black President
In 1966, Phillip K. Dick published The Crack in Space which had, as one of its characters, a black Presidential candidate, Jim Briskin.
From Phillip K. Dick's 1966 novel The Crack in Space:
"But it was inevitable. Sooner or later, there would be a Negro president....'I don't agree with you,' Briskin said, 'I think there'll always be a hate organization like CLEAN, and there'll always be people to support it.' After all, CLEAN had a point. they did not want to see a Negro president, and wasn't it their right to feel like that? Some people did, some people didn't; that was perfectly natural. And, he thought, why should we pretend race is not the issue? It is, really. I am a Negro. Verne Engel is factually correct. The real question was: how large a percentage of the electorate suported CLEAN's views? Certainly, CLEAN did not hurt his feelings; he could not be wounded; he had experienced too much already in his years as a newsclown. In my years, he thought to himself acidly, as an American Negro.
A small boy, white, appeared at the booth, with a pen and a tablet of paper. 'Mr Briskin, can I get your autograph?'"
******
Otoliths issue 11
In 1966, Phillip K. Dick published The Crack in Space which had, as one of its characters, a black Presidential candidate, Jim Briskin.
From Phillip K. Dick's 1966 novel The Crack in Space:
"But it was inevitable. Sooner or later, there would be a Negro president....'I don't agree with you,' Briskin said, 'I think there'll always be a hate organization like CLEAN, and there'll always be people to support it.' After all, CLEAN had a point. they did not want to see a Negro president, and wasn't it their right to feel like that? Some people did, some people didn't; that was perfectly natural. And, he thought, why should we pretend race is not the issue? It is, really. I am a Negro. Verne Engel is factually correct. The real question was: how large a percentage of the electorate suported CLEAN's views? Certainly, CLEAN did not hurt his feelings; he could not be wounded; he had experienced too much already in his years as a newsclown. In my years, he thought to himself acidly, as an American Negro.
A small boy, white, appeared at the booth, with a pen and a tablet of paper. 'Mr Briskin, can I get your autograph?'"
******
Otoliths issue 11
Saturday, November 1
"Debt springs eternal in the human bank"
"Interior Demolition" (mp3 on Penn Sound)
[From Light Street, Zasterle Press, 1996]
Interior Demolition
"Interior Demolition" (mp3 on Penn Sound)
[From Light Street, Zasterle Press, 1996]
Interior Demolition
Tuesday, October 28
Saturday, October 25
Sunday, October 19
Contradicta
There are parts of ourselves that allow no effect, either from ourselves on the world, or the world on us. These parts are the hinges on which we allow the portals between ourselves and life to swing, open or closed, as need be.
******************
Nothing is the place in which everything breathes or stands, moves or falls.
There are parts of ourselves that allow no effect, either from ourselves on the world, or the world on us. These parts are the hinges on which we allow the portals between ourselves and life to swing, open or closed, as need be.
******************
Nothing is the place in which everything breathes or stands, moves or falls.
Friday, October 17
Anny Ballardini's Fall Folio
"Don’t blame me!... It all started on Alan Sondheim’s WRYTING-L list. Dirk Vekemans has to be blamed. His Autumnal poem made the long list of answers that followed. I therefore had the idea of gathering the poems. Not only, I also forwarded an invitation to the WOM-PO and New Poetry List, and to several chosen Poets. Here is the Harvest in its colorful unfolding. I do hope you will all enjoy it."
fieralingue
*********************
Nico Vassilakis on Mike Burakoff's video of Free Fall
Verse in the eye
When you’re drawn to focus. When you’re moved to veer. The trigger’s pulled before you know the question’s near. So ask what looking gives you and twist the eyes reply. The function of its thinking immediate, yes, immediate. This the staring won’t deny. Your brain answers while swerves align, as-best-it-can-it-should, that it knows a further capsule driven, I say driven, further into focus. That your eyes dart here and there as things of interest do & that coming here and leaving have left a stain on you.
"Don’t blame me!... It all started on Alan Sondheim’s WRYTING-L list. Dirk Vekemans has to be blamed. His Autumnal poem made the long list of answers that followed. I therefore had the idea of gathering the poems. Not only, I also forwarded an invitation to the WOM-PO and New Poetry List, and to several chosen Poets. Here is the Harvest in its colorful unfolding. I do hope you will all enjoy it."
fieralingue
*********************
Nico Vassilakis on Mike Burakoff's video of Free Fall
Verse in the eye
When you’re drawn to focus. When you’re moved to veer. The trigger’s pulled before you know the question’s near. So ask what looking gives you and twist the eyes reply. The function of its thinking immediate, yes, immediate. This the staring won’t deny. Your brain answers while swerves align, as-best-it-can-it-should, that it knows a further capsule driven, I say driven, further into focus. That your eyes dart here and there as things of interest do & that coming here and leaving have left a stain on you.
