watched Nacho Libre last night. an odd movie. it's a Jack Black star vehicle, obviously. I don't think I've seen a Black movie previously tho it seems like I'm pretty familiar with him. he reminds me of Belushi but I have to say I also thought of Lou Costello last night, too. Costello being more innocent. Belushi's physical comedy is pretty plangent. I occasionally laugh but more often feel oppressed. Black has a lighter touch. people have spoken well of Nacho Libre but I found myself distracted by its normative impulses. are we supposed to buy this guy as a priest? perhaps it shouldn't matter but the pieties are fake yet at times dwelt upon. it doesn't hold up. the idea of this priest as a wrestler is rather sweet and it works. but when he becomes coarse it twists things out of shape. I liked the evocation of Mexican wrestling. I have to admit I've never seen one of those films in which masked wrestlers go about the world fighting crime. they sound so weird as to be pure, like how old time wrestling had a purity that Vince McMahon's empire savvy has completely crushed. the movie's narrative is straightforward but presented choppily, the scenes being more like set pieces. the movie's odd visual reality was nice. I just found myself trying to compute what perhaps I hadn't ought to compute. Nacho was hot for the nun at 1st sight, but sweet for her as well. there's a scene in which she's in her room wearing a diaphanous nightgown and doing her hair, typical nun stuff. Nacho shows up and they comically and chastely eat toast together. just hard to get a grip on intentions here, filmmaking wise. at the end it is all too obvious. Nacho must fight and defeat the great wrestler, and it is no better than Rocky. altho what inspires him to victory is the sight of one of the orphans wearing a wrestling mask. from there it is Moe, Larry the cheese, righteous victory for the underdog. another movie came to mind as being more successful. Three Amigos. yes, a Lorne Michaels movie, but still. Steve Martin and Chevy Chase were still at the height of their smug insincerity, so the normative bullshit never had a chance. them and Martin Short bounced off each other nicely. some surreal moments added to the effect, like the desert scene where critters sing. Nacho Libre wasn't surreal but it tended toward a pleasant oddity. at the end, of course, the orphans are saved. Nacho and the nun are still of the cloth but the carnal element has not gone away. I liked how comfortably the movie went and 'did' Mexico. nothing of the Hollywood soundstage here, nor any imports except for Jack himself. that's how to do a low budget.

I can't say that I know what a subprime is but it sounds like now is the time to get one.

I came upon this blog by Michael Carr and enjoyed it. I liked the poems and I especially liked the captioned photos. I think I met Michael after Demolicious reading, but if I did it amounted only to a nod. yeah, the Bramhall charm in action.

I have a book at lulu.com. specifically, Open Elegy. it consists of 5 elegiac poems and 12 pages. 6 bucks. $4.77 goes to Lulu for production costs. Lulu's fee is 25% of whatever profit I choose to take. I could take zero profit and Lulu would take zero fee, but I felt guilty about that, so I put my profit at 98 cents, giving Lulu 25. if I buy 100 copies the production cost goes down a buck 50 or so. per unit, as they say. I'll think on it. the point of this isn't profit of course. if profit shows up, I'll send it to:

'A 'A ARTS
c/o J. Spahr
5000 MacArthur Blvd.
Oakland, CA 94613

the Frank Sherlock fund, that is. my parents are dead, meaning the one sale I could count on isn't available, so I will reach into my non-profiteering pocket as well. but as I said, the point's not the profit, tho I don't mean to be brusque about the charity. this project isn't really about the broadcasting of my work, tho that potential sounds nice. really, it's just the see and feel of a work put together and ready to go into the world. which is the spell of DIY. it so happens Jeff Harrison and I are discussing publication issues at Antic View. I have a heinously lax publication history. Jeff has a fair amount of work available, and he's quite satisfied with online venues. so anyway, this is the current adventure.

reading Eoagh 3. it is a massive collection., which, it seems, is where online mags are. discuss pros and cons, if you wish. an impressive selection of writings, themed on Queering the Language. I wanted to point to this piece by John Mercuri Dooley. it is about gay marriage, sure enough you can see that is it. but it is not strictly an opinion. I relate what John does with this piece to Charles Reznikoff's Testimony: taking public documents and seeing into their poetry. I don't know how John arrived at the final texts but an act of telescoping occurs. he produces an odd weighting of import. sure there's a point here, a political stance. at the same time, you have to read this piece for its anguish of language. I have to say anguish, because what arises is both a blurring of individuality of the people involved, and an emphasizing of same. each couple has its own story, yet a larger sense says they all relate. the facts of each marriage detail choices made by the couples. but again, I mean to point to the language. it is chopped up, stuttering. each couple, one infers, looks for the right detail of imagery, personal definition. the stuttering is so human and plain, so grappling with a meaning that has to be utterly personal even tho it is so common and shared.

we saw Talladega Nights last night. saw the trailer before some movie, and thought it was funny, but didn't know if that were the extent of the movie. it was really pretty good. I don't think I've seen a Will Farrell movie. I've seen, and liked, him on SNL, and I think he's had small parts here and there. unlike other SNL alum, his presence is less categorized. he seems neither branded or constrained. one doesn't expect him to carry a movie but in fact, if this movie bears the truth, he can. his pairing with John Reilly was excellent. I take Reilly as an actor rather than a comedian. he provides a subtle strength. okay, that's a mushy thing to say. I guess I mean he takes on his role intelligently, thoughtfully, yet without losing freshness. the best scene was around the dinner table. everyone except the grandfather is saying outrageous things. it's such a bent reality. I lost interest a bit as the normative plot unveiled itself. perhaps it's necessary as something to hang the antics on, but it can't be relied on for tension, tho we are expected to fall for the plot turns. Sasha Baron-Cohen was scary as the French racer. SBC really inhabits roles. he carries a disturbing intensity. you saw it in Borat, but of course that whole movie meant to disturb and outrage. his character in Talladega was more on the order of Snidely Whiplash, yet SBC's intensity wants to burst thru such a limitation. anyway, what I thought would be a Will Ferrell vehicle proved to be a much fuller cinematic experience.

just got My Angie Dickinson by Michael Magee (Zasterle 2006). pretty excited to get it. I'm not unfamiliar with it, as its material used to be available from the My Angie Dickinson blog. that right there is a nifty feature of the work: its initial appearance on the web. that highlights the nature of its provenance. Magee (as he explains in his intro) googled phrases from Emily Dickinson along with the name Angie Dickinson to produce the texts. that's a classic collision of pop and high culture. and perhaps classic flarf strategy. aw gee, I dunno from strategy, really, I want to see poems work in the space they've created. I don't want to hang up on method, tho I'm interested in means of production. the truly actualistical flarf books that I've read have been strong, stronger, really, than the flabby critical activity surrounding the work. I hate critical shorthand, the branding sort. again, that's why Silliman's boolean School o' Q versus Righteous bugs me. becasue he recognizes the School o' better than Q, and the Not Quite Righteous. I would as soon avoid the term flarf, it just tempts people, lazy ilk, to fill in blanks with assumptions. or the interesting irritation is covered with critical nacre... yuh well, up with metaphor. the point of any manifesto is as starting point. you make manifest some crucial point, then move on. that's why I like Virginia Woolf's novels: she chose a working method with each one and ran with the experiment. looking at the books that carry the flraf label, one sees a rangy spectrum of work, and that had ought to be how it goes. anywho, I think it's canny sending Emily thru the Angie prism (it's not strictly that, but that captures the colour). things I like here: it's nice to see Emily's dashes deployed by someone else; the design (credit Christian Palino), including the cover, is really effective; once again Magee provides useful, uncryptical talking points about the work. I find tenderness here and thoughtfulness, balanced against the goofy weirdness. I'm psyched to have this book.

