Arabesque for Kenneth Anger (1958-61)
Marie Menken (1910-1970)


16mm, color, sound, 4 min
Original score by Teiji Ito. "A new sound version of this classic. It is a beautiful experience to see her fabulous shooting. The cutting is just as fabulous and is something for all to study; the new score by Teiji Ito is 'out of this world' with its many leveled instrumentation. Marie says 'These animated observations of tiles and Moorish architecture were made as a thank-you to Kenneth for helping to shoot on another film in Spain.' Shot in the Alhambra in one day." -- Gryphon Film Group

The Cafe At Light by Mark McMorris

My rating: 4 of 5 stars
ok. solid book. certainly journaly, collecting/recovering conversations, travelogues, architectures. Certainly slipping between times/places and there was a great deal put into the caryatids. And certainly more moderny than I was prepared for, but more prosey too. won me over in the horses passages-god I loved the horse passages-and certainly ok in all other respects and felt and refreshingly informal.

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Shot by Christine Hume

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I am an unwilling proponent of this book because the first poem, Incubatory, convinced me that I hated it. But as I read (forcing myself to read, really, because I like Counterpath press so much) I began to think hating this book is part of loving it. It is annoying, it blurts things out, it gets excited with itself, it overkills -- but it also sees everything (good and bad) through. The thinking is sloppy at times, but it stomps through on pure gall getting us somewhere pretty fucking original. In fact, the book does remind me of a certain type of performance whereby an actor/speaker breaks her contract with the audience, giving her the distance she needs to really freak out and do something. I think that's what happened here. I had to be really far away from the speaker to witness the full range of motion in these poems.

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"People are the same all over, cut"

Vanessa Place & Robert Fitterman - Notes On Conceptualisms: eastcoast/westcoast (2009)

"...The conversation is more presence by its absence.... the fact that the book is not being talked about leads me very much to suspect that its all anyone is talking about..."



Vanessa Place & Robert Fitterman - Notes On Conceptualisms: eastcoast/westcoast (2009)

Vanessa Place & Robert Fitterman
with Kim Rosenfield
filmed by Coco
edited by Fred Barney Taylor


In the DIY video, Place and Fitterman pirate the original eastcoast/westcoast by Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt to ponder the coastal reception of their book "Notes on Conceptualisms."

Robert Fitterman is the author of 11 books of poetry--he lives in NYC.
Vanessa Place is a writer and a lawyer. She lives in LA.

Plaisir d'amour en Iran (1976)

Plaisir d'amour en Iran (1976) by Agnès Varda (b. 1928)





35mm, 1976
Starring: Valérie Mairesse, Ali Raffi
6min


Made at a time when Iran had a seemingly revolving door for incoming European directors and bottomless funding for their projects, Plaisir d'amour en Iran is a short, sort of love story between a handsome Iranian (Ali Raffi) and a visiting French woman (Valérie Mairesse). The film was shot at the Shah Masjed in romantic Esfehan.

Tuned Droves by Eric Baus

I refuse to rate a book that requires its readers use antenna (either naturally occurring antenna and/or those erected using household materials).

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The Voice That Was in Travel: Stories by Diane Glancy

The Voice That Was in Travel: Stories by Diane Glancy


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I love Diane Glancy. I just do. I love the one that basically lists different types of fireworks. I love the one about the woman in her car (I thought of Barb driving to Detroit or New York). I love the one about what the fuck Mary is doing up there. I love the one about sewing a sheep suit. I really love that one. I love the one about shooting a woman with an arrow because it is oblique. I love Italy and Australia and I have actually looked up flights. I love how deadbeat it is and crowded and I know about postcards and thinking and re-thinking very vague statements about one's life. And wearing masks backwards. And seeing for the sake of seeing the brittle bones of one's own story. And relief when they almost collapse. Utter relief.

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The Cosmopolitan by Donna Stonecipher

The Cosmopolitan by Donna Stonecipher


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Maybe I should have liked this more. It was tight for sure. Tight and cool and it broke when it needed to break and it got wispy and floated and then it tightened up again and delivered. Delivery is big here. Maybe I'm not being fair because I haven't read this type of poetry in a while. The text felt so separate. It was it's own little engine and I was merely the reader. I didn't ride on the poems and or get inside them. I kept the proper distance and did what I was supposed to do. I guess what I'm saying is: I could have been reading an interesting, well-written article but instead I read these poems.

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Little Ease by Aaron McCollough

Little Ease by Aaron McCollough


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I loved this book this morning. It was cold and I loved hearing myself reading it to myself which is a little engine I created, which fits with the writing and the idea of stricture. I loved how far apart, how long, how missing. I loved the rigid little bridge of epigraphs. I loved the sections and I know it's silly to feel asleep in the language, so maybe taken care of or rocked or just blown on, and because I'm sick today and all my thoughts feel taken out of me and laid like eels on the bedstand -- I'm giving Little Ease one thousand stars. That's right. Every single one.

