an 8th and 9th hunk of Digital are now up. I haven't scanned more images yet, but will soon.

I like Jack Kimball's Pantaloons, and his poetry too, for the way his tone totters between this and that, like heartfelt, snide, pained, loving and such. his tone is never a determined element, but is possessed of the natural waver that is our human instinct. natural, that is, in our 'real' world. in writing, we tend to extend and aggravate the tone, making a verisimilitude that then just maunders on to fatuous. I argue with Whitman, and numerous other writers, myself included, when they take their feelings so seriously that it just becomes embellishment.

okay, added some blogs to my links list. which, if I understand the system aright, shall gain me valuable hit points (hp). it's a potlatch society here in poetry land. I don't mean to be inclusive of all 'good' blogs, just feel like pointing to a few. like, if you are reading poetry blogs, then you are reading Silliman. you don't need my help finding his blog. which I read, tho sometimes... I think I should make a list of corny, stupid, tiresome blogs, but I haven't quite the snide anger for such work.

with a cable connection now, I was able to download some old Grateful Dead. I guess I'm a geezer. I lost interest in the group when Workingman Dead adn American Beauty came out. those recordings got them a new larger audience. I like the raw psychedelic Dead. admittedly the time machine of music swallows me whole. not in a nostalgic good old days way, but time's mystery. I'll always like the Dead, even with their excesses. they retained an integrity thru all those logn strange trips. they went back to the studio for the first time in years (for "Touch of Gold"), and looked for ways to keep it fresh. one such thought was to record in the dark. as whichever of the group who repored this said, it didn't really work out. good effort tho.

I apreciate Henry Gould and his outsider stance. often teamed with Kent Johnson, or so viewed, as a list irritant and marginal. Providence aint so far from somewhere but it aint physical proximity that matters. I'm starting to think Silliman's blog is secular nonsense, just for being so determined, like facts. I want to qualify that, but not right now. I'm feeling cranky, thus pleased with Henry Gould's impulse. I hear the noise of pitter patter towards the open door of opportunity, at quick march. that's why I ragged Kasey, of all people, a few posts back. I don't care too much about the press flesh of taking the show on the road. it's not like Henry or I aren't as ambitious as the next man, woman or toad. I guess we're just not relenting entirely to that force. anyway, here's a link to Henry's blog. say hi to Henry

new tomato caboose

I guess I don't want to build atmospheric narratives gleaned from the coincidences of circumstance and the emotional geography of place, at least not right now. I would prefer not to want the physicality of words to hook around the lurking ghosts and drag them from their petrified corners, where they have been watching commercials for termite control. I don't want to build atmospheric narratives gleaned from the sport of kings while many afterthoughts lay mouldering in the trampled vivneyard. I don't want atmospheric build up in a simile wrenched from the list. I plan to avoid the physicality of words hooking around lurking ghosts and dragging 'them' from their petrified corners, where Martians refuse to vote.

Ron Silliman got his tickets over the net to ensure that he get them

we picked up a copy of Weekly World News while in WV, and discovered a cranky little treasure. it is absolutely thorough in its scurrilous satire. reminds me of The Onion, except that The Onion has a higher tone. I love how well The Onion holds its tone, a hard thing with satire. WWN has to look slightly believeable, and does so, even with such oddities as presented. it's a highly recommended cackle. the latest issue I've seen headlines with DICK CHENEY IS A ROBOT, complete with a picture of the Dick showing off his transitors. another issue had the story of a blonde pleading for a brain transplant.

I don't mean to be offensive in previous post, but I don't see the aesthetic connection Silliman says exists between him and Bouchard. sometimes all seems coded.

Silliman astonishes me to say that Daniel Bouchard is "the writer here to whom I feel closest in terms of my own aesthetic impulses", here being the Slack Buddha catalog. I feel like he's kidding.