I found on the ground a printout of someone's potential order from Toys "R: Us, to wit: Ruthless 3-Pack Series 4: Melian/Nitro/Mercury (our price: $19.99). Free Wrestlemania Action Figure $7.99 value when you buy $30 or more of eligible products. just to complete the temptation, as if that weren't enough, pictures of the 3 action figures. the pictures aren't much for details, but I can glean that Melian wears a red 2-piece suit reminiscent of Wonder Woman, except that she seems to be wearing preposterously large furry white boots (mukluks?); Nitro and Mercury wear matching pants, no shirt, all important wrist bands. you can imagine the fightin' fury of these 3. are they forces of good or evil? I don't know. how readily do they bring foreign objects into the ring? I can't guess, tho Melian's boots represent great hiding place (refs would never look there). do they hate Vince McMahon? of course they do. whew!!! I used to watch the cheesy old wrestling that McMahon's father used to produce. which used to seem sporty in its way. I haven't watched in a few years because the prescribed 'roid rage intensity enacts a dull blow to the senses. in the old days there was a sort of tasteful racism, homophobia and general xenophobia on display, as everpresent keynote to the proceedings. now, from what I glean (can I glean twice in the same post?) from the occasional ads that I see, it is just straightforward bludgeoning. the phobias aren't constrained to the murky depths but indiscriminately wielded as simple anger gone cunningly wild. more overt, that is, but less political. which is weird, I admit. outrage in the arts, I'm swerving to say, wants to be innocent, actually. the internets are wild with calculated spew, which really seem like part of some canny anger management program: say your outrageousness here in the safety of listserv, blog or chatroom, and be normal where it counts. when I've done googly poems, I've wanted to be tender towards the compliant voices that I find. I can't always do that, but I recognize that the satiric element of writing like flarf has limited possibilities. you think of the kid who might be salivating to get these action figures. something is uncomplicatedly genuine in the desire to attach to these characters and the whole wrestling world. I have no idea what one does with these action figures. pose them around your room I guess, or maybe enact (I've used that word twice now, too) desperate wrestling dramas. that would never have interested me long. McMahon's such a jugular-seeking capitalist that there's no sense of play whatsoever in his sports entertainment realm. the troubling blur that exists between real and fake in wrestling is used to thwack the paying customer. the public wants both, desperately. antic flarf doesn't dance far, it needs a soul. what's interesting is language filtered thru an innocent perspective, and the collective reach of empathy. the phobias of the olden days in wrestling were more defensible than the arch calculation of the present day. the scale now is barely human, graded steeply towards the greedy turbine. artistic outrage is an alarm clock set for not long.

Tom Beckett does what all bloggers ought to do: list why he links to the blogs that he does (here). his encapsulations are spot on. Tom's thoughtfulness, acuity and humour are all appreciated, especially amidst the usual rumours of backbiting and such in the precious poetry world. of course I invite you to run your eye down to my name, where he says that I'm a volcano about to explode. that's a sharp observation. I was wickedly slow to "get it" as a poet, and wickedly slow to present it to the world. yet I think I'm worth hearing, worth reading, on the plain of pure merit (if such exists). I think of my poem Days Poem, due out soon from Meritage Press, as being capable of knocking people down. and I don't mean because it tallies 2 volumes and nearly 1000 pages, but that it arises from 30+ years of maneuvering between earnest study, humble effort and fierce dedication. this I see in Tom's work, as poet, as editor, as interviewer, as blogger of positive influence. he doesn't get enough credit. with Unprotected Texts he adds further proof of his accomplishments. I believe Days Poems does likewise for me. it's about time, for both of us...

just back from seeing Sean Cole and Susan Landers read. we got there on time but Susan, who took the train up from NYC, was late, so a search party dashed off to South Station to fetch her. meanwhile, back at the ranch, the reading started with open mike. mostly the same people who read every time. it's a pleasant homespun sort of feature to the Demolicious readings. I thought to bring a poem but finally didn't. after the 4 open mike readers, Sean read (at Demolicious, the local poet reads 1st). Sean's a very good and I'd say under-appreciated poet. he's at ease in front of a crowd but there's a nervous energy nonetheless. I think it takes him a bit to hear his voice and feel the rhythm of his work. his work comprises a general narrative. it is peopled, let us say. it seems to be "about" him and someone else, her, even. his poems are conversational and dialectical. they are also funny. odd but effective juxtapositions just wring laughs and earnest inquiry out of reader/listener. as he warmed up he became more physically tuned in, which translates into kinetic harmonies (id est, he moves his head and hands in harmony to the poem). I'm not picking on a tic but observing where he really syncs in to his work. one of the later poems that he read was a tour-de-force in which the humour and energy combined. Ive heard humour defined as a logical disaster, and that's how I regard his work. Susan arrived during Sean's reading so he didn't have to stretch. Susan read in a carefully enunciated way. conversationally, I noticed, she speaks quickly, so care is evident in her reading. the main work she read from is a translation (of sorts) of Dante's bestseller. by translation she means several things. she does literal translation (tho she professed not to know Italian), as well as the sort of translation the Zukofskys applied to Catullus. a further translation occurred by shifting the English into new terms. the massiveness of Dante's work is, of course, awesome, and her work had something of a feat about it. she brought some politically sharpened news into the work, and that was wickedly effective. she didn't want to simply people Hell with those she doesn't like, as Dante did. where she seemed closest to channeling Dante seemed the best. I felt that when I saw her read before, where she cleaved closest to Stein, she was strongest. I think, and I must emphasize the surmise factor here, that the agony of influence is still being worked out. it is a sign of maturity to turn from the influences. the next step, the most difficult, is integration. she spoke (afterwards) of discovering Dante as she wrote this work. I believe she said this was her 1st reading of Dante. I don't know if she planned to treat the entire Commedia, but she stopped whilst still in purgatory (she has a publisher for the work, tho I don't know who). she found herself too self-conscious in her treatment, or that's how I translate her explanation. I think she's on the edge of something, is what I'm rattling on about. and I must reiterate the surmiseyness of what I've just written. some of us (and it could have been any of us) convened for apres reading feed. and this is a nice part of the reading experience. conversation allowed Susan to expatiate on her work, and later, Sean read some of his poems again. Sean's one of Boston's poets who didn't toddle off to New York's hotbed of fame and connection. surely more of the non ex-pats hereabouts could've crammed the Out of the Blue Gallery t hear him read. another point would be to note Jack Kimball's contribution to the Boston scene. Jack attends a lot of readings locally. and he writes about them. he cadged copies of Sean's poems, the better to write about the reading, and I believe he worked out something similar with Susan. so his reportage includes academic study. this is utmostly valuable, a real angle on the work. so there's my report.

I twiddled a series of poems into a chapbook at lulu.com yesterday. mostly just to see how the process goes. I ordered a copy to look at, and if it feels okay, I'll offer to readership. I own a number of books produced by Lulu, so I'm not concerned about print quality, I'm tuned more to the work itself. self-publish brings up several issues, some of which are bugaboos. the 1st is the matter of editorial judgment. we all know that our critical eye mayn't always see clearly when regarding our own work. Lulu (I haven't explored the other self-publish players) is free, insofar as you can set up all the books you want. tempting to stick everything into print. anyone wishing to see the printed product, however, including you, must place the nickel down. it's a bit spendy ordering a single book, so to scale the thing more comfortably, you may want to buy in quantity. Lulu and its pards are valid resources, tho. so I want to see if what I thunk was a book is so when I get it in my hands. the 2nd issue about diy is the need for imprimatur, that it somehow lacks coolness to publish your own work. especially in publish or die land. that attitude strikes me as loathsome. it seems like an artist had ought to control the means of production. working with Lulu is not the same as printing it out yourself, poking thru the cover stocks, sewing the cover and what not, but you do enter deeper into the process of production. Beth and I framed a few of our own pictures (that we did, I mean) last year. that's akin to publishing. the further step, requiring knowledge and wherewithal, would be to do the framing ourselves. those works have been placed into the world by the act of framing them. they're on the wall. you have work you think deserves being seen, and so do I. why wait for an editor to select what you have submitted? I like typesetting, using different fonts to make a good visual impression. because I knew a leedle (not a lot) about computers and word processors some years ago at work, someone asked me to help him with a project of his. he knew negative zero about computers but had all these arty ideas of how to format his work. much of what he wanted couldn't be accomplished within the strictures of the word processor's functionality then. I think something crucial sits within that disconnection he had from how things happened. I mean, I can hum a great bass line but I never learned the rather important skill of fingering the bass. the kid in the basement labouriously going blum blum blum has it all over me. Beth says art is creative problem solving. bringing forth work for others to see or hear is yet another problem to solve. a huge problem for me has been putting my work in front of people. only in the last few years have I efforted that aspect of the writer's drama. writing is more than just getting the words down. writing includes its presentation.

Sean Cole and Susan Landers read at the Demolicious series this sunday, 2pm, Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge. I've seen both read. Cole is a genuinely funny poet. not just snort ah hah poetry reading funny, but skewed revelation suddenly presented makes you laugh funny. I thought Landers had a strong Stein element to her writing. she led off her reading with a wonderful piece by Stein; possibly that shaded my assessment. not to say influence by Stein is bad, I just don't want to present unneeded borders. oh, I really will read next month at the same venue, with Alan Davies.

