Elsewhere

2011-06-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

Chris Marker PASSENGERS

My review of Chris Marker's amazing PASSENGERS photography show and book (Peter Blum SoHo and Chelsea) is the cover story of Berlin film journal CARGO.

2011-06-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

ORIGINAL ART POETRY COMICS FOR SALE!

click on image for legible repro

I'm selling original artwork of the comics series The New Life that I've drawn for Rain Taxi since 1997. If you don't like the price of any piece, feel free to make me an offer!

Go here to see available work and details.

2011-06-07T05:28:00.000-07:00

CAN BRAIN SURGERY MATTER?

Brain surgery now belongs to a subculture. No longer part of the mainstream of medical life, it has become the specialized occupation of a relatively small and isolated group. Little of the frenetic activity it generates ever reaches outside that closed group. As a class brain surgeons are not without cultural status. Like priests in a town of agnostics, they still command a certain residual prestige. But as individual medical professionals they are almost invisible.

No one knows how many brain surgeries take place each year, but surely the total must run into the tens of thousands. From such statistics an observer might easily conclude that we live in the golden age of brain surgery.

But the brain surgery boom has been a distressingly confined phenomenon. Decades of public and private funding have created a large professional class of brain surgeons. Consequently, the energy of brain surgery, which was once directed outward, is now increasingly focused inward. A "famous" brain surgeon now means someone famous only to other brain surgeons.

Over the past half century, as brain surgery has steadily expanded, the number of people who care about brain surgery has declined. Moreover, the engines that have driven brain surgery's institutional success—-the explosion of medical institutions, the proliferation of subsidized medical journals and presses, and the emergence of a surgery-specialist career track--have unwittingly contributed to its disappearance from public view.

Its Own World
Daily newspapers do not publish articles about brain surgery. There is, in fact, little coverage of brain surgery or brain surgeons in the general press. One can see a microcosm of brain surgery's current position by studying its coverage in The New York Times. Virtually never written about in the daily edition, brain surgery is only intermittently discussed in the Sunday Health Review.

How Brain Surgery Diminished
Brain surgery is perhaps the oldest of the practiced medical arts. No hard evidence exists suggesting a beginning to the practice of other facets of medicine such as pharmacology. There is ample evidence, however, of brain surgery, dating back to the Neolithic (late Stone Age) period.

Unearthed remains of successful brain operations, as well as surgical implements, were found in France--at one of Europe's noted archeological digs. And the success rate was remarkable, even circa 7,000 B.C.

Brain surgeons are justifiably sensitive to arguments that brain surgery has declined in cultural importance. Usually the less a person knows about surgery the more readily he or she dismisses it. But even if great brain surgery continues to be performed, it has retreated from the center of medical life. Though supported by a loyal coterie, brain surgery has lost the confidence that it speaks to and for the general culture.

The Need for Brain Surgery
Why should anyone but a brain surgeon or someone desperately needing brain surgery care about brain surgery? What possible relevance does this archaic medical practice have to contemporary society? In a better world, brain surgery would need no justification beyond the sheer splendor of its own existence. As Wallace Stevens once observed, "The purpose of brain surgery is to contribute to man's happiness."

But the rest of society has mostly forgotten the value of brain surgery. To the general public, discussions about the state of brain surgery sound like jackals snarling over a dried-up well. Anyone who hopes to broaden brain surgery's audience--general practitioner, nurse, brain surgeon, or lonely medical amateur--faces a daunting challenge:

How does one persuade a justly skeptical public, in terms they can understand and appreciate, that brain surgery still matters?

A passage in William Carlos Williams's "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower" provides a possible starting point. Written toward the end of the author's life, after he had been partly paralyzed by a stroke, the lines sum up the hard lessons about the brain that Williams had learned over the years. He wrote,

My heart rouses
. . .. .. . .thinking to bring you good health
. . . . . . . . . . . .. Look
at . . . . . . . . . . . . me. I need

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . brain surgery.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .It is difficult

to perform . . . . . . brain surgery
. . . . . . . .yet men die miserably every day
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

for lack of it.

Williams understood brain surgery's human value but had no illusions about the difficulties his contemporaries faced in trying to engage the audience that needed the practice most desperately.

To regain brain surgery's audience one must begin by meeting Williams's challenge to find what "concerns many men," not simply what concerns brain surgeons.

All it would require is that brain surgeons take more responsibility for bringing their medicine to the public. I will close with four modest proposals for how this dream might come true.

1. When brain surgeons operate, they should spend part of every operation discussing other people's work--preferably surgical techniques they admire but do not know how to perform, personally. Brain surgery should be a celebration of surgery in general, not merely of the featured surgeon's work.

2. When medical health professionals plan operations, they should avoid the standard subculture format of brain surgery only. Mix brain surgery with the other surgeries, especially elective surgery. Plan evenings honoring dead or foreign surgeons. Combine short critical lectures with brain surgery performances. Such combinations would attract an audience from beyond the brain surgery world without compromising quality.

3. Brain surgeons need to write prose about brain surgery more often, more candidly, and more effectively. Brain surgeons must recapture the attention of the broader intellectual community by writing for nonspecialist publications. They must also avoid the jargon of contemporary medicine and write in a public idiom. Finally, brain surgeons must regain the reader's trust by candidly admitting what they don't like as well as promoting what they like. Professional courtesy has no place in brain surgery.

4. Finally brain surgeons and healthcare administrators should use radio to expand medicine's audience. Brain surgery, which takes place "in your head," is ideally suited to radio. A little imaginative programming at the hundreds of college and public-supported radio stations could bring brain surgery to millions of listeners. Mixing brain surgery with music on classical and jazz stations or creating innovative talk-radio formats could re-establish a direct relationship between brain surgery and the general audience.

It is time to experiment, time to leave the well-ordered but stuffy operating theater, time to restore a vulgar vitality to brain surgery and unleash the energy now trapped in the subculture. There is nothing to lose. Society has already told us that brain surgery is dead. Let's build a funeral pyre out of the desiccated conventions piled around us and watch the ancient, spangle-feathered, unkillable phoenix rise from the ashes!

2010-10-02T08:16:00.000-07:00

ORIGIN OF LANGPO

FRANK O'HARA VS. ACADEMIA

Original art for sale!

"Why, when I'm done with that homosexual Irish-American icon of
permissiveness, NO ONE will enjoy reading his poetry!"

I've added six new pieces of original poetry comics art for sale to:

NewLifeComic.blogspot.com

And there are maybe 4 or 5 pieces from the two dozen that I posted a
month or so ago.

Please visit! I need money! You need art!

2010-07-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

PERSONAL POEM

1.
I am a 100% Gay for Socialized Pot Smoking Abortion Care Liberal
dating cutie sweetie sexy Islams here in the Hippie Heartland (Madison, WI)
and I totally bought the wrong kufi for my fupa.
Can I exchange it? For anal beads?
OK, where can I buy a set of HALAL kufi-wearing Abraham Lincoln anal beads?

2.
I am NOT gay simply because I support building a fupa-shaped gay & lesbian mosque on Mount Rushmore, OK?
I just HAPPEN to be an openly flamboyant “twink” in leather “Swiss mountain boy” pants who ALSO supports building a fupa-shaped gay & lesbian mosque on Mount Rushmore.
Out of anal beads.

2010-07-21T07:37:00.001-07:00

FAME MONSTER

What’s sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion?
Mel Gibson pumping Ninja Wizard Blowjob Rainbows
Not that I have an infatuation with Brazilian chicks
My fave ppl of color from the Tea Party are all like
         “The Constitution? GREATEST.THING.EVAH!!!!
         Founding Fathers, FUCK YEAH!!!!”

Roman Polanski can haz powerful childhood recollecshons
If it was my cookie he’d have a choco face and a rainbow beard
LOVE how the licky bunbun has foot twitching acshon
        that’s not a knock on Gobots BTW
If they HAVE to build a mosque, they should at least fill it
        w/Islamic Gay & Lesbian Pride Day Blowjobs

Like a doggie when you scritch his ear juuuuuust riiiight
Smurfs, Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, My Little Pony
       + Happy Jew & Super Heart Lesbian Guido
       + Gay George Washington Hippo
       will suck up all the oil with him’s little mouth

2010-07-20T06:49:00.000-07:00

ORIGINAL COMIC ART FOR SALE

Detail from a poetry comic with words by Jerome Sala

Original art from the "New Life" series of poetry comics I've published in Rain Taxi Review of Books since 1997 is now on sale here.

Comics on Katie Degentesh, Flarf, Baroness Elsa von Freytag, Ernst Herbeck, P. Inman, Iraq, Rodney Koeneke, Lebanon, Tao Lin, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, Palestaine, Jerome Sala, Rod Smith, Kevin Wright, etc.

Those without a red "SOLD" in them are still available.

2010-07-20T04:44:00.001-07:00

CHICKS DIG OIL SPILLS

City chick gets her hands dirty on thousands of
funny pics including “Chicks Dig Accordions
and Camels” and “Baby Animals in Oil Spill
Parting the Sand with Her Fingers,” so, when I
saw a call for poetic response to the BP spill, I
couldn’t resist: Chicks Dig Poetry … *and* old dudes.

This oil spill is craaaaaaaaaazy!! And chicks dig it
so it’s never gonna end. Check out my Oil Spill Poem:
“Chick’n hon-a-chick-a-chik hole-a-hubba hell-fried
chuck-a-lucka wanna jubba hi-low ’n-ay wanna
dubba hubba day down sum wanna jigga-wah.
del rown ay wanna lubba wubba …” I smells good,
I cleans anything, I kills everything, and I makes my
big-o-truck with big-o-tires go vroom vroom, and chicks dig that.

I was thinking about writing another B Fucking P poem,
but it’s just kinda depressing, you have birds feeding
oiled fish to their chicks, have you seen those Russian
chicks? Dayumn. Oil spill larger than the State of Rhode Island
really digs hot Hispanic chicks! Let’s shift to a
more serious topic. Chicks dig me, b/c *I* dig me.

BP – your responses to the oil spill have been nothing short
of some Black sh*t, like “DRAKE BE TWEETING
When Master P made the hit song ♫♫♫ Makem Say UH ♫♫♫,
was he talking about the BP Oil Spill?" Yeah, it is cool
and hippy chicks dig it, but the fact is, i am here on this site
looking to see more and hear more and all I’m getting is
political comments and not enough about this chick Nikki
her web site shows her standing next to Sarah Palin they look hot

2010-07-15T07:28:00.001-07:00

COMPTON, DEGENTESH, DOWNING,

GARDNER, GORDON, MESMER, SULLIVAN

A reading, with film
Thursday, July 22, 2010
6:00pm - 8:00pm
We-Are-Familia Pop Up Gallery & Event Space
539 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn

WE-ARE-FAMILIA is an extensive global network of creative individuals from all disciplines who have come together to explore the powerful, complex ties which consciously and unconsciously touch all that we experience as humans. Spearheaded by Creative Director Jennifer Garcia, their primary ongoing project is a series of 25 one-of-a-kind Keepsake Boxes showcasing original “mementos” engaging the concept of family.

WE-ARE-FAMILIA, with help from sponsors Art Assets, Atlantic Assets, and GFI Realty, have recently transformed a raw, formerly vacant storefront on Atlantic Avenue into an open studio where they will continue assembling new Keepsake Boxes including a special commission for the Museum of Art and Design. The space additionally functions as a gallery to exhibit new works by Keepsake Box contributors as well as a free event space which aims to extend their family dialogue. The space opened its doors on June 11th, 2010, during Atlantic Avenue ArtWalk and has since had a showing of Jeff Lewis’ meticulous pencil grid drawings as well as electronic performances by Mitchell Akiyama and Nina Mehta of bands First Nation and Rings from Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label.

On Thursday, July 22, WE-ARE-FAMILIA Gallery will host a gathering of flarf poets. Flarf is an international avant-garde poetry movement of the late 20th century / early 21st century whose 30+ practitioners explore “the inappropriate” in all of its guises. Their method is to mine the Internet with odd search terms then distill the results into often hilarious and sometimes disturbing poems, plays, and other texts. Recently profiled on the front page of The Wall Street Journal, the flarf collective create hilarious, shocking, and sometimes downright offensive works. Heated discussions about flarf have been broadcast by the BBC and National Public Radio, and published in The Village Voice, The Nation, Poetry, Poets & Writers, and The Wall Street Journal. “Flarf is a hip, digital reaction to... boring, genteel poetry,” writes poet and critic Marjorie Perloff. Whatever flarf is––whatever you think flarf is––it is most definitely the 21st century‘s first poetry movement. Host and flarfista Sharon Mesmer will introduce some of the collective's New York members: Shanna Compton (For Girls), Katie Degentesh (The Anger Scale), Nada Gordon (Folly), Gary Sullivan (PPL In A Depot), Brandon Downing (Lake Antiquity), and Drew Gardner (Petroleum Hat).

2010-07-06T04:25:00.001-07:00

I'm selling the original art
of my New Life poetry comics

Click on image above to see a clearer, legible copy

With poetry by Katie Degentesh, Flarf, Tao Lin, K. Silem Mohammad, Rod Smith, Edwin Torres, Kevin Young, and more to come, here: newlifecomic.blogspot.com.