XSTREAM

I ought to advert this. site by Jukka-Pekka Kervinen, preenting works from wryting list. gives a good sense of the list as it pours in daily. the very different approaches people take. maybe I've already mentioned this site on my blog, but do it again. I do have some things here, but specific works almost don't matter. it is the effect of the mass is of interest: xstream away!

last two poetry things are latest from Digital Cellular Phone (not yet on my site, I have much more to add there). I'm on Britney Spears at this time. good lord!!! sometimes I feel like a receptacle, but it seems okay nonetheless.

announcers lay back on the cheroot of the forum, today’s breach being important. it seems that something dalliant rose from an expressed doubt, which in its turn broke a real rational thought over the head of some other rascally renegade approached without caution. that’s the story in gist so far. meanwhile, it will be a search of the Internet to discover all the many ways Britney covers the placing of similes in sententious sentences and beguiled paragraphs. Britney works into millions, using prose as a stylistic beat. she’s okay when she’s hungry. the announcers claim that the bankers haven’t fed detail in years, and this could strictly be serious if we aren’t careful. we watch the news forgivingly, when we can. in this planet there are places of explosion, yes, certes, agreed, and the dogs of it all yelp most unbecomingly. look at the crust pertaining to Iraq, then ask Britney, should we follow your shortcomings or are ours enough? Britney wisely will not answer. Tom Cruise won’t be in the likely place until yet so Britney goes it alone. that doesn’t mean she can’t wear her shorts, or smoke an effective cigarette while the cameras do or do not roll. it means squat, which she does, which we do, and that connection seems to work. does anyone want to read further into the trip?

History of More than Anything

MADONNIAD turns older than ever today, where the 80s fired up this storm and the populace (fretted to the least instant person) understood their role as populace. same with big haired boys sticking their tongues out flash style and such, to the beat of something yesterday, almost. the words were printed destiny in every parlance until the wet afternoon grew cozy and a little look away was in order. there’s always time! that Andy Warhol fact finding trip down the street 5 blocks exactly, then turn, then wait for the public to catch up: this straightened out many fund drives and eager bear baiting. and more, he presented a safe house theory come to roost. practice guides come out with market ready to share, to skew the populace towards which is which. it doesn’t make or break, for the condition of one exhumes the condition of all. the MADONNIAD grew for vacation, while Reagan news went on, and other cherished underlinings in the book as well. so much more than less than ever grew from these and other sage inquiries. so Madonna® (which see, incorporated for your pleasure) beget Britney (which keep seeing). now diamonds mull toward another turn in the path. Britney’s built for speed. the legs of her shorts are cut to the bottom of conjecture, for the pleasure of saying that a point in time really occurs. this Iran Contra dust up (which don’t see, it doesn’t matter enough in history now for details) starts Madonna®’s earth. it begins on notes of plucky youth culture, and ends on the dime that stops that car they talk about. Reagan news went straddling the dim sphere that chose his role. we saw wars control box office, we saw axes broken in drum time, we saw a lot of real pictures taken just in time. each draft means something new. Madonna® parks in romance, is more sweat than we can unearth in a day of trying. she’s nothing newer than sunshine but things happen. Britney steers her pelvis towards what moves her, or so we read in the book we write. Britney will announce, someday, and the BRITNIAD itself will close doors that opened on their own, furthermore open the doors that closed. this is the wish dictated in cultural tones, like the rest of us think we are safe. the CRUISIAD is something quite different, a parlour and a game therein. Tom is rather dull, frankly, and only there for the illusion of balance, hero he may be. we’re crazy, totally keyed, and this shows in the work we hide. poetry’s starts rumble on the edge. Walt Whitman, say, flunked sincerity sometimes but watch the idea push to sea as he swatted it. a picture of New York City can stand on its marvel. race thru in your vehicular way, those palisades and rivers meet critical roadways of massed, infectious visions. Madonna® knew these everyday, for the chunky check drawn on the decade or two to play out. well, now it’s a year or two, living an age in a minute. the 60s were the 70s with a preface. the 80s marched on, Reaganized, they say, but that’s the easy way out. did you see the crater that the bombing left? it was the doctor of your backyard, the pleasure of your root. Madonna®’s play is simple ice, for which we are proud. Jorma Kaukonen (which see, which see) steps back as his guitar feeds back into a rip thru some of the easier puddles. a big animal maunders on.

puttering away trying to read Hegel and Heidegger. can't handle a lot of either at one time, but really enjoy both. I don't read poetry so much for other than pleasure anywmore. I used to read a great deal more amongst writers I thougth I should check out. I still do so, but at this point, I am not looking for exemplars, I just want the pleasure of poetry. what I am reading definitely influences my writing. not in the sense that I regurgitate these writers, but that they place my thinking in a certain direction. I think part of my discomfort with the poetry scene is how one can become tied to that. that the scene starts dictating how yo write. not by rules but just the simple insinuating influence of what is around. there's more than a little unconscious mimicking going on out there.