115th episode of Antic View. delving, directing and divagating for your consternational pleasure. I look at this thing as critically as I can and believe that, over its breadth and in its depth, it lights some fires. [Dept. of Telling You So]

saw a book about AC/DC at the library yesterday that I had to take home. I love this sort of stuff. I mean, why don't I have a 10,000 page poem about Angus and Malcolm? not tht I've drowned myself in their music, but I appreciate what they do. I have a terribly low tolerance for shouty singers and for screechy ones, yet I can handle both Bon Scott and Brian Johnson no prob. there's always a nice tension between the 2 guitars. the biographers grant Malcolm, rhythm guitarist, a certain genius status, which I've kind of suspected all along. he seems to be the one holding the pieces in place. so that's what I'm reading, along with the Louis Menand book about William James, Wendell Holmes, Charles Peirce and John Dewey, a separate Dewey book, and I'm hankering to read more than the intro to a book about Magellan's circumnavigation.

spatial oddity

spatial oddity, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

mainstream, movies, limetree... I seem to be a-twirl in thoughts. pre-blog I kept a journal that was mostly reactions to anything. the clear intention when I started was to write about my reading. I ditched that immediately and started writing about whatever came to me: music, movies, commercials, weather. it also became more public in its voice than I expected. I saw it as something I would publish, tho I've made no attempt except to type roughly half of it out (600 pages) (I wrote it in notebooks). I bring up that journal because it suggests both methodology and license. movies are mainstream because everyone feels that they can comment on movies. whereas poetry is approached with awe, whether by those who don't read it or those who feel they can be critical scourges. I think Ron Silliman makes things murky with his School of Quietude vs Real Poetry dichotomy. the idea that SoQ is mainstream is to equate the Shawsheen River with the Mississippi. er, the Shawsheen runs thru town and will at its occasional pleasure flood a few basements. you don't see no Huck Finns on rafts on the Shawsheen, if you get my drift. I really should say, poetry-wise, there aint no stream. remember Maya Angelou's poem for one of Clinton's inaugurations? refried Whitman, and what would you expect? it's an occasion of affirmation and such, not poetry. what she wrote only pretended to be a poem, because who has time for poems when celebrating? the Academy Awards sanction not quality work so much as the image of quality work. comedies don't foster that sense of seriousness. the recent Pink Panther was laboured but the sight of Steve Martin and particularly Jean Reno dancing in leotards somehow makes up for all the by rote stuff in the movie. I don't see how poetry can become mainstream. the guilty pleasures of poetry consist mainly in chimey rhythm and rhyme. I mean, the wit of limericks seems (to me, anyway) to serve the satisfying thud of the rhymes. long ago I saw a parade. following the horses was a clown with broom and scoop. the clown wore a sign: Pooper Scooper. this was received as great wit, with people laughing and commenting. which brings to mind one of Baudelaire's little prose pieces in which a drunk speaks grandly to a donkey. alliteration and assonance, I guess the phrase is a poem. its not like poetry is necessarily so forbidding. Koch and O'Hara for sure are entertaining. movies enter by way of a big hole in the head whereas poetry seems to be more osmotic. the difference between the 2 modalities shouldn't be dismissed. which is where I think Silliman gets it wrong. well, I can't focus right now, that's for sure.

Kasey Mohammad lists top movies as well as other movie lists, starting here and moving on. movies are a funny artform. much more deconstructed than poetry. that is, you don't often get people pushing the metaphysical virtues of Ogden Nash's work, but it's different for movies. are Plan 9 from Outer Space or Wizard of Oz hokum or what? the answer is that the borders aren't clear at all. there are far fewer guilty pleasures in poetry. I like Whitman seriously, yet some of his expansiveness is just ludicrous. yet I 'buy' it: that would be an example of a poetic guilty pleasure. I suppose you can count limericks and clerihus or whatever as potential guilty pleasures, but that's more quirky than anything. whereas everyone has choices for guilty pleasure movies. I call Monty Python and the Holy Grail my favourite because it doesn't seem to wear out. the coconut carrying swallow debate, the sight of the knights a-horse, etc: these have yet to get old for me. I don't keep up with movies at all now, tho I try to think about what few I see. I like reading Kasey's takes because there seems to be a virtue to all movies. I suppose because movies are so culturally motivated that they cannot help reflecting something essential about 'us'. whereas poetry most times is pretty insular and personal, so that the cultural mirror is less intense.

funny that we go to the mall for Indian food. it is cheap and potentially quicker than the nearby restaurants. unless you wander... green is the new green this spring. entering the mall via Sears, and their Lands End display shoots green to the eye. Mall was pretty quiet e'en tho there were collections of networking teens that had likely been there all day. brilliant marketing minds aced out a way to quiet the foodcourt. the area under the central dome of the place, which used to be wide open and perfect for small children to run around in, now had a "snack center". this was a gathering of whatchacall gumball machines. coin in the slot, turn the handle, and receive a handful of savoury candy or refreshing gum. or just some shit. it's a glitzy set up yet seems like why bother. television screens appeared in the Food Court and thru out the mall around Christmas time. you cannot hear them, as Erin pointed out, so what do you get? flashing images of product and apparent promo for movies and CBS shows. yes, I did catch that CBS had somehow tied up this marketing advantage. at one of the Food Court choice there's a tv screen on which is shown demonstration of their baked goods being made. I could watch for hours. we stopped, again, at the Coach store. I saw a young teenage girl purchasing something. later I heard her father asking, are you happy with your purchase? and she obviously was. nothing comes cheap there, and as I continue to feel, the goods seem for older patrons. that is, according to my peccable sense of fashion flux. which is to say, Coach is doing something right: that got willing customers. their stock is bubbling, if you want to know. we learned that Coach changes its array of merchandise every 4-6 weeks. visit often. Macy's can hold onto items longer than the Coach store itself. I brought home a catalogue, which brims with crisp pictures of handbags and a grimly sultry model. Coach makes collars for your dog, not mine, if you're interested. they also make shoes, for which I have zero aesthetic. I just want to wear running shoes, and not even the fancy hi-tech ones. I will say I'm not keen on wedgies, if that's what they're called. walking on a wedge of wood... nah... Williams Sonoma, a foodie heaven, loads up on all the special cookware that you need. I liked the set of small square plates with green chopsticks and these ceramic snow peas to rest your chopsticks on. also a stainless steel fortune cookie that opens up so that you can put a cookie, or maybe just a fortune, inside. or how about serving bowls in the shape of those white cartons for takeout Chinese food. especially nifty was the air fresheners, hand cremes and dish soaps made from exotic essential oils. wasabi and green tea, ginger, meyers lemon, French (none of your English) lavender, ginger almond, pink grapefruit. neato. we used to visit a candle store, not Yankee Candle with its awful artificial smell, but ones made from much purer ingredients. I could sniff those for hours. the olfactory sense evokes images and feelings so readily. I should tell Marcel Proust about that. Crate and Barrel had lots of fresh looking geegaws. lots of green, as I noted earlier in Sears. while we were there, Erin came in to borrow Beth's phone because he was mid-conversation with a friend when his phone's battery hit E. large, oddly grim photographic portraits of Jack Nicholson, Angelina Jolie and Christopher Walken were displayed in the mall, adverting something or other. Nicholson's looked like a mug shot, Walken looked crazy and Jolie looked stressed. and so forth. we bought nothing, but we sure wish the economy well.

this is a perfectly silly picture, and it starts with how cats cannot, in all their wisdom, BE silly. this cat rules the entire cat structure thing, all of it, the full universe of that cat structure thing. okay, I admit I am infinitely amused by cats and dogs being cats and dogs, and how we don't differ so super much.

DSCN5889, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

we watched Little Miss Sunshine yestreen. I had it in my head that it was an Oscar nominee, which I find that it is, yet couldn't/can't grasp how that could be. it was a cute picture, but not noteworthy. not that I harbour any respect for the Oscars as a sign of quality, but still. a tried and true collection of quirky characters that eventually get along by movie's end. let's see, heroin addict grandpa, suicidal Proust scholar, vow of silence son. mom and dad are just a bit tense and dysfunctional. patented road trip, to get the daughter to a Little Miss Sunshine contest. grandpa dies en route and rather than stay and fill out paperwork, thereby missing the contest, they steal the body. it worked comedically but jinkies, I expect that sort of plot development from the 3 Stooges. a leedle unbelieveable. the contest itself is one of those beauty contests for pedophiles, which is disturbing. our heroine is not cut from the same cloth, being a little chubby, and not glitzed up like her competition. her routine is an antic dance rendering of Super Freak, which outrages the judges, tho I don't know why. to support her, her family jump on stage and join her. sort of funny but too much a script writer's idea, and not the present scriptwriter but whoever millennia ago who 1st came up with it. the movie didn't resolve all issues, which is a good thing. I think putting these characters together in a less crucial plot would be more endearing. the movie wants them all to stand up as moral tropes or what not. which just sputters.

just seems like I had ought to link to Monty Python scripts.

now this is gnihtemos. my left brain slips right into my right when I go to this site.

I review Down Spooky in Galatea Resurrects. here is my review. I very much appreciate Eileen's project, making views on recent books available in a galumphing quantity and necessity. you can go to issue two for a Down Spooky review by Josh Corey. the more views the merrier. I think I said what I felt about DS, and I like my writing's swift comfort. there, I said it. I will always be amazed at how writing happens thru me. anyway, it looks like plenty of splendid in this issue, and it's useful splendid too.

by way of Halvard Johnson, this funny Youtube clip.