Wednesday, October 8
Issue #1 Faux Anthology
I would just call it-The Unbearable Lightness of Issue #1. There is something about that huge sudden ironic parody that calls for instant recognition of the non serious nature of the intervention. This is the "unbearable lightness of blogging" as I have termed it, par excellence. A poetry circus wagon blows in, warm wind and ill wind, spins a few sails, shakes a few tails and blows out: a party with real laughs, a few growls and roars and some intense conversations where you recognize a lot of people, don't know some, you figure "everybody" was there, but of course that's not literally possible. The feeling is, maybe they were out of town or something, or just couldn't make it, but not that they were deliberately excluded. I know I would have felt left out had I not been mentioned. But since I was I do get into that lightness, but it is a blue lightness while still feeling nostalgic for the more private days of the whole long stretched out thing- getting an invitation, figuring what to send, waiting to hear, then getting accepted. But in this party atmosphere it's just all so quickly thrown together, no time, so quickly check how my poem was dressed and acted, ok, did I see some friends, yeah, their poems are ok. So then it's over, and there's the hangover of- what did I do, did I actually write that thing, no way, nobody did, a computer wrote it. After all, it is the era of the machine. So what did I say- I'm not sure how I feel now. Then the party really starts and everyone talks about it for days. No, not like a reading or an opening, more like a bash, or an old fashioned happening where people were only half aware of what was going on. Maybe all the evidence has already been put away and the place has been swept up. Maybe a few people actually kept their party favors and others left and forgot them. But now there's a memory, that Godot thing that gets talked about. People have been saying that we are in a time warp in that in New York now, that we are in a repeat of the Weimar era. Maybe this Godot thing is our cabaret- rude, crude, risque, funny, a little dark, with music by Kurt Weill and a set by Kirchner, Grosz or Hannah Hoch. I had even written in the comment section of Issue 1, "There has been talk of a poetry bailout. Is this it?" It looks like the powers that be are plotting to send the whole batch of us poets and day workers out onto the streets as in *The Threepenny Opera* while "citibank" robs everybody blind. And then we'll listen to the barrel organ sound, in the city while the sun sinks low.
*****************************
On a trade basis, the "Godot team" is making hard copies of the anthology available. You send a chapbook and postage and it's yours. Here's the link:
Sending for Godot
****************************
After writing that line I had to go and reread the poem I was thinking of by Alfred Noyes:
The Barrel Organ (1938
I would just call it-The Unbearable Lightness of Issue #1. There is something about that huge sudden ironic parody that calls for instant recognition of the non serious nature of the intervention. This is the "unbearable lightness of blogging" as I have termed it, par excellence. A poetry circus wagon blows in, warm wind and ill wind, spins a few sails, shakes a few tails and blows out: a party with real laughs, a few growls and roars and some intense conversations where you recognize a lot of people, don't know some, you figure "everybody" was there, but of course that's not literally possible. The feeling is, maybe they were out of town or something, or just couldn't make it, but not that they were deliberately excluded. I know I would have felt left out had I not been mentioned. But since I was I do get into that lightness, but it is a blue lightness while still feeling nostalgic for the more private days of the whole long stretched out thing- getting an invitation, figuring what to send, waiting to hear, then getting accepted. But in this party atmosphere it's just all so quickly thrown together, no time, so quickly check how my poem was dressed and acted, ok, did I see some friends, yeah, their poems are ok. So then it's over, and there's the hangover of- what did I do, did I actually write that thing, no way, nobody did, a computer wrote it. After all, it is the era of the machine. So what did I say- I'm not sure how I feel now. Then the party really starts and everyone talks about it for days. No, not like a reading or an opening, more like a bash, or an old fashioned happening where people were only half aware of what was going on. Maybe all the evidence has already been put away and the place has been swept up. Maybe a few people actually kept their party favors and others left and forgot them. But now there's a memory, that Godot thing that gets talked about. People have been saying that we are in a time warp in that in New York now, that we are in a repeat of the Weimar era. Maybe this Godot thing is our cabaret- rude, crude, risque, funny, a little dark, with music by Kurt Weill and a set by Kirchner, Grosz or Hannah Hoch. I had even written in the comment section of Issue 1, "There has been talk of a poetry bailout. Is this it?" It looks like the powers that be are plotting to send the whole batch of us poets and day workers out onto the streets as in *The Threepenny Opera* while "citibank" robs everybody blind. And then we'll listen to the barrel organ sound, in the city while the sun sinks low.
