Antic View continues apace. Jeff Harrison is a thoughtful and idiosyncratic thinker, and I am usefully reactive. You know what? I prepared myself for writing. I put myself in front of the texts, tho I did not know what I was supposed to find (and yet I found 'it'). Jeff is a scholar, as evidenced by his command (see Antic View, intallments 1-141). Do I have to sell this? Welladay.
On a similar road, Tom Beckett and Geof Huth gave a reading of (a selection of) their own 1-year dual interview in a reading at Buffalo yestreen (sat nite live). Geof is a terrific critical thinker, Tom is a gentle provocateur, and both are exceptional poets. Look for the publication of this work. Read the generating incisions that Jeff and I bring. I think we are On To Something.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Michael Jackson, Selah
I was surprised to hear of Michael Jackson's death and, perhaps stupidly, surprised at the reaction to it. I know he has been popular, and his incipient comeback generated a lot of interest, but that did not add up to relevancy in my eyes. I thought it was all about the hype machine, but I guess that I was wrong.
Jackson was an original. I do not need to haul out WCW's still accurate description of America's pure products (which, of course, I have just deftly done), but Jackson was certainly troubled. His talent was enormous, as singer, as dancer, and as entertainer, but the curtain never seemed to be drawn across the stage of his life.
What gets me is that the 1st thing that occurs to me when thinking of Jackson is his weirdness. I am tolerant of difference, and do not excoriate him for his look, or his hobby horses. The cloud of pedophilia that hangs over him, however, is disturbing, and he never seemed intent on mitigating that.
As entertainer, he was not to my taste, but I could appreciate what he did. Some of his songs were downright silly. I mean "Billie Jean" is not convincing at all, nor "Beat It". He was more convincing in that song with Paul McCartney, the video of which shows him joining Linda and Paul as travelling scam artists. Jackson was still fresh-faced then. I think he could have gone in the way of McCartney, as an entertainer, I mean, but his weird relation to the world scotched that. He was more publicly weird than Elvis but it seems like they were similar in their urge to live in a make believe world or something. I do not know, nor do I really want to tramp these grounds.
It would seem that the rumours and accusaations of his pedophilia would be a deal breaker. Instead, they simply kept the people who would not have liked him anyway in a state of boil. His fans stayed with him. I do not ignore Ezra Pound's anti-Semitism, I live with it. My interest in his work cannot let me ignore that critical aspect of the man. And Pound paid for that anti-Semitism, if that is any consolation, which it is not.
MJ paid for his interest in children, in more than one way. It is dynamically creepy that parents allowed him to use their children as playmates. MJ was clearly out of touch concerning boundaries but how did the parents figure it? They were enablers.
RIP is especially appropriate with Jackson. His was an agitated soul, for which he seemingly found no relief. The pure products of America thing seems terribly apt. The weirder he was, the more interest he received from the world. The snowball just kept getting bigger.
Jackson was an original. I do not need to haul out WCW's still accurate description of America's pure products (which, of course, I have just deftly done), but Jackson was certainly troubled. His talent was enormous, as singer, as dancer, and as entertainer, but the curtain never seemed to be drawn across the stage of his life.
What gets me is that the 1st thing that occurs to me when thinking of Jackson is his weirdness. I am tolerant of difference, and do not excoriate him for his look, or his hobby horses. The cloud of pedophilia that hangs over him, however, is disturbing, and he never seemed intent on mitigating that.
As entertainer, he was not to my taste, but I could appreciate what he did. Some of his songs were downright silly. I mean "Billie Jean" is not convincing at all, nor "Beat It". He was more convincing in that song with Paul McCartney, the video of which shows him joining Linda and Paul as travelling scam artists. Jackson was still fresh-faced then. I think he could have gone in the way of McCartney, as an entertainer, I mean, but his weird relation to the world scotched that. He was more publicly weird than Elvis but it seems like they were similar in their urge to live in a make believe world or something. I do not know, nor do I really want to tramp these grounds.
It would seem that the rumours and accusaations of his pedophilia would be a deal breaker. Instead, they simply kept the people who would not have liked him anyway in a state of boil. His fans stayed with him. I do not ignore Ezra Pound's anti-Semitism, I live with it. My interest in his work cannot let me ignore that critical aspect of the man. And Pound paid for that anti-Semitism, if that is any consolation, which it is not.
MJ paid for his interest in children, in more than one way. It is dynamically creepy that parents allowed him to use their children as playmates. MJ was clearly out of touch concerning boundaries but how did the parents figure it? They were enablers.
RIP is especially appropriate with Jackson. His was an agitated soul, for which he seemingly found no relief. The pure products of America thing seems terribly apt. The weirder he was, the more interest he received from the world. The snowball just kept getting bigger.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Richard Brautigan
Peter Ciccarriello proves to be my prime source for interesting links, via Twitter. Here is one he recently tweeted, a small publication by Richard Brautigan, brought to online life. Nice to be reminded of Brautigan.
I 1st read him in the earliest days of Rolling Stone. This was before that esteemed piece of crap became an esteemed piece of crap. Brautigan contributed tiny prose pieces as column filler. These pieces were quirky and under-inflected and fit oddly well with the distinctions of the burgeoning rag and the teeming new music scene being documented.
I am sure Brautigan's work inspired a slew of pointedly wishy washy dabblings, but his own work stood and stands with an innocent sort of genuineness. A quick, scholarly study of Wikipedia reveals that Brautigan suffered paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression. I do not know what that assertion is worth (including the possibility of multiple jolts of electroconvulsive therapy), but it all rings as plausible, at least. But why go there? Okay, such intelligence does seem to help make sense of the man and his work.
Brautigan's work reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's except Vonnegut was much more canny, which I do not think Brautigan could ever be accused of. Vonnegut's flaky mythos in his earlier books beheld an honest sort of scope but I found later books (Breakfast of Champions comes to mind) tiresome in their effort to be underinflected.