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Incivilities by Barbara Claire Freeman

Incivilities by Barbara Claire Freeman


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
You know you're a badass when Judith Butler does your blurb. I swung between liking and kinda liking this. A few times I smirked because it did some twirling and ta-da's. Sometimes the lines were like pick-up sticks--a rigid little nest -- and I liked it because it felt pumping up. Other times it felt like a rigid little maneuver which I didn't care as much for--but it was always smart and I did like that. But in the all-and-all of this day, I enjoyed reading it. aloud. Here's to you Black Friday, you prick of a day. I will go jogging now.

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Poetry State Forest by Bernadette Mayer

Poetry State Forest by Bernadette Mayer


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The all hanging out and the lack of a snowblower, the tenebrous winter, the peeking. The dangling couplet, the twosome, the yoke, the other just-as-good yoke, the home stretch, the briars among the eggs, the new neighbors, the landscape of tyranny that has other names, the index of conversation, the breastplate, the snowblower o! and b for bushes, the caterwaul, the list of phil(s), the muffled heart, the fillings and other dental adventures, the notes to self, the notes that are to, the notes awaying and hey and ho and gentle looking-out-the-window-ness.

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Hurry Home Honey: Love Poems 1994-2004

Hurry Home Honey: Love Poems 1994-2004 by Sawako Nakayasu


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Hurry Home Honey by Sawako Nakayasu is a sorta-triptych of love poems that might better be described as relationship-poems. We are cast in and out of relationships, looking forward/back, on the balcony, at play, in the book about. We are evaluating and intuiting, compelled to gather flowers, steal beer. We meet at a word that means everything and/or nothing. Well we sort of meet, but the meanings of 'we' and 'sort of' and 'meet' are all contentious anyway so the sentence projects us forward and there we are, irrevocably, "eyes spin to the play--circomfiting / this here, or andlessness..."

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more on the homunculus

hangover charges

To
day
is
pills
day
hencefor
th
things're
petals
formy
errors


--

my lay face
is shut up elephant
you are just
a trunk

--

white ones will
finger tips me
my face island
face burst coral


---


Damascus was just a townPeople
went to


--


nov, check
ember, pending


--


Then my little face
traverses grassy here
I am Athens

___


light flips
the flies on



___



this pill is a reef


___


dour sheet
I reflect thee

Leaves fall leaves

I set it done
I set it was done
in shambles of leaves
reflex leaves
they spell
out hands
lay sweetly
both hadnt's
sheeshing
intersticed

a bum on a wire:
owl, old
shawl
when fills the sky
with
leaves
and they bits
they breaks
they speaks /
cudgel the word for
casting effing naked claws
at bay
why sweet bay
my mind ex-
halts
where pelicans fasten
some plural of touching
down,
floating kinds
of hay, sweetness exists
lightishly on the purple bay:
a pitcher of fishes
______r of grass
floating contains
the following

-


nary which simperer
islands his boots on the bud
and a-hars a-here
breathing between threads
a feather wet on his face
I set it done
I set it was done
in shambles of leaves
the following
feather wet on his head
give us the horns
give us the strings
the splash

the wet feather hinges aureole
around us smelling wet
and cold and pure
put the reeds before us
arranging them thus
I know what we have done with



also simper
also fraught
also

must cut
aways, truncate
objections in
distinguishable
smokecoat
ergo
, the less I set it
the less help crumpled
against it, balcony leaves,
shirt leaves, slits,
pulanski leaves re:
letters shredded pale horsegrass
how grasp that scene
in thatch and fuzz
the neutral body boat leaves
I set it was good/done did I

broken island
leaves sweet as breaks
nights light as this one
catena
aureole
the wet feather hinges aureole
around us smelling wet
and cold and pure
put the reeds before us
arranging them thus
what we have done with



also simper
also fraught
also

must cut
aways, truncate
objections in
distinguishable
smokecoat
ergo
, the less I set it
the less help crumpled
against it, balcony leaves,
shirt leaves, slits,
pulanski leaves re:
letters shredded pale horsegrass
how grasp that scene
in thatch and fuzz
the neutral body boat leaves
I set it was good/done did I

broken island
leaves sweet as breaks
nights light as this one
catena
aureole

the countingman

joiner is the countingman you see
none wilder, littler, vested
w/ his countryish hamstand mouth
you can fuck your own germs
to see a milkshake land alot like hm
to really be the wobble

the illiad is beautiful in the fall
apples fall
you can fall into your own plush vote
its fall and touching your face stops
the morning so core, prime
you can truck
a big fucking truck
down hand and cock street
down jack and son street
dis countingman
chicken
nugget
from
real
white
chicken

horseriding

No you do not want to
No you most certainly don’t
Up the the ___ LORD
and push the key in
as round and as soft as you
transpire / look out
for nets, weeks, locale

tit is kind of short
for the future
nation of delicate samplings
swinging beasties
moods
erasers
prefixed
you up
horseriding
un-
horseriding

Juliology by Nicolas Pesquès

Juliology by Nicolas Pesquès


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What do you want me to say about it? What could I possibly say after reading it? I would be such a pain in the ass if I said anything at all. To dream to read this poem. Sans surrealism. Sans climbing up anything and falling down. Sans self-consciousness. I could go on about all the things the poem isn't and get you nowhere. I just don't want to write over anything. Or lift anything out. You'll just have to read it, won't you.