*****************************
On a trade basis, the "Godot team" is making hard copies of the anthology available. You send a chapbook and postage and it's yours. Here's the link:
Sending for Godot
****************************
After writing that line I had to go and reread the poem I was thinking of by Alfred Noyes:
The Barrel Organ (1938
Monday, October 6
The Art of Prediction
It is fascinating that Nassim Nicholas Taleb the author of The Black Swan, the biggest best selling non-fiction book of 2007, who is extremely skeptical about the value of predictions, could have published this statement last year:
"As if we did not have enough problems, banks are now more vulnerable to the Black Swan and the ludic fallacy than ever before with "scientists" among their staff taking care of exposures. The giant firm J. P. Morgan put the entire world at risk by introducing in the nineties Risk Metrics, a phony method aiming at managing people's risks, causing the generalized use of the ludic fallacy...A related method called "Value at Risk" on the quantitative measurement of risk, has been spreading. Likewise, the government-sponsored institution Fanny Mae, when I look at their risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry, their large staff of scientists deemed these events 'unlikely.'"(p.225)
It is fascinating that Nassim Nicholas Taleb the author of The Black Swan, the biggest best selling non-fiction book of 2007, who is extremely skeptical about the value of predictions, could have published this statement last year:
"As if we did not have enough problems, banks are now more vulnerable to the Black Swan and the ludic fallacy than ever before with "scientists" among their staff taking care of exposures. The giant firm J. P. Morgan put the entire world at risk by introducing in the nineties Risk Metrics, a phony method aiming at managing people's risks, causing the generalized use of the ludic fallacy...A related method called "Value at Risk" on the quantitative measurement of risk, has been spreading. Likewise, the government-sponsored institution Fanny Mae, when I look at their risks, seems to be sitting on a barrel of dynamite, vulnerable to the slightest hiccup. But not to worry, their large staff of scientists deemed these events 'unlikely.'"(p.225)
Saturday, October 4
Friday, September 26
Between: The Art of Collaboration, by Douglas Messerli
Green Integer Blog
Some years ago, Douglas Messerli invited a group of poets to send him poems linking his work to theirs, in many instances writing through poems he had written incorporating their work into his. As part of a mammoth ongoing memoir project, each book encompassing one year of his life, Douglas here writes about the year 2000, the year in which he launched this project, that included a poem of my own, based on work of his.
*
Some months ago, Geof Huth courageously blogged about his open heart surgery, a post that included photos of the event. Here Douglas MesserIil writes about his recent prostate surgery, an operation that strangely followed his writing a beautiful piece about his father's death of that disease.
Green Integer Blog
Some years ago, Douglas Messerli invited a group of poets to send him poems linking his work to theirs, in many instances writing through poems he had written incorporating their work into his. As part of a mammoth ongoing memoir project, each book encompassing one year of his life, Douglas here writes about the year 2000, the year in which he launched this project, that included a poem of my own, based on work of his.
*
Some months ago, Geof Huth courageously blogged about his open heart surgery, a post that included photos of the event. Here Douglas MesserIil writes about his recent prostate surgery, an operation that strangely followed his writing a beautiful piece about his father's death of that disease.
Wednesday, September 24
Saturday, September 20
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Blogger: Sharon Mesmer on Poetry and Theory in The Brooklyn Rail
"Poetry has become an overscheduled toddler run ragged by ambitious, bickering parents, its very existence a compromised simulacrum of their disharmonious projections and expectations". In this article, Sharon Mesmer identifies an issue that has also been troubling me for a very long time. The causes have been argued and discussed by poets and others for years. Mesmer focusses on the addiction to "debate" as one of the problems, a topic I have taken up on *fait accompli* countless times. The last time I wrote about this during the presidential debates of 2004 it was becoming very clear to me that the "debate" model was failing to inspire and sputtering to a halt.(Time March's On, 3/2/04) This year Obama and Biden are likely to impress and the other team to depress. But in the poetry world, it's getting tiresome. Don't get me wrong. The 70's poetry debates, following the breath of expressive freedom of the 60's, were invaluable, even, at times, beautiful to contemplate. But after more than 25 years of echoes, the model is wearing thin. If there ever was indeed a "politics of poetic form" that political point has been more than made. It has been paddled around to death and is now choking off the poetry, or at least focus on the poetry. The assumption is that creating controversy creates interest. In the case of contemporary poetry, the reverse is happening. Instead of making the poetry scene vibrant, it is making it soggy. The arguments are not snappy, they are stale. Although Sharon doesn't say this, and may not even be thinking this, to me this debate form in poetry is a masculine, tennis or racket ball oriented adaptation of dealing with issues of concern to poets. Game over. What would I substitute? Responding to the work of specific poets thoroughly, carefully, lovingly, angrily, lightly, whatever. Making observations and arriving at conclusions based on actual poems, not the strategies of your "team" with the endless arguments about the dynamics, the advantages and disadvantages, the importance and unimportance of "types" of poetry. Let's give it a break, guys.