Brautigan's work seems to hold no scope whatsoever. His work resides in a depressed yet lovely stasis. The pictures I've seen of him all show a classic (so to speak) California hippie type. I mean that phrase generously. Brautigan had long hair, full droopy mustache, brimmed hat, wholly iconic in my eye. According to the undaunted expertise at Wikipedia, Brautigan died by his own hand in 1984. I was thinking he died more recently. Sad and wistful story. His work seems an attempt to find a quiet place of chance, an opening into sunlight. The translation of the hard copy into an online experience is by Andrew Stafford. Isn't it a sweet, wispy pleasure?
I 1st read him in the earliest days of Rolling Stone. This was before that esteemed piece of crap became an esteemed piece of crap. Brautigan contributed tiny prose pieces as column filler. These pieces were quirky and under-inflected and fit oddly well with the distinctions of the burgeoning rag and the teeming new music scene being documented.
I am sure Brautigan's work inspired a slew of pointedly wishy washy dabblings, but his own work stood and stands with an innocent sort of genuineness. A quick, scholarly study of Wikipedia reveals that Brautigan suffered paranoid schizophrenia and clinical depression. I do not know what that assertion is worth (including the possibility of multiple jolts of electroconvulsive therapy), but it all rings as plausible, at least. But why go there? Okay, such intelligence does seem to help make sense of the man and his work.
Brautigan's work reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's except Vonnegut was much more canny, which I do not think Brautigan could ever be accused of. Vonnegut's flaky mythos in his earlier books beheld an honest sort of scope but I found later books (Breakfast of Champions comes to mind) tiresome in their effort to be underinflected.
Brautigan's work seems to hold no scope whatsoever. His work resides in a depressed yet lovely stasis. The pictures I've seen of him all show a classic (so to speak) California hippie type. I mean that phrase generously. Brautigan had long hair, full droopy mustache, brimmed hat, wholly iconic in my eye. According to the undaunted expertise at Wikipedia, Brautigan died by his own hand in 1984. I was thinking he died more recently. Sad and wistful story. His work seems an attempt to find a quiet place of chance, an opening into sunlight. The translation of the hard copy into an online experience is by Andrew Stafford. Isn't it a sweet, wispy pleasure?
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Richard & Mimi Farina
Peter Ciccariello uses Twitter to send nifty url's (@ciccariello). The other day he posted er tweeted a link to a Youtube video (not that Youtube created the video) of Richard and Mimi Farina. I have not listened to them in years, alas, but please check out this and this. Folk Scene, 1966. "Pack Up Your Sorrows" is a classic sort of song, a lovely icon of the early 60s. "Joy Round My Brain" is that moment of wide-eyed hippie purity, palpably sincere. Mimi's utterly crystalline voice, like that of her sister Joan Baez, and Richard's straightforward genuineness create a wonderful experience. And didn't they look like J Crew models? Gee, Richard died on Mimi's 21st birthday. Selah, but the sweetness lasts. And take a few hats off to Pete Seeger. Okay, he did not take kindly to Dylan backed by the Paul Butterfield Band, but the guy made thunder with a stalwart political edge. Friends, please take this stuff all as resource.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Web Two Point Woe
The instigation of this ramble was my having watched that awful morning show on Fox, id est one host of reasonable obsequity and 2 certifiably stupid, as in stupid, co-hosts. The good Senator Grassle from somewhere Twittered about Obama, specifically that the president hadn't ought to be gallivaunting around Paris when the country needs leadership. It was a ridiculous criticism because clearly Obama has been busy in his first months in the White House, and are your hands so work-dirtied Senator Grassle? Not, let me say, a big story.
The real story was that the senator used Twitter to broadcast his exasperation. Because, you know, Oprah said Hey, Peeps! I'm on Twitter!!!!!!!!, and that effort at product placement made Twitter worth talking about on television, thus a substantial commodity. And that is Web 2.0, a new sense of online community.
I have not gotten into Twitter a whole lot. I follow a number of funny/interesting people, Jesse Thorn of the podcast Jordan Jesse Go!, the three members of You Look Nice Today (who met thru Twitter), Rob Corddry, and a few others I just sort of fell to. I do not contribute often, just do not have the handle on that. I am not ragging on Twitter, it could be quite useful. I think the communities built upon it could become quickly lapsed, but that is just a guess.
Peter Ciccariello is the only poet type that I follow who makes a vigourous usage of Twitter. He posts links to articles and works online, including his own fine visual work (@ciccariello). That is a community effort, and not simply performance of the public directive. I do not want to say that there is no interest for writers and poets, my study and usage of Twitter, as I have indicated, is limited. Presumably the potential is there for a poetic Twitter community...
Ten years ago, listservs were immeasurably useful to me, as a way to connect to other writers. Beth and I met thru a listserv, and the Poetics list, at that time, was a way to read some zesty (at times) thinking re contemporary poetry, also to connect via backchannel to writers from afar. Having fallen into isolation, I found this to be a great opportunity, truly invigourating.
Alas, the Poetics list got old and wary. Stephen Vincent for one admirably continues to press the idea of community, the connection we hold as writers and poets, as well as citizens of a wider consideration. I think the machine is broken, now. That is okay, the world changes and new tools arise.
Other community tools...
Blogs started to become common 5 years ago, which is when I began using them. Oddly, there arose the sense that blog writing was somehow different from other writing. Many people use blogs as journals, which is to say public performances of their world view. This happens currently with some Twitter users. The medium does not require this usage. Those who look askance at blogs are not recognizing the basic tool. Blogs are websites, simple to use. In the early days, they developed communities, in which like-minded bloggers would refer back and forth. That self-reference got rather boggy, frankly, in a way similar to how some Twitterers get. A public Twitter replying to another reads, to the outsider, as a mere puzzle, just as blogs did. Community does not hold up in that way, too restrictive.