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the cows sleep against the hills

it rained today so lightly on my elbows i took this picture. the cows sleep against the hills. there.

The Names

The names are utterly every surface engaged. They asterick across our cheeks, heartpump straps, watches, brackets, pins. Let me look at you. Outlet. Names born unto us like holes Pour us they in great lakes dirtywe point at pickles cereal sushi too much bottoms us out our names fall thru our chairs unbecoming. Names snag / yes mam. You ask questions like a real cunt cunt is a name its flowers tagging the wet glass before & still/until our purpose forward makes no aquaintance, no marks on the mirror, on the shit shore. The tongue of the sea. silencer. silence her names in gelatinous fields, in crushed ice fields, in purples and roses, herculean fields so hard to park. I will back up. My name sword onward mitfitting parabola my legs are two names for my life, my fine tooth comb, word.

The Comeback's Exoskeleton The Comeback's Exoskeleton by Matthew Rotando

The Comeback's Exoskeleton by Matthew Rotando


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Boyoboy. There are the endpoints and here are these/we softscape to-be things just about to. "Cavernescence of head, mucusoid webtrails pastiche my Hadean greysongs in-outward from older earthsmudge."

Matthew Rotando, achoo orlando, is expanding slash doublebacking to say onemany ways, hock, w/ musicbehindyou "Can you sweating all the ghosts/Down in the devil kitchen hole"

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sonnet on the back of a vintage mountain poem

will not / won’t / walnuts
a because I feel orchard
the closetlight aglow in the heart of a tree
Give away it. will you.
Thethingis
Thethings is
things welt
things is long silt flections
harangue black pieces of
papernight
a zone one-notes upon a carpet
slipfaced
and I this amiss / morass
by sectional, by carpetlight

missing you weirdo bookstore

Today I ache because I have the flu and I ache for one more reading at the Singing Wind Bookstore. Jimmy and I went to see Robert Hass and Brenda Hillman read in the cramped little ranchhouse-turned-bookstore. What an odd idea to stick a bookstore out in the desert. Fitting tho.

Name: Singing Wind Bookstore
Location: Nowhere, AZ.
Home of: crazybookstorelady; dust; muchos libros; one sweet little donkey

Trees and stars.

skunk roll on
down road
down brief flare
tell me about it
shoot I love it super-
stitiously, utterly
weather the shit
continuous rain
shunts up our hands & feet
the second story


I see a skunk rolling on the balls of its shoulders and hips like an elliptical. down the road down in a brief flare, cutting across the beach the same way and falling into the sand. tell me about it. I love it like a shot and point superstitiously into the dark, between trees, utterly. The weather equals the world. The shit continuous pulse of rain turns over addresses. I see a skunk rolling one time down the road and set fire. Cut into the water, reach into the circle of water to sleep in. A sign for the the floor. I love it coming to me in a shunt, with no hands or feet in the deep continuity of rain for days the rain gave me tips.

she explained how to put a blanket on his back. how to put a blanket her back when he died. twice she told me with her hands how to put the blanket on without ruining everything. she said star is far away and I kept thinking about how alone a horsewoman is, discrete. The morning is no place. The day is a wash of rubbing out the indescribable evils

star is an amorous sign

she built her house with lots of bedrooms and painted the kitchen the way she remembered venice the smell of venice the fruit overripe flies overfire swoon of venice as if in a tube income

decreation at BAM

You should be very very jealous of me and Jimmy Lo. Not only did we have great weather in New York this weekend and stay with the lovely Kasia Kowalczyk (yes she plays an alien in star trek), but we also had front row seats to Decreation, choreographed by William Forsythe.

It's not often that a performance exceeds already-high expectations, but this one surprised the shit out of me. Based on an essay by Anne Carson about (what do you think?) relationships, the text explores the impossibilities of moving/communicating thru romantic jealousies. The dancers confront each other, scream, they try not-talking, they attempt to make time stand still, they condescend each other, they tease and flirt, they break things down detail by detail, they just fail at it all. And that's just what I can say about the text.

The music was done by David Morrow and it was really wonderful. Most of the dialogue was spoken into mics and manipulated in realtime, supplemented with Morrow onstage keyboard. The mics acted more like confessionals or telephones than soapboxes and dancers constantly moved the 4 or 5 microphones around--creating territories and zones on an otherwise blank stage. During the musical climax, dancers (and a sprinkling of professional singers I think) built a really long crescendo of 'i love you's sung into the microphones. The dancers spoke/sang/screamed the lines to the microphones amidst heightening activities/dances.


Below is a clip pretty indicative of the pacing and feeling.