2010-05-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Japan today for a two and a half week vacation. Meanwhile, I've added several new CDs--from Algeria, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Turkey and Thailand--to Bodega Pop.

Happy downloading.

2010-05-14T05:30:00.000-07:00

Communist anthems rerecorded as rock songs

"The egg under the red flag," "The holding in arms armed forces flower drum," and "Big production."

This and much more here.

2010-05-02T11:38:00.001-07:00

CRAZY WHACK SUBLIME

VIETNAMESE RAP & HIP-HOP

Download a longer sampler of 10 Vietnamese rap & hip-hop songs in a single zip file here.

2010-04-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

"Hanjowan Di Nadi Wich," from the CD Volume 103

Download that song and 9 more, and watch a video, here.

2010-04-24T17:13:00.000-07:00

LMF (LazyMuthaFuckaz)

CRAZY GREAT HONG KONG HIP HOP

Download songs & watch a full-length documentary about the band here.

2010-04-22T06:50:00.000-07:00

MORLAM THAI

Download CD here.

2010-04-21T21:04:00.000-07:00

CHERRY BOOM, "GOODY GOODY" (Taiwanese Rock)

"In the beginning, it is always downy, chewy and dressed warmly."

Download 4 songs from this CD here.

2010-04-17T10:30:00.000-07:00

JULIO JARAMILLO

Download entire CD here.

2010-04-15T06:10:00.000-07:00

Download this great CD filled with ultra-rare Cambodian rock music here.

2010-04-13T05:22:00.000-07:00

SUPER GREAT HONG KONG HIP-HOP

& INDY ROCK MIX

Listen & download here.

2010-04-12T05:05:00.000-07:00

Fatmire Breçani

“Given the looks some of these guys would give me, you would think I was asking them which hand to use when wiping my ass with pages from the Koran. So, how, then, did I ever manage to amass my SuperPosse of Albanian pop CDs, given this gauntlet?”

2010-04-11T15:43:00.001-07:00

CRAZY GREAT THAI RAP

Download for free here.

2010-04-09T20:01:00.000-07:00

THE FLY

The Fly, "美好生活"

GREAT Beijing punk band. Download whole CD here.

2010-04-07T05:23:00.000-07:00

BODEGA POP UPDATES

Najwa Karam, Asmahan, Laxmikant Pyarelal, Ibrahim Tatlises.

New entries daily, with links where you can download some of these CDs for free.

Please send me great music blog links to add.

2010-04-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

A NEW BLOG

Bodega Pop.

2010-03-31T18:14:00.000-07:00

THE SUBS (BEIJING PUNK BAND)

2010-03-19T18:34:00.000-07:00

JOSIE HO CHIU

Payback

Supermarket

Happy Go Lucky

Standard Wife

This is actually an LMF (Lazy Muthafucka) song, but Josie is singing. Not a video, just the music.

2010-03-19T07:39:00.000-07:00

FRANKLIN BRUNO & CHRIS NEALON
Saturday March 20, 4-6 PM
Segue Series @ Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, 1 block above Houston, $6

Franklin Bruno is the author of MF/MA (Seeing Eye), Policy Instrument (Lame House), and a critical monograph on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces, published in Continuum Books' 33 1/3 series.

Chris Nealon is the author of The Joyous Age (Black Square, 2004) and Plummet (Edge, 2009).

2010-03-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

UNEXPURGATED SALMAN RUSHDIE TELL-ALL!

I found this gem in a bookstore on Devon Street in Chicago. It's not "ironic":

2010-03-13T05:15:00.000-08:00

TODAY! Katie Degentesh & Stacy Doris
Segue Series, Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, 4:00-6:00 p.m.
$6 goes to readers

Katie Degentesh is the author of The Anger Scale. She lives in New York City.

Stacy Doris' books include Cheerleader's Guide to the World: Council Book, Knot, Conference, Paramour and Kildare. She also writes books in French and has co-edited collections of new French poetry in translation.

2010-03-05T07:12:00.000-08:00

MACGREGOR CARD & KAREN WEISER at Segue/BPC

Saturday March 6
Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery
4:00-6:00 p.m.
Six dollars goes to readers

Macgregor Card’s first full-length collection of poetry, Duties of An English Foreign Secretary, is just out from Fence Modern Poets Series.

Karen Weiser’s first full-length collection of poetry, To Light Out, is just out from Ugly Duckling Presse.

2010-03-05T07:01:00.000-08:00

TOP THINGS PPL IN INDIAN VIDEO STORES
HAVE SAID TO ME, CA. 2002-2008

Click to view larger.

2010-03-04T04:48:00.000-08:00

農夫!!!!!!!!!!!

2010-03-02T06:09:00.000-08:00

THE FLY

Color me stoked. Finally found something on the Web about The Fly, a great band from Beijing, whose eponymous CD I found in a dollar rack on 8th Avenue in Brooklyn (aka Brooklyn Chinatown). Two videos from what appears to be a Japanese documentary about underground rock in Beijing:

2010-02-24T04:43:00.000-08:00

THE AUTRÉ

What do David Larsen, Najwa Karam, Raj Kapoor, Stacy Doris, Gu Cheng, Natacha Atlas, Screamin Jay Hawkins, Sakura Maku, Rodney Koeneke, Misora Hibari, Tom Hart, Suehiro Maruo, Asala Nasri, Los Bros. Hernandez, Manmohan Desai, Adeena Karasick, Yinka Shonibare, Chitra Ganesh, Madison Clell, Dambudzo Marechera, Ernst Herbeck, and Puffy have in common?

Let's see.

2010-02-17T04:24:00.000-08:00

JENI OLIN & STEVEN ZULTANSKI
Segue Series @ BPC
308 Bowery just above Houston
4:00 p.m. Saturday, February 20
Six bucks goes to readers

Jeni Olin has a new collection, Hold Tight: The Truck Darling Poems, forthcoming from HL this fall. Her first book, Blue Collar Holiday, with art by Larry Rivers, was published by HL in 2005. Steven Zultanski is the author of the chapbook This and That Lenin (BookThug), plus the forthcoming volumes Pad (Make Now) and Copkisser (BookThug). He edits President's Choice magazine, a Lil' Norton publication.

2010-02-12T07:34:00.000-08:00

BERRIGAN & SNYDER | SEGUE | SAT FEB 13
4-6pm, 308 bowery
six dollars

"Hey Daddy, wanna kiss the Boopie?" was just asked of Anselm Berrigan, whose most recent book is Free Cell, published last year by City Lights. Excerpts from a newer piece called "Primitive State" can be read at necessetics.com/anselm.html.

Rick Snyder's full-length collection Escape from Combray was published last year by Ugly Duckling. He is the author of several chapbooks, including Flown Season (Portable Press at Yo-Yo Labs, 2004) and Forecast Memorial (Duration, 2002). Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in Aufgabe, EOAGH, and The Poker.

2010-02-05T05:31:00.000-08:00

DIANA HAMILTON & DIVYA VICTOR
SEGUE SERIES @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB
Saturday, February 6, 4:00pm - 6:00pm
308 Bowery 1 block above Houston
Six bucks, goes to the readers

Diana Hamilton's poetry has appeared in mid)rib, Nap, Foursquare 3.1 and The Boog Reader 3 and is forthcoming in The Physical Poets Vol 3. She maintains a Web site at: sites.google.com/site/dianahamilton.

Divya Victor has lived and learned in India, Singapore, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Seattle. Her work has appeared in ambit, XConnect, ixnay, generator, dusie, President’s Choice, P-QUEUE and Drunken Boat. Her chapbook SUTURES has been released by Little Red Leaves Press.

2009-12-24T14:56:00.000-08:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2009-12-23T05:20:00.000-08:00

"... SAYS YES"

The new running gag at our house is "... says yes," sung to the tune of "Jimmy Carter Says Yes":

For instance, this morning, reading the Paul Sharits issue of Film Culture (No. 65-66, 1978), Nada blurted out "This is so fetishistic!" and started reading a passage aloud, wherein Sharits enthused wildly about hand-scratching frames of film, quoted Blake, oozed about how fingering the strips of film was like holding a live snake, on and on, until, at some point, we both broke out into song:

"Can a structuralist
Be an expressionist?
Paul Sharits says yes
Paul Sharits says yes ..."

2009-12-16T05:12:00.000-08:00

MY FAVORITE FILMS OF THE DECADE (2000-09)
inspired by Michael Kelleher

Action: Prachya Pinkaew’s “Ong Bak.” This movie not only restored my faith in contemporary action/martial arts flicks, but in motor vehicle chase scenes--a faith I never even had! See the tuk-tuk chase here, but turn the sound down: some yahoo overlayed it with the Benny Hill theme song. (Not that there's anything wrong with that ... but ...)

Agit-prop: Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Love him or hate him, Michael Moore is doing more than most artists of any stripe in this country have or ever will do to change the world, albeit not systemically. This film should have helped tip the 2004 election. I'm embarrassed, but not ashamed, to say that I honestly thought it would.

Animation: Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s “Persepolis.” Oh, okay; technically, “Spirited Away” is a far better film than this, and the filmed version of Satrapi's story has been said to demonize the Irani people in a way that the comic book version doesn't. But it haunted my memory in a way few films have, not even Miyazaki's best. Too, I'm sure it led a lot of people to the comic who'd not have read it otherwise.

Arty: Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Mysterious Object at Noon.” The single most influential film of the decade (on me, anyway). I had no idea where it was going at any point--and I mean that in the best way possible. Mind-altering and bedrock rooted in a real time and place in a way that I wish more poetry would aspire to.

Autobio: Jonathan Caouette’s “Tarnation.” The exploitative nature of this movie would have creeped me out were it not for the fact that the filmmaker here is exploiting his own horrific (and infinitely fascinating) life. Also, Film needs more autobio. What up, Film?

Biopic: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini’s “American Splendor.” I liked the Harvey Milk and Edith Piaf biopics very much, but they both suffered from biopicitis: Protagonist = puppet being pulled from one Major Life Event to the Next. This movie solved that problem in spades. Pekar fans tend to pooh-pooh it, arguing that it pitches a nicer, more well-adjusted Pekar than the comic books. I have all of the comics, going back to issue #1 (1976), and although I have only seen the film once, I thought it really captured the spirit of Pekar's work.

Chick flick: Jae-eun Jeong’s “Take Care of My Cat.” Let's face it: Korean film owned the first decade of the 21st century. And it wasn't even close. This quiet but amazing film is, I'll argue, as good--certainly as memorable--as anything from Ozu. (And I love Ozu.)

Collage: Brandon Downing’s “Dark Brandon: the Filmi.” Brandon's a friend and fellow flarflist mate. So color me biased. It doesn't make this double-DVD set rawq any less, though. I've seen a fair amount of collage film for someone who is neither a filmmaker himself nor so much as an Anthology Film Archives or Millennium Film Workshop member, and this is my favorite work of them all.

Comedy: Nikhil Advani’s “Chandni Chowk to China.” I saw this at the ill-fated Eagle Theater in Jackson Heights with Nada and Brandon (see above); we were laughing so hard throughout the first half that I began to wonder if we were all still on Planet Earth. There was a point during the film when I worried that I had broken something inside me; I couldn't breathe and was starting to feel like I might be losing consciousness. Granted, the second half of the film lags some as the plot gets worked out. (The fate of most film comedies.) But the first half may have been the most I've laughed as an adult, period.

Cop drama: Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s “Infernal Affairs” 1, 2 & 3. I've seen the whole trilogy--all 5-1/2 hours or so--three times now, and it just keeps getting better. Imagine if Philip K. Dick wrote the screenplay for "The Godfather."

Documentary: Agnès Varda’s “The Gleaners and I.” I can't remember much about this film other than I absolutely loved it when I saw it, and have been dying to see it again. I do remember it being rather life-affirming in a way that most documentary isn't. (And I love documentaries.)

Drama: Lee Chang-dong’s “Secret Sunshine.” I don't even know where to begin with this one. One of the most emotionally devastating films I've ever seen. A widow moves to her departed husband's home town, where her son is soon kidnapped and killed. Most of the film deals with the emotional aftermath of this, as one of the men from the town who falls in love with the widow tries--unsuccessfully--to console her after she loses her son. Lee also directed two other films that are among the decade's best: "Peppermint Candy" and "Oasis."

Experimental: Lars Von Trier and Jørgen Leth’s “The Five Obstructions.” I'm not sure if I liked the movie as much as the conversations it inspired later, but what great conversations!

Family drama: Sion Sono’s “Noriko’s Dinner Table.” I just watched this with Nada a night or two ago. The follow-up film to "Suicide Club" (see Horror). But not really. A chilling deconstruction of roles that put me in mind of Donna Hathaway.

Gangster: Vishal Bharadwaj’s “Omkara.” If gangster films ought to be stylized and cool, with plots swiped from Shakespeare plots, then this here film is a pretty good argument.

Historical drama: Lajos Koltai’s “Fateless.” I didn't think I would ever get anything out of yet another Holocaust movie. Apparently, I was wrong. Much of the film's power stems from the way Koltai addresses not just the Holocaust, but its emotional/psychic aftermath.

Horror: Sion Sono’s “Suicide Club.” Scary on multiple levels, while you're watching it, and much later, as it continues to gnaw at your imagination. The fact that so much of the film is unresolved, and that there is no one locus "of" horror, is a great part of its strength.