Stephen Vincent's mother publishes a poem. this is wonderful. the poem is fascinating, and her talk as well. oracular. talking with someone with dementia or Alzheimer's is unnerving yet it feels like a visit to an oracle as well. I'm reading a book by James Hillman on aging and death, The Force of Character. I think his point that how character plays out as one ages, as one suffers the inevitable losses, is the real measure. as opposed to "beating death". you know, in the oldest person to climb Mt Everest sense. not exactly a propos, but Ravel's Bolero came on the radio yesterday. I've always enjoyed it. I used to play it for my father when he'd get confused or sad. being a favourite of his as well. he remembers it as being highly controversial. some Brahmin-type older woman that he knew gave up her tickets to the Boston Pops because they had the temerity to include such unconscionable wildness in their repetoire. it proving probably the Pops' biggest hit. there were times, and they grew more frequent, when my father would lose his mooring. Bolero, or Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall, were the most reliable ropes to throw, tho they couldn't always assuage his dismay. it is all wrong to worry it this way, but it's hard not to fret that I couldn't find other means of relief and connection. the point, finally, was his drawing away, a process I could at best ease, not stop.

we had thunk to go out yesterday, maybe a museum, but a slow start to the day (none of us is at physical acme right now) precluded that, so we visited Barnes and Noble. give 'em credit, they've made the bookstore an event. the place was packed. the parking lot, fairly large and without the piles of snow you might find other years, was a system of carefully shifting cars in and out. I must say, I get excited just going to the library, there's always something that will interest and surprise me. this B&N is large, a 2 story, castle-like structure. at the entrance stood someone proffering samples of cocoa and some sweet thing that she daubed with whipped cream. I passed. a toddler had his spoon of sweet, which he immediately dropped. and cried forlornly. so the father revisited the cornucopia. we roamed around per usual. I now make a habit of looking at mountaineering books. particularly Everest. I think I've now read 6 books with accounts of the 1996 disaster on the mountain. can't get enough. one book was titled something like Greatest Mountain Disasters of all Time. it's not all like that, the appeal, but certes it plays in. Beth got a new book on Sir John Franklin's tragic polar ordeal. Franklin led an expedition in 1840 something to the Arctic, seeking a passage thru. all were lost, tho the last didn't die till some 6 years after they got trapped up there. the interesting discovery is that one cause of troubles was the LEAD-lined cans of food that the expedition depended on. there's exactly a zillion history and biography books I'd grab, which is hard to focus. I depend on Beth to select. I owe a lot to Beth. I never read psychology or philosophy, not usefully, till I met her. she encouraged my interest. and while I'm going well I dunno over a book, she says get it. I did quickly grab the new translation of Tibetan Book of the Dead, 1st complete translation into English, which the Dalai Lama ordered done. when Beth's father died in 2003, we felt we had to do something, tho he requested no service. at the gravesite, on a beautiful autumn morning at an incredibly beautiful hillside in West Virginia, Beth and I read from the Thurman translation. just us, Beth's uncle, the funeral director and three very local looking gravediggers were there. it was a moving experience. anyway, I look forward to that. Beth urged me to get this other Tibetan Buddhist work, I don't even remember the name of it. translated by Jeffrey Hopkins, who has done translations for the Dalai Lama. I flinched because it was so long and recondite looking. yet got it. Beth got a book by the Dalai Lama, about the meeting of Buddhism and science. it is a poor imagination that cannot (for example) comprise creationist myths and Big Bang simultaneously. I don't believe they cancel each other. the DL has the wisdom to accept truth, truth in the sense of things explained within a system. his moral strictures centre on empathy and compassion rather than dogma. science, of course, can be as rigidly fundamental as any religion. the DL's stancce is very illuminating and compelling. we got a couple of books on US history, one pre-Revolution, which both Beth and I are fascinated by. the poetry section, by and large, feh. the only possible this time was a New Directions collection of Rosmarie Waldrop. no offense but she's kinda dry, and if I got poetry yesterday, it would have to be wet. I like poetry because it is adventurous, yet B&N's selection of sameness just feels oppressive. phooey to 80 page books and serious author photos and Creative Writing Program imprimatur. those boring people on the Poetics list are promulgating these weak little publishing entities. let's make them stop. anyhoo, got a few minutes now to read...

Christo starts out small

Christo starts out small, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

fridge and rag

fridge and rag, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

self portrait #2,003,452

self portrait #2,003,452, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

blaze

blaze, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

Google supplies me with People headlines on my start page, so I saw where Anna Nicole Smith died. I don't really want to write about it. the story, no longer life, seems simply sad, Shakespearian in the relentless tragic path. her child has what 3 claimants to fatherhood, wow. I don't want to go there. I'm interested in pop icons, hence letting Google pepper me with People headlines, but I can't invest. Katie Loves Calling Tom Hubby: ook, I thought that was Couric and Werner (Werner being part owner of the Red Sox), and I don't even know if that coupling still pertains. what about the breakup of Mischa and that nude rock star? never heard of him, and she's on some show I've never seen. a while back I saw 20 minutes of that Paris and Nicole Simple Life in which, oddly, the nasty closedminded heelbeelies managed to make our heroines sympathetic. 2 bit culture war. I hate the snotty ass regard towards rural folk that exists, as if we were all NY dicks, but this show somehow scripted the simple folk into subpar enclosure. so now Nicole has cool anorexia and Paris, well, she's a smooth machine. I have no idea how I'll feel if she wakes up dead sometime with a needle in her arm, or whatever likely scenario. I mean, I have used Paris in my writing in a thingie way but not ANS, ceptin' here. maybe Paris is too smart to get caught in the gulley when the flash flood occurs, which ANS definitely wasn't. tho I don't want to use the word smart, instinctive maybe is better. ANS never lost the trailer park. Hugh Hefner said something about how the whole Playboy family is saddened. Playboy? family? no doubt the fam will get over it. I found ANS fetchingly goofy and sincere. she fits right into the mold of out of scale victim with Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland (and I think we can invite Liza with a Z into the rarefied group. good lord, it seems like only yesterday...). and maybe Williams had it wrong, or his insight needs adjustment. because these pure products of America don't seem so crazy, it's the people around them. think of daddy #3 for ANS' daughter: Prince Asshole of Zsa Zsa Gaboria. wtf, as Erin would say. that's where I stop wanting to listen. I really meant not to write on this, but look how I got swallowed. and what of Tom Cruise? I dunno. his publicists have made it so life can't sour for him, I guess.

hey, I like this one. with photography, it's often cool when you can't figure out what the image is or how produced. yet Photoshop possibility sorta thwarts that. it's a needless muddle to get into, but admittedly, there's a pleasure in that bit of puzzling that enters into a picture's how 'bout that. and it shouldn't take away from a Photoshopped image that trickery was afoot. there's a certain amount of bullshit in appreciation, I guess, I mean self bullshitting. reminded of James Thurber's piece on his own cartoons. he wrote something like: people ask me if I do my cartoons by moonlight or underwater, and when they hear that I don't they lose interest. anyway, bottom line, nice photo.

as I bethought me of memoirs this morn, I realized how ready made the syllabus was, for those inclined. and these are writers that could be squeezed into terms of avant garditude, rather than those of a broader net. I used the word dogged with Silliman, meaning it in the bestest sense, as Proust was dogged, neurasthenia be damned. no factoid is too dull, obscure or meaningless, if that comes across right. what I've always liked in Ron's work, starting with Bart is the precise detail. an unjudgmental effort to include. that's a validity of memoir, that trust in the life in the littlest bit. it fascinates me that Whitman and Thoreau met. neither was armoured with glory at the time, they were not living reputations but a couple of writers meeting warily... not sure where I'm going here... in a way, memoir's a test: can you find a path thru?

