Distribution Automatique

Saturday, June 7

1/27/87

We must learn to think in terms of transformation on many levels at the same time and stop thinking in terms of development and progression. The illusion of progress is in part an undersandable yet deceptive visualization of future time arising out of a partial resolution of the oedipus complex.

Progress is an optical illusion which derives almost entirely

(Generating force not the future)

19th Century musical forms
A+B=C
(theme and variations
development=Beethoven)

Reign, reign
Go away

Development and progression- resolution in "major" and "minor" chords- triumph and tragedy- will and doubt- pessimism and optimism. Such dualities thrive on antimonies: All the unearthed clashes are never more than (very!) temporarily relieved by moments of satisfaction and integration. And integration leads to integrity- the reverse is the chain human life strives to slough off.

Whence the idea of progression. Since processes are intuitively irreversible (as are most organic processes) the illusion is fostered that all growth is organic, and all organisms are dependent on progress for survival. Is this inherent in Darwinism, Marxism, Freudianism, Einsteinism...Very possibly the answer is yes. And for this reason, at least, because the concept of progression and development is foundering as the 20th Century comes to a close, we must post-haste see things in Post-Freudian, Post-Marxist, Post-Darwin, Post- Einsteinian terms. We can no longer afford the extravagant expenditures of spirit required for the healthy upkeep of these sputtering philosophies. My prediction is that as toward the end of the last century (human beings being the great procrastinators that they are)- at the very last minute, so to speak, we will begin to see all these foundational systems in a new light. This may be because just as the concepts underlying the patriarchal systems of the divine right of kings gave way to the idea of a leader the populace "elects" to "play the role"- these changes in the dramatic structure of human power will see a new view of human "scale" arising that will transcend the current concept of "name" and identity. A different, a widening focus for human identity may evolve in which each idividual partakes of the "divine" of the "political drama" not only by means of "dramatic speeches"- or impassioned declarations of belief, or affirmations of faith, but by means of individual empowerment accessible through immensely accelerated systems of knowledge aquisition. These super sophisticated precursors developing now through the overlap of telecommunications and computerized information organization, video self-teaching methods and how-to books. "Democracy" itself is simply an enlarged classroom made available by the wiser portion of wealthy capitalists. As the classroom grows in popularity, deceptions are constantly created by the easy market which arises out of natural and artifically created knowledge-lags.

Friday, June 6

Along with some terrific poets, I've audioblogged a few of my Haikus In celebration of the publication of Jim Behrle's *Popular Mechanics* on Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues. My audioblog is as yet unmarked, as I'm sure at the moment, Jim is at the Boston Poetry Marathon. Mine is the one recorded at 8:12 p.m. The titles are: 1) Writer's Block 2) Miles of Sky 3) Unearth 4) Double or Nothing 5)Afternoon of a Frown 6)Hegelian Honeymoon 6) Sinema & 7) The Thief of Time.
Bloggers are possibly the new folk poets


(from Rutabaga)


In fact, another irony from seeing Nick's one-liner is that I didn't even read the text of the poem yesterday when I "wrote" it. Consequently, I didn't realize until I was looking over the poem today that, actually "regret is an appalling waste of energy" was one of the googled lines .... which means Nick read the poem, while I didn't.

(from Winepoetics)
No wonder certain individuals would like to downgrade the value placed on blogs in search engines. Someone was looking for an apartment in the city of Piombino in Italy (south of Genoa, north of Rome, across from the island of Elba) and got this as their tenth result (for *Piombino apartment*):
..
Fait Accompli.
Nick Piombino 1:49 ... And then all of it together: my ridiculously expensive apartment
and my three jobs needed to support it; my threatened second layoff in ten ...
nickpiombino.blogspot.com/ 2003_05_25_nickpiombino_archive.html - 67k - in Cache - Pagini similare
[ Mai multe rezultate de la nickpiombino.blogspot.com ] ...