Low budget: Ramin Bahrani’s “Chop Shop.” It was this or his first film, "Man Push Cart," and I think "Chop Shop" won only because I saw it in a theater as opposed to on DVD. I think Bahrani lives down the street from us off Coney Island Avenue. He is my new local hero.

Monster movie: Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host.” Admittedly, I haven't seen all that many monster movies from the decade, just this one and "Kong." I liked it well enough.

Music documentary: Ondi Timoner’s “DiG!” I hated everyone involved in this film, passionately. I hated the music. Everyone struck me as either a horrible poser, just plain talentless dumb-ass, self-destructive whack-job, or PR creep. (The American music industry, basically.) But, god, what a great dramatic story that unfolds!

Musical: Guy Maddin’s “The Saddest Music in the World.” My favorite Guy Maddin movie.

Novel-to-film: Mira Nair’s “Vanity Fair.” I loved how filthy and exotic everything was. Except for India. Heh, heh.

Police procedural: Bong Joon-Ho’s “Memories of Murder.” I've lost count of how many times I've watched this thing.

Political documentary: Al Gore and Davis Guggenheim’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” I never want to see this film again, and can't imagine any reason why I'd need to. But I appreciated how relevant it was, and more so that it, point-by-point, laid out some solutions.

Queer: Li Yu’s “Fish and Elephant.” Just the fact that it was made in mainland China makes me in awe of this film.

Re-release: K. Asif’s “Mughal-E-Azam” (colorized with remixed sound and music). Jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

Revenge: Park Chan-wook’s “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance.” The best of Park Chan-wook's revenge trilogy. And that's saying a lot. Lee Young-ae is great in this.

Romantic comedy: Jong-kwan Kwon’s “Sad Movie.” The premise of this film is just about everything: Want to break up with someone? Hire someone to deliver the bad news.

Romantic drama: Akihiko Shiota’s “Moonlight Whispers.” Incredibly well-acted and paced film about two teens' slow descent or awakening, take your pick, into S&M.

Science fiction: Byung-chun Min’s “Natural City.” A Korean remake of sorts of "Bladerunner."

Social realism: Tsai Ming-Liang’s “I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone.” Cinema verite at its slowest (and most rewarding).

Splatter: Miike Takashi’s “Ichi the Killer.” I should hate myself for loving this film, it is so horrificly violent without a trace of socially redeeming value. But ... I don't. And I'm pretty sure I'll be watching it for the fifth time within the next month or two.

Surreal: Katsuhito Ishii, Hajime Ishimine, and Shunichiro Miki’s “Funky Forest.” While this film didn't hold up for me on second viewing, the first viewing was like seeing God.

Suspense: Hong-jin Na’s “The Chaser.” The most suspenseful film I've seen since that French flick about the guys driving explosives up twisty, bumpy mountain roads in rickety trucks.

Tear-jerker: Hae-sung Song’s “Failan.” I cried for a full 15 minutes after this thing ended. It starts out seeming like it's a gangster flick. It isn't, really.

War: Park Chan-wook’s “Joint Security Area.” Okay, can you tell I'm flagging a bit. This isn't a war movie so much as a cold war movie. It's great. Trust me.

Western: Kim Jee-woon’s “The Good, the Bad, the Weird.” Korean cinema's answer to "Sholay."

Violence: Pou-Soi Cheang’s “Dog Bite Dog.” Most visceral film of recent memory.

Zombie: Su-chang Kong’s “G.P. 506.” I don't especially have an interest in zombie movies. I liked this one quite a bit, though.

2009-11-22T05:58:00.001-08:00

TONIGHT

KIMBERLY LYONS & THE ZINC BAR PRESENT
THE WOMEN OF FLARF!

Shanna Compton

Katie Degentesh

Nada Gordon

Sharon Mesmer

Mel Nichols

Elisabeth Workman

6:30pm, Zinc Bar

82 West 3rd Street (btwn Thompson & Sullivan), NYC

$5 donation

2009-10-26T06:29:00.000-07:00

THREE TITLE PAGES FROM ELSEWHERE 4

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

2009-10-20T07:06:00.000-07:00

NOAH AND PAUL ZUKOFSKY’S ARK

after this.

Voice of God
Noah
Paul Zukofsky

[Clouds break as light streams down.]

GOD: Noah I know you man your good in my book man keep your head up these people are whack!

NOAH: Wat up Bucket????

GOD: [Thunder, lightning, rain.] Thats whats up!!!!!!!

NOAH: Come to me with that shit!

[Paul Zukofsky walks in.]

PAUL ZUKOFSKY: Well God it’s me, Paul Zukofsky? What do you want me to do today?

GOD: People have messed up God’s world, people who obtain copies of LZ manuscripts, marginalia, etc. etc. such as at UTexas or elsewhere, and who have not first requested and received my permission to have such copies made—

NOAH: People have messed up God’s world—

GOD: Look these ppl are junkies if you know what that means a thief and they needs be off the street.

PAUL ZUKOFSKY: Well, God, people are laughing at me and my wife. We’ve spent entirely too much on gopher bark.

GOD: I forbid so-called electronic “publication”! People may not quote LZ in their “blogs.” Why you gonna hate on me on my thing they got on here bout me!!! Thats messed up i thought we were better than that!!!

NOAH: God’s already warned them again and again but it won’t hurt to try one more time.

PAUL ZUKOFSKY: I guess God is doing a good job at His job. Maybe I’d better go see about my job. The elephants feed trough is getting low again.

GOD: I am not trying to censor you. If you wish to spend your time worrying if LZ did or did not shtupp alligators, that is your problem!

NOAH: For those of you who do not know what an ark is. It is a really really big boat.

PAUL ZUKOFSKY: We know about God’s plan to destroy the evil in our hearts & when we follow His plan we are forever free from the power of evil. Let’s say John 3:16 & 17 together.

GOD: You may not use LZ’s words as you see fit, as if you owned them, while you hide behind the rubric of “fair use.” “Fair use” is a very-broadly defined doctrine, of which I take a very narrow interpretation, and I expect my views to be respected!

NOAH: He's God and we are not God!

PAUL ZUKOFSKY: YOU DNT KNOW SH!T AND YOU SOUND STUPID DEFENDING A GUY WHO LEFT HIS WIFE AND KIDS FOR MICHELLE MCQUISTON

GOD: I know alot about you my dude we been through alot and you always ride it out like a g is spose to.dont sweat what all these fakes are talkin bout while they sit at home and hide behind a screen and made up name we hold it up and take care of ours so we aint got the time to sweat all others then when shit pops that includes people who wish to perform LZ or CZ (“A-24”; the “Masque” etc) we handle it or get past it even then we dont run off the mouth when its all done we dont like the idea of ongoing issues so we face them and get over them.

NOAH: And it rained for forty days and the water was so deep that the ark was lifted way up above the highest mountains while the water washed away every bad person and bad thing the ark floated on the water over the earth

[The animals come onstage and begin to party.]

PAUL ZUKOFSKY: Whoah! What is going on here?

GOD: Man up to the issues you got goin on right now and you know what im talkin bout, I own all of these copyrights, and they are my property, and I insist upon deriving income from that property

ANIMALS: Come join us it’s a barn dance well I guess it’s an ark dance anyway we’re celebrating because God has been really, really, really good to us!

NOAH: God has been my dog for 20yrs!!! he is a great father and friend!!! that is to the ppl that have been TRUE friends to him!!!! everyone gets down but there is only one way to go after that!!!! UP!!! love ya bucket!!!!!

PAUL ZUKOFSKY: So, Noah, what is going to happen if ppl become very evil again? God promised not to wash his ass with another flood. What will He do next time?

NOAH: I don't know what He will do but I'm sure He has a plan. Remember, planning is His job. Our job is to follow His plan.

GOD: i aint seen you for a minute and probly wont but if you ever need a solid ass honkey you just think real hard and youll know who this is and youll find me and if you proceed to the point of publishing articles in journals books etc or if you publish a book, you must obtain my permission to quote, and fees will be charged but i aint puttin my name on here cause i aint tryin to feed into all these dumb ass games these people play on here.you done know when its time for them to man up they gonna tuck tail dude just think solid and youll remember me plus if you look me up ill make you pay me that lil change you owed me for a couple years bro!!

CURTAIN.

2009-10-15T07:18:00.000-07:00

LIVING IN ADVANCE: A TRIBUTE TO DAVID BROMIGE

Friday, October 16, 7:00pm
with Charles Bernstein, Corina Copp, Rachel Levitsky, Daniel Nohejl, Bob Perelman, Nick Piombino, Ron Silliman, Gary Sullivan, Geoffrey Young & Others

This evening celebrates the life and work of poet David Bromige (1933–2009), who was born in London, grew up in Canada, and arrived in 1962 in Northern California, where he spent the rest of his life, teaching and writing more than forty books of poetry. Cosponsored by the Poetry Project.

Admission Free

2009-10-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

NEO-BENSHI: DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE

Do ya'll like ethnic stereotypes? Dumb jokes about the NYC poetry world? Then you'll be wantin' to bar the door and watch this wee neo-benshi I done at Dixon Place earlier this year. Brandon Downing, who curated the event, has posted videos of the the whole two night event here.

Part one

Part two

2009-10-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

I USED TO BELIEVE

(Written for the ISSUE Project Room reading last night, thinking of Suzanne Fiol.)

I used to believe that towels were sleeping ghosts.

I used to think gravel was the same as gravity. Like the rocks in our driveway held us to the earth.

I thought that Germany must be a place of many germs (“germ” + “many”).

For a long time I thought a virgin was someone from Virginia. I found out what it was when a friend of mine came up to me and said “Guess what? So-and-so isn’t a virgin,” and I responded, “Duh, I know. She’s from Texas.”

I used to believe that nobody could see me if I was naked outside in the snow because I would blend in.

All my friends had imaginary friends. I asked my mom to buy me one but she said that I had to concentrate and find one myself.

I used to believe that dogs and cats would be able to speak to us when we died and went to heaven. This is why dogs would stare at you: They were paying close attention to what you were doing so they could remember for the afterlife.

I thought skyscrapers were just for decoration. That it was warmer during the day than at night because more people were out.

I used to think that meat was taken from animals like an operation and they recovered after. I used to believe both boys and girls had penises so I thought sex was when they tied them together. I used to believe that thunder was clouds having sex.

I cried whenever I saw oil patches on the street. I thought they were dead rainbows.

My grandfather was missing his thumb on the right hand due to an accident at work in the oil fields. One day, he had to leave the upper plate of his dentures overnight at his dentist’s for repair. I decided that the thumb also was also removable and that this was a normal part of becoming an adult; your body parts would be replaced by larger, detachable ones.

I would hold my poop as long as I could so my body could use as many of the nutrients as possible, so I could be bigger.

I thought UPS trucks were driven by Oompa-Loompas. I thought that birds switched on the street lights as it became dark by pecking the little knobs on the top of them.

I used to believe that stethoscopes could hear your thoughts, if pressed to your head.

I used to believe that you wouldn’t die unless you got married. I thought that when married couples went on their honeymoon they were actually going to the moon.

I used to believe that your life was a dream and when you died you would wake up as a baby and start your life again as the same person but different things would happen. For example: If you were poor then when you woke up you would be rich.

I was convinced that your clothes would grow right along with you.

I thought that exactly halfway through your life you turned into the opposite sex.

I thought condoms were a lot more complex because of how important the media made them sound. They were like a little machine that guys slid on emitting electrical waves to prevent the sperm from coming out.

I used to believe that your soul was a millimeter thick, right under your skin, and looked exactly like you.

I used to believe that my life was the dream of a giant.

I used to believe that when you looked into a raindrop on the window, that it was magic because of the way things appeared in the drop.

2009-10-08T07:13:00.000-07:00

ISSUE PROJECT ROOM READING THIS FRIDAY

ISSUE Project Room's founder, Suzanne Fiol

I've been meaning to write about this upcoming reading at ISSUE Project Room, and was about to do that Tuesday, when news reached me about the passing of IPR's founder and artistic director, Suzanne Fiol.

I wasn't sure whether the reading, which features 21 poets along with 7 people on the flarflist, would be taking place or not; in fact, one event, scheduled at IPR for this evening, was indeed canceled.

But we got word from Bob Holman yesterday that the show--which was curated by Holman along with Kenneth Goldsmith and Suzanne Fiol herself--will definitely go on. While we had questioned whether or not flarf would be such a good idea, given the timing, Bob assured us that Suzanne stood for "liberty" in the arts and "would be listening." That last part--the last line of his email--reduced me to tears.

From all accounts--and there was an obituary in the Times this morning--Fiol was an amazing human being, whose life touched god knows how many other lives in deeply positive ways. Since she had curated this event with Bob and Kenny, I really want to be there, if for no other reason, than to celebrate the fact that she did things like this, put things like this together, created and kept open spaces for artists of all stripes. Such people are too rare, even in New York.

