had an urge to visit Grolier Poetry Bookshop today, but it is closed on sundays. under previous ownership, we weren't allowed to bring Erin in. he was 12, and gave no evidence of being trouble. that's what the Grolier experience devolved to. anyway, in lieu, a visit to B&N. I almost got away with no purchase, until I saw a book, Trickster Makes This World by Lewis Hyde. the front cover blurb says the book "celebrates the need for the kind of paintings, music, books and ideas that society initially finds unpleasant". my 1st thought was flarf. I'm not doing my Gary Snyder imitation here. Hyde himself writes "trickster is a boundary-crosser". I think that works well as an aspect of flarf. not to limit it to flarf, but I think flarf can reasonably be viewed in such terms. just as last night, the puppet porno in Team America was really, really disturbing, even as it was hilarious (Susan Sarandon, Alec Baldwin, Michael Moore et alia getting slaughtered was not, btw, disturbing, it was just a good hearty laugh). I don't know how far I want to develope this idea, but I do see a use in the outrageous and in boundary crossing. it is certainly true that that which makes us uncomfortable should at least be examined. the recent reaction to Mike Magee's Asian Guys poem has been useful when it has been seen as queries on the border. squeaks of propriety do not work with trickster, that much I've gleaned from my forays into the literature. the discomfort of flarf, which also includes its disjointedness, and its silliness and triviality of subject, produces areas of consideration. irritation can be good. Trickster pulls our chain, removes safety net, makes things serious after all. that initial discomfort bespeaks areas of restriction. those areas of consternation are areas of illuminations. so I'm reading Hyde's book now, that's what I'm doing.