I believe in the possibility of the Internet. I think, however, that the pressure on the various tools is over-emphasized. By my augury, we will see a decline in Facebook because it is so consuming. It is fascinating that ex-classmates or co-workers, or whoever, can find you after so many years, and that you can work the network into a wide intimacy. Some of this network development is just counting coup but still. I do not feel all that attached to the writers with whom I am connected, not in the sense of a Facebook community. I have not given the effort needed, I admit. The vastness and busyness of the interface is too distracting. The promotional interest of Facebook itself, and of some of the denizens of the surface, amount to clutter. Would that that clutter could be delivered elsewhere, so that one could receive just content qua content.
How, the question occurs, can these tools deliver more of their communal possibly?
The real story was that the senator used Twitter to broadcast his exasperation. Because, you know, Oprah said Hey, Peeps! I'm on Twitter!!!!!!!!, and that effort at product placement made Twitter worth talking about on television, thus a substantial commodity. And that is Web 2.0, a new sense of online community.
I have not gotten into Twitter a whole lot. I follow a number of funny/interesting people, Jesse Thorn of the podcast Jordan Jesse Go!, the three members of You Look Nice Today (who met thru Twitter), Rob Corddry, and a few others I just sort of fell to. I do not contribute often, just do not have the handle on that. I am not ragging on Twitter, it could be quite useful. I think the communities built upon it could become quickly lapsed, but that is just a guess.
Peter Ciccariello is the only poet type that I follow who makes a vigourous usage of Twitter. He posts links to articles and works online, including his own fine visual work (@ciccariello). That is a community effort, and not simply performance of the public directive. I do not want to say that there is no interest for writers and poets, my study and usage of Twitter, as I have indicated, is limited. Presumably the potential is there for a poetic Twitter community...
Ten years ago, listservs were immeasurably useful to me, as a way to connect to other writers. Beth and I met thru a listserv, and the Poetics list, at that time, was a way to read some zesty (at times) thinking re contemporary poetry, also to connect via backchannel to writers from afar. Having fallen into isolation, I found this to be a great opportunity, truly invigourating.
Alas, the Poetics list got old and wary. Stephen Vincent for one admirably continues to press the idea of community, the connection we hold as writers and poets, as well as citizens of a wider consideration. I think the machine is broken, now. That is okay, the world changes and new tools arise.
Other community tools...
Blogs started to become common 5 years ago, which is when I began using them. Oddly, there arose the sense that blog writing was somehow different from other writing. Many people use blogs as journals, which is to say public performances of their world view. This happens currently with some Twitter users. The medium does not require this usage. Those who look askance at blogs are not recognizing the basic tool. Blogs are websites, simple to use. In the early days, they developed communities, in which like-minded bloggers would refer back and forth. That self-reference got rather boggy, frankly, in a way similar to how some Twitterers get. A public Twitter replying to another reads, to the outsider, as a mere puzzle, just as blogs did. Community does not hold up in that way, too restrictive.
I believe in the possibility of the Internet. I think, however, that the pressure on the various tools is over-emphasized. By my augury, we will see a decline in Facebook because it is so consuming. It is fascinating that ex-classmates or co-workers, or whoever, can find you after so many years, and that you can work the network into a wide intimacy. Some of this network development is just counting coup but still. I do not feel all that attached to the writers with whom I am connected, not in the sense of a Facebook community. I have not given the effort needed, I admit. The vastness and busyness of the interface is too distracting. The promotional interest of Facebook itself, and of some of the denizens of the surface, amount to clutter. Would that that clutter could be delivered elsewhere, so that one could receive just content qua content.
How, the question occurs, can these tools deliver more of their communal possibly?
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Recent Deaths
Robin Blaser and David Bromige both died recently, as well as David Carradine. Bromige and Blaser are writers I should read more of, tho I have taken lessons from both. Carradine is something different to me, but his death is affecting.
My real intro to Blaser was his excellent essay on Spicer, "The Practice of Outside", included in Black Swallow's edition of Collected Books. It is a great introduction to Spicer, perceptive and comprehensive. His poetry, which I finally delved into by way of Holy Forest, conspires to open into an excitement of language, from the vantage of a quiet perspective. Duncan and Spicer were louder compadres, so to speak, but Blaser's more minimalist style had character and strength.
Bromige was an odd one, with a good sine qua non factor. I think I first met Bromige by way of This 3, in which I was published, and it is my memory that Bromige was as well. So, someone Grenier knew, so I looked further in Bromige's direction. Tom Beckett, of course, dedicated an issue of The Difficulties to Bromige, etc. Bromige's Englishy humour and sliding skew of language is tough yet involving. He, and Blaser too, should be regarded more highly by the experts out there. That is, the landscape is wickedly varied, and interest should not rest in the first call manifestations of poetic assertion. The Poetics list flunked out for me by how limited and lame the readership seemed to be. Too may writers deserve better than that crack.
Carradine, well. Perfectly brewed Hollywood oddball, for sure. His father, I estimate, appeared in every movie ever made. I saw some upliftingly screwy horror movie in which Carradine makes an appearance. The director played along, and inserted a picture of John Carradine into the film, so that even after his death he was appearing in movies. Without filling in blanks or assumptions, the idea of hanging oneself in Bangkok just sounds too sad and horrible. And so I have writ my piece on recent deaths...
My real intro to Blaser was his excellent essay on Spicer, "The Practice of Outside", included in Black Swallow's edition of Collected Books. It is a great introduction to Spicer, perceptive and comprehensive. His poetry, which I finally delved into by way of Holy Forest, conspires to open into an excitement of language, from the vantage of a quiet perspective. Duncan and Spicer were louder compadres, so to speak, but Blaser's more minimalist style had character and strength.
Bromige was an odd one, with a good sine qua non factor. I think I first met Bromige by way of This 3, in which I was published, and it is my memory that Bromige was as well. So, someone Grenier knew, so I looked further in Bromige's direction. Tom Beckett, of course, dedicated an issue of The Difficulties to Bromige, etc. Bromige's Englishy humour and sliding skew of language is tough yet involving. He, and Blaser too, should be regarded more highly by the experts out there. That is, the landscape is wickedly varied, and interest should not rest in the first call manifestations of poetic assertion. The Poetics list flunked out for me by how limited and lame the readership seemed to be. Too may writers deserve better than that crack.