was in a news blackout while away, only heard a smattering of what's going on. couldn't miss Reagan's death, of course. I'm glad the president has left office but I see no point in praising his death. we're all on the same road. my father is 35 days younger than RR, and losing it. whether it is Alzheimer's or dementia hasn't been clinically determined, but his confusion is considerable. a slow decline, but lately worse. yesterday while eating dinner he was convinced that he just got up, that it was morning. nonetheless he retains enough sense to know he's confused, which is painful to see in his eyes. his sister had Alzheimer's, was much more distant, mumbling and chattering to herself, tho with occasional moments of clarity. I see the same smile in him that she would have. confusion mixed with self-deprecating merriment. when my aunt first showed signs of Alzheimer's, my father got into a tizzy looking for a book he had. it was a picture book of Provincetown, on Cape Cod. my father and aunt spent summers in Provincetown, where their grandfather owned a business. my father thought that seeing the book of nostalgic pictures would snap my aunt out of her confusion. but alas. just as it is impossible to convince my father that it is 2 am, not time to get up. nothing is obvious.

a while ago I saw Kasey Silem Mohammad's Dear Head Nation at Barnes & Noble, which event seemed ripe for me buying it. B&N hasn't invested in contemporary poetry in any big way, and just to encourage them in that made KSM's book a worthy purchase. I also admire him as a writer, as his writing is both humourous and challenging. as I thumbed it, tho, I felt a bit oppressed by all the pals he tips his cap to. the network. it's either smarmy or it's politics or I dunno if I am being even halfway fair, but whatever, I couldn't bring myself to buy the book. just recently KSM described his trip to the Boston area on his blog. I got the same oppressive feeling. too much seems to depend on these connections. I'm not advocating anti-social behaviour, just wary of you scratch my back/I scratch yours. which I don't accuse KSM of, but I don't see a reason to care who Kasey met on his travels either. tho it is not the requirement, god knows, for blogs to be substantive in a meaty sense tous les temps (and KSM posts plenty that is substantive), I just didn't want to read about how he pinged this local and that. I feel like I must excuse my grumpiness here but maybe I should just sail in with my thoughts. the scene is insular in an unwholesome way. or I should say, when scenes become important, the poetry starts to get dry.

saw a bumper sticker of good simplicity: DON'T BE A DICK. succinct.

I received a contributor's copy of Lost and Found Times, which John M Bennett edits. I did not send a piece in, he printed a collaboration he and I did together. I enjoy LAFT because it has such giddy energy. it consists of a mess of collaborations and hack jobs. hack jobs being, as I define it, when someone takes someone else's work and Does Something To It. it might be riffing on the earlier work, or some subversion. many of the works are visual. if nothing else, LAFT presents an unsettling of author function. JMB hacked a piece of mine on Wryting. as I recall, he took many letters away to reveal his poem. my piece was disappeared by Bennett. he titled it After AHB's Whatever My Title Was. a network of hackers exists, of which LAFT is the visual proof. John sent to Ivan Argüelles, who hacked John's piece, producing something a lot closer to mine thematically (and really lovely, I wonder if I have it around). and scrupulously it was titled After John After Allen. I have found myself published a few times in LAFT because JMB has seen things on Wryting and put them in his magazine. as I said, this goes into author function. Kent Johnson speaks often of Author Function, and what he does routinely seems a criticism of it. I mean his subversions on listservs is not energized by a mere argumentative tension as that of many listees are. I'm not sure it's all conscious on his part, he's not aloof to the reactions his subversions produce, but it's fascinating what he's doing. JMB and those with whom he works stem from mail art. a network of people sending work back and forth. I am not attached to that scene but I appreciate it. and tho I am all for author function, I guess, and am not trying to eradicate myself, I find it useful to consult that process. when I post online, I acknowledge to myself that the work is well out of my hands, and it could be 'stolen' or made use of. don't post online unless you're not worried about such things. anyway, the point here is to advert LOST AND FOUND TIMES. the address is:
LUNA BISONTE PRODS
137 Leland Ave
Columbus OH 43214

and by the way, I love John's calligraphy. his lines situate themselves nicely between graceful and sloppy. I have yet to define a calligraphy style, I'm still stiff, trying to be neat.