Then I googled *Piombino apartment* and got this (about the 15th result- a discussion of -Blade Runner-):

Fait Accompli
below). :: Nick Piombino 11:39 PM [+] :: ... dies. On the way back to
his apartment, Deckard sees Gaff, the assistant to his boss. ...
nickpiombino.blogspot.com/ 2003_03_09_nickpiombino_archive.html - 46k - Cached - Similar pages

Tim Yu and I hit 1000 visits on the same day.
John Ashbery and a stripper walk into a bar. The stripper says, "Isn’t it delightful that we’re not shaped by the past?" John Ashbery doesn’t answer, having been knocked unconscious by the sound of the past coming thunderously.

(from Tympan)
Nada Gordon has called for definitions of love. Here's an attempt by me found recently in a small notebook, probably written about 1986.

Labor of Love

Everyone has a philosophy of love whether not they have articulated it- and most have at one time or another defined it for themselves or even for others. Most people, however, learn to love the way they learn most other things, by mimicry. This leads to endless complications, many comical, some tragic. For practical reasons, we mostly learn about love on the field of battle, so to speak. It is a terrifying fact that most of us learn through bitter experience the (empty) truth of the phrase, "All's fair in love and war." This is a cynical formula, however, that forgives a thousand blunders and not a few cruelties. It is an allibi that should be reserved for courts and similar forums for determinations of guilt and innocence. In our time it has become a *modus operandi* and this is not so much wrong as it is disastrous. There has to be another way. We are all fools in love and we should learn, particularly in the process of satisfying our appetites, to be as kind to others as possible. I realize this is very difficult at times, and that it is human nature to take what we can get. But the field of love takes us to the heart of human relationships, and in this arena, great vulnerabilities go hand in hand with great possibilities. In pragmatic terms, love may be defined simply. To love is to return. It is in this sense that hate is not the opposite of love, but is the result of exhausted love. Indifference is the opposite of love.

To love is to return because love is what holds things together. Meister Eckhart is reputed to have said: "Even stones have a love. A love that seeks the ground."

There are so many things, people and forces that we are pulled apart. How is a relationship to survive under such circumstances? There are so many delicious experiences available, and in this desert of daily life it is no wonder we develop a powerful "sweet tooth" early on.

If to love is to return, how do we return? The word carries with it a pristine halo which, for everyday use, won't stay on. Better to store it with your greatest treasures in your desk or jewelry box because in everyday life it will get scratched at best, or be bent out of shape at worst. Love's halo is a brief experience which has the function of a mild to powerful intoxicant or anaesthetic as the case may be. Perhaps it is best to learn to wear it, if at all, with a sense of humor, love's most durable guardian by far.

Thursday, June 5

10/4/86

All that lies (those lies) ahead is contained (you don't know exactly where) is contained in the next step (many ahead). A seems to be saying (why such diplomacy) again. It's contained with me (why such happening, I+1= D'said she say "dislexics of the world untie." Or is it half-human to cite the difficulties (intersecting fields of Marrakech, cherry juice, plum soda, half-eggplant, and salad and raison d'etre- t'is beginning a mirror of convergence) (here's T: now). Grinning. The convergence of recognition is half exact. I wink at you and you wink back and we both know it's o.k. I started out to make a list of stones and seeing them piled that way, just thinking about that light and sent me here again, my friends surrounding me, impatiently waiting to see the pattern which will emerge. So, one of the stones is a pile of papers on the desk, another one is the desk, and piles of boxes of all the details which could be shaken away so give me some time for this. The problem is that time, in its nature, is indeterminate. Time becomes space to the extent that points are converging on a center, like bees to a honeycomb. In the nexus of organization which emerges there are far too few moments which are your potential turn than in the wide open spaces where many may intermingle more comfortably. Why the rush to these places? Obviously, because therein lies the essence of the costume, the parfum exstatique. Perhaps fate, in the end is more like a precocious child than a stern judge, in that the scale is so immense that all these numbers add up to a mere beginning- so that at the beginning of the beginning the child, banging around its new found objects, it wants to more than to be amused, that the prime rule is that no factor among all the playthings may be disallowed (the function of history). This child, now Moses, now Ghandi, now Chopin, becomes petulant and appears as Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler, Ronald Reagan. Is it up to art and poetry to take the toys away? It isn't possible that way what can be taken are the playthings themselves and break the space of the fascination of the biggest boy on the block we must defeat him. It has to be otherwise, it has to be that we, boys and girls, must play a better game- a more beautiful game and a fairer game- one that will draw attention *away* from this bratty anti-semitic provocation jew baiting hysteria being one of the best proven ways to bring out the police. If one remains staunch in playing the more excellent game- perhaps one day him or his representation will truly blur this out. One hundred dollars to the Simon Wiesenthal Foundation.