Carradine, well. Perfectly brewed Hollywood oddball, for sure. His father, I estimate, appeared in every movie ever made. I saw some upliftingly screwy horror movie in which Carradine makes an appearance. The director played along, and inserted a picture of John Carradine into the film, so that even after his death he was appearing in movies. Without filling in blanks or assumptions, the idea of hanging oneself in Bangkok just sounds too sad and horrible. And so I have writ my piece on recent deaths...
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Only in Whispers (review)
Only in Whispers is the comic that I bought last Sunday at Anime Boston (Issue 1, 2007). It is a product of Free Lunch Comics, a small independent entity, I infer. Nothing wrong with independent. Matt Ryan, the person who I spoke with, is the president of this entity.
I did not dip deeply into the world of underground comix in the day but certainly liked them. R Crumb and his ferocious world view, S Clay Wilson and his odd fascination with bikers and pirates, the intensely psychedelic Rick Griffin, etc. I no longer have whatever collection I made of these things, alas. They were anodyne to the the weary paths much of Marvel and DC comix were on at the time. So now there is a more wide open market for comix, not underground but not Marvel either.
Only in Whispers reminds me of Charlton Comics. Charlton ran a distant um 5th or 6th behind DC, Marvel, Harvey, and whatever. Without consulting Wikipedia, I will say that Charlton dealt largely with horror stories, which is where the comparison with Whispers begins. The Charlton visual style was rough, if I remember rightly. Whispers boasts several different artists but I think the style would be considered manga-like: images expressively stretched across panels and pages.
The cover shows a desperate looking fellow in what appears to be a Grande Armee uniform, tho the hat (shako?) bears a skull emblem, with sword draw (well, the whole picture is drawn). At his feet is a horde of rats, presumably at his command. The background suggests a fiery, hellish scene. So, what is the takeaway?
It is an image of horror. This scene does not relate to anything inside the book. It is just a visceral, powerful image. That is the pull of the horror genre, the inexplicable and disturbing.
Think of Frankenstein's monster. By Shelley's presentation he is basically someone with an unfortunate upbringing who murders a few people. Karloff's monster exceeds those distinctions and presents an unexplainable phenomenon, to iconic levels of intensity. What I am doing here is relating the virtues of the horror genre.
The inside cover introduces a creepy fellow from whose library the ensuing stories come. The Crypt Keeper without the kitsch, and a way to tie the disparate stories together.
The first story is set in Coventry, MA, which gets me right away. I do not believe a Coventry exists in Massachusetts (one does in Rhode Island), but the localization makes me think of Lovecraft. One of Lovecraft's books was published in Athol, Massachusetts, in the mysterious realm beyond Worcester. In stopping there once, and knowing that one Lovecraft fact, I felt the impinging strangeness of HPL. I guess I am drifting in tangents here...
The plot of the story is simple and odd: a writer finds/steals a manuscript written in blood, the Devil's book. The woman from whom it was obtained, a witch, invokes revenge. The End. In the gap between the period and the capital T one sees the writer being caught by numerous spider webs, culminating in the final page spread of the writer grossly ensnared and covered with spiders. The artwork is manga-like and graphic, meaning that the panels stand well on their own.
Next is a short story by Steve Kanarus, who is publisher of Free Lunch Comics (Ryan is president). It is about a magic-involved couple. I think you could say that they teeter on the edge of black arts but finally choose a less nihilistic, more redemptive view. Horror stories are nothing if not moralistic, by which I mean there is always that sense of balance: good/evil, right/wrong.
The next story is familiar enough, a man makes what turns out to be a Faustian deal, and we witness the ensuing decline in his life. It seems to me the inking is too heavy, the lines too thick, for the more delicate style of the artist (Stephanie O'Donnell; story again by Kanarus). The style is more linear than what I call manga-like, and to me less interesting. To each his own, of course. The Faust theme is powerful, and always leaves you wanting to yell, Don't do it!.
"The Conscript" (Kanarus/Anthony Summey) features a black arts fellow in 18th Century Germany. He insinuates himself darkly into some lives there then is banished to America. The story features some very Lovecraftian rats, maybe the cover does relate to this story, and an implication that the story will continue. The idea of this bad influence coming to the New World is a powerful idea. I mean Keats' brother came to the States a little later to join a Utopian community (I think Coleridge almost joined the same one). The belief that America welcomes all receives an early challenge. I think the story should continue, as it does not wholly satisfy as it stands. It ends, I should say, with rats scritching in the walls of the home of the person who had the magician sent away.
The final story, by Andrew Pollock seulement, is "The Wailing". In smaller letters in the title square is the word WitchHound: is that part of the title or the name of a continuing character or series?. Je ne sais pas.
The plot concerns a curst family. Every generation, a male of the family hears the banshee's cry. then dies. A Mr. Delacroix is consulted. I am shakily guessing that he turns into this creature who confronts the banshee. A violent fight ensues, until the dread words to be continued appear.
Well, as I turn the page and look at the ad there, it is for WitchHound, the adventures of which/whom I can see unfold at Wickedsmash.com. Pictured on the page is Mr. Delacroix, the creature who fought the banshee, and another creature, a hulking fellow who is built like Thing of Fantastic Four. Anyway, Pollock's style is flattened expanses of white and black, at times suggestive of Beardsley, leastwise if Beardsley were rattled from his opiate bliss. Er, I do not know if Beardsley experienced opiate bliss, just my impression from his work.
I had fun reading this and would like to read more. Comix are pretty powerful in possibility. If you look at the old Donald Ducks from the 50s and 60s, they had some pretty savvy satire going. The early superhero stuff is rife with goodies to deconstruct, and later day superheroes effort towards serious themes dealt seriously, and now the further array of possibilities. I am not expert in the genre, tho I spent my time and money in the day on these creations, so I maybe I got it 'all wrong'. My own poetics says comix are worth inclusion, or more exactly that inclusion is within the nature of my poetics. For that reason, I hope you have read this far.
