... and speaking of flarf. 2nd issue of Gary Sullivan's Elsewhere arrived yesterday. front and back covers are really lovely, dude check it out. the colour scheme is bluish grey mainly, very compelling. the back cover shows this Mickey Mouse sort of character, a doll maybe, with an electrical cord wrapped around its head. for some reason. those 2 images pretty much encapsulate what's inside. the words are by Nada Gordon, kaleidoscopic impressions. the 2 took a bus trip to Coney Island, Gary took photos from which the drawings were developed. it's like Walt Whitman took acid then welcomed all that he saw. or make that Frank O'Hara. there's a gracious acceptance in what could seem jostling and foreign. the drawings inside (b&w) possess a heavy line, weird weighty modules. almost emblems, that is. there's one Crumbian image of a fellow with not just eyes popping out of his skull but everything else, teeth, brains everything. that nod to Crumb fits perfectly. while neither Sullivan or Gordon show the snideness that Crumb does (I love Crumb), a sense of swimming the human stream is shared. I'm glad to see comix stretching its form. I mean continue stretching. I guess I never cottoned to Marvel's soap opera necessity. having read 3 manga recently, thus making me an expert, I can speak of the cinematic quality of manga, which is a nice breath to take. everything is interesting. people, words, things. I'm suddenly thinking Stein. in Tender Buttons, she tries to see ordinariness. note the fantastic lengths she must go. our seeing is language. this comic is what Gary and Nada saw. comprised, but not explained (death lives in explanation). I'm being rather general in my comments here. the comic is not at my side at the moment, I'm going by my memory of reading it thru last night. the effect of it is a disjointedness but not an unsettling. read Gary's account of the MOCCA (comix convention, I presume). the same sort of fun commitment displayed as I witnessed at the anime festival. dunno why poetry can't be fun like that. flarf, being funny, wanting to be funny, takes a positive step. the the point is not that poetry should be funny, just not so precious and headache. Knopfitude, that draggy condition of sunless poetry. poetry as an excuse to vent. I think I can accept many means, but not that end. which is why we listen to music, perhaps. and turn to visual. come on Poetry, kick out the jams.