There is a kind of nausea that enters underneath the skin and causes intense immobility. I referred to this in my piece *Stet.* The stones seem too heavy to lift.

Note: (The indeterminacy of the visual structure of words by means of letters allows the association to track the sought for cluster of experience/meaings)= Existence, Costume, Ego Structure, Essence
regret is an appalling waste of energy

from Love's Last Gasps

Wednesday, June 4

that's as good a poetics statement as I can muster, okay?!

from WinePoetics
I had a conversation several weeks ago at the Bowery Poetry Club with Anselm Berrigan, who said he was enjoying all of the blogs

(from Elsewhere)
Press any key to continue to be better. We can each affect the poetry

(from Million Poems)
she said “This is delightful, but not as delightful as the idea that we aren’t shaped or owned by the past

(from Jim Behrle)
little girls bring their broken dolls to be buried and enshrined by priests.


(from Froth)
Send me your "love is" statements and I'll post them here.

(from Ululate)
Frogs definitely landed on the hood of the pickup truck

(from Bloggedy Blog Blog)
I agree with you & all the others! he definitely sucks – confraternal assertion without commitment.

(from Pantaloons)
For it was a long way to the john
And not knowing the room
Hath perverted your ability to discern good from evil. That's what
Marie was screaming: In Italy, it's nothing.


(from Well Nourished Moon )
Is it just the problem of communicating difference in a competitive space that makes poets defensive in a way that seems to drive them away from their own critiques?

(from Overlap)
faith is her name

(from Abolone)
10/1/86

The word earnest invented the end of sincerity. If one only listened to
the fullest extent to the intonation of each word and
rang its metal against the stone of reality

1/2/86

It's a mistake to think of all sure
movement as a quickly completed
gesture.This is probably because
most satisfactions feel brief, and this
can come to be experienced as a
lack of complete satisfaction. But in a
world of work, all satisfaction is partial.
Only the retrospecive assessment distances me
from the fragmentary. But the whole
thrust of even the fullest satisfaction is
propulsion towards *another* full
assessment. We produce and weigh, produce
and weigh. Any weighing which follows a
production inevitably brings the concept
of *more.*

The Buddhists got it almost right.
It's the wanting others to do that breeds
illusion (fantasy)- it's imagining
what others might do that breeds illusion
(fantasy)- it's thinking of what others
should do that breeds fantasy-illusions.