Note:According to several googled sources, including the book Opium by Martin Booth, Aubrey Beardsley is indeed believed to have partaken of opium. Good guess on my part.
I did not dip deeply into the world of underground comix in the day but certainly liked them. R Crumb and his ferocious world view, S Clay Wilson and his odd fascination with bikers and pirates, the intensely psychedelic Rick Griffin, etc. I no longer have whatever collection I made of these things, alas. They were anodyne to the the weary paths much of Marvel and DC comix were on at the time. So now there is a more wide open market for comix, not underground but not Marvel either.
Only in Whispers reminds me of Charlton Comics. Charlton ran a distant um 5th or 6th behind DC, Marvel, Harvey, and whatever. Without consulting Wikipedia, I will say that Charlton dealt largely with horror stories, which is where the comparison with Whispers begins. The Charlton visual style was rough, if I remember rightly. Whispers boasts several different artists but I think the style would be considered manga-like: images expressively stretched across panels and pages.
The cover shows a desperate looking fellow in what appears to be a Grande Armee uniform, tho the hat (shako?) bears a skull emblem, with sword draw (well, the whole picture is drawn). At his feet is a horde of rats, presumably at his command. The background suggests a fiery, hellish scene. So, what is the takeaway?
It is an image of horror. This scene does not relate to anything inside the book. It is just a visceral, powerful image. That is the pull of the horror genre, the inexplicable and disturbing.
Think of Frankenstein's monster. By Shelley's presentation he is basically someone with an unfortunate upbringing who murders a few people. Karloff's monster exceeds those distinctions and presents an unexplainable phenomenon, to iconic levels of intensity. What I am doing here is relating the virtues of the horror genre.
The inside cover introduces a creepy fellow from whose library the ensuing stories come. The Crypt Keeper without the kitsch, and a way to tie the disparate stories together.
The first story is set in Coventry, MA, which gets me right away. I do not believe a Coventry exists in Massachusetts (one does in Rhode Island), but the localization makes me think of Lovecraft. One of Lovecraft's books was published in Athol, Massachusetts, in the mysterious realm beyond Worcester. In stopping there once, and knowing that one Lovecraft fact, I felt the impinging strangeness of HPL. I guess I am drifting in tangents here...
The plot of the story is simple and odd: a writer finds/steals a manuscript written in blood, the Devil's book. The woman from whom it was obtained, a witch, invokes revenge. The End. In the gap between the period and the capital T one sees the writer being caught by numerous spider webs, culminating in the final page spread of the writer grossly ensnared and covered with spiders. The artwork is manga-like and graphic, meaning that the panels stand well on their own.
Next is a short story by Steve Kanarus, who is publisher of Free Lunch Comics (Ryan is president). It is about a magic-involved couple. I think you could say that they teeter on the edge of black arts but finally choose a less nihilistic, more redemptive view. Horror stories are nothing if not moralistic, by which I mean there is always that sense of balance: good/evil, right/wrong.
The next story is familiar enough, a man makes what turns out to be a Faustian deal, and we witness the ensuing decline in his life. It seems to me the inking is too heavy, the lines too thick, for the more delicate style of the artist (Stephanie O'Donnell; story again by Kanarus). The style is more linear than what I call manga-like, and to me less interesting. To each his own, of course. The Faust theme is powerful, and always leaves you wanting to yell, Don't do it!.
"The Conscript" (Kanarus/Anthony Summey) features a black arts fellow in 18th Century Germany. He insinuates himself darkly into some lives there then is banished to America. The story features some very Lovecraftian rats, maybe the cover does relate to this story, and an implication that the story will continue. The idea of this bad influence coming to the New World is a powerful idea. I mean Keats' brother came to the States a little later to join a Utopian community (I think Coleridge almost joined the same one). The belief that America welcomes all receives an early challenge. I think the story should continue, as it does not wholly satisfy as it stands. It ends, I should say, with rats scritching in the walls of the home of the person who had the magician sent away.
The final story, by Andrew Pollock seulement, is "The Wailing". In smaller letters in the title square is the word WitchHound: is that part of the title or the name of a continuing character or series?. Je ne sais pas.
The plot concerns a curst family. Every generation, a male of the family hears the banshee's cry. then dies. A Mr. Delacroix is consulted. I am shakily guessing that he turns into this creature who confronts the banshee. A violent fight ensues, until the dread words to be continued appear.
Well, as I turn the page and look at the ad there, it is for WitchHound, the adventures of which/whom I can see unfold at Wickedsmash.com. Pictured on the page is Mr. Delacroix, the creature who fought the banshee, and another creature, a hulking fellow who is built like Thing of Fantastic Four. Anyway, Pollock's style is flattened expanses of white and black, at times suggestive of Beardsley, leastwise if Beardsley were rattled from his opiate bliss. Er, I do not know if Beardsley experienced opiate bliss, just my impression from his work.
I had fun reading this and would like to read more. Comix are pretty powerful in possibility. If you look at the old Donald Ducks from the 50s and 60s, they had some pretty savvy satire going. The early superhero stuff is rife with goodies to deconstruct, and later day superheroes effort towards serious themes dealt seriously, and now the further array of possibilities. I am not expert in the genre, tho I spent my time and money in the day on these creations, so I maybe I got it 'all wrong'. My own poetics says comix are worth inclusion, or more exactly that inclusion is within the nature of my poetics. For that reason, I hope you have read this far.
Note:According to several googled sources, including the book Opium by Martin Booth, Aubrey Beardsley is indeed believed to have partaken of opium. Good guess on my part.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Eiffel Tower, now more convenient
Peter Ciccariello tweeted this link, a 360 degree view from the Eiffel Tower. Hold down crtl then mouse around to change the view. I find that this thing replicates the experience of Kirk and Sulu falling from space to the evil Romulan drill thing, which brings to mind a U2 song: Vertigo...