"Poetry has become an overscheduled toddler run ragged by ambitious, bickering parents, its very existence a compromised simulacrum of their disharmonious projections and expectations". In this article, Sharon Mesmer identifies an issue that has also been troubling me for a very long time. The causes have been argued and discussed by poets and others for years. Mesmer focusses on the addiction to "debate" as one of the problems, a topic I have taken up on *fait accompli* countless times. The last time I wrote about this during the presidential debates of 2004 it was becoming very clear to me that the "debate" model was failing to inspire and sputtering to a halt.(Time March's On, 3/2/04) This year Obama and Biden are likely to impress and the other team to depress. But in the poetry world, it's getting tiresome. Don't get me wrong. The 70's poetry debates, following the breath of expressive freedom of the 60's, were invaluable, even, at times, beautiful to contemplate. But after more than 25 years of echoes, the model is wearing thin. If there ever was indeed a "politics of poetic form" that political point has been more than made. It has been paddled around to death and is now choking off the poetry, or at least focus on the poetry. The assumption is that creating controversy creates interest. In the case of contemporary poetry, the reverse is happening. Instead of making the poetry scene vibrant, it is making it soggy. The arguments are not snappy, they are stale. Although Sharon doesn't say this, and may not even be thinking this, to me this debate form in poetry is a masculine, tennis or racket ball oriented adaptation of dealing with issues of concern to poets. Game over. What would I substitute? Responding to the work of specific poets thoroughly, carefully, lovingly, angrily, lightly, whatever. Making observations and arriving at conclusions based on actual poems, not the strategies of your "team" with the endless arguments about the dynamics, the advantages and disadvantages, the importance and unimportance of "types" of poetry. Let's give it a break, guys.
Friday, September 19
Wednesday, September 17
The 2cd Annual Welcome to Boog City Festival Complete Listings
I will be reading on Sunday, September 21st
Unnameable Books
456 Bergen St.
Brooklyn
Free
1:00 p.m.-Julia Cohen
1:15 p.m.-Tisa Bryant
1:30 p.m.-Ana Božičević
1:45 p.m.-Yoko Kikuchi (music)
2:05 p.m.-Corrine Fitzpatrick
2:20 p.m.-Nick Piombino
2:35 p.m.-Stacy Szymaszek
I will be reading on Sunday, September 21st
Unnameable Books
456 Bergen St.
Brooklyn
Free
1:00 p.m.-Julia Cohen
1:15 p.m.-Tisa Bryant
1:30 p.m.-Ana Božičević
1:45 p.m.-Yoko Kikuchi (music)
2:05 p.m.-Corrine Fitzpatrick
2:20 p.m.-Nick Piombino
2:35 p.m.-Stacy Szymaszek
Friday, September 12
Free Fall/A.I.R. Gallery History Show/Nicholas Manning reviews Mark Young's Selected In Jacket/New Books from Otoliths
The video of my collage novel Free Fall-video and music by Mike Burakoff- is now up on Nicholas Manning’s poet's video blog, The Continental Review
Nicholas Manning has also posted a short announcement and appreciative comment on his weblog: The Newer Metaphysicals
Thanks to Nicholas Manning for posting the video and to Mark Young for publishing the book under his Otoliths Press imprint.
***********************
A.I.R. GALLERY: The History Show
Archival materials from 1972 to the present
Curated by Kat Griefen & Dena Muller
at Tracey/Barry Gallery, Bobst LIbrary,
Open Monday - Friday 10am-5pm
70 Washington Sq. South, 3rd Fl.
September 16 - December 12, 2008
Opening & Panel at Tracey/Barry Gallery
Tuesday, Sept. 16, 6pm – 8pm
“How A.I.R. Changed the Art World: Feminist Intervention Over 37 Years”
Panelists: Dotty Attie, Carey Lovelace, Carolee Schneemann, Corinne Robins & Joan Snitzer
**************
Nicholas Manning reviews Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming: Selected Poems in
Jacket
*************
When the original emailout for this September septet of new books from Otoliths reached four pages, I decided it was time to compromise, to send just the basic details out, & post the extended play with full blurbs & jpegs of the front covers to my blog, gamma ways . The direct URLs for the books are given below. The full catalog can be found at The Otoliths Storefront Otoliths .