The universe answers all questions with
the sun.
10/1/86

It comes down to this. In order to
be victorious over unnecessary suffering
we must stand ready to be implacable
in the face of all tests of will. The
universe need not be defeated or tamed
in order to gain mastery over torture.
Nothing more is demanded than the
unwillingness to relinquish the possibility
of happiness. Something negative can help
to make us clear but it will never
be generative. We must not necessarily
persuade the universe to be sympathetic
or compassionate or even completely authentic.
Not that this is impossible but I believe
something else is demanded. More than a
few centuries have been devoted to this
cringing attitude of begging mercy or
beseeching the gods for deliverance. Nor
must we be indifferent to its indifferance.
Or, most of all, be indifferent to its
temptations. We must do more and something
far less submissive and self-sacrificing.
We must convince it of the lack of
necessity for death. No smaller demand is
possible. While we must die, we need
not die in the face of death, nor must we
beg forgiveness, although we have no choice.
We must eat and celebrate, we must drum
and we must demand the end of killing. Let
us tell the gods the killing must stop.
We can promise to cut away the already
dead without a grimace. We have done
this before and we'll do it again. But the
universe must be no longer permitted to
kill in our largest grip of
thought or rhapsody, or enlarged
or finely tuned perspective, We must
deny to our heart's fullest conviction
the necessity of death. If we cannt
know what it is, we must dare it to
enter, to tell us what it is. My brother and
sister looked into the face of death
and lived to tell the tale.The poet
was right, we must demand no less: give no
dominion to death, banish it forevermore.




9/29/86

You need
A clock
That ticks
Not too loud
Not too soft

Finally words are peeling away from the
first level of thinking Don't put up with
this, or pull up, push-pull, don't stop.
(So far the tick-ticking is not tick-toc.
It's tick-tick,which is faster). I don't
mean to hurry you, but the urgency to blend this
set of words quickly by means of some interior
measure, some infernal automatic metronome
that beat-beats its words at me as
impeccably as a clock. No, that's not fair,
there couldn't be time for all this foolishness
between two beats of a chime, between two
clumsy bongs.

May be an apprehension of scale. A small
bang to measure a big bang by an every bigger
bigger bang.

Human, a human alive and moving, things
must be at hand. And if everything is done
to make this be, if there is an illusion of
free-float based on this then it may be
possible to *hurtle forward* into a different
time zone by means of the same maneuver
mentally that before would have led
to falling or a feal of falling (failing)

Sometimes somebody shows up here I
recognize- a part of myself also summoned forth.
Why be reticent about this?

9/30 Titles are self-commands.
You can take a test. Give yourself
your own exam. then grade it and
take it again, etc.

Tuesday, June 3

Six Degrees of Separation Department

On Monday in her blog Well Nourished Moon Stephanie Young wrote about unpacking her library in her new house in Oakland and quoted from an obscure chapbook she came across that she likes very much. Coincidentally, this same chapbook, "Fears of Your Life" by Michael Bernard Loggins was very extensively quoted and discussed in the June, 2003 - Harper's-, in a section called -Readings- right next to a humorous piece by Charles Bernstein called "The Difficult Poem"! It was noted that the zine was published by Creativity Explored, an art center in San Francisco for developmentally disabled adults.
2/13/84

Lately, out of nowhere, I will get a distinct feeling of one aspect of my identity as it was experienced during various periods of my life.

A simple sketch,

The syntax (sin tax) is the price we pay for sense (cents)

Description- in order to eat, in a restaurant, we must name the food. Thus the marketplace is completely composed of descriptions, while the identity is composed of perceptual matrices.

The attempt to mimic identity through descriptions is the central fraud of neurosis and literature. This use of literature is transferential in nature. The automatism of identity creation, beginning with dramatic literature and continuing through novel writing is the very automatism from which escape was sought through automatic writing and Dada creations.

The error of generational opposition- is that it does not go back (or enough.) We are as yet reacting to the confines of the conventions remaining from the literature of hierarchical forms. These, which have remained as forms of nostalgia, reflect an -accumulated- horror which is ever inceasing with the passage of time. The horror of Kafka's "Harrow" is paralelled by Hitler.

Mime is infantile, childish.The theatre of the imitation of (material) physical existence is in its nature athletic and related to the Roman Circus. Until it is replaced by the theatre of ideas, it will be embattled, as it is situated in the remorseless war machine of an obsessional counter-phobic reaction to the fact of death.

12/13

In writing the passages on 12/13/84 I realized the "Pongeian" reversal effect for the first time. Poetics is the discovery of the possibilities of this reversal, in Ponge. It is a question of actualities.

