"25th April (1936)


Today, nothing."



(*The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1950*
Cesare Pavese
Walker and Company, NY, 1961)

"We must love one another or die"
W.H. Auden

Soft! by Rupert Thomson

Rupert Thomson is a British writer whose book *Soft!* (1998) I came
across browsing the fiction shelves of the Grand Army
Plaza branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. When I
returned *Soft!* today, I took out another stack of
books including the immediately very readable *Goest*
by Cole Swenson, which I remember got nominated last
year for an impressive literary prize. I also came across
a new translation of the Proust classic *Swann's Way* by
Lydia Davis. I figured I would try to get through
this fuzzy-wuzzy book again after many misfires.
Maybe having once or twice briefly met the translator might
help me to get through it. No doubt I am am severely
shocking the inveterate Proust fans who read *fait accompli*
But you must see how persistent I am about literary classics.
There are numerous others I haven't gotten through that
I can also shock you with, including all of Dante. I can see
you shaking your head now with disbelief. I also took out
*Anthropology of an American Girl* by H. T. Hamann,
a book I got hooked on so quickly I missed my subway
stop on the way to my office today, and almost missed
it again coming home.

Well, I really liked *Soft!* by Rupert Thomson and will
be hunting down his other books as soon as possible This is
not a gentle book,in that it involves murder and suicide,
fraud and manipulation, but I admire the way it combines
various fictional techniques and has the one quality
I demand of any writing I like a lot: unclassifiability. Come
to think of it, I like that adjective better than "experimental"
or "language", because as soon as I am aware that writing
is pretentiously experimental or
languagy I no longer like it, say, the way I might have
in the late 70's or even the 80's. Soft! is inventive,
not experimental, though I read an interview with Thomson
who urged writers to remain experimental. Evidently he
was approached to turn one of his books into a film script
and refused. But that was 1999 and maybe he's changed his
mind by now. He quotes Louse Bourgeois as urging
writers to trust the unconcious. But clearly Thomson
is quite aware that the unconcious has a dark side
as well.

In *Soft!* a group of soft drink company executives decide to try a new twist
on publicizing a product. They put out an offer to pay
subjects for a sleep experiment and then plant subliminal
ideas in their minds about loving the drink. One of the subjects
of this experiment, who needed the money for a dress to go to a
wedding, becomes totally obsessed with Soft! drinking it
constantly and obsessed with its color logo: orange. When she is about to
be interviewed by a reporter he
mysteriously disappears. One of the most intriguing aspects of
this book is that each section is devoted to a tracking one character
in depth, whose life you learn about very deeply, even in
aspects that do not contribute directly to the plot. One reviewer
rebuked this technique but I admired it greatly. Each character
is from a vastly different background from
the other and is explored and patiently followed in great detail.
Glade is a waitress hopelessly in love with a wealthy American
who is coldly cruel to her. Barker, a professional bouncer who is
employed to track and murder Glade, has had numerous
futile relationships. Logan, who invents the advertising
stunt, never seems to be able to connect with anyone. By
closely tracking his characters' inability to experience human
closeness, Thomson evokes a world in which power,
greed and violence stealthily, yet inevitably, come to
live in the void where love won't grow:- or suddenly, volcanically, erupt
out of it.

Santa Clause

Dagzine {click here} picks up the gauntlet, and marches into the lists against the mighty

Mike Snider's Formal Blog and Sonnetarium {click here}.

Now, I'm really beginning to wonder...what is the irresistible appeal in debating this gentleman pictured on his blog harmlessly plucking a guitar (or is it a mandolin?) and sporting a lengthy white beard? Is it because *sonnetarium* sounds so much like
*sanitarium*? Have we never left the Magic Mountain after all? Hmmmm......

*Weather Underground*

seemed like an appropriate movie to watch while the snowy
weather overground was so beautiful and lyrical
to contemplate from the vantage point of a safe, warm, snug apartment.
Storms and violence are never far away- the weather people who advocated violence as a response to war tried to justify their actions as the only possible way to call attention to the passivity and helplessness of the individual in face of an implacable government determined to rule the world. Mark Rudd, who led many a demonstration that I participated in around Columbia U in the late 60's, turned himself in and is now a teacher in a community college. He still feels the situation in the world
vis -a- vis the United States has not changed; he admits he
doesn't know what to do. When he was younger he clearly passionately
believed in revolution, as did all of his fellow SDS weather people.
Nearly every one of the participants in the movie seemed deeply saddened
by what they did and what they believed caused them do what they did.
Most of the members of the weather underground didn't do serious
jail time because of the illegal tactics used by the FBI to try and capture them. The ones who did go to jail for long periods were involved in violent political actions way after they left this group. One went to jail for
life. Three were famously killed by their own bomb in a townhouse
in the West Village in downtown Manhattan.