I'm reading Under Albany by Ron Silliman. which I am enjoying. more normative than I expected, but that's okay. I also figured it should be 9000 pages, but maybe it is part 1 in a 17 million piece expansion on everything Silliman ever wrote, due out in January 2723. I mean, he's a dogged writer, for one thing, and isn't the idea of The Project part of the zeitgeist? not to be flippant. Tom Raworth's A Serial Biography came to mind, not so much for approach but for scatter of memories. of course Hejinian's My Life, Dahlen's A Reading. lengthy list, really, and for good reason. keying the artist in the work. I differentiate these works, which I'll call memoir, from autobiography. autobiography, as I define, is more linear and narrative in approach. which can be good but I think less valuable than the memoir approach. I cannot think offhand of a poet autobiography of any resonance, tho probably some will strike me later, or you could refresh my dotty memory. I see memoir as processual, or, the process part is what intrigues me. you think of Proust and his Wayback Machine and do you remember the dress you wore 25 years ago?. memoir is in all of us, writers or not. usefully in us. you have to get beyond the idea both of importance and unimportance. these skewed assertions of facts, dancing in palimpsest, have vital essence and smack. UA shows the same detailed advance as Silliman's blog. I could see taking all the personal notes on his blog, about himself, and the positioning within his world, and make of them a furtherance of this book. his blog is a curious blend of critical and personal, where his critical becomes perhaps too personally regulatory, while the personal is oddly free. I mean, I like that blend, but in a way, I could see the two urges separated as well. UA being an example of that separation. I think...

somewhere in the midst of Ron Silliman congratulating for good taste his conjectured one millionth visitant Ron makes a good point. (note: the preceding was de rigueur acerbic commentary). he writes, try writing 200 MLA papers in a year. meaning, it aint easy. and yet, as Ron notes, those MLA type papers need be no better than blogged insights. I am finishing my own MLA type paper. it is an endeavour of left brain logical work, carefully following lines. I think I write well, but it is a whole conscious effort. I've had to learn to accept the formalities and work within them, whereas I just naturally fell into the right brain creative jumps of poetry and blogging. with this thesis, I battle to follow a logical trail. at the same time, I must fight to keep the formalities at bay, not let them commandeer the writing. MLA papers present a method, one often useful. likewise the blog, in its inventive capriciousness. I'm much more naturally attuned to the blog manner, but I have learned, I believe, to manage in the MLA mode. I've found that the Poetics list is a large failure because those posting rarely understand the nature of the medium. the Poetics list is not a classroom discussion. to say it is for discussion is to use a metaphor, not a wholly accurate one. Ron speaks of that metaphor in his posting. listserv and blog are about sniping, and showboating, and speechifying. they are good for that. their mechanics do not serve discussion well. deal with it. blogs can be ideas in action. sloppy and bullshitty maybe, but the form is loose and forgiving. MLA theses are not. careful, footnoted arguments work with MLA theses. blogs will be read by more people than theses. the underworld of listserv and blog, should not be forgotten, that backchannel network. I'm sure the point of MLA convetions is less to do with presenting papers as to schmooz with colleagues. blogs and listservs have the schmooz more or less built in. I write properly skittery bloggishness here, stumbling and stuttering around some ideas. it is always meant as an invitation.

now 110 installments of Antic View available for reading or citing in uniquely thoughtful masters theses.

well, it is a chilly Super Monday. I largely spent the Day itself sleeping. congestion came on in my chest and I felt achey, so I took the opportunity just to lay low. I used to look forward to being sick because then I could just stay in bed and read. of course when I did get sick, I'd want to sleep. or my concentration wasn't up for much. somewhat like that yesterday. I read several non-Conan stories by Robert E Howard. there's a historical element in these stories that I like. he's really hung up on race, in the you know, Hitler had some interesting ideas school of philosophy. but if you want to read about cloven skulls, REH is your man. I also read Geography of America, by Stein, a Tony Hillermann mystery, a buddhist text, Berrigan, and I wrote and doodled. I read, napped, switched books, napped. I also watched the better portion of 13th Warrior. it's a movie based on a Michael Crichton book, and sort of recounts Beowulf. I saw nary a noodle of THE SUPER BOWL. it held no glamourie for me. I assumed the Bears would win, tho would not have bet, because defense means a lot. but I was never going to say Manning could not win the big one. sometimes the crap of Superbowl is intriguing but I didn't have the energy for it yesterday. and I don't care who plays Halftime, they diminish.

this is a section from my rawther long work, Days Poem, which Meritage Press will soon publish in 2 steroid-inspired volumes. I just happed upon this bit today and liked it. I have etched my own writing manner into the world's glass, or something such. excuse me while I believe in myself.

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

Jack Kimball riffs nicely on Bawston. I've lived this sub and/or exurban distance from Boston all, really all, my life but I'm no expert on the place. I like the physical place. as a thinktank, it smells too much like something. why would college town USA be so parochial and insular? not that I can't see difficulties in New York's competitive edge. saw this funky push on Poetics list to establish a poet laureate of Bean Town. needed? nah. it's one more parochial touch. unless, like, they made John Wieners PL, because I take it he ground into and with the town in a way that a PL ought, but aint likely to. otherwise, it is channeled cartoon, like Jack says. a Jetson style moving walkway at Logan presents welcome messages by Mayor Tom Menino and Ted uh uh Kennedy the uh senior uh uh senator of the great uh uh uh state of uh MuhMassaMassachusetts. forever. awk! the place is entrenched. re the Cartoon Network ad campaign, in the Boston Globe, someone described finding one of the gizmos. she said she saw this thing, it had lights and all, and an alarm clock attached to it. it looked like a bomb to her. she picked it up... no shortage of brains her. anyway, I'm wondering what a PL would in fact accomplish. at some state of the city address this poet could downside the message to something all the folks could understand, something like that, I suppose. my own observacation, Bill Corbett would just maintain the academic boundaries. the many schools in the area are rough on the culture.

a grate picture

a grate picture, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

lit tree

lit tree, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

more pods from otherwhere

more pods from otherwhere, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

yield

yield, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

John Dooley, head not hanging down, supplied me with this url for his Mubet project. and don't forget to rememberize to visitate Otolith #4, another eager selection of varied stuff.

some work by John Mercuri Dooley. John's the co-curator of the Demolicious Reading series. I didn't realize or forgot that he had work available for view. I really like this work, like the idea behind it. he keeps adding lines in alphabetical order, the piece continually mutates. amkes me think you could take a text and set it in alphabetical order, a Kenny Goldsmith kind of thing. John started writing only recently, I forget how recently. I started when I was 16, which doesn't strike me as especially early (a friend of mine was writing stories and making comix at 8). I'm fascinated by those who come late to writing, just as it still fascinates me that I started painting only 5 years ago. anyway, check the archive at No Tell Motel for more of John's work, as well as loads by everyone else.

I found 14 Yu-Gi-Oh cards. I think the age bracket for these is older than Pokemon and younger than Magic. I mean, you give your kid brother your Pokemon cards when you've stepped up to Yu-Gi-Oh. I find these card games recondite to the point of arcane. numbers, images, Japanese characters and 1-point type all deliver key info for those tuned in and have their glasses handy. which I don't and am not. but dude, check it out: Chaos Sorcerer, atk 2000, def 2000. compare that to candy ass White Magician Pikeru: atk 1200, def 0. that's zero, the big O. wtf? I have 3 trap cards (purple): Call of the Haunted, Magic Cylinder, and Spell Shield Type-8. I like how scientificky that Type-8 sounds, and heck, who wouldn't want a Magic Cylinder. great at parties, no doubt. I have 8 spell cards (green). Lightning Vortex must be enjoyable, maybe play some Blue Oyster Cult. Mage Power, mm hmm. Magical Dimension, sure. Mystical Space Typhoon sounds 60s to me, something Owsley might've opened the doors to. a couple of alarming ones: Premature Burial and Dragged Down Into the Grave. PB shows an electric zombie with only right arm and head free, a colourful flash intimating the sinking tho in truth it looks like the victim is climbing out. DDITG looks like someone backflipping into the psychedelic grave (break on thru to the other side) but on closer inspection one sees a big hand pulling the acrobat in. there are 7 brown cards (6 dark, 1 light) that bear no general title but all are characters. Princess Pikeru differs from White Magician Pikeru by having a hefty 800 more atk. still gonna get pwned with 0 def, tho. Mythical Beast Cerberus scintillates bad news but both atk and def are 1400. Magician of Faith sounds nice but gimmie a break: atk 300 / def 400. looks like a jester tho the staff looks good enough for Tarot. Gemini Elf pictures I guess a boy elf and a girl elf, long eared, and maybe a mite incestuous. "Elf twins that alternate their attacks". organized elf twins, that would be. one of the spell cards is Nobleman of Cross Out. an editor!!! and in sooth: "Destroy 1 face down monster and remove it from play." coolio!!!