Identity and stasis.

12/15/84

I was looking at the word metapsychology and "saw" the word morphology. This experience captures the essence of what I am now understanding.

12/15/84

This afternoon I was wondering what the cultural artifacts of my theories surfacing in the conscious mind of the world would look like. Today I bought a sweatshirt that pictures a man with Freud and Heavy Metal on the bookshelf behind him and he is saying, "I see no synthesis of poetry and ideology, save in the dialectic between meaning and chance," and his girlfriend is answering, "Where's my dinner you bloody poseur."

I hadn't thought of that.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, that from the viewpoint
of poetics, all actualities
are substantiated forms of poetic
theory. This is true because it is from poetic theory that all other theory derives. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx In contemporary science the "elegance" factor is still a central
consideration and in the marketplace
xxxx it is "style" that counts, or plays a
very great role in the success of a product;
in technology scale plays a greater and greater
role as well as authetic and accurate reproducing of the
visual and acoustic image; xxxxxxxxxxxxxx also
immediacy of access and xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
instantaneousness.

12/20

I have only a few friends, but with those few I am a part of friendship everywhere.

12/22

On the subway yesterday-xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx a think black
man walks by mexxxxxxxxx mumbling to himself,
"He's drunk." A long argument between all
three, the man at the end of the subway
seat, the woman at the other.The conductor
goes back to his xxxxxxbox. Duscussion
between woman and man to my left
blotted out.Then the doors open! Man get
off and says "He's drunk." Next stop
black woman gets off and says "He's drunk."
Then, we talk- the next stop the doors
don't open a long time- open and I say,
"He's drunk."

12/25/84

Perhaps use a Pollack quote at the
beginning of the first article-
(12/10/84)

And his feet show it, they're longfellows. Square root to Square Garden. All the pages stages and strut and statues, squares and hippies. Ha-ha. Remember to forget here. It's hour upon the square, C squared or Not c-squared, that is the question. Whether 'ts automatic is not the question, facts pile up while attention drifts. Lesson by lesson, play by play, the our is wonton- who else would care? Finally leading us back to the essential drift- partial sentences, an all purpose plan, partly gesture, could all remain.

Sam's the man! "words were what were whole," bachelor of arts, android. Babbler of hearts, Hamlet, ham lloyd, Lennie the gimp.

Later...Mainly interested in actions we can repeat, we forget the rest, the one (at a) time numbers. Again and again, that's the ticket, this time without an accent. "Say it again," I said to my father and he mimicked me, it must have drove him crazy, if I were hard to train. There anyway, in between, froze me out of time. Taking it all back- not such a big bet, a safe cause, we pass it on (and out).

Pavorotti listens to the orchestra and the orchestra listens to him. Ron made everything o.k. A message from T. At long last, reminding myself again and again, every moment, check them all once or twice. Over instrumentalized, a box of chocolates, a bored soprano. Each reflected in all the faces of a pen, picture a signpost full of hieroglyphs, structuralistsxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

Scurrying all over the Westside Wall of Words. Women are very very special in all of this, a valentine, I love you too. Now back to my philosophical musings, which, at that one furious moment if I look too closely, I won't say it *I was bored*! This was *horrible* like fading

Star Trek completely dependent on phoney vacuum cleanersxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Commenting is contextualizing is seeing---------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Counting is contextualizing)

-------------------------------------------

--------------------------------
-----------------------------------

Counting is

-----------------------------------

-----------------------------------------------

contextualizing

Then -------------------text I wrote this----------------------text


Maybe I shouldn't publish this kind of thing






-------------------Before by N.Piombino--------------------------

Monday, June 2

Here's another google referral I liked. Someone asked google about "narrative technique pavese the beach" and was referred to fait accompli, about the sixth result:


fait accompli - [ Traduzca esta página ]
... Cesare Pavese. ... The technique of unresolved relationships. ... also, fear), telling a story
MG Giving out directly a kind of direct interpretation of the narrative. ...
nickpiombino.blogspot.com/ - 49k - En caché - Páginas similares
12/10/84