After this I read Allen Bramhall's poem *Seize Song*. I enjoyed it
it and somehow it helped me to feel a little better after thinking so much about the many chaotic contradictions and conflicts, paradoxes and confusions so pointedly evoked by this movie.

I think if I couldn't enjoy reading the way I do I would go out of my mind.

Seize Song {click here}

100 things we didn't know this time last year...BBC News {click here}
******************************************
Mike Snyder and Jonathan Mayhew- when a literary fray erupts between two of our most intrepid poetics blog commentators-need I say more?
MS's Formal Blog and Sonnetarium {click here}

Who Owns the Words?

The Thought

Can the sheer love of words
exist in its own right?
In poetry, it almost seems
possible, but for the fact that
words so quickly uncover
things within that long to
emerge into the light as well.
So much is stored in words,
so much remembered, thought,
contemplated, repeated, imagined.
I tried to write a poem to
allow the mere sounding
of words. Then I realized I
could not remain, or they
could not remain, in that
isolated realm for long. I
tried to see the words for
what they are, mere objects.
But the moment I identify them in
their specificity another door is
opened. Once opened, a whole
cast of characters, an entire
regalia or troupe, arrives
en masse. This entourage
once on the scene, appears unwilling
to stay still. The characters begin
to perform, and as they perform, they
transform and so do the onlookers.
This seems germane not only to
what words are, but also to
what they want to be. Everything
and everyone is an actor,
and plays a part in thought and life.
The words not only form
an essential procession, or march, but
they skip, amble, stumble,
jump, hide and reappear in
turn. What began as a quote
for an occasion became a
thought that returned, at intervals,
for a lifetime. If the quotes
themselves have characters,
they have also faces, hands and
feet. They evidently
have settled in for good. They are
friends, acquaintances,
rivals, enemies. When I was
young, I found them
to be interesting, eccentric strangers.
They will never seem so again.

**************
Who Owns the Words?

The Poem

dreams-Freud
ice cream- Stevens
center- Yeats
Christmas- Dickens
tomorrow-Shakespeare
and the anthologies
broadcast
aspersion
clever
immediate
span
burst
let
right
resume
mayhem- Child
begin again- Mayer
sonnet- Berrigan
lost
seem
beg
remain
mint-mist-mystery
low
chemical
sin
love-Anonymous
dispersion
beneath
treasure
steam
herald
gleam
underneath
seeming
just
great-glad
allow
abandon
twist
personify
admit
treasure
impersonate
sting
relent
pursue
plagiarize
presume
stigma-Bernstein
stigma- Goffman
reveal
unjust
permit
forgive

"25th October

Human imagination is immensely poorer than reality.
If we think of the future, we always see it unrolling itself
in a monotonous progression. We forget that the past is
a multicolored chaos of generations. This can help
console us for the terrors inspired by the "technical and
totalitarian barbarization" of the future. In the next hundred
years it may well happen that we have a sequence of at
least three moments; and the human spirit will be able to
live consecutively in the streets, in prison, and in the papers.
The same can be said of one's personal future."

"26th October

If only we could treat ourselves as we treat other men;
looking at their withdrawn faces and crediting them with
some mysterious, irresistable power. Instead, we know all our
own faults, our misgivings, and are reduced to hoping for
some unconscious force to surge up from our inmost being
and act with a subtlety all its own."
(1938)


Cesare Pavese
*The Burning Brand: Diaries 1935-1959"
Walker and Company
1961

Emerging Points of Interest

Some readers of weblogs may not know
that Tom Beckett edited an important
journal in the heyday of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E
poetry called *The Difficulties*. Each issue
contained an interview about, and work
by and about a poet. These poets included
Jackson Mac Low, Susan Howe, David
Bromige, Charles Bernstein, Ron Silliman
and others. By the way, he may stil have
some copies left of some of these issues.

Recently I was distressed to learn that
Beckett decided to cease publication of
his popular blog Unprotected Texts {click here}
(formerly *Vanishing Points of
Interest*) But I am extremely happy to report that
he has returned with a new blog which
promises to be a most exciting addition
to the Blogosphere- and it opens with
an interview with a most engaging
figure most blog readers are by now happily familiar
with, Crag Hill, who has this, among many
other interesting things. to say about poetry
and visual poetry in particular:


"I worry that there are fewer and fewer readers who want to look, to leaf through bookstores seething with books, to linger in the stacks of libraries, to seek out a way of looking at the world through language that shakes the mental foundations they live upon. I worry about poets and editors who do not read poetry outside their established circles. I worry about poets who do not read."