Museum Legs by Amy Whitaker

I stumbled upon a funny little debate at a book lecture last Friday at Blackbird Coffee. Amy Whitaker, author of Museum Legs, visited us in Milledgeville for a quick chat about her new book. Whitaker's collection of essays focuses on the cultural, social, and political circumstances that define museum experiences. 'Museum legs,' for the uninitiated, is a term for art fatigue or boredom.

Whitaker read from a particular essay called "Revenge of the Homunculus." In it she describes the use of the word "homunculus" in an description of a painting in a museum. Whitaker argues that the word homunculus, defined as a midget, is impressive for impressiveness' sake. Whether used to elevate the curator, the institution, or a second-rate art piece, the word slaps down 100 bucks when you only needed a quarter.

I guess I have to wonder whether we should automatically think a word we haven't heard is pretentious. If we are becoming syllablist (anything over 3 syllables should be replaced with sleeker more modern versions). If a word as weird and onomatopoetic as homunculus need be quarantined in the academic and Freudian vocabularies.

Possibly using the word homunculus would make us all happier, if only slightly. During our long flights and conference calls, before bed, cooking burgers: think homunculus. It sings.

Terrence Malick is Dead. Long live Terrence Malick

This was the post-armadillo leg of the trip. Booty included one dark blue bottle, a mason jar, babydoll head, bones, and an old lock.



Pages from the book of the green man. First edition. Covers a little soiled, otherwise a fine copy in chipped & torn dust jacket.



This car ate Terrence Malick. It is a very happy vehicle.

'ville in el

the horses break / Fort
nights, break
in bed, reek / addendum,
bits & flies round up
me as an egg
mighty porous/ rakes
tinking about it
chandelierly
the soft of birds purchase
lastly grand indignant motion
out window
/ pisses again, flies
burning rubber junket
next stop new york
/ breaks it so / likely rain will
all morning and sheer addendum
files off / often
for reasons uninteresting
its units / yak
andarenotashamed

Larry and Larry

Last night I scrabbled for the last time with Sean Bishop, a poet in the UH MFA program. We couldn't have a more different approach to reading and writing, but we're aptly matched scrabblers and enjoy bitching about our prospective poetry universes. We were sparring about whether Larry Levis is a genius or a hack, I realized that I had no idea what I was talking about. I've literally forgotten what that kind of poetry is like. It's gone. He said the name "Larry Levis" and I knew I'd read at least one of his books and couldn't remember anything about the poems, what they tended to, what they read like, zip. I just knew he was in my don't-care-about box. So this morning I went a-hunting for Levis online since all my books are currently in boxes.

I still have no answers. I tried reading about some 7 or 8 poems and didn't really read them. It wouldn't be fair to argue if they're good or whever. There were these lines that distracted me to the point where I couldn't pay attention. So Sean, if your reading, here's the lines I stopped on:

Anastasia & Sandman : I refuse to explain.

For Zbigniew Herbert, Summer, 1971, Los Angeles: No matter how hard I listen, the wind speaks

In a Country: we could / make out the wide river for the first time, blue and / moving.

Readings in French : Which is what happens


I think that's about all I can offer as a rebuttal. A puny little rebuttal. Might even be called a gripe.

*******

This morning Paul sent me the letter from another Larry. Such a wonderful mangled letter, full of broken stuff and misdirection.

'....Abt 1970, 9-10 yrs after the
freon gas, my desire to write long pieces dimmed enough so
I got willing enough to end a poem at any point, any word,
I think that's how the poems got clearer, while before
they were Obscure much of the time....'
and so on...


I have nothing else to say on why I like and don't like these things. It's all very uninteresting, if not totally irrelevant. But I will say I'm very thankful I have people to talk to and argue with. very.

The Field by Joanna Gunderson

The Field by Joanna Gunderson

rating: 4 of 5 stars
Another good one from Red Dust. Gunderson's line-broken un-punctuated no-paragraph 'novel' is surprisingly novel-ish. The most continuous and recognizable element in the book is the place (in or around the mountains in NY): the house, landscape, seasons, etc. Certain events and relationships are repeated (with a difference) throughout the novel -- sort of appearing disappearing on the landscape. You'd think this would make a pretty boring novel, but the way the language is clipped gives it this really nice breathablity, also makes it more intimate.



City Eclogue by Ed Roberson


rating: 5 of 5 stars
City Eclogue by Ed Roberson



Book where. Get a sense of what is said and taking what is said pump it up and put it into the histories. A history set like a chemistry set. But not about histories, not concerned with history/ies as an end. No end to. What is said. Sayings aftershock. Proceeds of an aftershock. The scene. The version. The double version. All that still shuffles what decisions to make. Which who we were when we are going there.