The first thought *was not* don't watch the words, watch the feelings. Philosopher yes, literature no, I was walking down the block and thought, photography will be the way I'll do it. But the first thought was, that the last thought is really what's behind the first thought, I reduced a little bit before something really happened that it was all happening because I already knew something was about to happen. Meaning, I *knew* it, insert paragraph a. Pages of notes, hundreds of examples, hundreds of kinds of sentences. Insert December 10th into the text.

I still can't decide, I'm not sure if it's done. As a poet I don't have to, I can be having as many conversations as I want to, but if I'm going to say it infinite numbers of times, at least I ought to say it. If I regard you as coming into the room like a magician, that's a terrible image, and why? What part do you have in this, accused, accuser, bad tear, indeed. How is anybody going to write their way out of "hear" by not naming names. How is anybody going to listen to this, is the end. So, schnook, put it in the beginning, don't get testy out there, moon, starts and planets indeed, we were always talking about each other. I was about to add, nice little bit of historicity there, as if, like chums, we both knew it all along.

Context is seeing. If X=X, then X=X. See it, again. Intermittant, spasmodic. Make a decision. As vague as the world is, there's something inside. The opposite. Seeing it as we do, we look there. The media is the message, have a heart. Taken easily, moving back among, uneasy strategies, uneasy savages, the something is bright. Admit it, you don't know everything. Go ahead, hit me, say it, by now we're uneasy with each other. Anyway, so much time having gone by and easy at the same time. So much feeling, it's not incidental. At first I hold back, hiding everything, and little by litte. Art should be talked to, implying, silly man, that you should hear something, not *say* something. Big deal, that's just another commercial, I could say anything; when he sings, he's afraid to eat and when he eats he's afraid to speak, etc, etc, I could call this that, etc., etc., but this would be seen; perhaps, as an aside, a new way of doing my homework such that this follows this and that that. 8th street and 2cd Avenue, of course, Astor Place a thousand times if I've seen it once. Forgive me, there for a haircut (Paul McGregor's, Astor Haircutters). What's in a name, that anything could be as sweel as sweet as your cute little feet, sexist pig. A writer conducts and the orchestra reads, note by reed, strings by reed. Applause!
Chet Weiner read at the Bowery Poetry Club with Stacy Doris today. Chet's reading included an exciting new piece which sounded like a science fiction film script. I spoke with him after his reading and he confirmed this. This adventurous and very abstract work transported his listeners to a dream like and phantasmagorial environment the strangeness of which was well elicited by its complex and quick flowing elliptical language. Stacy Doris read, or rather spoke and read, mostly spoke on the Bowery Poetry Club stage today. Without ever saying it, despite her wit and, wry demeanor and running patter about the microphone, which became an interesting parodic take on the possibilities and pretentions of poetry readings, how much she has missed her New York contingent was made clear today on the BPC stage. She directed her attention to her many poet friends and co-conspirators including Bruce Andrews, Tim Davis, Rob Fitterman and Kim Rosenfield. Each time she began to read she remembered something else she had to tell us. Towards the end, she read three or so poems from a book she has been working on for three years. The audience was obviously stunned by the profundity and beauty of these poems- they are quite a departure from much of her often hilarious and consistently charming previous work. She has had to move to San Francisco where she is now an assistant professor at San Francisco State University. But this summer she is going to Greece to continue work on this amazing new book of poems. While we await these new masterpieces, she will be missed.