Monday, May 25, 2009
Anime Boston
A scant few photos of Anime Boston, here. Erin was in for the whole weekend event, Beth and I managed to squeeze in just the Sunday fest. It is great fun, and I am not a rabid fan of either anime or manga. I would be happy to go to any sort of convention, because the energy of the participants is fascinating. Edward Dorn has a number of essays that recount his reactions to various events, a fashion show, a tennis or golf competition on tv, etc. You need not be ironic, as I consider Hunter S. Thompson to be, to get a ripple. So I believe...
The side of a building bordering the Mass Pike near Fenway adverted a gun show. No I.D. required. Interesting.
We got in early and did not need wait long in line to get our pass. Erin had pre-ordered a 2nd one, or that occurred in error, so we needed just the one. It seemed like there were fewer attendees but that may be due to a different use of the convention centre since Erin says that there were 4000 more than the 11,000 of a year ago. Also, Sunday is getaway day, even tho plenty happens all day.
That sense of diminished crowd was belied by the line awaiting Anime Chess. It extended the width of the convention centre. Beth and I said no thanks to that, but when we came back they were letting folks in, so we walked in and sat down. In Anime Chess, anime characters act as chess pieces, and move around the board onstage. I am unsure how the characters were chosen. One of the emcees made it sound like some would be pulled from the audience, which elicited wild screaming, and all the eager hopefuls standing on their chairs. No one was at that time selected, however.
The various characters were introduced slowly. Every one of them drew wild cheering once the introductory description made it clear who was coming. The subtleties were lost on us so we left before the actual game got far.
The Artist's Alley was larger than ever. This is where crafts people sell their wares. Lots of drawings, some jewelry and such. A lot of people offering chibi drawings, which is, if I understand, a translation of adults into children. Erin got one a couple of years ago. It did not really resemble him, just put big eyes and spiky hair on a figure that only vaguely looked like him. There is some nice work there tho.
I had my camera but once again I am pretty poor with taking pictures of people. I would prefer not to take posed pictures but that is considered bad form except in crowd scenes. I did approach a few people, as noted in the above web album. The guy in white with the sword was approached by someone, but gestured the photographer to wait until after the swordsman had finished his phone call. After he posed for that person, I asked. It is not enough to have the costume, you have to know how to present yourself in it. The woman in the Asian-looking gown hit several poses for me and a few others. The storm trooper outfit just struck me as a lot of work. In the movies, those outfits are of course ridiculous. They seem to give no extra protection, and clearly are more awkward than no amour. The family that animes together was irresistible, with the toddler out cold. The mother tried to adjust the child's hat, and almost woke him.
We ate lunch in the outdoor courtyard in the shadow of the Prudential Building. This grassy area attracted a lot of cosplayers. A group of them were doing a mock fight with their weapons, and they were spazzy. They ought to practice that stuff too. Some loud heavy metal types were shouting at people to join their group, which was attempting to start a spontaneous dance. The coolest ones joined but left soonestly, and the whole thing fizzled, just as a quick thumper started to shower.
I spoke with a guy who produces comix. I got one, my only purchase. I will write about it anon. I like comix and I like manga. I dislike, however, how many manga are 10-volume sets, id est: $100 for the full read. The comic that I got has several stories, by different writers and artists, plus several short stories with no visuals. I told him that I am not a comix writer or artist but he still talked up a comix group in Boston as well as the one in Connecticut that he belongs to. Anyway, I am terribly weary, as the dullness of this report suggests, so I will quit now. There was a rainbow as we left.
The side of a building bordering the Mass Pike near Fenway adverted a gun show. No I.D. required. Interesting.
We got in early and did not need wait long in line to get our pass. Erin had pre-ordered a 2nd one, or that occurred in error, so we needed just the one. It seemed like there were fewer attendees but that may be due to a different use of the convention centre since Erin says that there were 4000 more than the 11,000 of a year ago. Also, Sunday is getaway day, even tho plenty happens all day.
That sense of diminished crowd was belied by the line awaiting Anime Chess. It extended the width of the convention centre. Beth and I said no thanks to that, but when we came back they were letting folks in, so we walked in and sat down. In Anime Chess, anime characters act as chess pieces, and move around the board onstage. I am unsure how the characters were chosen. One of the emcees made it sound like some would be pulled from the audience, which elicited wild screaming, and all the eager hopefuls standing on their chairs. No one was at that time selected, however.
The various characters were introduced slowly. Every one of them drew wild cheering once the introductory description made it clear who was coming. The subtleties were lost on us so we left before the actual game got far.
The Artist's Alley was larger than ever. This is where crafts people sell their wares. Lots of drawings, some jewelry and such. A lot of people offering chibi drawings, which is, if I understand, a translation of adults into children. Erin got one a couple of years ago. It did not really resemble him, just put big eyes and spiky hair on a figure that only vaguely looked like him. There is some nice work there tho.
I had my camera but once again I am pretty poor with taking pictures of people. I would prefer not to take posed pictures but that is considered bad form except in crowd scenes. I did approach a few people, as noted in the above web album. The guy in white with the sword was approached by someone, but gestured the photographer to wait until after the swordsman had finished his phone call. After he posed for that person, I asked. It is not enough to have the costume, you have to know how to present yourself in it. The woman in the Asian-looking gown hit several poses for me and a few others. The storm trooper outfit just struck me as a lot of work. In the movies, those outfits are of course ridiculous. They seem to give no extra protection, and clearly are more awkward than no amour. The family that animes together was irresistible, with the toddler out cold. The mother tried to adjust the child's hat, and almost woke him.
We ate lunch in the outdoor courtyard in the shadow of the Prudential Building. This grassy area attracted a lot of cosplayers. A group of them were doing a mock fight with their weapons, and they were spazzy. They ought to practice that stuff too. Some loud heavy metal types were shouting at people to join their group, which was attempting to start a spontaneous dance. The coolest ones joined but left soonestly, and the whole thing fizzled, just as a quick thumper started to shower.