Mark Young
E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S: The Final XIV Interviews + One
Tom Beckett (curator)
372 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-1-8
$19.95 + p&h
URL: Final XIV Interviews
The Evolution of Mirrors
Martin Edmond
108 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-6-3
$12.50 + p&h
URL: Evolution of Mirrors
When You Bit...
Adam Fieled
72 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-3-2
$12.50 + p&h
URL:When You Bit
Longfellow Memoranda
Geof Huth
148 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9804541-9-2
$13.50 + p&h
URL: Longfellow Memoranda
Novaless
Nicholas Manning
160 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-2-5
$13.50 + p&h
URL: Novaless
Tales From The Hinterland
Caleb Puckett
60 pages
Cover design by Mary Ellen Derwis & Joe Balaz
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-4-9
$10.00 + p&h
URL:Tales from the Hinterland
RED
Marilyn R. Rosenberg
56 pages, full color, 9" wide x 7" high, coil bound
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-5-6
$19.95 + p&h
URL:Red
The video of my collage novel Free Fall-video and music by Mike Burakoff- is now up on Nicholas Manning’s poet's video blog, The Continental Review
Nicholas Manning has also posted a short announcement and appreciative comment on his weblog: The Newer Metaphysicals
Thanks to Nicholas Manning for posting the video and to Mark Young for publishing the book under his Otoliths Press imprint.
***********************
A.I.R. GALLERY: The History Show
Archival materials from 1972 to the present
Curated by Kat Griefen & Dena Muller
at Tracey/Barry Gallery, Bobst LIbrary,
Open Monday - Friday 10am-5pm
70 Washington Sq. South, 3rd Fl.
September 16 - December 12, 2008
Opening & Panel at Tracey/Barry Gallery
Tuesday, Sept. 16, 6pm – 8pm
“How A.I.R. Changed the Art World: Feminist Intervention Over 37 Years”
Panelists: Dotty Attie, Carey Lovelace, Carolee Schneemann, Corinne Robins & Joan Snitzer
**************
Nicholas Manning reviews Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming: Selected Poems in
Jacket
*************
When the original emailout for this September septet of new books from Otoliths reached four pages, I decided it was time to compromise, to send just the basic details out, & post the extended play with full blurbs & jpegs of the front covers to my blog, gamma ways . The direct URLs for the books are given below. The full catalog can be found at The Otoliths Storefront Otoliths .
Mark Young
E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S: The Final XIV Interviews + One
Tom Beckett (curator)
372 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-1-8
$19.95 + p&h
URL: Final XIV Interviews
The Evolution of Mirrors
Martin Edmond
108 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-6-3
$12.50 + p&h
URL: Evolution of Mirrors
When You Bit...
Adam Fieled
72 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-3-2
$12.50 + p&h
URL:When You Bit
Longfellow Memoranda
Geof Huth
148 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9804541-9-2
$13.50 + p&h
URL: Longfellow Memoranda
Novaless
Nicholas Manning
160 pages
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-2-5
$13.50 + p&h
URL: Novaless
Tales From The Hinterland
Caleb Puckett
60 pages
Cover design by Mary Ellen Derwis & Joe Balaz
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-4-9
$10.00 + p&h
URL:Tales from the Hinterland
RED
Marilyn R. Rosenberg
56 pages, full color, 9" wide x 7" high, coil bound
ISBN: 978-0-9805096-5-6
$19.95 + p&h
URL:Red
Wednesday, September 10
Contradicta
Those long accustomed to unqualified success-- or to unquestionable failure--tend to share one quality in common: an air of indifference.
*******
We are nothing more or less than the sum of our enthusiasms.
******************
Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming Selected Poems 1959-2008 (Meritage Press)
$24 at Lulu
These poems, read together in this excellently selected book, speak and sing to and of and with each other. Their humor and humanity, frankness and wealth of example and reference work together to create an appetite of readerly curiosity to want to keep reading and thinking, laughing, and connecting, and with this a desire to get to know the poet more, to come back to particular poems more and more.
Mark Young is the editor of Otoliths and Otoliths Books and lives in Rockhampton, Australia
"Chaos Theory Does Hollywood"
"Have just watched Blade Runner
on DVD, enjoyed it as I
always do even though
a small part of me sits there
running a reality check. It's
the risk you take when
writing about the future:
having it reviewed at a
point that is closer than the
conception. Pan-Am
didn't even make it to 2001
let alone the time this movie
is set. The arse has fallen out
of the yen & though Sony
still owns Columbia not everytone
speaks Japanese & most of the
noodle bars are owned by
immigrants from Vietnam or
Mainland China. Two days ago
I bought an album by Youssou
N'Dour & the next day
Senegal surprised by beating
France in the opening round
of soccer's World Cup. Maybe
that's the way to influence
the universe. Don't just
make the movie, change
something small in the
real world & eventually
the film may be seen
as cinima verite by the time
its time has come. Forgo
those fastfood franchised
tie-ins. Instead give
everyone a butterfly to kill."