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OFF FLAW

xx


White page cipher mop
hark untenanted




xx

spring birds egrets ibis
pelican face raven I bid w/
birdtoast duckshuns
rome you some wrens


xx

insignias have i
placed a purpose
rose on the hole
a wet rose
on window-
hole bearing
winning highlights



xx

Hand eat dis
ruddily up
my legs, back
up, body haul
days a week
tightpants

xx

the body of land

in flips my deep body
inside where water wheres
the darkness butts
chortles waterfiles
hands them in too
light uniforms
exorbinant
stints

OFF FLAW

xx

lover i pelt a note
via button
must i wear on
my stipples

stealth loans

xx

off flaws the sun on
the table
switches the lights serif
tears you catch the
babyday and come bach

xx

violet also wearing
your suit of yours
baywater sewnwater stereo
blue

xx

orange DAYS
on pyramid STEPS
a smaller up there ever
more pronounced
'roach'
you are
we
in the difficult glare
we st amp

xx

witches which
hairs fleas flies
bees itchily
dish faggots
stop day cart
decant

xx

if not night
then then then
a long un

xx

hound dog sack
clothes down
dog kick it
loud down
me putting my-
self together
w/ shirts



xx

flat house port flows
genuine diffractions
a slot of stars
house my life down
to dot you
suits leaflets & sticks

xx

off pilgrim hemorrhaging
sanctioned flies off
the flaps at your ears
a leather
human pilgrim hat flaps
fly off blood pilgrim
wolverine unto
the new worldish
short story

xx


no is a call no is a call
your voice is a purple bear
no saw the errors
on your face
bright
pushy
you my no,
no purpose purple
awe

xx

The blood inside me
turns a white white place
infundibulum
a noise you issues
forwards in white balls


xx

you naturally you
nature rally you rats
u tallyrag
you are so natural
al aural
whole the o
atchoo

JOB

smote o
are the oxen
black ewes
the camels
& slaves
your(s)
burning along
w/ yr sweet
sheep & asses
kindlefor
ash dunes
I tell you what
I tell
you

JOB

faintly a shell becomes a hatchback secretes
dark juiceblood & files
thru passive gates of Uz

JOB

& rote Job I,
I do ready
done slit the dark voice
as sparks fly up
I, do my
godly ironing out
put stars on my brain
continuously
as it is long
strings
on toward me
a toad
pointing ish

dirt

orations
 

The Poetry Wigwam

one
twothreefour
wrens

north stars
south stars

bopping

JOB

They his children
sons for every day
hairs, chains, days
They green grass up &
bristle it
grow fur purposes

gentle deer They

yellow here

hair fields, sheer crops

daysshaved off

apostrophe

s

little well

little well I look so down in the poetry mirror. there is not much difference i say very little differential. on fields from another: they look likely like one and sum slipping some slippy no big dif between the not yet famous the not yet famous-er in owning this poetry well-ness I tell you my leaf wish gone down the readership onwards and upstarted everpresent poetry poncho I am a good plum and that my friend is another plum

achoo

The Seventy Prepositions

rating: 3 of 5 stars
ok smart but *achoo* so wrought and I had a hard time catching all the drifts. See also *for crying out loud* a. very talented and b. geographically daring nude descending the stair and so c. hearkening across the shelves things inside of things. me d. exhausted.


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fie you sleepers

fie in the morning of the middle ages heavy is the head I hold up and drive with outgoing bedraggled a hatchet thru the sinews of the day fie fie the sleeping ones the ones curly cue asleep in a field of not-knowing of happenstance feathers a field of chickens sitting tucked in chinny chinness and shut-ness and down

Galveston

THE FLAGSHIP

It is the placement a place symbol, hurry clap hurry down the sea flagging down the seemly windup wishing hag grey bummer sea. Me ruiny seasoned ship meant to make good get crabs totally dashed out red things stitch me self a nest inside cheap swilling sea. Meant to watch ways around. Are. Time to bide.

THE HAIRS OF THE LORD

Thistles stick-on ropes sewn into sewn into the listless hair of the lord ye fishes switch between knowing things and known things step aside the not-hair sea. skin grows over the eyes of the sea looks blinkingly anti remembers what it was to look out don't trip sit on the sea and bob like

TO WHAT THEY ARE TO

Hairs to what they were to, attachments, nerves flash broken sequences, rebuilding instructions & a boat plops on an orchard & marries the trees they sway their noses touch speaking frankly we can't help it we love loops our hands make shady fronds over holy roofs the boat belly grows and is again dashed the words work into braids lace up the sun fill in the pool break off into sleep fraying the rain the rain the rain out comes

THE PRESIDENT

address the hot pot say you are seemly a representative a rare hamburger your pink airs stay shrimpy the ocean rises it wobbles it arms it makes spicy the feeling we now have a president drawing heads and tails on the chalkboard sea