I spoke with a guy who produces comix. I got one, my only purchase. I will write about it anon. I like comix and I like manga. I dislike, however, how many manga are 10-volume sets, id est: $100 for the full read. The comic that I got has several stories, by different writers and artists, plus several short stories with no visuals. I told him that I am not a comix writer or artist but he still talked up a comix group in Boston as well as the one in Connecticut that he belongs to. Anyway, I am terribly weary, as the dullness of this report suggests, so I will quit now. There was a rainbow as we left.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Star Trek...
... or maybe we can call it Stare Trek...
Yes, we saw the Star Trek movie. We saw the 4:30 show because Erin had to go register for Anime Boston directly afterwards, which is a lot of muy importante for one guy. Next week he goes to NJ to stay with his grandmother and work on the boardwalk, so this was our one available time. Thus we saw this movie in a theatre containing maybe 10 people.
First, the trailers.
I realize that the sfx will look tawdry and lame in a couple of years but right now one is pulled in completely. A friend of mine declared that he would never see another Hollywood movie after seeing the 1st Trek film. I never saw that but the ones that I have seen never rose very far above the level of the tv shows in terms of cinematic zip. After the opening sequence, in which James T Kirk is born, we see the older Kirk, still a child, racing a car across a desert. It is hard to imagine the Shatner Kirk in this rowdy. I had to close my eyes as the car, but not Kirk, went over a vertiginous cliff.
Next stop is Kirk entering Starfleet. Again, it is hard to think of this guy as the seed of the weirdo in the Priceline ads. The Kirk of the movie is convincingly brash with a smart mouth, which you do not see in the Shatner Kirk much. Anyway, Kirk meets Uhura and Bones. We also get a glimpse of the young Spock's upbringing. Kirk and McCoy have a good rapport here, as they did in the original. Young Spock is stiff compared to Nimoy, but makes dramatic sense since he has yet to grow into himself.
After some preposterous moves Kirk ends up Captain of the ship, and all the familiar crew are in position. And the day is saved. Eric Bana played the Romulan bad guy. I did not recognize him.
An amazing if patently unbelievable sequence was when Kirk and Sulu attempted to thwart the Romulan space drill thingie. They and the certified crew victim freefall from a space scooter wearing extremely hopeful parachutes. They (not counting the throwaway crew member) land on this high altitude drill platform and proceed to battle it out with Romulans while I suffered extreme vertigo. Yikes!!!
The movie slips into time travel and alternate realities, for which I have low tolerance tho I know others enjoy. My brain does not wrap around temporal anomalies, and there are always garage-sized holes in the logic we are supposed to accept. This stuff aint a deal-killer for me, simply makes it fit the Trek system.
At one point, after a spat, Spock as captain maroons Kirk on a snowy planet. Following some unneeded antics with some unlikely fauna of the planet, Kirk meets with old Spock, and the fuzzy plot is fluffed into a sort of sense. The Romulan bad guy kinda turns into Khan, another familiarity, but it all works out well enough. Scottie is brought in for comic relief, and the franchise breathes again. No losers in the cast, awesome visuals, loudness is offered freely, and flashing lights that held my attention. Bring on the next one!
Yes, we saw the Star Trek movie. We saw the 4:30 show because Erin had to go register for Anime Boston directly afterwards, which is a lot of muy importante for one guy. Next week he goes to NJ to stay with his grandmother and work on the boardwalk, so this was our one available time. Thus we saw this movie in a theatre containing maybe 10 people.
First, the trailers.
- Ben Stiller is at the museum again. I saw the 1st, on the small screen, I believe, funny enough tho laboured. I doubt that this one will have much mojo but snap snap snap in the trailer and it seemed rather funny.
- Yet another Will Ferrell movie, this time with special effects and dinosaurs, which looked funny, and a different track from the stream of films that he has been in recently.
- Jack Black and somebody else (was he in the Will Ferrell skate movie?) in a history of the world sort of something that looked wry and funny. All of these, spread across a large screen, held some attraction.
- [downer] GI Joe, which I did not recognize as such until the title hit the screen, looked completely retarded. Must be avoided at all costs.
- [downer] I saw the original Transformers (saw as in slept thru half of it), and it was really stupid. The special effects just seemed to be a flustered blur, and the plot was lame. So the sequel looks like worse mush. Loud bang. Move on... Oh, for some reason, 2 of the trailers featured songs by The Who. I am ok with that.
I realize that the sfx will look tawdry and lame in a couple of years but right now one is pulled in completely. A friend of mine declared that he would never see another Hollywood movie after seeing the 1st Trek film. I never saw that but the ones that I have seen never rose very far above the level of the tv shows in terms of cinematic zip. After the opening sequence, in which James T Kirk is born, we see the older Kirk, still a child, racing a car across a desert. It is hard to imagine the Shatner Kirk in this rowdy. I had to close my eyes as the car, but not Kirk, went over a vertiginous cliff.
Next stop is Kirk entering Starfleet. Again, it is hard to think of this guy as the seed of the weirdo in the Priceline ads. The Kirk of the movie is convincingly brash with a smart mouth, which you do not see in the Shatner Kirk much. Anyway, Kirk meets Uhura and Bones. We also get a glimpse of the young Spock's upbringing. Kirk and McCoy have a good rapport here, as they did in the original. Young Spock is stiff compared to Nimoy, but makes dramatic sense since he has yet to grow into himself.
After some preposterous moves Kirk ends up Captain of the ship, and all the familiar crew are in position. And the day is saved. Eric Bana played the Romulan bad guy. I did not recognize him.
An amazing if patently unbelievable sequence was when Kirk and Sulu attempted to thwart the Romulan space drill thingie. They and the certified crew victim freefall from a space scooter wearing extremely hopeful parachutes. They (not counting the throwaway crew member) land on this high altitude drill platform and proceed to battle it out with Romulans while I suffered extreme vertigo. Yikes!!!