We had to exit from the dinner afterwards at Marion's on the Bowery to head quickly over to Ocularis in Williamsburg, Brooklyn to see some films by Marianne Shaneen, Mike Kuchar and others. In a group that included quite a number of memorable and suprisingly absorbing short films (I commented later to the curator how he had made a very interesting collage out of this group of about 20 3-7 minute films, a collage that finally guided the viewer and listener into some powerful moments of synaesthesia) Marianne Shaneen's films shined brightest. She discussed these films on a recent blog:

///Froth///
home /// archives

Thursday, May 22, 2003

Crazy canadian filmmaker Guy Madden on the radio- when talking about films that influenced him he mentioned one of my all-time favorites, the 1934 version of Midsummer Night's Dream directed by Max Reinhardt (with a feral demented Mickey Rooney as a boy in the role of Puck)...
I myself made an (unfinished) film from the Reinhardt film- after seeing it the first time I was so pixelated that I went back to the theater and watched it again, taking still photos of the screen in the movie theater, and incorporated the resulting luminescent ghostly stills into re-filmed film of the original.
Marianne 4:43 PM

These films of Marianne's reveal spectral shapes of light moving in sinister ways around the screen, undulating, advancing and retreating, suggesting unseen presences among us- or presences we may be unwilling to see. Toni just read a passage to me from George Eliot's *Daniel Deronda* which coincidentally (I actually don't believe in coincidences anymore) corresponds: "But it is a matter of knowledge that there are persons whose yearnings, conceptions- nay, travelled conclusions- continually take the form of images which have a foreshadowing power: the deed they would do starts up before them in complete shape, making a coercive type; the event they hunger for or dread rises into vision with seed-like growth, feeding itself fast on unnumbered impressions." Make no mistake about it: Marianne Shaneen's films reveal as much about the power of what can be seen from within as what is normally absorbed by the five ordinary senses. This following her recent powerful reading at the Poetry Project, as well as her bold anti-war activities recorded over the past winter on her blog Froth tell us that Marianne Shaneen's vision is one of the most encompassing and challenging accounts on the contemporary scene. How she can be all this, do all this and remain so warm, charming and funny is one of those phenomena, like those in her film, that may have to remain cloaked in mystery, at least for awhile.

Sunday, June 1

Since the Buffalo Poetics list is private, I can't really quote from someone's post. But I recommend highly taking a look at Kazim Ali's post yesterday in response to some remarks made by George Bowering. Occasionally a post may reach to the level of poetry. This one certainly did. The poetics archives are available online at the Electronic Poetry Center to anyone. You can gain access to it through my Hompage which is on the links to your left. Click on Home Page; then UB Poetics; then May 2003; then number 12, Kazim Ali.
6/22/96

If the thing is going to fall out of its
slot as soon as you pull it off the
shelf what good is it? I
could have told you before thisxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
it had a feeling of time past but this
would not have influenced your conclusion.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

*

There is an air of insouciance
in the abstract writing of Ted Berrigan and
Charles Bernstein that you won't find
in John Ashbery and Gertrude Stein.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Precursors, Jackson
Mac Low when it is on the fringes of
nonsense, as much great
humor). Humor tells us that there
truly exists a non-business
aspect of life. While this is
implied in Ashbery's work, in
Mac Low and Bernstein's you live in
it. Insolence is the key- a tone
you will find liberally represented in
the work of Andrews, DiPalma, Watten,
'Hejinian, Silliman, Davies,and the
L=A writers on the whole.
I feel that many readers and
commentators find this insolence
intimidating.Although the details
of revolt may not be foregrounded
the attitude is liberally represented
almost anywhere you look.

6/29/96

Sharon Cameron p. 465 Emily Dickenson

I heard a fly buzz-when I did
The stillness in the Room
Was like the stillness in the Air
Between the Heaves of Storm

The eyes around had hung them dry-

My early poem Sound and Silence
takes...sound particularly of the present...

Even when confused with other sounds
sounds take on a striking
individuality in their occurance

When thilngs become a given they lose
their attachment to particular personalities.
Cage and Mac Low helped move me
closer to that.

The attempt to enunciate a
particular direction fades into a
surrounding presence- a
storm- no- a field- no
a backdrop of particularities.