THE HOUSING BUBBLE

picture a popout box bar crawling left to right coming soon the letter slot opens capital letter I for invisible capital letter to who the people ask making plans to meet up in florida drink juicy drinks the stiff sea is a wedge opening letter slot slightly enough the eels slip in capital E people lose faith the picture of the sea hangs on letter slot incoming florida coughs glottis open things flu in

rivers

# Alligator Creek : Bell County
# Arroyo Colorado : Harlingen, Texas 4-10-08
# Arroyo Colorado : Mercedes, Texas 4-10-08
# Bear Creek : Kimble County
# Bull Creek : Austin Texas Feature 7-15-08
# Burnt Boot Creek : near Devine, Texas
# Calf Creek
# Cibolo Creek Park : Boerne, Texas
# Cowhouse Creek : Pottsville, Texas
# Dixon Creek : near Borger, Texas
# Medio Creek - Historical Marker : near Berclair & Goliad 2-16-09
# Onion Creek : Hays County 4-23-08
# Pecan Bayou : Burkett, Texas 4-14-08
# Pederson Creek : McLean, Texas
# Perdido Creek : Fannin, Texas 3-20-08
# Rancho Viejo
# Salado : W.A. Pace Park, Salado Creek Feature
# South Prong Creek : Sabine County
# Woman Hollering Creek Feature

the physics of languishing language

Good things this weekend at the Motion Graphics Festival in Austin. With all the talk about post-screenal interfaces and ubiquitous computing, I felt transported back to my old Georgia Tech classes and labs. Not a bad feeling, but I couldn't help but think of how far I've strayed from notions of the digital. I mean, folk art, poetry and handmade crafts are a far cry from pondering how types of files should 'feel' when you touch them. Or maybe not...

Thinking about new media again made me ever more resolute about what a book should (and shouldn't) aspire to. I thought about Susan Howe's Souls of the Labadie Tract and it's always-insistence on pages, page-turning, how text is cut and manipulated, how necessarily the elements of the book are bound together. Could this book not be a book? Could all the words exist digitally and retain its essence? I don't think so. The book needs to be held like a book. Touched like a book.

But this isn't really true for a lot of poets today. I could read a great lot of them on one of those digital readers (if I had one). I wouldn't really need to turn the page or touch the margin. Their books don't require it. Maybe because many writers write poems, groups of poems, collections of poems. And a poem can be screenal, be digital.

Anyways. it's of no surprise that the thing at the festival that most reminded me of poetry was one of the more ridiculous performances. Dr. Bleep, a self-proclaimed 'noisologist,' performed last night with his bleeping robots. It was quite impressive actually. The robots have a light-sensitive stripe on their 'faces' react when in contact with a light-source (which is conveniently attached to the little guy's head). You can control the pitch and volume with nobs on the front and sides.




I know the clip sounds kind of obnoxious, but when you get ten or fifteen of these things going and you know what you're doing -- it's brilliant. The term 'mad scientist' comes to mind. The term 'spaceship,' because of 'space' and 'ship.' The room was filled with the sound, completely irrational sound, tipping toward the chaotic but batted down again by its own physical conception, it's own childishness. Seeing what you hear. Touching what you hear. Completely twisted sound attempting extra-humananity, John Cage-ish zen, but evermore entrenched in the everyday ridiculousness of mouth, nose, face. I felt the same feeling of elation as a really good poetry reading. I keep trying to explain to myself -- why? Why this messy? Why this cutesy robo-trope? I'll get back to you if I figure it out.

Bent NYC '08 - Dr. Bleep from Dr. Bleep on Vimeo.

white cloud mountain fish

isnt this blanket question: the sea:

big top of the sea turns white & turns white

at the bottom of cottonmouth sea

onion sea burnt boot sea

the makeup of fish is absolutely

abstract is as abstract as

it rains on

jelly roses

it days for night

the question of metal sequences drags

along

the negative preview sear

in schools

- - - - - - - - tape & erasers

- - - - - - - - hands in schools



I call you no I don’t

southernfacing I call running

along the edges of the state





how long, the long

- - - - - - - - - est number

- - - - - - - - - gives out



- - - - - - - - - - - - touched

- - - - - - - - - - - - , except for occasional light stirring

- - - - - - - - - - - - for years without ever being

- - - - - - - - - - - - the bottom of the surface

shoes

in place in

a stone of water –

a week is stone

each step,- - - - one is

- - - - - - - - - a light unit

- - - - - - - - - a minute


cut your own hair your head

is beautiful household outline

shotgun yellow


yellow shoe stars pieces of flowers

yellow birds shoe

alights the wires shoes they

pair of

waterpushed

ones

square inches

the river is high necessarily high

is long stint square inches river ever

a hyperbole

obviously a blank cart

the surface theoretically available

on the other hand of fish

are the same roundish selves

- - - - - indicates angelshifts &

your basic torpedoes

- - - - - - - - - neon

- - - - - - - - - minnows

to coin a phase

freshwater management

wet matter whether riverwe

consider staying the motion

or onetwothree

edit into

the sea

Aspen Sante Fe Ballet

Friday night I went to the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. A very pleasant experience considering my expectations were low and I was up in the cheapseats. They performed pieces by three different choreographers: Twyla Tharp, Jorma Elo, and Moses Pendelton.