Those long accustomed to unqualified success-- or to unquestionable failure--tend to share one quality in common: an air of indifference.
*******
We are nothing more or less than the sum of our enthusiasms.
******************
Mark Young's Pelican Dreaming Selected Poems 1959-2008 (Meritage Press)
$24 at Lulu
These poems, read together in this excellently selected book, speak and sing to and of and with each other. Their humor and humanity, frankness and wealth of example and reference work together to create an appetite of readerly curiosity to want to keep reading and thinking, laughing, and connecting, and with this a desire to get to know the poet more, to come back to particular poems more and more.
Mark Young is the editor of Otoliths and Otoliths Books and lives in Rockhampton, Australia
"Chaos Theory Does Hollywood"
"Have just watched Blade Runner
on DVD, enjoyed it as I
always do even though
a small part of me sits there
running a reality check. It's
the risk you take when
writing about the future:
having it reviewed at a
point that is closer than the
conception. Pan-Am
didn't even make it to 2001
let alone the time this movie
is set. The arse has fallen out
of the yen & though Sony
still owns Columbia not everytone
speaks Japanese & most of the
noodle bars are owned by
immigrants from Vietnam or
Mainland China. Two days ago
I bought an album by Youssou
N'Dour & the next day
Senegal surprised by beating
France in the opening round
of soccer's World Cup. Maybe
that's the way to influence
the universe. Don't just
make the movie, change
something small in the
real world & eventually
the film may be seen
as cinima verite by the time
its time has come. Forgo
those fastfood franchised
tie-ins. Instead give
everyone a butterfly to kill."
Monday, September 8
Saturday, August 30
Contradicta
I've never yet read a book or a poem or seen a film or a play that truly captured what it feels like to live. If one of them did, few would read it or go. it would veer too often and too rapidly from being profound one moment and idiotic the next, mesmerizing one moment and anticlimactic the next, exhausting one moment and energizing the next, inspiring one moment and horrifying the next, etc.
***********
Not everyone likes writers or artists who try to be different, but many do. It's the ones that succeed at it that nobody likes.
I've never yet read a book or a poem or seen a film or a play that truly captured what it feels like to live. If one of them did, few would read it or go. it would veer too often and too rapidly from being profound one moment and idiotic the next, mesmerizing one moment and anticlimactic the next, exhausting one moment and energizing the next, inspiring one moment and horrifying the next, etc.
***********
Not everyone likes writers or artists who try to be different, but many do. It's the ones that succeed at it that nobody likes.
Friday, August 29
Hardy Hip-Hop
I found this poem by Thomas Hardy and couldn't help but copy it out and post it here and on the poetics listserv. Jerome Sala and others described it as rap-like, Maria Damon compared it to Iggy Pop.
Thoughts at Midnight
Mankind, you dismay me
When shadows waylay me!-
Not by your splendours
Do you affray me,
Nor as pretenders
To demonic keenness,
Nor by your meanness,
Nor by your ill-teachings
Nor your false preachings,
Nor your banalities
And immoralities,
Nor by your daring
Nor sinister bearing;
But by your madnesses
Capping cool badnesses,
Acting like puppets
Under Time's buffets;
In superstitions
And ambitions
Moved by no wisdom,
Far sight, or system,
Led by sheer senselessness
And presciencelessness
Into unreason
And hideous self-treason....
God, look he on you,
Have mercy upon you!
part written 25 May 1906
(published in Hardy's last book of poems "Winter Words in Various Moods")
I found this poem by Thomas Hardy and couldn't help but copy it out and post it here and on the poetics listserv. Jerome Sala and others described it as rap-like, Maria Damon compared it to Iggy Pop.
Thoughts at Midnight
Mankind, you dismay me
When shadows waylay me!-
Not by your splendours
Do you affray me,
Nor as pretenders
To demonic keenness,
Nor by your meanness,
Nor by your ill-teachings
Nor your false preachings,
Nor your banalities
And immoralities,
Nor by your daring
Nor sinister bearing;
But by your madnesses
Capping cool badnesses,
Acting like puppets
Under Time's buffets;
In superstitions
And ambitions
Moved by no wisdom,
Far sight, or system,
Led by sheer senselessness
And presciencelessness
Into unreason
And hideous self-treason....