Right now on E-X-C-H-A-N-G-E-V-A-L-U-E-S {click here}

Taxi Driver

Taxi Driver

In my senior year in college I needed to increase
my income in order to afford an apartment.
I had been working in the Night
Division office at the college for a couple of dollars
an hour to pay for books, pens, paper, the minimal
wardrobe of a college student,
food (usually consumed with friends in the student cafeteria
or cheap restaurants), endless cups of coffee, and, of
course, the bookish person's standby
in that era, the perpetual cigarette
(given up long ago).. Usually
I slept in the filthy fraternity house bunks (Delta
Kappa Epsilon- I joined because it was one of the
few fraternities at the"subway Harvard" that had
a place to sleep- the initiation, of course,
was stupid and horrible.) Lucky for me, I had a friend-Bart
Craig-whose aunts (they were nannies) let us use
their apartment for free when they were working.
Why didn't I appreciate then how kind this was, though
I did feel really lucky to get away from that
horrid fraternity house littered with beer bottles,
mold and dust that was over a hundred years old.

When I was living in Florida as a high school
senior I got my driver's license- at that time
you could get them at age 17, after taking a
course in driver's ed. I still remember the film
*Death On the Highway*, with its frightening
photos of highway deaths, including a set
of triplets whose heads,
as a result of some horribly gruesome
nightmare of a highway crash,
had been detached from their bodies,
dangling from some phone or electricity highwires. This terrified
me, as it was obviously meant to, and I became
an incredibly cautious driver. I'm a little looser
now when I drive a car, but not much.

Although at first I was understandably
quite anxious about what I
was facing, as soon as I got the hang of it,
I came to love my taxi driving job.
Anyway, there was no choice:
I was getting married and I needed the money.
I worked from a garage
in the Bronx filled with interesting types of old-
timers with lots of complaints and stories to tell.
At first I drove my cab down Park Avenue thinking
rich people would give me bigger tips. They
didn't, and it was my first lesson in Capitalism,
why the rich get richer, etc. Also, Park Avenue
was simpler, since I could figure out the trips very
easily. Soon I learned that the "fares" (as they
were called) like to give you the trip instructions,
so it was rarely a problem finding how to get to a destination.
I was only beaten out of a fare once, when someone
took me to Queens and never came out of the house
to bring me the promised money. I was never robbed,
even though soon after I started- which was in the
summer-no air conditioners then- I switched to nights
because of the heat and the traffic.

The most interesting customer I ever had was the then famous
psychic and astrologer Jeanne
Dixon, who predicted the Nixon presidency as we drove
along-fortunately for me it was a long drive in heavy traffic.
She didn't make any personal predictions, but she was
astute about politics and very charming. I also
had a famous actress in my cab once
who complained about the traffic
when I got her to her play late. I can't remember who
it was now. There's a restaurant in the East 20's
and Madison, which is still there, where taxi drivers
like to eat, day and night. Whenever I pass by there
I think of these halcyon days in the mid- 60's. I was rarely
bored or lonely, but I did come to strongly dislike drivers from
New Jersey. To this day, if I notice someone driving
strangely I think to myself "Jersey driver" and usually
I am right (as I did then, I quickly check the
license plate; no offense to my friend the
philosopher and former Dean of Humanities at
CCNY, Martin Tamny, who lives in New Jersey
and is an excellent driver-he and his wife Myrna
gave me a couch to sleep on when I left home as a
Freshman-but that is another story).
One of the things that toughened me up
and prepared me for a realistic
attitude towards life in New York was
having to drive through masses of pedestrians. You
learn to drive towards them like you didn't care if you
ran them over-this was very difficult for me as I was
shy and tender-hearted, but soon I learned
that they always automatically move
out of the way without a thought or blinking of an eyelid.

My next job after this was to be a social worker for
Jewish Family Services which I found interesting,
but I still missed the cab driving job. In a way, I still do, though
drivers now have to advance a lot of money to rent
their cabs and only earn the amount they make over
the cost. Obviously, it pays to own your own cab,
but naturally this is rare, as the "medallions"
or ownership rights now
cost a fortune and are limited in number.
This is a great job if you enjoy
talking to people and hate having a boss.
But now it is terribly dangerous due to the frequency of
robberies.