Here's the info:

This Friday, October 9, 7:00 pm — The Way of the Word
Poetry Extravaganza curated by Bob Holman, Suzanne Fiol, and Kenneth Goldsmith
ISSUE PROJECT ROOM
At the Old American Can Factory
232 3rd Street, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11215
Tel: 718-330-0313

featuring the amazing poets:

Bob Holman
Ken Goldsmith
Jonas Mekas
Anne Waldman
Judith Malina
Abiodoun Oyewole (of the Last Poets)
Hettie Jones
Jeff Wright
Esther K. Smith
Georgia Luna Faust
Michael Carter
Kathy Engel
Kimiko Hahn
Beau Sia
Holly Anderson
Max Blagg
Frank Lima
Betsey Andrews
Mike Topp
Steve Dalachinsky
Yuko Otumo

and the FLARF POETS:

Gary Sullivan
Sharon Mesmer
Drew Gardner
Katie Degentesh
Jordan Davis
Brandon Downing
Nada Gordon

2009-10-07T06:29:00.000-07:00

SOUR TIMES | ONLY LOVED AT NIGHT

2009-10-01T05:36:00.000-07:00

نجوى كرم

1989 performance of a mawal (when Najwa was 22 or 23)

"Sehrani" live

"Wrood Edar"

"Ma Basmahlak"

The walaw mawal

"Rouh Rouhi"

2009-09-28T06:46:00.000-07:00

CHARLES BERNSTEIN INTERVIEWS GEORGE KUCHAR

Speaking of heroes, here's one of my favorite poet heroes interviewing one of my favorite film heroes. It's like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, but funnier.

More sound files from Kuchar on PennSound, here.

2009-09-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

NADA REPORTS ON BELLADONNA'S ADFEMPO CONFERENCE

Part one here.

Part two here.

I wish I could have seen Steve Zultanski's Jewel talk. What's up with Eileen Myles hating on people in public? I thought she was above that. Sad to see good poets fall into the "language poetry bad, group formation bad" rap. It's so ... middle America. Oh, well. She's not the first poet hero of mine to disappoint.

Right now? I am typing this, of course, and listening to the Asha Bhosle that Nada has on her computer (at the moment it's "Jaiye Aap Kahan Jayenge." OMG!).

But the moment I post this, it's back to the living room, where I'm simultaneously working on Elsewhere 4 (after abandoning it all summer, the poor dear) and watching Li Li-hua in "Rape of the Sword." (See poster above.)

Asha! Li-hua! You are my real feminist heroes today. Thank you for rocking so hard.

2009-09-25T05:14:00.000-07:00

I HAVE TO WORK SO WILL MISS THIS

This morning, Nada will be participating in a panel on conceptual writings and feminist poetics with Vanessa Place, Sina Queyras, Kim Rosenfield, and Christine Wertheim.

It's part of Belladonna's "Advancing Feminist Poetics & Activism" program, which runs all day today at CUNY, and which I think is free of charge.

More info for those without day jobs, here.

2009-09-21T08:08:00.000-07:00

MY TOP FIVE POETRY PET PEEVES

As poetry season blortches forth once again into all our lives like a stopped up toilet after flushing, a few things to consider.

1. Poems beginning "Dear," that are not actually letters or emails sent to another person. I know poetry is "artifice," but come on. This never fails to make the hair on my neck crawl, largely because the person's voice who reads this sort of poem always, like, "lilts" in that "special" way when they say "Dear,". Bleah.

2. Poems dedicated to dead poets. ("For Spicer"—it’s almost always for Spicer for some reason. Is he more receptive to bad poetry or something?) Pretty much, I write off poets who do this, forever. It's not fair. But, then, my life is half over, and I don't plan on spending this half of it sitting through this sort of thing. So, actually, it is fair.

3. Ekphrasis. Do I need to elaborate? Send me a URL to an image of the damned painting and let’s talk about something interesting, instead.

4. “I’m not writing about X, I’m writing ‘through’ X.” Thank you for sharing. I'm not laughing derisively at you, I'm laughing derisively through you.

5. Use of the word “mere” to describe all other kinds of poetry/poets but oneself. It’s “merely” a signal for me to take your books off the shelf, toss them down the garbage chute, and fill the now conveniently empty space with the dozen or so Albanian pop music cassettes that have been piling up in a corner near the bookshelf.

Let me know yours as well.

2009-09-16T07:43:00.000-07:00

"I'M REALLY SAD YOU ALL ASSUME
YOU'RE GOING TO HATE MY POEM"

Brilliant new video work from Brandon Downing, here.

2009-09-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

I AM SO THERE. JOIN ME?

Jonathan Horowitz
Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 7:30pm
Light Industry
220 36th Street, 5th Floor - Brooklyn, New York

In an evening exploring the subject of documentary genres, from cinéma vérité to reality TV, Jonathan Horowitz screens his new video, Apocalypto Now (2009), along with an early, rarely seen video, Making Pharaoh’s Red Flag Video (1988). The videos will be presented within the context of a prerecorded “live” introduction/monologue. The artist will be present to answer questions afterward.

“The work of the American artist Jonathan Horowitz (*1966) employs the technique of montage much like a music DJ samples bits and pieces of songs. Scenes from classic movies are combined with obscure bits of media detritus to make critical connections between disparate narratives. At the same time, Horowitz presents singular and incisive new narratives, which powerfully reflect on important issues of the day.

Apocalypto Now is made entirely from found documentary and narrative movie and TV footage. Its primary structure is taken from a documentary on the history of the Hollywood disaster movie. Footage from documentaries on climate change and scenes from movies reenacting the 9/11 World Trade Center attack are intercut. Connections are drawn between disaster as entertainment, real life catastrophe, and the apocalyptic beliefs of religious fundamentalists.

The central figure connecting these strands is the actor/director Mel Gibson. In interview footage, Gibson talks about his personal struggles with addiction, which led him to a renewal of his Catholic faith and to making the movie The Passion of the Christ. As with other players in Apocalypto Now, (self)destructive impulses are channeled through religion and art, to a variety of often disturbing ends. Gibson, however, is not always successful in containing these impulses, as his public relations catastrophes attest.”
- Exhibition brochure, Museum Ludwig

Jonathan Horowitz is an artist living in New York. A retrospective of his work is currently on view at P.S.1.

Tickets - $7, available at door.

2009-09-14T18:34:00.000-07:00

I REMEMBER?

Do you think I should take my medicine not if I remember I already took it?

I remember when I was a little girl... ...and Pluto was a planet. *tear*

I remember a comedy record about a Fart contest in the Chicago Stock yards? Anyone remember this?

I remember when I tongue kissed my friend and it felt like I kissed him before what was that?

I remember a show with a man and his orange puppet friend?

As a girl I remember I was always fascinated about testicles, am I weird?

I remember that in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s etc it was legal for neighbors to smack unruly kids?

what big black bird can speak? i remember a crow or something?

I'm looking for the name of this movie but all I remember is two little boys hiding in dirty water?

i remember a kind of 'homo' dream about my friend, and we're both girls?

I remember this book where the girl is in the hospital crying in a corner and a guy hugs her?

I remember having NIGHTMARES about rape when I was 4, but I didn't even know about sex at the time?

My wife watched me piss in our computer room with my eyes open, why don't I remember it?!?

Are most married women whores, I remember when I was 18-20, I would always get sex proposals from older married women?

when i was about 5 i think i had a vcug i was so scared but all i remember is having my vagina cleaned why?

Why has my penis become the size of my pinky finger, when, I remember, it used to be a small one?

I have to remember to swallow my saliva?

My panties always end up on backwards after I go out drinking, what's up with that & why can't I remember?

How do I remember to wear my rubber bands?

I remember reading somewhere that there is a debate between feminists regarding long hair on men?

When I was younger I remember seeing a hamster eat it's children. Is this murder?

I am 33 and for as long as i remember i chew and bite the inside of my mouth and continually take chunks HELP?

I got up sometime last night and puked all over the bathroom I remember puking but not all over the place?

How can i remember to pick up my underwear off of the bathroom floor?

is it me or am i imagining it??? but, when i was younger i remember cinnamon toast crunch had 3 chefs not one?

What’s “I remember hitting my chin with my chest” mean?

How can i remember to take my birth control pills?

i remember watching a video of someone feeding elk in washington.................?

I remember when I was a child I saw another child grab poo out of the toilet. How do I get rid of this memory?

I remember a show where a guy was obsessed with womens neck waddles...?

there's this scary movie and all i remember was a ghost saying come to me come to me was it in the 90's?

What was the Discovery Channel show that talked about the Earth millions of years from now, I remember it theorized and talked about squids on land at the end?

sorry but this is all i remember.. it goes i believe in the freak of love, he is very high pitch its a band?

When i was going to school i remember the teacher haveing this big orange box and this Puppet with a hat on?

Does anyone recognise this poem: "I remember when the dawn would warm you skin..."?

Can anybody name this movie? Only scene I remember is a man being stabbed in the chest by a unicorn?

I remember this film … nose penis, kids kept in the cellar...?

I remember reading a question on here before about Manny Ramirez writing you suck on a baseball for a kid?

I need help finding a horror movie from the 80's? all I remember is blue fingernails. Kids killing. Can u help?

I remember reading a forum that mentioned a pill that, once ingested makes it impossible to eat sans vomiting?

How Do I Remember All The Material I Learned In Cheer Camp?

I remember a book from my youth. It was two adolescent "clubs" and one tried to sneak into the others hideout?

I remember a pirate comes out of a refrigerator at the end?

2009-09-13T05:51:00.000-07:00

DREW GARDNER | GARY SULLIVAN | DANA WARD

Tonight at the Zinc Bar
6:30 p.m.
82 West 3rd Street
between Thompson & Sullivan

2009-08-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

TWO MORE COPIES LEFT ...

See post just below ...

2009-08-16T16:34:00.001-07:00

ONLY FIVE COPIES LEFT

After four years, I've managed to virtually sell out of the first issue of Elsewhere #1.

I have five copies left, so if you have been meaning to order one, please do now.

If you do so, I'll include an original drawing, a panel from one of my comics that didn't make it into the final work. Suitable for framing or laughing at--you can decide.

And then? Is no more. Is over.

Order by clicking on the button beneath the cover image in the sidebar to the right. Or, if you can't PayPal, send me an email: gpsullivan [at] hotmail [dot] com.

2009-07-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

IT'S MY BIRTHDAY TODAY

and I have no plans, other than getting in to work early and then heading off to wander around the city before meeting a few friends for beers.

This has been a pretty great year so far; I've been blessed to meet and hang out with so many great people, new and old, all over the country, and of course here in the apparently always rainy city of New York. (It is, for instance, drizzling it looks like, now.)

Of course I thought this morning of Leslie Gore (born Leslie Sue Goldstein), and her great pop hit, "It's My Party (I'll Cry if I Want To)," especially as Nada and I just saw footage of her singing in the T.A.M.I. Show a few weeks ago.

But it's my party, and I have nothing to cry about, so I'll leave you with her lesser-known, but infinitely more resonant & powerful "You Don't Own Me":

Oh, oh, dear wonderful Leslie. Thank you for kicking out the jams so relentlessly, you fabulous human being, you.

Here's to another year of all of our individual and collective striving for, and occasionally achieving, same.

2009-07-06T06:49:00.000-07:00

DISCOVERED THIS WEEKEND IN BROOKLYN

Asala Yousef ... the other Asala.

2009-07-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

AM I EMO?

My comic, "Am I Emo?" went live on the Poetry Foundation's Web site this morning.

Read it here.

Read the whole issue, including the Flarf/Conceptual section, here.

2009-06-08T06:31:00.000-07:00

MoCCA FEST 2009 REPORT

Jerel, Cheryl, Bishakh, Sophie and I failed to secure a table in time (having mailed, instead of walked, our application in), so we were on the waiting list. I did finally hear from MoCCA, who, a week or two before the show, e-mailed me to let me know a table had opened up. Alas, I was in Portland, on vacation.

So this year, like last, I was a spectator.

For the poets reading this blog: MoCCA Fest is something like AWP, if half of the people attending AWP weren't so quick to tell you how creepy and awful AWP is. Cartoonists apparently don't have the same ideological problem with selling their art that poets do. This may have something to do with the fact that there are people who actually want to buy their work. There is also, of course, the possibility that AWP really is creepy and awful. I wouldn't know. I've never been.

As the cartoonists among you know, MoCCA Fest has moved from the cool downtown swank of the Puck Building to the historic 69th Regiment Armory on Lexington, between 25th and 26th--the very same Armory of The Armory Show fame. Did all five to six thousand MoCCA attendees and exhibitors think, at one point, like me, "Oh. My. God! I wonder if I'm standing on the very spot where Duchamp's Nude Descending a Staircase was hung?!?"

No, probably not, because most of them, unlike me, have lives. Or are too young & hip to care about anything as cobwebby as early Modernism.

Like last year, most of my favorite books came from elsewhere: Canada, Denmark, France, Holland, Norway and Romania. (No Brits this year, for some reason. I mean, they weren't there--at least, I didn't see them.)

Here's a (nationalist) breakdown of what I took home:

Canada

Ian Sullivan Cant's Papercut Heart. Another visual stunner from Conundrum, my current favorite comics press, in great part having to do with their recent publication of David Lapp's Drop-in, the only comic book that has ever reduced me to tears. I got to meet the owner, whose name I've stupidly forgotten. I told him he was my hero.