Erin's mock trail team competed for the 1st time this season. Erin got to be the 1st one to speak, as he gave the prosecution's opening remarks. I haven't witnessed this sort of thing before, Erin performing, so I found I was nervous. being as sick as he's been, he hasn't had the best opportunity to prepare. nonetheless he did great. he's an excellent writer, so his remarks were sharp, but he also gave them a good rendition. that he's 6'5" and wearing a suit, instead of his usual black t-shirts with rude remarks, makes for an impressive presence. there are 3 seasoned vets on the team, the rest are newbies (Erin and a couple of others were on the team last year but without roles). I've noticed it before, but it's worth speaking of again, the difference between homeschoolers and public schoolers. you can see the social yoke on the public kids, the way they react amongst each other and towards their coach. a smirking submissiveness. both the team and those who came with them joke sardonically thru out the trial. the homeschoolers are no more serious, just more focused. not crunched by the hierarchy. I'm not laying anything on the kids themselves, just pointing out how much effort and energy is wasted for the sake of school hierarchy. and also who gets left behind. the big red herring about homeschooling is socialization. like the socialization of high school (jock beat up nerd ha ha) is so cool. anyway, at least in populated areas, homeschoolers work out ways to socialize. homeschooling aint for all, but it is not just about fundamentalists concerned that someone will mention Darwin. anyway, proud of Erin, my family.

watched Inconvenient Truth last night, a largely intelligent presentation. he has a nice, surprising, self-deprecating humour. I was astonished how well he did on Saturday Night Live, comfortable and sly with good timing. Gee Double You got nuthin but that phony folksy smirk. but anyway. nice use of visuals in the lecture. even tho the idea that he said he invented the internet has been deprecated, Gore still comes off as being overly concerned about being a central figure. whatever leadership he showed in the environmental cause is beside the point, and playing up that leadership is pernicious to the cause. you know, oh that Gore. nearly 40 years ago I saw Allen Ginsberg explaining to Merv Griffin that the greenhouse effect was doing bad things, so Gore aint the only one in the fight. he pulled the heartstrings a few times. I'm sure the near death of his son rocked him, but maybe we don't need to know that his son's travail somehow sharpened his environmental concerns. and did it take the death of his sister to convince him that tobacco is a bad thing? that stuff aside, tho. the science was well done. even tho the conclusions might make you crap your pants, the ecological interplay is fascinating. for dessert, watch Day After Tomorrow, or whatever it is called. yikes!

a troll posted some anti-gay scurrility on the Poetics list. this brought forth an outraged response. rule one for the internet, let trolls bounce their effects off rock walls. okay, rule one ignored. so the discussion--I'll be whimsical and call it a discussion--became Comparative Suffering 101. it all sounds like what should be told to your therapist: I've had it hard being a member of group X. it all finally boils down to the singular. I was reading Ric Carfagna's interview with Vernon Frazer at Big Bridge (here). Vernon talks of having Tourette's syndrome. there's something that sets you apart. but then, we're all set apart. Vernon sounded like he was thru the wounding, you know, in and thru. those contentions and conflicts throw a light, if you're willing to see. what strikes me about the Poetics list is the seeming lack of self-observation. it's a performance area yet people don't regard how they might be performing. the icky academic closeness doesn't help, and thesis paper brand of assertion, with a dependence on crucial texts for back up. a largely dull waste of potential.

Professor! we've found some strange markings...

Professer! we've found some strange markings..., originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

pleased and lucky to receive an email from England, not Africa, offering one sweet deal. this English type person is an artist who sells her works online. she needs someone in Americay to collect proceeds from this country and send them to her. I could do this. I infer the theory that Paypal doesn't exist in Merrie Olde, and tho I could handle the tricky business of dealing with Western Union, her customers could not.
gumption is what wins the day.

memo to doubters: proof positive

memo to doubters: proof positive, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

Ben Friedlander sent a small chapbook book, a translation of a poem by Heinrich Heine called "To Set Your Mind at Rest" (Subpoetics Self-Publish or Perish 2007). it's a joking, satiric poem ("But if a Brutus should arise / Among us, he'd soon realize / He'll never find his Caesar here: / There are too many cookies near."). what I particularly like about this is its life as ephemera. I don't know from Heine except knowing that he ranks near Goethe as German Romantic Wunderkind. the front cover portrait shows Double H in profile, hand against cheek, with a Keatsian gaze towards some wonder of the moment. I assume this is a modest piece by the poet. and for Ben too. perhaps the poem just struck Ben, and the urge to translate. what I mean by ephemera centres on the lack of driven import. which isn't a slight. you have the experience of the translation and the original, put together in a neat printing. I'm reminded of the book by Aram Saroyan, The Beatles. a 4 page thing, each page consisting in the name of one Beatle. some New York poet (I mean I saw it in a New York anthology) answered Saroyan with The Rolling Stones. this consisted in the names of 3 Stones, and two pitchers for the Philadelphia Phillies. the Saroyan book belonged to Robert Grenier. I remember thinking, wow, you bothered to get this? I get the point now. perhaps the tangents I've just run make my point. Friedlander went to the trouble of producing this artifact. having read it a few times I will put it somewhere, possibly even the bookshelf. at some point it will fall into my grasp again (or I may even seek it), and I'll reread it. given that one can make a pretty decent effort using home options (I don't know if Ben went pro or not with this production), why the heck not make your own books. okay, this sort of thing doesn't count in Print or Die Land, but among the clear thinking, gems like this are to be desired.

Antic View installment 106 now in view. lacuna between installments entirely my fault, I couldn't focus on it. tho my latest effort is more muddled than usual, I consider even that a useful act. I'm working things out. so is Jeff. I'm thinking, what I see on the Poetics list, without painting too broadly, tends towards academic and dull. or what I mean, are these people poets or teachers? if poets, what is the manner of their getting on? I mean that seriously, not snottily. how are they working?

I have a poem to view at Big Bridge. yes look at the entire issue, but please to read Jerking Goshawks From the Sky

the pic below is from Lanny Quarles' Flickr site. I believe them be lotus. I love Lanny's sense of interest and oddity, dunno how the site escaped me so long. and just to say, Ben Friedlander's use of Flickr (link to the right), exhaustive and varied, really is great work. oh and I've added Shanna Compton's pictocompilation. I'm sure there's scintillating perspectives on how only dickweeds post photos online but I love this influx of pics, tho I cannot keep up with them all.

29

29, originally uploaded by noemikon.

alien pods and tree

alien pods and tree, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

the old dog currently in residence here, hereafter to be known as "Brownie", has issues of abandonment. I am his 3rd, albeit best, owner. when we go out, he can get dippy. dippiness largely manifests itself in his chewing and eating of inappropiate things. he's an explorer when it comes to comestibles, very open minded. in fact, the fewer details I impart, the better, for your sake. last night we went out to dinner. we had taken our tree down yesterday, and ornaments were yet to be packed away. while we were gone our esteemed, visionary canine performed some interesting eating sequences. a number of bird ornaments with feathers for tails were found sans tails. "Brownie" even, intrepidly, consumed one ornament. mmmm, glass... he also chewed a watercolour painting by Beth that happened to be in reach. a pile of my paintings were on the floor, from my sifting process for my show. Beth's painting happened to be mixed in with some of these. when I say mixed in, I mean somewhere in the midst. "Brownie" nonetheless managed to pore thru the paintings till he found one by Beth. that was the one he chose to desecrate. it seems we're in a good cop / bad cop sitch. by luck of the draw, I'm good cop. thus, when "Brownie" goes flippy, he seeks things belonging to Beth to chew. he has performed such operations on my stuff, most recently a couple of paintings that fell within his critical purview, but it appears the greater satisfaction is Beth's belongings. a severe critic, to say the least.

I have added to my thing-in-progress Captain Element. as a thing-in-progress, working its way into the landscape, it's just a mystery waiting to happen. it's a mystery in the process of happening. it's a happening in the mystery of process. it's process in the happening of mystery. you know what I mean.