I went to the ballet specifically to see the first piece: Sweet Fields, choreographed by Twyla Tharp. It's set to Shaker hymns, which were so gorgeous I would have bought a ticket just to listen to them (unfortunately they were recorded, not live). The movements where modeled after traditional Shaker worship. ** A side note, Shakers haven't really shaken in a long time, they just walk around in a circle swinging their hands up to their chest and down again. ** But Tharp definitely knows this and the translation/interpretation is pretty effective, esp the kicks as they relate to that Shaker arm-swing. The dancers' outfits were also perfect: these charming loosely hanging shirts added the right amount of lightness to some pretty heavy movements/gestures. To me, that's what worship is all about: the heavy and the light.

Ever since I've seen the documentary on Shakers I've been sort of obsessed with their relationship to activity/activities. Shakers were sort of like worker bees: but bees for the glory of God. Since they weren't judgmental or witch hunters or into other crazy isolationist acts (maybe the no-sex things seems crazy, but it makes sense to me), their thing was activity and craftsmanship. I keep wondering about that relationship to activity. How does it bring one closer to God? A question for the cosmos I suppose, but I was secretly wishing the dance would get into this question. Unfortunately it didn't, but the dance was still very lovely and personable (which is an odd word to describe a dance, but apt).



The second dance was choreographed by Jorma Elo. A few weeks ago I saw 'Lost on SLOW', a piece of his, but felt wishywashy about it. I was really shocked how much I enjoyed this one (I can't remember the name). Where Lost to SLOW seemed to be dancing about dancing (like ballet was looking into the mirror and making faces), this piece felt like a balletic romp. A pure system, instead of trying to figure out what to be (I believe the other piece sort of tried to be 'puppeting' dance or some such thing). And so energetic and new. Yay! I'm now a fan and can't wait to see another.



The last piece is hardly worth talking about, but was a real crowdpleaser. In Noir Blanc, choreographed by Moses Pendelton, dancers appeared to be black-lit aliens wearing half-black, half-white suits. Projected on a semi-translucent screen, pictures of planets and other-worldlinesses slowly panned to the beat of quintessentially new age tunes. The dance was mostly just creating optical forms and illusions in the glowing suits. [and the audience says 'ahhhhhhh'] Snore. I guess you have to pay your bills somehow. Jorma certainly isn't for everyone...

And one of them is a pirate

texas another

feathers far be they
herons talking talking
diminishing ground
water levels

eunuch

the beat

ground go weary
heretofore
gentle white animations
upon


heretofore oversensitive

Pastorelles by John Taggart

hello is a sign for rural engine going ruraler, ruraler between trees mud roads kinds of flowers kinds of. hello johnny sign language make me present in fields of kinds of flowers, present maker exuding, present bolts of fabric and tell me what. johnny maker break lines inevitable ability to break off curry favor quorum favors there are the birds. swooping in the latticework. i guess. i guess. i guess. works.

swallow

swallow low windup heart thing swallow fly over my coffeeshop little black middlefold heart prop on my back of the boat a turner-over a dark card flipping up you swallow up and over black coffee the moment is only for a moment a swallow passer a slitted pair of shorts a lady heeding her handbag having never seen the swallow get over it this is a building just a building you a swallow only a little bit

chains of day

askwards what
kind of doggie was

it
it
it

was

a we
stopsign

Wyoming
planet ‘Wyoming’
cold to no

gentling guilden
plains

having said on the phone
‘not on the phone’

Herd the doggies calling them
shelves

drive in you
drivel gently

eat the house

drive you doggie gist
you paid for doinglight
wyoming
sheets of day
lying since
just
on golden cloths

tufts


guarding all the objects in the room
tufts

Shana Moulton

The Mountain Where Everything Is Upside Down
by Shana Moulton

I love this. Especially when the stuff on her bookcase follows her around. Makes me feel a little sheepish about my 'mystical' collections of folk art and books I have laying everywhere.

turtle work

One out of every three turtles even swimming is one is in one the out one is a turtle his black back out is even keel and smooth is as it turtles to, fro one fin at times fin as ever swip thru the onward pond is a shoe in turns on takes off the turtle spits heaven knows whose thoughts are whose chewing in the murky glaze what a tuner one is turning the radio on after noon radio on

rays of heaven

headed into. in
the stippled presence of
of half-things junk
a squirrel white & grey
the necessary is

identical. identically present.
it is

threads the squirrel insisting
be exquisitely altered
see altar, hairs
headed

valor

rays of heaven stinging
his tail gold a hologram
rises
hath taxonomy
standing
water

eyes vibrate along the line
of green and grey shadows
the activity
of heaven
essays

runs on

laces up w/ little bones commas sticks
doublesided paths

in the wet leaves of
on the wet earth of

obelisk head as any one
thing would look outlying
the rake pulls back
the rake

announcement

I am now in love with Scott Carrier. Over and out.

earth day poem

god said secrets are stupid and then he created earth he flushed one for number one two for number two he made a buzzard machine he folded the sea together he unfolded it gave us this architecture of birds made us wait for what he created lies he hallowed his own name when you think about it he volleys us on jesses and we are paper squares we breathe up eat earth up but come back to his leather hands he said so so we try to say so the wind picks up water oaks our grandparents die we wonder if everything’s already been said if ideas are exercises the way of the worm is the way of god the earth is interface we likes not knowing we dislikes not knowing we itches in ditches foretold us

Bombs Away

Weddings remember started parting the hips elbeaux wrists of native acres, roundabouts' dark javelina hidden between roadwork, the glassy brassy knolls. you call that an orchard? yes the psychedelic feeling lasts and lasts.