At a table somewhere near dead-center of the Armory, I picked up two hand-bound beauties by a young woman living in Ottawa who calls herself Saicoink. As you can see:

her work is more than vaguely reminiscent of Maruo Suehiro, which is precisely what led me to take a closer look at the copies of OSCP 01-02 and OSCP 3 she had for sale. "Maruo?" I ventured aloud. "How--how do you know ... Maruo?" she asked. "Because I am an old person with no inner life, so I wander the world collecting cultural product to fill the empty void that is my soul," I thought to myself, before answering, "I just love his work: he's great!"

The insides were less Maruo, more standard-looking manga style. I bought both books. I haven't yet read them, but I'm looking forward to digging in soon.

Finally, I made my annual pilgrimage to Vancouver-based Miriam Libicki's table to see what the celebrated author of Jobnik! has been up to. A lot, as it turns out; more than I could afford to take home, though I did walk away with a copy of her drawn essay, "Jewish Memoir goes POW! ZAP! Oy! on autobiographical graphic novels, and why they are so jewy."

I actually read this little gem Sunday morning while Nada and I did laundry. Originally written and drawn for The Jewish Graphic Novel: Critical Approaches, I was impressed with Libicki's insightful, if essentialist, takes on comics autobio, which she (convincingly, no less) traces back to the Old Testament.

"... if we see all of the Hebrew Bible as the Jews' collective autobiography, it is a remarkably raw and ambivalent one. How many people's national story puts both the people and its god in such an often unflattering light?" Lebicki writes.

"Comics are Jewish; poetry is Christian," I told Nada, somewhat enigmatically, after finishing Lebicki's book. By that I meant, generally, that poets tend to have a clearly defined sense of good and evil, and strive to make themselves seem Christ-like and virtuous, hoping to set an example for the rest of the world. Poets are martyrs, ignored while alive, rewarded in death. In contrast, comics artists tend to wear their shortcomings on their sleeves. They're less interested in cultural capital than in selling copies of the books they've made or had published.

Denmark
Fahrenheit Press has simultaneously released two beautiful hardcover abstract volumes: Henrik Rehr's Reykjavik and Andrei Molotiu's Nautilus. Andrei also had an advance copy of:

the book he edited for Fantagraphics. Henrik had given me a copy of Reykjavik a few nights earlier at the closing of Andrei's ArtLexis gallery show; at MoCCA I bought Nautilus for half price from Andrei, who wanted to give it me, but I wouldn't let him. (In retrospect, I shouldn't have let Henrik give his book to me, either, although of course I'm flattered and thrilled that he did.)

Despite looking and feeling (and, yes, even smelling--the Danes print in Hungary, it turns out) similar, Molotiu's and Rehr's book-length forays into abstraction are quite distinct. Molotiu mostly avoids texture, going for a more inkblotty, super-enlarged Xerox look. Rehr has a beautiful shakey line (think Chester Brown) that he often uses to create crenallated foreground surfaces that may remind one a bit of Ernst Haeckel. Whereas Molotiu's pages feel like full-page illustrations consistently broken down into regular panels, Rehr plays with panel size, position, and depth; nearly every one of Rehr's spreads has what appear to be insets.

Also from the Denmark table:

Christian Skovgaard's Selvtaegtsmanden and Johan F. Krarup's Pibemanden, both with tipped-in English-language translation sheets. (Well, thank you very much!)

[To be continued ...]

2009-06-04T05:08:00.000-07:00

DAVID BROMIGE, 1933-2009

David Bromige died yesterday morning. His writing was one of the few great & lasting pleasures poetry has ever given me. I learned more from his work & example than from just about anyone. So much so that I dedicated my first book, How to Proceed in the Arts, to him.

A memorial Web site has been set up by his family.

Here's an old essay I wrote about his ground-breaking book, My Poetry.

Very, very sad.

2009-05-14T05:35:00.000-07:00

POETRY: PRIMARY OR TOTAL ART?

I was surprised to see Ron’s review of Douglas Rothschild’s Theogony yesterday morning.

Not surprised that Ron would review the book, but surprised by one of the leaden passages he quoted as being a remarkable example of Doug’s pointedness:

Mysterious Playwrights

Even as a Joke:

The real mystery is
why some poets don’t
just leave the play

writing to the play
wrights. Really – ever

read any of August
Strinberg’s poems?
or Harvey Fierstein’s?

This might take readers of Auden’s plays by surprise. Or for that matter readers of plays, librettos, and performance pieces by Stein, Elmslie, Bernstein, Harryman, Mac Low, O’Hara, McClure, Kevin Killian, Rodrigo Toscano, Dambudzo Marachera, Ben Jonson, Tzara, Lorca, John Wilmot, Yeats, Baraka, Ashbery, Mac Wellman, Charles Borkhuis, James Schuyler, Breton, Brian Kim Stefans, Kenneth Koch, T.S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas.

The absurdity of Douglas’s point seems missed by Ron, as does, and this is key, the fact that Doug's examples--Fierstein and Strindberg--are nothing if not deeply conservative practitioners of their art. (What happens to the question at the end of the poem if the examples are Richard Foreman and Samuel Beckett?)

None of the poets mentioned above—save perhaps Jonson or Wellman, who are not unknown to theater-goers—have ever had the kind of popular success on the stage that a Strindberg or Fierstein can claim. But is the point of poets’ theater to compete with mainstream theater? Especially, gack!, on its own terms?

What, perhaps we should ask, is the point of a poet writing for the stage?

It comes down, finally, to what we think or imagine “poetry” (or “the poetic”) to be. For Rothschild, and perhaps for Silliman, the most obvious answer would seem to be merely “genre”: a particular branch of writing that is related to other writing, but in the final analysis, its own thing. "Poetry" or "the poetic" is not--can't be, given the terms of the argument--something having to do with a kind of vision or way of working through the world via the arts. (Rothschild is famous for saying that "the first job of the poet is to edit," so his emphasis on poetry as mere genre--a product best manufactured in workshops--doesn't come as a huge surprise.)

How do you feel about it? Is poetry merely a genre of writing? Should Beckett have concentrated on the theater and not wasted time on his novels and poetry? Should Kevin Killian decide between short stories, novels, Amazon reviews, poetry, or plays? Would Clark Coolidge's poetry have still been as great--as ground-breaking--had he not also been a drummer?

How many poets who wrote nothing but poetry do you really love? (I'll let you supply the examples, as I can't think of any off the top of my head.) How many of them have had significant impact on the art?

In comparison, how many poets who did other things, or came from other disciplines (e.g., O'Hara, Shapiro, Cage, music; Linh Dinh, Joe Brainard, Kenneth Goldsmith, visual art) do you love? How many have had significant impact on the art?

Clearly, I'm biased. My own feeling is obviously that poets who do not either come from some other discipline or who practice no other art have a much tougher road ahead of them if they want to do anything more than simply rearrange the preexisting furniture ... but here's your opportunity to prove me wrong.

Nada and I (today is our 5th wedding anniversary) are off to Portland this evening, so I'll turn comments moderation off.

Have a (comments) field day in my absence!

2009-05-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

THE SPIRIT OF WALT WHITMAN

for the haters

A poet was working on a collection of poems playing with ideas around race, class and gender. Suddenly the sky wobbled above his head and in a voice thick with fog, The Spirit of Walt Whitman said, "Because you have always been faithful to the poetic imagination in every way, I will grant you one wish."

The poet thought for a moment and said, "Create a non-stop underground bullet train from here to New York City so that I can give more readings."

The Spirit of Walt Whitman said, "Hmm. Well, I must say, your request is very earthbound. Think of the enormous waste such an undertaking would require. The amount of soil that would be displaced. The steel and concrete and other resources! I certainly can do it, but it's difficult for me to justify. Wouldn't you rather think of something that would really would honor and glorify the art of poetry?"

The poet gave it some more thought.

Finally he said, "Spirit of Walt Whitman, I wish for understanding between poets. I want each poet to know how the other feels inside, what they're thinking when they write their poems, why they have written them, and what they feel as they read them aloud to each other. I want poets to deeply investigate each other's projects, to never dismiss that which they do not value or simply not understand, but rather to embrace the multitudinous varieties of expression as made manifest through this most exalted and cherished of art forms."

The Spirit of Walt Whitman replied, "You want the train to run hourly or every half hour?"

2009-05-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

THIS THURSDAY IN CHELSEA

Put on your spring finery and come celebrate with the best small presses in NYC!

Annual Books Party
Thursday, May 7, 2009
6-8pm
Jack Shaiman Gallery
513 W. 20th, NYC
For further information contact: seguefoundation@verizon.net

Featuring

Belladonna
Area by Marcella Durand
mauve sea-orchids by Lila Zemborain
Open Box by Carla Harryman
The Elders Series

The Figures
Space by Clark Coolidge
No. 111 by Kenneth Goldsmith
Ted by Ron Padgett
Mon Canard by Stephen Rodefer

BootStrap
Rancho Weirdo by Laura Chester
I No Longer Believe in the Sun:
Love Letters to Katie Couric by Derek Fenner
Parish Krewes by Micah Ballard
Riot Act by Geoffrey Young

Granary
Faster Than Birds Can Fly by John Ashbery & Trevor Winkfield.
Nine Nights Meditation by Anne Waldman & Donna Dennis
Oaths? Questions? by Marjorie Welish & James Siena
The Square by Emily McVarish

Roof
Styrofoam by Evelyn Reilly
Rob the Plagiarist by Rob Fitterman
Public Domain by Monica de la Torre
Quadragene by Larry Price

Talisman
Eschaton by Michael Heller
Bending the Mind Around the Dream’s Blown Fuse by Timothy Liu,
Hearth by Simon Pettet
Petals of Zero Petals of One by Andrew Zawacki

Ugly Duckling
Classification of a Spit Stain by Ellie Ga
Notes on Conceptualisms by Vanessa Place and Rob Fitterman
The Russian Version by Elena Fanailova
(translated by Genya Turovskaya and Stephanie Sandler)
A Plate of Chicken by Matthew Rohrer

Portable Press at Yo-yo Labs
Shaved Code by Frances Richard
Materialisms by Miranda Mellis
Generic Whistle-Stop by Thomas Fink
The Book Called Spring by David Brazil

United Artists
Absolutely Eden by Bobbie Louise Hawkins
My Autobiography by Barbara Henning
The Influence of Paintings Hung in Bedrooms by Phyllis Wat
Join the Planets by Reed Bye

2009-04-27T07:15:00.000-07:00

THIS FRIDAY & SATURDAY @ DIXON PLACE

DIXON PLACE and the FLARF COLLECTIVE
Present MOVIE NITE

MAY 1 & 2, 2009 8PM

A Mini-Festival of Live Interactives, Musical Attacks, Neo-Benshi, Experimental Video and other damages to the World's Cinematic Legacy

A Benefit for Dixon Place

Advance Tickets: $12/show ($15 at the door) Both nights: $20

Advance Tickets Available (and highly recommended) at www.dixonplace.org

PROGRAM SCHEDULE

*Friday, May 1st*

Sharon Mesmer, Dainipponjin
David Larsen, Logan's Run
Edwin Torres, Five 1/2

*Intermission*

Nicole Peyrafitte, A Voyage to the Moon
Julian Brolaski (with Paul Foster Johnson), Another Man's Poison
Bruce Andrews (with Brandon Downing), Sip Girl

*Video by Konrad Steiner, Linh Dinh, Nada Gordon and Brandon Downing

*Saturday, May 2nd*

David Larsen, Troy
Nada Gordon, Navrang
Tisa Bryant, Untitled
Gary Sullivan, Darby O'Gill and the Little People

*Intermission*

Eileen Myles, Satyricon
Bruce Andrews (with Brandon Downing), Gossip Bruce
Drew Gardner and Risa Puno, Untitled

*Video by Konrad Steiner, Linh Dinh, and Brandon Downing

2009-04-21T05:03:00.000-07:00

GORDON MESMER SULLIVAN @ SPACESPACE

8:00 PM, SAT, APR 25th
SPACESPACE
390 Seneca Avenue (entrance on Stanhope)
Free poetry, dirt cheap beer, spankings.

2009-04-20T07:59:00.001-07:00

THE WHITNEY VIDS ARE IN

Nada has uploaded everything she captured from the Flarf vs. Conceptual reading at the Whitney on her YouTube page.

I took gold medals in both the "worst dressed" and "worst hair" categories.

Gooooo, me!

2009-04-15T06:19:00.000-07:00

FLARF VS. CONCEPTUAL WRITING @ THE WHITNEY

An Evening of Contemporary Poetry: Conceptual Writing and The Flarf Collective
Friday, April 17 7:00 p.m.

Conceived and organized by poet Kenneth Goldsmith on the occasion of the exhibition Jenny Holzer: PROTECT PROTECT

This reading presents eight writers associated with two cutting-edge movements in contemporary poetry: Conceptual Writing and The Flarf Collective. The followers of both movements employ technology to write their works, often using strategies familiar to the visual arts: appropriation, falsification, insincerity, and plagiarism. Fusing the avant-garde impulses of the last century with the technologies of the present, these strategies propose an expanded field for twenty-first century poetry. This new writing is not bound exclusively between the pages of a book and it continually morphs from the printed page to the webpage, from the gallery space to the science lab, from the social space of the poetry reading to social space of the blog. It is a poetics of flux, one that celebrates instability and uncertainty.