I gave my showing yesterday. okay, did it the hard way. we took a wrong turn to the gallery and I thought we could find an alternative route. which I couldn't. so I was late. but no one had arrived yet. I said we, and that includes Beth, Erin and Beth's mother, who came up this past week to help the sick household. except for a dr visit last week it was the first time Erin had been out since leaving the hospital, and before that it was January 2. Beth's better, having happily recognized the symptoms early on. I had 60 pictures on the wall, the official showing. each of these works keys to an entry in the catalogue that I wrote. the catalogue consists of conversations, literally, with some of the works, as well as riffs on process and whatnot. I will be so bold as to link to Tom Beckett's kind words about my catalogue. Tom is a really sharp and involved critical thinker, I have admired him for I'm guessing more than 20 years, so I am honoured and maybe even relieved that he could speak favourably of the catalogue. what I write about on this blog is what I do, in a life sense. whatever the yatta yatta issues of blogs, which critics from acute to snotty ass have exhaled, there remains, you know, the heart beat, and all that. and tangents are taken, whoop. inestimable (and how could anyone even estimate her?) Eileen Tabios, backchannel, has also given good words about the catalogue. I reiterate that a copy can be emailed to you (allen.bramhall@comcast.net). I have a few remaining hard copies, which won't fit in those tubes of the internets, but I can send it via US Postal Service, a fine and dedicated group of women and men who will stop at nothing to find you. additional to the showing were another 40 or so pictures which I strewed, in hopes that people would pick them up. most of the work, you see, was done on this dining room table, in the world of the living. so a handful of people availed themselves of the showing. so much work, of course the quality varies. I never accomplished much with oils, which is where I began in art. there are a couple of oils that Beth wants to destroy, and so do I. when I began painting 5 years ago, I did so by overcoming the idea that I wasn't cut out to do art, which is why I'd let myself not do it for so long, despite yearning to. when I began doing art, think of it: this large need being assuaged. so as amateurish as those early oils are, they are driven by this urge. I think that urge is damn interesting. and the defeating of the counter-urge, likewise, if not more so. it's so hard for me to make critical decisions about my art because it is so fun to produce. for me, every piece has this happiness of play. yesterday at a restaurant after the showing, there was a child at the next table intently drawing. he, his parents and sibling had just arrived and the 'rents were settling their infant with a bottle. the older child was a toddler. apparently he had, immediately on arriving, applied himself to his drawing, with great concentration. I loved seeing that. the wheels were learning to turn. visual art is such a hello to the unconscious. the neural connection is, I wot, more direct and unfiltered than with writing. dance and music probably are likewise. these modalities give you a chance. Beth and I talked about my work afterwards, and she lovingly said there's a lot of chaff. as I've admitted, I have a hard time being critical with my visual work. yet I agree. and it is not like I don't tear works up to recycle as collage, or cover up oils and acrylics with gesso, economical tabula rasa. the process intrigues me, and each work, "good" or not, survives as a voice in that process. I expect I will be more selective should I show again, because I do finally want the work to be taken as mature intention. trees appear as components in many of my pictures. for quite a while, I didn't even register this fact. the trees just appeared. now I consciously return to the motif, because obviously it is important. I favour a series of 6 scribbles, done in a burst, featuring trees. I said scribbles because they betray the energy of creation. vigourous arm strokes, that is. I did them with watercolour pencils, after which I sweetened the effects with water and brush. a small watercolour called Last Tree My Friend shows an angled pine tree seemingly launching into the sky. the valedictory wistfulness appears to come from somewhere outside the state of heartstring pulling. Beth's mother, who isn't particularly "into art", totally got my catalogue, the elucidation of and respect for the process. it's a surprisingly nifty document. I will note finally the odd beaming feeling of seeing my work displayed. it doesn't make the work "good" to display it, but you see the life. there's a point with any artist, where you turn the corner. that what you do isn't just your little secret but something you choose to share with the world. I know a moiety of crapoo figures in this. I have seen the lamest, most half-assed work imaginable pressed forth as worthy of publication. there are those, you see, impervious to self-criticism. but among those who can assess, a generous event exists. critics of careerism are letting the human quotient overwhelm the angelic. I mean, that's the conundrum, selfishness and selflessness so closely tied. panic not, just leave a little opening for the light to shine in.

average cat

average cat, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

a pretty good riff on Ezra Pound by Lanny Quarles. there's a third path of engagement, besides outrage and ignorance, and it is one that doesn't simplify. I have to read more of Ben Friedlander's criticism because I like how he negotiates his way thru the clashing rocks.

flags

flags, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

showing redux

showing redux, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

I wanted to ramble further about Collected Poems. I note in my previous yawp that my articulation wasn't too clear (je suis fatigue). when I wrote that anyone can find poems, I meant that anyone can produce a good one, emphasis on one. a poet is someone who makes such an endeavour of the practice. Keats' Ode to Indolence is, by my reck, a stinker, especially compared to Grecian Urn and Nightingale. its weakness is informative and useful, however. I think its weakness is worth knowing, because Keats was certainly committed to poetry and the process. you, as a poet, probably write frequently, maybe everyday. I think we all have a sense of hooking a big fish, throwing back the little. it seems like we should respect the investment made in those little fish. which is not an evasion of aesthetics, but a consultation with process. again, this is why I am showing this saturday a few works that don't please me a heckuva. sure, the show will predominate in works that I like and love, that I am proud of. I am not making decorations, I accept the demands of the process. Collecteds are charts of interest. what strategies can one take to stay focused? you might peek at Anne Boyer's strategies for publication, which, despite their whimsy, suggest the sort of focused approach an artist takes in getting and presenting The Work.

Erin still on the mend, he was really wicked sick, now Beth is confirmed with pneumonia. unsurprisingly. we've caught it earlier than with Erin, so it looks like she won't get quite so sick. I've got to be wary because I spent plenty of time in the coughosphere. Beth spent many nights at the hospital, orchestrating care and getting info, I only spent one. orchestrating care is a necessity, alas. hospitals run mechanically, perfunctorially, and everyone's rushing elsewhere. at one point, Erin's Tylenol was changed by a doctor to one with codeine, to which Erin is allergic, as Beth had informed the staff. so he gets hives to go with the rest. the chaos and confusion in hospitals is disconcerting. in wandering the halls, I found a bulletin board with some how tos for being a better hospital worker. like not using abbreviations when writing orders, because these are so often misread. I know it's a hard task, with all these interdependencies being derailed by emergencies and the occasional screw up. it mean you can't be complacent. anyway, let's say this is the last illness report for a while.

I want to chime in on Eileen Tabios' ruminations on Collected Poems. I collect collected editions when I can, for the possibility of finding the less well known. there is more, tho. certainly if you like a poem by someone, you would be curious to read more. I guess I don't mind the connection between the poem and the poet. tho I know that too much biography can get in the way. and I think the process is pretty damn important. anyone can find a poem, or a picture, I mean make a good one. it is, indeed, a notable aspect of art that there are some who bend their lives towards finding these treasures. it is not just fascinating to see the contortions Ginsberg, for instance, went thru to produce his oeuvre. my error with Ginsberg is not recognizing the value of these contortions. the value is in the learning process. in my showing I intentionally include works that I know are aesthetic losers. I want to acknowledge that part of the process. aesthetics is pretty tricky territory. to the degree that aesthetics propounds a conformity, it is shit. okay, I said it. the individual, hello, does not conform. admittedly, that sounds 60s to the max, and, yes, I lived thru both ends of that decade. what I infer as the devil of School of Quietude would be the way the work may conform, one to the other. but 2nd rate LANGUAGE, and NEW YORK, etc etc, likewise shuffles towards sameness. how an artist navigates those shoals... I consider myself an Olsonian, because Charles O provided me, or intimated for me, if not you, certain pathways. please, thank your teachers, even as you run away from them. there remains the matter of my saying no, Charles. no Bob, no Gertrude, no thou and thou and thou. collected poems are reports of the process of getting around to the point. ping.

fascinating human/machine collaboration by D^vid D^visio. the only way to do this is to link to his profile, he has mucho blogs. he works with a Palm Pilot sort of whatsis (I guess, it is machinery I know next to nothing about). his thingie mistranslates his entries and there we have the fun. I'm all for re-visions.

my vision for my showing is in the way of an installation. I wanted to display a lot of work. aside from work on the wall, I wanted work scattered about, inviting people to pick them up. the gallery consists of two rooms, fairly intimate. the space feels good. I wrote a catalogue that offers reactions to 60 of the works. I took the risk of including works that I'm not thrilled by. this is a nod to the process. I would say those "failed" works began with good intentions. it could be that I didn't match my skill set with the impulse. it could be some urge to please set me off the path. probably the easiest way to screw up your artistic vision is to feel the weight of the great ones. we learn from these mentors, certes, but then we reach a point when their influence wobbles us. anyway, I'm a thrifty Yankee (and yet a Yankee hater as well!!!) when it comes to my failures. quite often I tear them up for use in collage. I think my best work is collage. I am fascinated by my visual work because it seems to come from a part of my brain I don't converse with. there are no ideas whatsoever there, just coalescing shapes, colours and images. not to go all Jungian. I find visual work explorative and playful without the fuss of seriousness. with poetry, with writing, I'm always fighting the urge to commandeer the impulse. the sense of agency that Blake and Spicer muster speaks of the need for the author to git out of the way. anyway, there's the deal with my showing. if anyone would like to read my catalogue, email me. I may put it on line but till then..

j'ever see this charity? "Poets In Need is a non-profit organization providing emergency assistance to poets who have an established presence in the literary community as innovators in the field and a substantive body of published work." so they must have a reader on staff who determines the innovation and established presence of anyone hoping for some help. bad poets need not apply, SoQ need not apply, non networking hermits need not apply. publish or die perhaps has a stronger meaning here. it seems like an effort to keep the best part of the gene pool going: the excellent poets. any charity one might do is selective, I understand that. I quibble with the aesthetic necessity here. sorry we can't help you with your cancer treatment but you're a trite poet.. file under That'll Learn Ya.

Art Showing, Allen Bramhall

for those in the Boston area who can find Jamaica Plain next saturday between 4 and 6 pm, I'm giving a showing of my visual works. the pictures below were taken while setting it up. there will be some 100 works displayed, and refreshments.

the particulars:

Pond Circle Gallery
53 Pond Circle
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130

Pond Circle is off the Jamaica Way, just a few miles from Fenway Park. Mapquest knows how to locate the gallery. I will probably read at the showing as well.

I hope you--and you, and you--can attend.