God, look he on you,
Have mercy upon you!
part written 25 May 1906
(published in Hardy's last book of poems "Winter Words in Various Moods")
Friday, August 15
Thursday, August 7
From Otoliths 10: Tom Beckett interviews Nico Vassilakis
Interview
******
Otoliths 10
******
Patti Smith: Dream of Life, NY Times Movie Review
Interview
******
Otoliths 10
******
Patti Smith: Dream of Life, NY Times Movie Review
Monday, August 4
Boog City's 5th Annual Small, Small Press Fair
(announcement from David A. Kirschenbaum):
Exhibit at Boog City’s 5th Annual Small, Small Press Fair
(with Indie Records and Crafts, too)
Sat. Sept. 20, 11:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.
at day 3 of the 2nd annual
Welcome to Boog City poetry and music festival
(complete fest info below)
Cakeshop
152 Ludlow St.
NYC
$15 for a table
The first 2.5 hours, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. will feature performances by authors from the tabling presses
(exact amount of time per press TBD when the number of exhibiting presses is set)
Door charge for attendees is $5
email editor@boogcity.com or call 212-842-BOOG (2664)
to reserve your table today
Featuring nonstop performances throughout the day
with readings from
Jen Benka
Todd Colby
Ryan Eckes
Elise Ficarra
Eric Gelsinger
Stephanie Gray
David Hadbawnik
Bill Kushner
Douglas Manson
Kristianne Meal
Sharon Mesmer
Carol Mirakove
Kathryn Pringle
Maureen Thorson
and music from
A Brief View of the Hudson
Double Deuce
Heart Parts
Phoebe Kreutz
------------------
And here’s what’s happening the other three days of the festival:
Thurs. 9/18, 6:00 p.m. sharp, free
ACA Galleries
529 W.20th St., 5th Flr.
NYC
minor/american (Durham, N.C.)
Elise Ficarra and Kathryn Pringle, eds.
With readings from minor/american authors
and a musical performance
Fri. 9/19, 7:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m., free with a two-drink minimum
Sidewalk Café
94 Ave. A
NYC
Readings from
Jim Behrle
Bob Holman
Gillian McCain
Daniel Nester
Arlo Quint
Poets’ Theater performances
curated by Rodrigo Toscano
For its 20th anniversary
Lou Reed’s New York album performed live by
Babs Soft
Liv Carrow
Dead Rabbit
Dibson T. Hoffweiler and Preston Spurlock
Prewar Yardsale
Todd Carlstrom and The Clamour
Wakey Wakey
and solo sets from
Dead Rabbit
Dibson T. Hoffweiler
Todd Carlstrom and The Clamour
Sat. 9/20
Cakeshop
(see above)
Sun. 9/21, 1:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m., free
Unnameable Books
456 Bergen St.
Brooklyn
Ana Božičević
Lee Ann Brown
Julia Cohen
John Coletti
Corrine Fitzpatrick
Edward Foster
Rachel Levitsky
Eileen Myles
Simon Pettet
Nick Piombino
Kyle Schlesinger
Stacy Szymaszek
Edward Foster and Simon Pettet in conversation
with music from
Yoko Kikuchi
and a panel on "Action Poets" curated and moderated by Kristin Prevallet. This will be a forum for people to discuss intervention, performance, conceptual street agitations, and more.
Hosted by Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum
For more info: 212-842-BOOG (2664) * editor@boogcity.com
--
David A. Kirschenbaum, editor and publisher
Boog City
330 W.28th St., Suite 6H
NY, NY 10001-4754
For event and publication information:
http://welcometoboogcity.com/
T: (212) 842-BOOG (2664)
F: (212) 842-2429
(announcement from David A. Kirschenbaum):
Exhibit at Boog City’s 5th Annual Small, Small Press Fair
(with Indie Records and Crafts, too)
Sat. Sept. 20, 11:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m.
at day 3 of the 2nd annual
Welcome to Boog City poetry and music festival
(complete fest info below)
Cakeshop
152 Ludlow St.
NYC
$15 for a table
The first 2.5 hours, 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m. will feature performances by authors from the tabling presses
(exact amount of time per press TBD when the number of exhibiting presses is set)
Door charge for attendees is $5
email editor@boogcity.com or call 212-842-BOOG (2664)
to reserve your table today
Featuring nonstop performances throughout the day
with readings from
Jen Benka
Todd Colby
Ryan Eckes
Elise Ficarra
Eric Gelsinger
Stephanie Gray
David Hadbawnik
Bill Kushner
Douglas Manson
Kristianne Meal
Sharon Mesmer
Carol Mirakove
Kathryn Pringle
Maureen Thorson
and music from
A Brief View of the Hudson
Double Deuce
Heart Parts
Phoebe Kreutz
------------------
And here’s what’s happening the other three days of the festival:
Thurs. 9/18, 6:00 p.m. sharp, free
ACA Galleries
529 W.20th St., 5th Flr.
NYC
minor/american (Durham, N.C.)