Fasten your brain belts and climb on the time machine
right now on

Boynton {click here}

*1998*

*1998*

This collage was made on a 5x7"
canvas out of black and white
newsprint found in Greece.
The pieces are folded
and pasted to create a
three dimensional
effect. The collage was
published in Juliana Spahr
and Jena Osman's magazine
*Chain*

Contemporary Film Animation


William Kentridge, the great South African artist/filmaker, has work on display
right now at the Metropolitan Museum.

Kentridge at the Met {click here}

William Kentridge {click here} (scroll down)

William Kentridge {click here}
**********
When I saw the Aztec show at the Guggenheim, the Aztec sculptures reminded
me of a lot of animated figures in science fiction movies. You have to see these
sculptures!

You have until Mid-February to see the
amazing Aztec Show at the Guggenheim {click here}
Reduced price after 5 pm on Friday {click here}
********

The Brothers Quay

I couldn't think of contemporary animation without thinking
of The Brothers Quay {click here}. Check out these gorgeous downloads. Wow!
********

Abigail Child

And while we're on the subject of innovative contemporary filmakers,
check out the recently completed homepage of

Abigail Child {click here}
Abilgail Child film clips {click here}

The "Grain" of the Poet's Voice

PENNsound {click here}

Tsunami Relief {click here}

Distribution Automatique, 1980

Distribution Automatique

I made this photocollage in 1980.
I happened to be living here in
Park Slope at the time, on Garfield
Place, right
around the corner from where
I live now,

Soon after, I was invited by
Susan Bee to show this
collage at the Wordworks Show
at P. S. 122, which included
Susan, Johanna Drucker and
others.

At the top you can see a small metal
box, which probably contained hypodermic
needles. Other collage elements are
pasted inside the box, top and bottom.
This little box was found on the ground
in Marrakesh, Morocco,
where I visited for a few
months in 1969 (not long after
making my first collage, shown
below). Many of the elements in
the collage were from magazines I
had saved from the hourse I lived
in as a child in Bay Ridge in the late 1950's.
These were turn of the century French
photomagazines.

The title, *Distribution Automatique* anticipates,
in a sense, today's weblogs. I was exploring
the interelationship of various kind of media,
and imagining a future telecommunication environment
that encompasses, intercombines and transmits media and time periods
by means of "automatic" distrilbution. Not
long ago, Google decided to post on the web all copyright
free books that might be made available.
The collage contains pieces of film, recording
tape, photos, a section
of a vinyl record, and other materials.

Poetry In The Air

Spaceship Tumblers {click here}
Poetry readings online edited by Tony Tost. This first broadcast includes
Tony Tost, Laura Carter, Aaron McCollough, Marcus Slease, Zachary Schomberg,
Matthew Henrikson, Chris Vitiello, Ken Rumble, Adam Clay, Lane Phillips,
Brent Cunningham.

Brief audio posts on quick-load mp3's (you don't have to close
the window to play them). A real treat!
*************************************************
Word-turner

With fiction, occasionally you come across a
page turner (like Grant Bailie's *Cloud 8* discussed
here recently); and with poetry you sometrimes,
gratefully, come across a "word-turner". Such
is the case with this new piece
*Citation without source* from
XZENTRICK LIBRETTI
(Alex Cumberbatch) {click here}

Ululations (Nada Gordon) mourns the losses due to the tsunami.

When I got home tonight, Toni reminded me
of - and showed me- the print we have
had hanging for many years, *Behind the Waves, Off The Coast
of Kanagawa*, from *Thirty-Six Views of Mt. Fuji Series*
by Hokusai. On the way home, very sadly reading about the
reported 68,000 dead; and the fears of coming disease threatening to
vastly increase the dimensions of this terrible disaster.

After Toni showed me the Hokusai print,
something told me to open *ululations* (above).
******************************************************
Extra Extra
{click here} reporting on-site regarding the tsunami (and other things)
from Sri Lanka, is in the running for best blog in the country...

thanks to Twists and Turns {click here}
for the link...

r.i.p. Susan Sontag


wood s lot {click here}, as always, an excellent resource,
offers some material regarding her crucial contributions.

After a year that can only be decribed as a cultural tsunami,
part of the world is now left devastated by an actual one.
We can only hope 2005 will be a better year-
and that ain't asking for much...
*******************************************
If the Truth Be Told

Speaking of essential blogs,
Caterina {click here}
quotes Charles Baxter on "deniability" in contemporary life...think lie,
think Nixon...

Allen Ginsberg and Ezra Pound in Portofino, about 1966

Allen Ginsberg and Ezra Pound in Portofino, about 1966
Originally uploaded by fait accompli.

Rapallo, 1968

A photo of me holding my first collage,
taken in Rapallo in the fall of 1968.
My second collage is leaning against
the wall behind me to the left