Allen

Erin came home this afternoon. he's still sick, but can take antibiotics by mouth rather than intravenously. I realize this autobiographicality may be the worst of blogs but there's not much possibility in writing about anything else. my reading the past 9 days has been Down Spooky by Shanna Compton, and Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I've indicated here earlier that I'm down with Spooky. Stephenson's pretty good. it was recommended by Erin's friend and his friend's father, and they gave me a copy. I like it better than what I've read by Bruce Sterling and William Gibson (maybe 3 novels between them). Stephenson's characters have a warmth that I find lacking in the other 2, and a bouncier humour. I'd love to get back into reading novels. where novels fail for me is to the degree they simplify life into structured resolutions. I definitely don't want to watch any sitcoms, thanks. King of Queens is, I confess, oddly likeable, but I've had enough. that Ray Romano show is thoroughly unlikeable, but sometimes succeeds despite. Bill Cosby is fascinating in its good-for-you ickiness, but I believe his success made Tom Werner rich enough to place the Red Sox securely into the category of fat cats and World Series winners. Steve Hervey show is mild, comely crap. I like watching the secondary characters (played by tertiary actors) fuss about in the poorly conceived "bits" they are imprisoned by. I did a little writing, sitting near a window overlooking the Concord River.

additional showing

additional showing, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

more showing

more showing, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

we learned yesterday that the doctors were more concerned about Erin than we knew. when his pediatrician 1st saw him, he said he was about to just write the antibiotic prescription, but something told him to look further, thus the x-ray. they have since tested Erin for things like Legionnaire's Disease. that Beth and I haven't shown symptoms suggests something airborne, not the usual pneumonia. his fever has finally abated, and his oxygen saturation levels (Erin has been on oxygen) are getting good. but he still faces more hospital time. rough row to hie. sunday his iv needed to be changed. for whatever reason, people have trouble locating Erin's vein. the nurse called the staff emt, because emts do the procedure all the time. man, were I ever to use the term lickety-split it would be to describe how quickly the iv was set. we watched another Jackie Chan movie, The Medallion. which is JC plus a cross between The Matrix and those world without physics martial arts movies now somewhat common. we watched a little of Kill Bill. I saw just the last part of vol 1 and the beginning of vol 2. Beth saw what I saw of vol 1 and all of vol 2. Erin fell asleep during vol 2. straight out of manga/anime land. I found the swordplay wearisome, and the cartoon hipness more precious than anything. I'm not convinced by the cool, and I think if you're to enjoy Tarentino, you need to accept that coolness. I'm glad I don't watch much tv anymore. I've always tried to pay attention, look underneath a bit, but you are still drawn into something numbing. when Erin's leg was broken, the bill of fare tended toward the Disney Channel, with heavy hitters like Hilary Duff and I don't remember what. you slip into a television rhythm, and then the day is done. I've written little lately.

Erin still at hospital. he was much improved yesterday morning, but then dipped. I've already mentioned that the on call pediatrician claimed to have seen Erin after he'd had the lung sample done. Erin, Beth and the nurse who helped transport never saw this doctor. possibly she was confusing having seen him in the morning, long before the procedure. a 2nd pediatrician talked to us about it, repeating the 1st doctor's claim, clearly more ready to believe her colleague than the three people who were there. the hierarchy must live. one saw/sees that with the Catholic Church. all those molested children and the greater issue for the church is maintaining the structure of the church. it's a cover your ass strategy, which is pretty fetid. and it's not like we begrudge the triage that goes on. the 1st doctor either lied about seeing Erin or was confused. the 2nd doctor chose not to listen to us. it's pretty dismaying. we just want to bring Erin home.

blue rose

blue rose, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

I will get going today but it's a useful exhaust right now to write here now. we've watched a lot of television with Erin in hospital. Erin hasn't felt up to doing much else. watched some of The Last Samurai. only the last third, and with plenty of expert interruptions. set in 19th century Japan, with a collision of old and new world. Tom Cruise as an American who hooks up with Samurai. there's probably plenty of hokum involved in the movie, like when the woman (geisha?) undresses Tom and the camera lovingly glazes his shiny perfect skin, but samurai culture as presented seemed interesting. and the hyperkinetic fights. how is it that swords slicing human flesh is kinda sexy, empowering, lovely? cuz that's the impression one gets, the gamer thrill. remember Obi Wan intoning the elegance of laser swords. now I do understand that guns were available in Japan in say the 17th century, yet warriors tended toward formalized one on one encounters rather than the wholesale virtues of gunplay. anyway, the final battle, swords versus guns, was straight out of Braveheart, with a side trip to Charge of the Light Brigade. I'm willing to watch the whole movie, despite Tom Cruise's presence. Batman and Robin was pretty ridiculous. gthe Tim Burton Batmans (ugh, Batmen) live well with Burton's quirky obsessiveness, but the franchise looks dead now. the complete flouting of physics bothers me, tho I suppose it shouldn't. the excitement, say, of yoiur hero falling from a building is the scrambling intensity of saving said ass. if the falling takes ten minutes and you're equipped qwith tons of gadgets that can do anything, the tension diminishes. Arnold looked silly in his get up, and plodded thru his role. why's he driving an overchromed Studebacker? and his freeze gun is exactly like those steroid squirt guns boys at swimming pools covet and use. it all looked so chintzy, more like the tv show, but without tongue in cheek. Uma Thurman got to ham up her siren role but again it was like the tv show. so the tally is, 2 dedicated scientists mutated into egocentric villains. George Clooney as BW beamed his winning half smile with samurai grace. there were a handful of shots where he had no lines, but the camera had to catch his sexy twinkle. not saying I don't envy the twinkle. I know the costumes have been discussed in the literate world of pop consideration. the molded abs and bums sticking out is a wee bit weird. is it puritanical for Batgirl's molded breasts to have a molded bustier? I, personally, think so. covering up the covering up, yet at the same time highlighting. the 3rd Austin Powers had its moments, tho they tended to stretch on. some nice set pieces with a lot of dull filler. I really disliked Fat Bastard, a pointless, unfunny character. we saw a game show in which a cab driver picks up riders, who answer questions while they negotiate Manhattan traffic. another show purports to make your home safer. well, it is like this: a household is set up with cameras, then a B&E expert breaks in. the deal being that the victims will get the latest security gimcrack for submitting to this crud wink. the thief breaks, literally, in and scours the house destructively. obviously the show pays for breakage, but the thief showed no regard for, say, a sentimentally prized coffee mug or such like. and what about the paintings that were taken. reality takes prisoners. today Erin and I watched Shanghai Nights with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Chan's choreographed fights are fun to watch, and he's a good straight man. I happen to like Owen Wilson. I kinda like any actor who don't give a shit. also, yesterday, saw some of I can't think of the name of it, but Chris Tucker replaced Owen Wilson, anotehr good pairing. finally there was a hour or so of college basketball. Erin and I were reading while we watched, and we took a walk during. basketball looks like such a tepid thrill now. I guess I'm no longer amazed that someone six foot a lot can manage to stuff a basketball into a basket. oh, we also watched a team trick shot billiards competition between US and Europe. the announcer says one guy is known as Maestro and another is The Wizard. the aesthetic is so foreign to me. you know how you mind gets twisted when you think of the Michael Jordan of shuffleboard or whatever. there's no reason why basketball would be more unimportant than shuffleboard or billiards trick shot competitions. it's just foreign. I recently read an account of a cricket match. the terminology was completely recondite for me, even tho it seemed so populace inspired. I almost feel I am not watching enough tv, because the culture is percolating but I'm not witnessing.

the redoubtable Tim Peterson tagged me with a meme... hmm...redoubtable means able to doubt twice... two doubts = a confirm: all righty then. a meme is the viral spread of cultural info. I was late getting onto meme as a currency but anyway, Tim presented me and four others a chance to unwind on the question of 5 little known facts about me. this blog to the contrary, all facts about me are little known. I can say that I have a strange bump on my left little finger that I presume few know about. I snagged the finger on a nail when I was a toddler, and it healed oddly. it doesn't hurt or make itself known to me much. I don't imagine a lot of people look at someone wondering if there's a bump on the finger. what are 4 other things to say? I have written on this blog and on Antic View that I don't like poetry, but neither blog is much read so I can offer that as another little known. in saying that I don't like poetry I mean perhaps that I don't like the memes of poetry. when I became interested in writing, I guess I had this ball of light idea in mind that differed from the laboured, recondite things I was told was poetry. I've learned to like and even love some of those laboured, recondite things, but I am most interested in a writing that surprises me. which is why I see a closeness between poetry and humour. okay, that's 2 down. the 3rd baseman's chasing me towards the catcher so I'll just rattle off 3 others: I paint, I think I have Asperger's, and I cry easily. and I love Beth and Erin. I shan't tag, the net has already been thrown.