Call Josh John Lennon Josh Paul McCarthy Call Josh Yoko Josh Lynda Fung Call Roadside Assistance Josh Just Below Josh Calling Donning Black Wig in the Starlight Ringo Starrlight Paul McCarthylight Call it a Raven Sitting On Your Head Josh There's a Raven Sitting on Your Head DrumAway DrumAway DrumAway Pixieland.


Chickeny nametags. Crop-circle nametags. Disco napkinlight happenstance nametags. Down to fraggle frocks. Clap, Clap. Round two Fraggle Frocks.


This is them thusly this is thimbles this trims the timbre thinner this tremors the thistles float forward thinking this and that this is


Anna looking a little like sardines looking forward certainly sardonic overlooking sedona looking at the fish in the air looking fishy liking to look fizzy likely fussing from one future event to its apparent ending concluding to remain mainlaid to hold course to not rock this nifty boat

Dance Salad Review

I went to Dance Salad last weekend with mom (visiting) which was a little nerve-wracking because I wasn't sure how she'd fair for two days of three-hour dances. I'll run down my high points:



Xing Liang performed a quick solo called Existence. I wish I had the dance vocabulary to give you a proper run-down on this one There weren't any bells or whistles, no tropes, narratives, shout-outs, or tricks. Can't really say where it all came from. But I can say it was straight-up and intense. Soaring, really. A side note, I will say the man appeared to have freakishly large hands. Mom said it was the dancing that made them look big but I'm not so sure. I've tried to research this online but haven't come up with much yet.



Four dancers from the Dresden Semper Oper Ballet performed Forsythe 's STEPTEXT . This is a an old piece, created in 1985, but I've never seen it done and was absolutely enthralled. It felt very intellectual and odd in the way the gestures spelled everything out (hence, the title). Many of the gestures didn't fit together exactly, didn't "flow" to use a pretty idiotic term, yet still proceeded as if finishing a sentence. This made me think of what a sentence does, what it means to do, and how it does it. Maybe a dance can be like a sentence, be this propulsion of gestures toward some new or undefined meaning? What I've learned about Forsythe does lend to this kind of reading of the dance. Tho I haven't got it quite right yet.



I also enjoyed the technicality of Forsythe 's Two Part Invention. Even tho the shtick was pretty ordinary (a piece was performed with flawless classical virtuosity and then redone in a jerky deconstructed way); the execution was flawless. I loved the movements. I just wish they were used as something more than just a reactionary/intellectual exercise. Maybe I wish the first 'classical' part were taken out and we got the crazy stuff straight-up, without any context.



I enjoyed Mats Ek's performances. When I attended the talk he gave last Wednesday at the MFA, he emphasized the non-collaborative aspect to his choreography. He and he alone develops the dance, perfects the dance, and then begins directing the dancers. This is very different from most experimental dance now, where the dancer and choreographer often engage and influence the movements together. Ek said that this was dangerous because it allows the dancer to do what they like doing instead of what should be done. Anyways, his choreographic approach was clear in dances like Memory and O Sole Mio, both being humorous pieces about getting older, health, and death performed by Ana Laguna. Since Ek is getting on himself, his process lent itself to these confrontations with the body.

However, I was shocked by the youthfulness of the The Apartment, performed by the Royal Swedish Ballet’s touring group Stockholm 59° North. The dance was a really powerful look at new relationships, sex, miscommunication, etc. I felt like the piece sprung from my own head which really shocked me. Maybe I'm just susceptible to these types of topics right now, but I did think the dance was excellent (and not as hokey as some of the ones he screened during his lecture on Wednesday).





And who can forget the man on stilts, the women with hair to her toes, the mechanized insanity of an insect-like man and the yogi who tree posed for what felt like forever? Well, I didn't because I watched it both nights. The first night, I was interested, engaged, but felt that all the smoke and mirrors was covering up something. The "what's coming next?" questions was getting in the way of the choreography. So the next night I was able to really enjoy this peice (or actually it was two peices sort of slapped together), especially the music. The mucisicans of Ensemble Micrologus, an Italian Medieval and Renaissance instrumental and vocal group, were all situated on stage with the dancers (lit and everything). The music was really something. Also the choreography was better when I wasn't distracted with all the props and set-up and allusions.

Anyways. All in all, it was splendid, a word I don't use but think fitting.