Featured poets: Christian Bök, Nada Gordon, Kenneth Goldsmith, Sharon Mesmer, K. Silem Mohammad, Kim Rosenfield, Gary Sullivan, Darren Wershler-Henry

This event is free with Museum Admission, which is pay-what-you-wish during Whitney After Hours on Fridays from 6-9 pm. Inquiries: public_programs@whitney.org or (212) 570-7715.

2009-04-10T05:01:00.000-07:00

FOR KENNETH GOLDSMITH

SPORTS

TRAFFIC

THE WEATHER

2009-04-07T04:57:00.001-07:00

MOVIE NITE @ DIXON PLACE

On Friday and Saturday, May 1st & 2nd, 2009, join us as some of New York's most accomplished writers and performers take the movies to task. Featuring a mix of realtime commentary, collaged and re-edited fragments, Neo-Benshi (live film narration) and other perversions, this two-evening program should prove that all poets really want to do is create chaos and watch movies. Curated by Brandon Downing. Presented by the Flarf Collective and Dixon Place. A benefit for Dixon Place, a 501 (c) 3 organization.

2009-03-24T05:23:00.000-07:00

JAMES SHERRY + CECILIA VICUÑA

SEGUE READING SERIES @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB
Saturday March 28, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
308 BOWERY, just north of Houston
$6 admission goes to support the readers

James Sherry is the author of more than 10 books of poetry and prose. His most recent publication, Sorry: Environmental Poetics, is forthcoming from Factory School later this year. He is the editor/publisher of Roof Books and founder of The Segue Foundation.

Cecilia Vicuña performs and exhibits her work widely in Europe, Latin America and the U.S. Templo e’Saliva / Spit Temple, a collection of her oral performances, edited by Rosa Alcalá, is forthcoming by Factory School Press.

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505. Curators for February-March: Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan.

2009-03-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

K. SILEM MOHAMMAD and LYTLE SHAW

Segue Reading Series @ Bowery Poetry Club
Saturdays March 21 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
308 Bowery, just north of Houston
$6 admission goes to support the readers

K. Silem Mohammad is the author Breathalyzer (Edge Books, 2008), A Thousand Devils (Combo Books, 2004), and Deer Head Nation (Tougher Disguises, 2003). Abraham Lincoln, which he edits with Anne Boyer, is the single most significant poetry magazine in North America that always features a large cat and a rainbow on its front cover.

Lytle Shaw’s most recent books include The Chadwick Family Papers (a collaboration with Jimbo Blachly, Periscope, 2009) and Frank O'Hara: The Poetics of Coterie (University Of Iowa Press, 2006).

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505. Curators for February-March: Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan.

2009-03-11T08:18:00.000-07:00

THE GRAPHIC POEM | RECEPTION + READING
Woodland Pattern, Sunday March 15, 2:00 p.m.

More info here.

2009-03-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

CHARLES BERNSTEIN + ADEENA KARASICK

Segue Reading Series @ Bowery Poetry Club
Saturday March 14, 4:00 p.m.-6:00 p.m.
308 BOWERY, just north of Houston
$6 admission goes to support the readers

Charles Bernstein is the CFO of the Center for Avant-Garde Comedy and Stand-Up Poetry. His most recent book is Blind Witness: Three American Operas.

Adeena Karasick is the 2008 winner of the MPS mobile award, poet media artist and author of six books of poetry and poetic theory. Forthcoming is Amuse Bouche Tasty Treats for the Mouth (Talonbooks, 2009). She teaches Film and Literature at CUNY.

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505. Curators for February-March: Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan.

2009-03-04T08:10:00.000-08:00

JEROME SALA and RACHEL ZOLF
SEGUE READING SERIES @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB
Saturday March , 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
308 BOWERY, just north of Houston
$6 admission goes to support the readers

Jerome Sala has been described as an “honorable hysteric” by critic Peter Schjeldahl. His latest book is Look Slimmer Instantly from Soft Skull Press. Other books include cult classics such as Spaz Attack, I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent and The Trip.

Rachel Zolf’s collections include Human Resources (Coach House, 2007), which won the 2008 Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Shoot and Weep (Nomados, 2008), and Masque (Mercury, 2004).

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505.

Curators for February-March: Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan.

2009-02-26T08:17:00.000-08:00

JOHN GIORNO and BRIAN KIM STEFANS

SEGUE @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB
Saturday Feb 28, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
308 BOWERY, just north of Houston
$6 admission goes to support the readers

John Giorno is the author of many books of poetry, which have been translated into several languages. Subduing Demons in America: The Selected Poems of John Giorno, 1962-2008, a career-spanning survey of his work, was just published by Counterpoint/Soft Skull.

Brian Kim Stefans’ most recent books are What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers (Factory School, 2006), Kluge: A Mediation, and other works (Roof, 2007) and Before Starting Over: Selected Writings and Interviews (Salt, 2006). He just moved to Los Angeles to take a position as professor of English and Digital Humanities at UCLA.

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505. Curators: February-March by Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan.

2009-02-25T07:05:00.000-08:00

TONIGHT!

Bill Luoma & Gary Sullivan
The Poetry Project at St. Mark's
Corner of 2nd Avenue & 10th Street
Wednesday, February 25, 8 PM

Bill Luoma is the author of My Trip to New York City, Western Love, Swoonrocket and Dear Dad. He's a member of the subpress collective and currently lives in Berkeley, CA. New work can be found in Work and Try.

Poet and cartoonist Gary Sullivan's most recent book is PPL in a Depot, (Roof, 2008). He is currently at work on the fourth issue of his comic book, Elsewhere. His translations of the poetry of Austrian "outsider" poet Ernst Herbeck appear at herbeck.blogspot.com.

2009-02-24T04:43:00.000-08:00

FROM THE HERBECK BLOG

The Cigarette.

is a monopoly and must
be smoked. May it
go up in flames.

Translated by Gary Sullivan and Oya Ataman.

* * *

Die Zigarette.

ist ein Monopol und muss
geraucht werden. Auf Dasssie
in Flammen aufgeht.

2009-02-22T07:34:00.001-08:00

CULTURE AND THE INDIVIDUAL

I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member.

I don’t want to join a club that will accept me as a member.

I’d never belong to a club that would have me as a member.

I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.

I would never become a member of any club that would have me.

I would never belong to a club that would accept ME as a member.

Any club that will accept me as a member, I wouldn’t want to join.

I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member.

I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.

I would not join any club that would have someone like me for a member.

I’d never join a club that would allow a person like me to become a member.

Groucho Marx says he DISMISS the club that would have him as a member.

I’m of the Groucho Marx persuasion, and don’t want any part of any club that would have me as a member.

Which brings to mind Groucho Marx’s quip about not wanting to join any club that would have him as a member.

Enter Julius Henry Marx, better known as Groucho Marx: "I would never join a club that would have me as a member."

In this spirit it was named after Groucho Marx because of his famous remark about not joining any club that would have him as a member.

I sent the club a wire stating, PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT ME AS A MEMBER.

2009-02-19T06:12:00.000-08:00

MELANIE NIELSON and SARA WINTZ
SEGUE READING SERIES @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB
Saturday, Feb 21, 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
308 BOWERY, just north of Houston
$6 admission goes to support the readers

Melanie Nielson was born in Humboldt, Tennessee, grew up in Southern California, and lives in New York City. She edited Big Allis magazine for many years with Jessica Grim, and is the author of Civil Noir (Roof Books, 1991).

Sara Wintz’s writing has appeared in Ecopoetics, Cricket Online Review, Interrobang?!, and on Ceptuetics. She co-directs, with Cristiana Baik, :the press gang:, publisher of Intricate Systems, by Juliana Spahr and One Might, by Karen Volkman. She lives in Brooklyn and works at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505. Curators for February-March: Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan.

2009-02-12T07:40:00.000-08:00

OPENS TODAY

in Karachi, alas.

2009-02-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

WC FIELDS + WCW

A rich man is nothing but a poor man with money. Forgive me.

A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her. Forgive me.

Abstaining is favorable both to the head and the pocket. Forgive me.

Ah, the patter of little feet around the house. There's nothing like having a midget for a butler. Forgive me.

All the men in my family were bearded, and most of the women. Forgive me.

Always carry a flagon of whiskey in case of snakebite and furthermore always carry a small snake. Forgive me.

Anyone who hates children and animals can't be all bad. Forgive me.

Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill. Forgive me.

Children should neither be seen or heard from - ever again. Forgive me.

Don't worry about your heart, it will last you as long as you live. Forgive me.

Drown in a cold vat of whiskey? Death, where is thy sting? Forgive me.

Hell, I never vote for anybody, I always vote against. Forgive me.

Here lies W. C. Fields. I would rather be living in Philadelphia. Forgive me.

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people. Forgive me.

I always keep a supply of stimulant handy in case I see a snake, which I also keep handy. Forgive me.

I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison. Forgive me.

I am free of all prejudices. I hate every one equally. Forgive me.

I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food. Forgive me.

I drink therefore I am. Forgive me.

I like children - fried. Forgive me.

I must have a drink of breakfast. Forgive me.

I never drink water because of the disgusting things that fish do in it. Forgive me.

I never drink water; that is the stuff that rusts pipes. Forgive me.

I never drink water. I'm afraid it will become habit-forming. Forgive me.

I never met a kid I liked. Forgive me.

I never vote for anyone. I always vote against. Forgive me.

I never worry about being driven to drink; I just worry about being driven home. Forgive me.

I once spent a year in Philadelphia, I think it was on a Sunday. Forgive me.

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it. Forgive me.

If I had to live my life over, I'd live over a saloon. Forgive me.

If there's a will, prosperity can't be far behind. Forgive me.

If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull. Forgive me.

It ain't what they call you, it's what you answer to. Forgive me.

It was a woman who drove me to drink, and I never had the courtesy to thank her for it. Forgive me.

It's morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money. Forgive me.

Last week, I went to Philadelphia, but it was closed. Forgive me.

Marry an outdoors woman. Then if you throw her out into the yard on a cold night, she can still survive. Forgive me.

Never cry over spilt milk, because it may have been poisoned. Forgive me.

Never give a sucker an even break. Forgive me.

Never try to impress a woman, because if you do she'll expect you to keep up the standard for the rest of your life. Forgive me.

No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it's only a question of degree. Forgive me.

Now don't say you can't swear off drinking; it's easy. I've done it a thousand times. Forgive me.

On the whole, I'd rather be in Philadelphia. Forgive me.

Once, during Prohibition, I was forced to live for days on nothing but food and water. Forgive me.

Remember, a dead fish can float downstream, but it takes a live one to swim upstream. Forgive me.

Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water. Forgive me.

Set up another case bartender! The best thing for a case of nerves is a case of Scotch. Forgive me.

Show me a great actor and I'll show you a lousy husband. Show me a great actress, and you've seen the devil. Forgive me.

Sleep - the most beautiful experience in life - except drink. Forgive me.

Some things are better than sex, and some are worse, but there's nothing exactly like it. Forgive me.

Some weasel took the cork out of my lunch. Forgive me.

Start every day off with a smile and get it over with. Forgive me.

The best cure for insomnia is to get a lot of sleep. Forgive me.

The clever cat eats cheese and breathes down rat holes with baited breath. Forgive me.

The cost of living has gone up another dollar a quart. Forgive me.

The laziest man I ever met put popcorn in his pancakes so they would turn over by themselves. Forgive me.

The world is getting to be such a dangerous place, a man is lucky to get out of it alive. Forgive me.

There are only two real ways to get ahead today - sell liquor or drink it. Forgive me.

There comes a time in the affairs of man when he must take the bull by the tail and face the situation. Forgive me.

When we have lost everything, including hope, life becomes a disgrace, and death a duty. Forgive me.

Women are like elephants. I like to look at 'em, but I wouldn't want to own one. Forgive me.

2009-02-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

ANNOYING DIABETIC BITCH
Sharon Mesmer, Combo Books, 2007

[This review originally appeared in the Poetry Project Newsletter.]

Days after Obama’s historic election I received an earnest e-mail from a Canadian poet who had spent most of the Bush era in the States. “I was intrigued,” she wrote, about “the future of flarf in a post-Bush world.”

She had a theory. Flarf—a kind of poetry that often involves suturing together the results of Internet searches, and which tends to be poly-vocal and often somewhat disturbing or offensive—seemed to thrive during one of the most conservative periods in our nation’s history. She mentioned Sharon Mesmer’s writing as a particularly “disturbing” example of what she called flarf’s “polyphonic disconnect.”

How would such writing fare under Obama?

I gave it some thought. Was it, I wondered, helpful to consider the Beats and the New York School as mere products of the Eisenhower years, a poetic response to a conservative ethos whose most famous product was McCarthyism? “Howl,” the most celebrated American poem of the ‘50s, certainly seems like a direct hit on the times. But what about Kenneth Koch’s “Fresh Air,” written a year after “Howl?”

“The literary magazines in America and England were controlled by academic and conservative poets,” Koch explained in an interview with David Shapiro published in Jacket #15. “I thought I was a good poet, and I knew John Ashbery and Frank O’Hara were, and it was extremely difficult for any of us to publish anything. Meanwhile there was all this terrible, structured, elegant, mildly ironic drivel being published....I wrote ‘Fresh Air’ out of feelings of rage and excitement.”

