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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