The usual is "there" and you can
go to "it." The sound is "there"
but "it" comes to you. *You*
must be receptive to receive it.

Poetry- not to be able to speak
of it (in order?) to hear it.

Combinatory or separate.

Waiting.

A different genre- ominous or detached.

Noise. Disturbing sounds, interrupting sounds.

Occurance, movement, approaching, departing.

"And I'll be your aural eyeness."
p.623- Finnigan's Wake
12/2/84

For the Special Ed Hearings

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXThe passing of the
Public Law 94-142 ushered in the first
possibiities thawt the knowledge now existing
in Psychology, Physical Rehabilitation and education
could be xxxxxxxx *applied* for the
help of xxxx children directlly. Finally, we
have moved in these fields from theory
to the entire social application of the
theories. However, as long as this
xxx action was in coming, it appears
xxxxxx that we are here not only
questioning the value, but how the
money is to be used.- (What? this
is harder than I thought.)

(Motherwell in NY Times Magazine Dec 2,
1984- Free Association, psychic automatism,
identity- scale-authenticity...)

(Poetry Calender Nove 1984- One night: Blaine,
Writing and Psychoanalysis, Money: the same week's
"Collage"- Blaine- missed it)

Ease of rudeness. How long does it take to be sure?

Still worried about Bruce's formulation of
language-centered writing as outside the
whole issue of identity- "words were what
were whole"- at the end of subjectivity-
It is the instinctual relationship between objectivity and
subjectivity which is changing, just as
the relationship between men and women, and
all the permutations possible emerge
as part of *actuality* and therefore not
denied by what is *considered* objectively...

He is saying, for the purposes of writing
there is no such things as "I"- or
that the writinng need not be filtered
through some I- yet the poems,
in being presented as written by Bruce
Andrews are the product of an
identity (12/5 -or of a mind belonging- associated
with an identity)
Words refer neither to the object not to the
subject by means of a mediated self, but
by means of a *desire* producing articulation
of linguistic energy not referring nor representing, describing
or defining actuality as it is constituted of and
by language. As a result, identity is
subsumed as one tonality of the music and not
a particulary interesting one at that.

In such a use of language knee-jerk
systemic uses or contexts of writing
are eliminated, one by one, until all
that remains is the actuality of words.
By this means the actuality of experience
inhabits the signals which are transmitted
by these constellations of "frequencies"
and "amplitudes" or meaning.

12/5/84

*Every one of us is involved."

12/7/84

"We will not pay the sin-tax."


Syntax= sin/tax
language= long gaze, long gauge
words=xxxxxxx voids
thought= thaw out/ thou ought
think= the ink
imagine= I'm a gene

Have all you want of what you have






12/1/84
...The fact that long ago I split my career down the middle and became a therapist, is anathema to other writers. Susan Sontag's comment. Not just to writers but to artists. Artists prefer to involve themselves in an extremely hierarchical- though in a superficial way homogeneous subculture which tends to eat alive whatever morsal of clear-headed self-assessment that might exist inside. The work always comes first to an artist. When it is authentically responded to, nothing is sweeter. But when the production is remorseless and mechanical the creation resembles nothing more than a clean xerox machine, automatically addressing all the copies to just the right people It's nice, but it's not the only thing.

What else? What else is the desire to create that wants nothing more than to burn steady and brightly, not under fluourescent shadows, but in a conflagration which, in a single, shining second, completely transforms the "material" into ascending waves of pure energy.

The hardest thing about being a modern artist is all the waiting. I have waited 20 years for a moment like I had at Charles' house last weekend. Even so, it was not about my poetry- yet this means even more to me somehow. This is becuse I know that what is lacking in the intellectual climate of today is common wavelengths, let alone common ideals. This may be because of the complete success of behemianism in the most sophisticated circles- which means mainly a general fantasy in an artistic subculture that original ideas and authentic creations are more interesting and valuable than the pap that is generated by the entertainment industry.
..