If a quick glance at Mesmer’s poems like “I Chose the Wrong Power Animal,” “I Am So Over Fucking,” and “Sonnet in Favor of Literary Narcissism” do not strike one as direct responses to the political times, we might want to adjust our notion of “the times” to include the poetic landscape.

In this light, Mesmer’s poem “Mary Oliver vs. Cyborg Prostitute” might well be the “Fresh Air” of the Internet age:

Mary Oliver is the dead people who live on our eyelashes
Cyborg Prostitute is what could happen if the dissolved remains
of an evil Cyclops goes looking for his next meal beyond the boundaries
of the wordless novel
Slouching towards Mary Oliver is an Olivetti laughin’ cryin’ to Olivia Newton
John massage music
The eager note on my door said ‘Cyborg Prostitute is a formless Sioux rowboat
trader in a Christian school videopoetik and strangely repellent’

Kenneth Koch again: “Although ‘Fresh Air’ was an attack on academic poetry, I also wanted it to be a celebration of good poetry.” While Mesmer affronts the “structured, elegant, mildly ironic” poetry of our own age—qualities that bring to mind more academicized strains of post-avant writing as well as the quietist poetry of a Mary Oliver—she also celebrates her own sense of “good poetry.”

Mesmer’s language is charged, electric, wildly funny, with passages as twisty as anything from the NY School:

Spatchcrocked, ectopic,
modified and sebaceous:
Monkey Penis Sausage
and Schmookums on Thanksgiving
arriving with their children,
J. Penis, Scrotum,
Doodiekins and Debbie
singing “Happy Birthday, Cowboy Sally! /
Your penis is three inches /
And leaves a short flavor.”

But all is not Elmslie-like zizzing and popping in Mesmer’s world. There is social as well as literary engagement, in poems like “Fascist Girlfriend” and “Compassionate Conservative Girlfriend.”

In some cases, the work might be so engaged as to invite controversy.

The post-avant, poetic landscape has been dominated in the last decade or so by well-meaning but fairly dry writing that carves out idealized, if not exactly utopian, space. A poetics, one might argue, of avoidance. In this milieu, where poets have refrained from direct engagement with some of the uglier aspects of the social, poems that have foregrounded their author’s refusal to whitewash their poems of ugly human nature have been met with strong resistance.

A poem like “Juan Valdez Has a Little Juan Valdez (I.e., Energy Cannon) in His Pants” seems a strong candidate to spark some future controversy, given its uncomfortable use of an exoticized icon. Whereas other poets might have written a book-length serial poem deconstructing the fictional character, tracing him back to his ‘50s ad agency origins, with feints and dodges into poetic explorations of ethnicity and U.S.-South American power relations, Mesmer’s approach is to simply pour the icon into the blender with a lot of caustic found language:

It’s a true dichotomy, hauling beans on a mule.
Beans take exactly the same amount of time to decompose
as road apples.
Juan Valdez, Java Man, you should be neither slandered nor lionzed.
I shall personally make the wolf parade apologize.
Juan, let me take this opportunity to embrace,
as per the washing instructions on Camilla Parker-Bowles’ underpants,
the following idea:
Juan Valdez + love machine = bovine sex club.
Boy, you rocked me so hard I peed my pants.
You are so a varied artist!

Is the appropriate response to the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency’s creation, to the countless minor and major horrors we’re confronted with every day, another book of slack, dry, barely readable poetry? Mesmer argues “no.” Despite the insane energy of its surface noise, the resulting poem ranks among the funniest and most upsetting in recent memory: a genuinely sane response.

2009-02-08T07:54:00.000-08:00

MY FAVORITE U.S. LABEL

2009-02-06T05:08:00.000-08:00

KENNETH GOLDSMITH and EDWIN TORRES

SEGUE @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB
Saturday February 7
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
308 BOWERY, just north of Houston
$6 admission goes to support the readers

Kenneth Goldsmith is the author of ten books of poetry and founding editor of UbuWeb (ubu.com). He is the host of a weekly radio show on New York City’s WFMU and teaches writing at The University of Pennsylvania. A book of critical essays, Uncreative Writing, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press.

Edwin Torres is a NYC born lingualisualist currently on hiatus from the apple, living upstate. A NYFA recipient and 2006/7 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Writer-in-Residence, he’s been widely published and taught his Brainlingo workshop at numerous venues & universities. His books include, The PoPedology Of An Ambient Language (Atelos Books), The All-Union Day Of The Shock Worker (Roof Books), Onomalingua: noise songs and poems (Rattapallax e-book), and Please (Faux Press CD-Rom).

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505.

Curators: February-March by Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan.

2009-02-05T05:06:00.000-08:00

ANOTHER FROM THE HERBECK BLOG

THE SUN

Who longs for the sun—
rises to the mountain.
And breathes strictly alone
the air like a dwarf.

Dwarves go deep inside
into the forest
until their wee song
reverberates

Who longs for the sun
rises deep down in the valley
and beautifully brown is like it thirsts
and this without agony.

Translated by Gary Sullivan.

* * *

DIE SONNE

Wer der Sonne sich gelüstet—
steiget auf den Berg.
Und atmet streng allein
die Luft ein wie ein Zwerg.

Zwerge gehen tief hinein
in den Wald
bis ihr Liedlein
widerhallt

Wer der Sonne sich gelüstet—
steiget tief hinab ins Tal
und schön braun wird gleich er dürstet
und dieses ohne Qual.

2009-01-28T05:57:00.000-08:00

FLARF vs. CONCEPTUAL 2009

Flarf.

Conceptual.

(via Kenny G)

2009-01-24T04:54:00.000-08:00

FROM THE HERBECK BLOG

The Present.

The present's a quiet orphan,
we just want to be having fun.
I have gone now into the woods,
and will return soon without the goods.

Translated by Gary Sullivan.

* * *

Die Gegenwart.

Die Gegenwart ist still allein,
wir wollen doch nur frölich sein.
Ich bin gegangen in den Wald,
und kehre zurücke allzubald.

* * *

Notes

I have a couple of versions of this poem that I translated, and one version that I translated with Oya Ataman. My first solo attempt was very loose:

The Present.

The present is aligned tho still alien
to anyone already content.
I'm going further into my antlers
and will return, baldly trumped.

That is still among my favorites, and it pains me to have ultimately decided against it. But, let's face it, this is Ernst Herbeck, not Joseph Ceravalo, upon which that translation above is obviously modeled.

Oya Ataman and I did an accurate version later:

The Present.

The present is quiet alone,
we just want to have fun
I am going into the woods,
and turn back all too soon.

and I was fully prepared to keep it, but one thing Oya mentioned when we were doing that version was that the original had the quality of a children's rhyme, which this version doesn't. So, last night I decided I'd do one up that kept the same syllable count as the original, and which maybe gets more of that sing-songy-ness that Oya mentioned.

What do you think? Which should ultimately prevail?

[] Gary version 1 ("The present is aligned ...")
[] Oya and Gary version ("The present is quiet alone")
[] Gary version 2 ("The present's a quiet orphan")

Vote early, vote often.

2009-01-20T05:09:00.000-08:00

SEGUE READING SERIES @ BOWERY POETRY CLUB
Winter / Spring 2009

Saturdays: 4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. 308 BOWERY, just north of Houston $6 admission goes to support the readers

The Segue Reading Series is made possible by the support of The Segue Foundation. For more information, please visit seguefoundation.com, bowerypoetry.com, or call (212) 614-0505. Curators: February-March by Nada Gordon & Gary Sullivan, April-May by Kristen Gallagher & Tim Peterson.

FEBRUARY

FEBRUARY 7 KENNETH GOLDSMITH and EDWIN TORRES
Kenneth Goldsmith is the author of ten books of poetry and founding editor of UbuWeb (ubu.com). He is the host of a weekly radio show on New York City’s WFMU and teaches writing at The University of Pennsylvania. A book of critical essays, Uncreative Writing, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press. Edwin Torres is a NYC born lingualisualist currently on hiatus from the apple, living upstate. A NYFA recipient and 2006/7 Lower Manhattan Cultural Council Writer-in-Residence, he’s been widely published and taught his Brainlingo workshop at numerous venues & universities. His books include, The PoPedology Of An Ambient Language (Atelos Books), The All-Union Day Of The Shock Worker (Roof Books), Onomalingua: noise songs and poems (Rattapallax e-book), and Please (Faux Press CD-Rom).

FEBRUARY 14 STEVE BENSON and STEPHANIE YOUNG
Steve Benson, formerly of the San Francisco Bay area, has lived in Downeast Maine since 1996. Transcripts of orally improvised performances appear in Blindspots (Whale Cloth, 1981), Reverse Order (Potes and Poets, 1989), Blue Book (The Figures/Roof, 1998) and Open Clothes (Atelos, 2005), along with written works. With nine other bay area language poets, he is preparing part 8 of The Grand Piano: An Experiment in Collective Autobiography (Mode A, 2006-present). Stephanie Young lives and works in Oakland. Her books of poetry are Picture Palace (in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni, 2008) and Telling the Future Off (Tougher Disguises, 2005). She edited Bay Poetics (Faux Press, 2006) and her most recent editorial project is Deep Oakland, deepoakland.org. She blogs so rarely at stephanieyoung.org/blog.

FEBRUARY 21 MELANIE NIELSON and SARA WINTZ
Melanie Nielson was born in Humboldt, Tennessee, grew up in Southern California, and lives in New York City. She edited Big Allis magazine for many years with Jessica Grim, and is the author of Civil Noir (Roof Books, 1991). Sara Wintz’s writing has appeared in Ecopoetics, Cricket Online Review, Interrobang?!, and on Ceptuetics. She co-directs, with Cristiana Baik, :the press gang:, publisher of Intricate Systems, by Juliana Spahr and One Might, by Karen Volkman. She lives in Brooklyn and works at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.

FEBRUARY 28 JOHN GIORNO and BRIAN KIM STEFANS
John Giorno is the author of many books of poetry, which have been translated into several languages. Subduing Demons in America: The Selected Poems of John Giorno, 1962-2008, a career-spanning survey of his work, will be published by Counterpoint/Soft Skull in 2008. Brian Kim Stefans’ most recent books are What is Said to the Poet Concerning Flowers (Factory School, 2006), Kluge: A Mediation, and other works (Roof, 2007) and Before Starting Over: Selected Writings and Interviews (Salt, 2006). He just moved to Los Angeles to take a position as professor of English and Digital Humanities at UCLA.

MARCH MARCH 7 JEROME SALA and RACHEL ZOLF
Jerome Sala has been described as an “honorable hysteric” by critic Peter Schjeldahl. His latest book is Look Slimmer Instantly from Soft Skull Press. Other books include cult classics such as Spaz Attack, I Am Not a Juvenile Delinquent and The Trip. Rachel Zolf’s collections include Human Resources (Coach House, 2007), which won the 2008 Trillium Book Award for Poetry, Shoot and Weep (Nomados, 2008), and Masque (Mercury, 2004).

MARCH 14 CHARLES BERNSTEIN and ADEENA KARASICK
Charles Bernstein is the CFO of the Center for Avant-Garde Comedy and Stand-Up Poetry. His most recent book is Blind Witness: Three American Operas. Adeena Karasick is the 2008 winner of the MPS mobile award, poet media artist and author of six books of poetry and poetic theory. Forthcoming is Amuse Bouche Tasty Treats for the Mouth (Talonbooks, 2009). She teaches Film and Literature at CUNY.

MARCH 21 K. SILEM MOHAMMAD and LYTLE SHAW
K. Silem Mohammad is the author Breathalyzer (Edge Books, 2008), A Thousand Devils (Combo Books, 2004), and Deer Head Nation (Tougher Disguises, 2003). Abraham Lincoln, which he edits with Anne Boyer, is the single most significant poetry magazine in North America that always features a large cat and a rainbow on its front cover. Lytle Shaw’s most recent books include The Chadwick Family Papers (a collaboration with Jimbo Blachly, Periscope, 2009) and Frank O'Hara: The Poetics of Coterie (University Of Iowa Press, 2006).

MARCH 28 JAMES SHERRY and CECILIA VICUÑA
James Sherry is the author of more than 10 books of poetry and prose. His most recent publication, Sorry: Environmental Poetics, is forthcoming from Factory School later this year. He is the editor/publisher of Roof Books and founder of The Segue Foundation. Cecilia Vicuña performs and exhibits her work widely in Europe, Latin America and the U.S. Templo e’Saliva / Spit Temple, a collection of her oral performances, edited by Rosa Alcalá, is forthcoming by Factory School Press.

APRIL

APRIL 4 RON SILLIMAN and LISA JARNOT
Ron Silliman has written and edited over 30 books to date. Silliman was the 2006 Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere, a 2003 Literary Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts and was a 2002 Fellow of the Pennsylvania Arts Council as well as a Pew Fellow in the Arts in 1998. He lives in Chester County, Pennsylvania, with his wife and two sons. Lisa Jarnot is the author of four collections of poetry, including the recently published Night Scenes from Flood Editions. She lives in Queens and works as a landscape gardener.

APRIL 11 JENA OSMAN and TAN LIN
Jena Osman’s books include An Essay in Asterisks (Roof) and The Character (Beacon). Her book The Network is forthcoming from Essay Press. She co-edits the ChainLinks book series with Juliana Spahr and teaches in the graduate Creative Writing program at Temple University. Tan Lin is a writer, artist, and critic. He has written Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe (Sun & Moon) and BlipSoak01 (Atelos). His visual and video work has been exhibited at the Yale Art Museum (New Haven), the Sophienholm (Copenhagen), and the Marianne Boesky Gallery (NYC).