Elise Ficarra and Kathryn Pringle, eds.
With readings from minor/american authors
and a musical performance
Fri. 9/19, 7:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m., free with a two-drink minimum
Sidewalk Café
94 Ave. A
NYC
Readings from
Jim Behrle
Bob Holman
Gillian McCain
Daniel Nester
Arlo Quint
Poets’ Theater performances
curated by Rodrigo Toscano
For its 20th anniversary
Lou Reed’s New York album performed live by
Babs Soft
Liv Carrow
Dead Rabbit
Dibson T. Hoffweiler and Preston Spurlock
Prewar Yardsale
Todd Carlstrom and The Clamour
Wakey Wakey
and solo sets from
Dead Rabbit
Dibson T. Hoffweiler
Todd Carlstrom and The Clamour
Sat. 9/20
Cakeshop
(see above)
Sun. 9/21, 1:00 p.m.-7:30 p.m., free
Unnameable Books
456 Bergen St.
Brooklyn
Ana Božičević
Lee Ann Brown
Julia Cohen
John Coletti
Corrine Fitzpatrick
Edward Foster
Rachel Levitsky
Eileen Myles
Simon Pettet
Nick Piombino
Kyle Schlesinger
Stacy Szymaszek
Edward Foster and Simon Pettet in conversation
with music from
Yoko Kikuchi
and a panel on "Action Poets" curated and moderated by Kristin Prevallet. This will be a forum for people to discuss intervention, performance, conceptual street agitations, and more.
Hosted by Boog City editor David Kirschenbaum
For more info: 212-842-BOOG (2664) * editor@boogcity.com
--
David A. Kirschenbaum, editor and publisher
Boog City
330 W.28th St., Suite 6H
NY, NY 10001-4754
For event and publication information:
http://welcometoboogcity.com/
T: (212) 842-BOOG (2664)
F: (212) 842-2429
Tuesday, July 29
Walking In Circles Before Lying Down, by Merrill Markoe
My last few days in Provincetown were sad because...they were my last few days! Yet not too sad to find myself cracking up when reading, while simultaneously admiring Merrill Markoe's hilarious and absorbing Walking in Circles Before Lying Down, which I found while browsing the wonderful shelves of the Provincetown library. The main character of the book Dawn, after fleeing an impossible relationship and various impossible living situations, finds herself thinking she is talking to herself when she is actually talking to her dog. When her true love dies, that is, her dog, she finds a substitute, Chuck, who is jealous of her former dog, and the book continues with Chuck rescuing her from various weird situations, while she works in a dog day care center (while all the dogs there continuously supply Dawn with advice and barbed comments about what they smell and what they see but mostly what they'd like her to feed them). My description cannot do justice to this wacky, wonderful book, but I recommend it highly. Merrill Markoe has worked as a consultant to Sex And The City, and David Letterman, she has won tons of emmies, but broke free of her comedic tv writing career to write novels, an admirable, though no doubt stressful, while generous decision, especially for readers who love great, funny novels. This book is not only recommended, but prescribed! It is good for what ails you.Goodreads listings
My last few days in Provincetown were sad because...they were my last few days! Yet not too sad to find myself cracking up when reading, while simultaneously admiring Merrill Markoe's hilarious and absorbing Walking in Circles Before Lying Down, which I found while browsing the wonderful shelves of the Provincetown library. The main character of the book Dawn, after fleeing an impossible relationship and various impossible living situations, finds herself thinking she is talking to herself when she is actually talking to her dog. When her true love dies, that is, her dog, she finds a substitute, Chuck, who is jealous of her former dog, and the book continues with Chuck rescuing her from various weird situations, while she works in a dog day care center (while all the dogs there continuously supply Dawn with advice and barbed comments about what they smell and what they see but mostly what they'd like her to feed them). My description cannot do justice to this wacky, wonderful book, but I recommend it highly. Merrill Markoe has worked as a consultant to Sex And The City, and David Letterman, she has won tons of emmies, but broke free of her comedic tv writing career to write novels, an admirable, though no doubt stressful, while generous decision, especially for readers who love great, funny novels. This book is not only recommended, but prescribed! It is good for what ails you.Goodreads listings
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