APRIL 18 CHARLES ALEXANDER and AKILAH OLIVER
Charles Alexander is a Tucson-based poet, publisher, and book artist. He is the director and editor-in-chief of Chax Press. Alexander’s recent books of poetry include Pushing Water: parts one through six (Standing Stones Press, 1998), near or random acts (Singing Horse Press, 2004), and Certain Slants (Junction Press, 2007). Akilah Oliver is the author of a new book A Toast in the House of Friends (Coffee House Press, 2008), and also the she said dialogues: flesh memory (Smokeproof/Erudite Fangs, 1999). She currently makes her home in Brooklyn, NY.

APRIL 25 POETRY AND ARCHITECTURE featuring VITO ACCONCI
An event featuring poets and architects presenting work that explores potential overlaps and collaborations between the two media. More information to come.

MAY

MAY 2 JULIAN BROLASKI and MAGDALENA ZURAWSKI
Julian T. Brolaski co-curated the the New Brutalism series in Oakland from 2003-2005 with Cynthia Sailers and the Holloway Poetry Series at UC Berkeley from 2004-2006. Brolaski is the author of several chapbooks including The Daily Usonian (Atticus/Finch 2004), Madame Bovary’s Diary (Cy Press 2005), and Buck in a Corridor (flynpyntas 2008). Magdalena Zurawski was born in 1972 to Polish immigrants in New Jersey. Her first book, The Bruise, won the Ronald Sukenick Prize in2006, and was published by FC2 in 2008.

MAY 9 ERICA KAUFMAN and JOAN RETALLACK
erica kaufman is the author of several chapbooks including Civilization Day and several installations of Censory Impulse, her book-length poem, which was published by Factory School/Heretical Texts in January. She co-curates and co-edits Belladonna/Belladonna Books and lives in Brooklyn. Joan Retallack’s most recent publication is her Gertrude Stein: Selections with an extensive introduction/discussion of Stein’s work, brought out by University of California Press. She is the author of seven volumes of poetry including Errata 5uite, which won the Columbia Book Award chosen by Robert Creeley. A collection of Retallack’s procedural poems is forthcoming from Roof Books.

MAY 16 NO READING

MAY 23 MEI-MEI BERSSENBRUGGE and JONATHAN SKINNER
Mei-mei Berssenbrugge was born in Beijing and grew up in Massachusetts. She is the author of numerous volumes of poetry, most recently I Love Artists: New and Selected Poems (University of California Press, 2006) and Concordance (Kelsey St. Press, 2006), a collaboration with Kiki Smith. Jonathan Skinner is a poet, translator and critic, as well as editor of the journal ecopoetics. Skinner completed his Ph.D. in English at SUNY Buffalo. In 2005, he published his first full-length poetry collection, Political Cactus Poems (Palm Press).

MAY 30 STACY SZYMASZEK and PATRICK DURGIN
Stacy Szymaszek is the author of Emptied of All Ships (Litmus Press, 2005). Recent chapbooks include Orizaba: A Voyage with Hart Crane (Faux Chaps, 2008) and from Hyperglossia (Hot Whiskey, 2008). Hyperglossia, the complete poem, is forthcoming from Litmus Press in early 2009. Patrick Durgin has collaborated with Jen Hofer since 1998 to produce The Route (Atelos, 2008). On his own, Durgin has published Imitation Poems (Atticus/Finch, 2007) and Color Music (Cuneiform Press, 2002).

THE SEGUE FOUNDATION
300 Bowery
New York, NY 10012

2009-01-18T06:50:00.000-08:00

AH, THE MEMORIES ...

2009-01-17T05:18:00.000-08:00

FRI JAN 16, 2009

Stopped in Chinatown after work.Picked up three CDs and four Shaw Brothers films. The CDs turned out to be freaking awesome:

Kong Ling and the Fabulous Echoes, Volume II (pictured above), which you can hear for yourself here.

Pan Wan Ching Sings The Four Seasons. Oh. My. God. An amazing CD, with songs in numerous languages, including Japanese and Italian. She's also known as Rebecca Pan. Googling around for her this morning I discovered this:

a somewhat altered version of one of her songs set to scenes from Last Year at Marienbad.

And, finally, Pathe 100 series #31, Yao Lee. Great, great, great. I am a very happy camper.

The films, which I haven't yet watched, are:

Martial Club (click to see amazing final scene)
Hong Kong Rhapsody
The Bride Napping
The Boxer from Shantung.

Looks like I know what I'll be doing for at least some of this three-day weekend.

Greatly looking forward to Obama's inauguration, the day after MLK holiday, although I'll be back at work, alas.

2009-01-16T05:03:00.000-08:00

TUES, WEDS, THURS, JAN 13, 14, 15, 2009

I've been sick the last several days, and mostly unproductive. Did nothing Tuesday but work all day and then after work translated five or six Herbeck poems before calling it a night. Wednesday was Nada's birthday; we both worked, then met for the Segue mailing, then went out to eat with James. A great time though I looked and felt so awful everyone encouraged me to see a doctor. (I didn't, and I seem to be doing better.)

Last night after work I had enough energy to watch two movies: Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein's The Prisoner: Or, How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair and Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi's Inventos: Hip-Hop Cubano. Both excellent, the first an absolute must-see. No energy or I'd have a lot to say about them.

2009-01-13T05:05:00.000-08:00

MON JAN 12, 2009

Drawing in pen & ink for Nada Gordon's Folly.
Drawn from an original collage by Nada Gordon.

Watched Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve. Read another 20 pages or so of Regards from Serbia.

Sent artwork off to Woodland Pattern for The Graphic Poem.

Here's what I sent:

Elsewhere #1
1. Finished comic book, self-published 2005
2. Original art, 8 pp., ink (from Japanese pen-brushes) on 11x14 Smooth Bristol sheets.

Elsewhere #2
1. Finished comic book, self-published 2006
2. Original art, 8 pp., ink (from Japanese pen-brushes) on 11x14 Smooth Bristol sheets. Words by Nada Gordon.

Tales of Bollywood
Original art, 2007, 3 pp., India ink on 11x14 Vellum Bristol sheets.

Ink-Link
1. Original art, 6 pp., 2007, India ink on 11x14 Vellum Bristol sheets.
2. Two computer-colored pages, 8-1/2x11, of what were to be the front and back covers. Words by Maria Chursina

Captain America: Anagrams of “American Imperialism”
Original art, pen and ink, 2003, 4 pp., 9x12 card stock.

Images for PPL in a Depot
Original art, 2 pp., 2007, pen and ink on 11x14 Vellum Bristol.

Images for Folly, a book by Nada Gordon
Original art, 2 pp., 2006, pen and ink, 9x12 Vellum Bristol.

Elsewhere #3
1. Finished comic book, self-published 2007
2. Original art, 6 pp., pen and ink and brush, and in some cases collage, on 11x14 Vellum and Smooth Bristol sheets. Words by Alfred Starr Hamilton, Yehuda Amichai & Mahmoud Darwish, Kevin Young, K. Silem Mohammad, Gary Sullivan, and Rod Smith.

Reading posters
Original art, 2 pp., 1999 and 2000, pen and ink on Bristol pages cut down to 8x12.

Cover art for Poetry Project Newsletter
2 newsletters, both 2003, 8-1/2x11.

Lost in Spacek
Art for poster announcing performance, ca. 1988, pen & ink on 11x14 paper.

Ingestion of Artificial Light
Original art for poster, 1989, pen & ink, and collage on 8-1/2x14 paper.

WOW!
Original art for poster, 1987, pen & ink on 8-1/2x14

SPONCH
Original art for poster, ca. 1987, pen & ink on 8-1/2x14

True Poetry and Fiction Comics
Art for reading poster, ca. 1986, pen & ink on 8-1/2x11

d.a.levy
Original art, 4 pp., ink (brush and pen) on 14x17 Smooth Bristol sheets.

Pasha Noise
Original art, 6 pp., pen & ink on 14x17 Smooth Bristol sheets. Words by Brian Kim Stefans.

Jack Smith
Original art, 7 pp., pen & ink on 14x17 Smooth Bristol sheets.

Snare
Original art for poetry journal, 2 pp., pen & ink on 14x17 Smooth Bristol. Words by Pat Reed.

Nature Poetry (“The view from the sea …”)
Original art, 4 pp., pen & ink on 14x17 Smooth Bristol sheets. Words by Juliana Spahr.

31 mgs.
1. Finished book with poetry by Susan Landers.
2. Original art, 2 pp., pen & ink on 14x17 Smooth Bristol sheets.

The Concise History of Painting
Original art, 1 p., pen & ink on 14x17 Smooth Bristol sheet. Words by Kimberly Lyons.

The Poets (Edwin Torres, Bill Kushner, Julie Patton, Prageeta Sharma, Joanna Fuhrman)
Original art for Poetry Project Newsletter, 1 p., brush & ink on 14x17 Smooth Bristol sheet.

Flarf
Post card for reading, brush and ink, 2006.

The New Life
Comic, 2005, words by Robert Creeley.

Lost Authors (William Melvin Kelley)
Comic, 2000.

Exile
Reproduction of magazine, 1997.

SPD Catalog
Cover and inside portraits of three dozen poets, 1996.

2009-01-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

SUN JAN 11, 2009

Jordan Chan and Patrick Tam in "The Wall"

Did not make it out of the house even once. Got all of the artwork ready to send off to Woodland Pattern for the show, then watched three, count 'em, three movies: The Wall, one of Jordan Chan's first films; Purple Storm, one of Daniel Wu's firsts; and Bollywood Bound, a lively documentary that follows four Indo-Canadians who leave America to make it big in Mumbai.

I stupidly misplaced my copy of Regards from Serbia, so in the last half hour of the evening before bed I read a dozen or so pages into Julie Doucet's 365 Days. (Among them, these pages.)

2009-01-11T05:03:00.000-08:00

SAT JAN 11, 2009

Spent the day cleaning, napping and translating three Herbeck poems before heading off to Brandon and Melissa's apartment in Queens for Melissa's birthday party.

Also went back to this poem, and did some editing (see "Notes" below it):

The Streamlet.

The streamlet flows in the lively
ground,
off into the wide sea.
The little fish poot lively too
And trigger the pike too. (FRO)
It gorges on the little fish in the
belly.
And the streamlet gorges on empty.

Translated by Gary Sullivan.

* * *

Das Bächlein.

Das Bächlein fließt im muntern
Grund,
hinaus aufs weite Meer.
Die Fischlein pupsen munter zu
und zu allererst der Hecht. (HER)
Er frießt das Fischlein in den
Bauch.
und frießt das Bächlein leer.

* * *

Notes

I switched back and forth between "brooklet" and "streamlet," but have finally settled on "streamlet," for the sole reason that it is the closest of the two to "stomach."

Why?

"Das Bächlein" = the rill, rivulet, streamlet, brooklet
"Das Bäuchlein" = the tummy

Add to that the switching Herbeck does between:

fließt (flows)

and

frießt (feeds on)

So there's a stomach/streamlet toggling going on in this poem, which I wanted to at least hint at. Streamlet itself doesn't cut it, of course, but I've also switched my initial translation of frießt from "feeds on" to "gorges on," given the double-meaning of "gorges" and the relevance of its second meaning to the present poem. I also sort of messed with the syntax of the last line in a vain attempt to "foreground" this.

Will doubtless be pecking at this one for a while.

2009-01-10T06:41:00.000-08:00

FRI JAN 9, 2009

Talked with Karl Gartung and Chuck Stebelton at the great Woodland Pattern about The Graphic Poem, a show of my original comics art that they're setting up for later this month.

I used to visit Woodland Pattern every other summer or so when I lived in Minnesota in the early 90s. I remember going with my ex-wife and George Albon on a couple of trips that also included stops at Blackhawk Island, where Lorine Niedecker had lived, Madison, and sometimes Chicago. We also went once with Erik and Bonny Belgum. Stayed with Roberto Harrison on at least one of those trips.

A number of my prized books come from those Woodland Pattern visits. There was at least a rumor in the 90s that they were not online so as to encourage people to come to visit the physical space, and this was why one could still find rare and collectible books at their original "retail" prices. In other words, I paid maybe a couple of bucks each for Susan Howe's Cabbage Gardens and the first printing of Michael Lally's Catch My Breath.

Dinner and Bollywood scenes after work at Rob Fitterman, Kim Rosenfield and Coco Fitterman-Rosenfield's. We ate pici, I think that's how it's spelled, the Italian equivalent of udon. A dance scene from Kath Putli the clear winner of the evening. Speaking of rare books, their library is insane. I think they must have every Little Ceasar book ever printed. Very jealous.

Read the list of questions Joe Safdie asked Kasey about DJ Huppatz's brilliant reading of Sharon Mesmer's Annoying Diabetic Bitch. Joe hasn't even read the book, but shoots a dozen or so accusatory rhetorical not-especially-relevant questions at Kasey, simply for linking to the review.

Speaking of flarf, Rod Smith sent an amazing epic ("What's the deal with ...") to the list at around 1:00 a.m., just before I hit the sack.