The movie slips into time travel and alternate realities, for which I have low tolerance tho I know others enjoy. My brain does not wrap around temporal anomalies, and there are always garage-sized holes in the logic we are supposed to accept. This stuff aint a deal-killer for me, simply makes it fit the Trek system.
At one point, after a spat, Spock as captain maroons Kirk on a snowy planet. Following some unneeded antics with some unlikely fauna of the planet, Kirk meets with old Spock, and the fuzzy plot is fluffed into a sort of sense. The Romulan bad guy kinda turns into Khan, another familiarity, but it all works out well enough. Scottie is brought in for comic relief, and the franchise breathes again. No losers in the cast, awesome visuals, loudness is offered freely, and flashing lights that held my attention. Bring on the next one!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Mark Scroggins points to the Times review of Angels & Demons (the movie) for a thrill of its savagery. Savagery here = snarky. Snarkiness is a self-promulgating event that I know I trade in. Snarkiness is based on a blindspot raised to a virtue, which I do not find convincing. With the Dan Brown Writin' Machine, we have, according to blurb, 11,000,000 copies of A&D sold. Which does not mean the novel is good, it has holes the size of my fat (but handsome) cat, but it has value. I think it is useful to place the book in terms of those 11 million, What lack does the book fulfill? It is lazy merely to speak of the book's faults. Anyone paying attention can see Brown's clumsiness. It is much more useful to elucidate what the use is of the book. Why has this secular crowd gathered around A&D? Snarking is lazy, I am afraid, tho it is fun, meanly, to kick that particular sort of ass. For all its faults, A&D moves along. I persevered, I read Saul Bellow's Dean's December. It shuffled characters into position like soap operas then made them talk like a drag. It was lame, my friends. Didn't this dud win a Nobel prize? Do not throw Dan Brown in my face as the opposite of greatness. How abojut writing your own wonder novel, Mr. Time reviewer, and save us from Brownian influence. I have pages to go before i am thru A&D.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Ballets Russes
Friends invited us, including Erin, to the ballet this evening. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. I should go to bed but I have to find out how I liked it by writing about it. I know I liked it, but getting the impressions down asap is de rigueur. Words make it real.
I lack the vocabulary of dance, and have not seen a lot, but dance is visceral, thus offers an immediacy that does not require expertise to enjoy. Plus there's music, Prokofieff, von Weber, Stravinsky, and Debussy. I see that I am going to be turgid here, tired as I am, so this report will be quick.
I seem never to have heard of The Prodigal Son, neither music or dance. The backdrop was a lovely thick-lined painting. This might be my favourite of the 4 dances, despite overdone dramatics. A gang of dancers, referred to in the notes as Goons and by Erin as Zombies, made terrific visual effect. They came onstage in train, walking in a squatty, apish way. They landed heavily when they leaped, and were antic, vivid, and hilarious. The Siren was exquisitely en pointe. I do not really like seeing dancers do that, it seems so physically harsh, but she did it so blithely and for so long, and I even got a sense of line, postured down to the detail of her ankle. The music was melodic yet bombastic.
the 2nd act began with The Rose Whatsis (I do not have the scorecard handy). The set was stunning, a bedroom with hugely tall windows. The lighting was lovely. The music was pretty and the dance tasteful. It did not resound but pleased. This may be the ballet in which Nijinsky leaped thru a 7' high window, which I read somewhere. Maybe not 7' in reality. Here it was about 3', tho it was a neat maneuver.
Next came L'Apres-Midi d'Un Faun. I translated the poem years ago, heaven help me, tho Mallarme is a very difficult poet for the likes of me. And I like the moody moment that Debussy creates. The piece is sexual, yes, but there's a nympholeptic quality over all that seems to be the real intersection of poem, music, and dance. The audience reacted as if this was a tour de force. I did not catch it quite like that but it was great.
Finally, The Rites of Spring. Years and years ago I wrote a thing that consisted of stupid vignettes involving the Brooklyn Dodgers (I had just read Boys of Summer), written in a blend of English and rudimentary French. Title: The Rites of Spring Training. The vignettes were of the order of: Jackie Robinson said to Clem Labine, "Qui est. l'homme avec les cheveux gris. And Clem Labine replied, "Il s'appelle Duke Snider." Which I mention only because I was reminded. The curtain rises and along the back of the stage is a line of fire (gas jets, of course). Wow, rock on! Yes, this was raucous stuff in the day. My father got season tickets to the Boston Pops because a neighbour was confronted by Bolero and refused to have anything more to do with an orchestra that would play such music, and so gave my father the tickets. Music and dance, Rites was muscular and vivid. I should write more, but I am tired.
I lack the vocabulary of dance, and have not seen a lot, but dance is visceral, thus offers an immediacy that does not require expertise to enjoy. Plus there's music, Prokofieff, von Weber, Stravinsky, and Debussy. I see that I am going to be turgid here, tired as I am, so this report will be quick.
I seem never to have heard of The Prodigal Son, neither music or dance. The backdrop was a lovely thick-lined painting. This might be my favourite of the 4 dances, despite overdone dramatics. A gang of dancers, referred to in the notes as Goons and by Erin as Zombies, made terrific visual effect. They came onstage in train, walking in a squatty, apish way. They landed heavily when they leaped, and were antic, vivid, and hilarious. The Siren was exquisitely en pointe. I do not really like seeing dancers do that, it seems so physically harsh, but she did it so blithely and for so long, and I even got a sense of line, postured down to the detail of her ankle. The music was melodic yet bombastic.
the 2nd act began with The Rose Whatsis (I do not have the scorecard handy). The set was stunning, a bedroom with hugely tall windows. The lighting was lovely. The music was pretty and the dance tasteful. It did not resound but pleased. This may be the ballet in which Nijinsky leaped thru a 7' high window, which I read somewhere. Maybe not 7' in reality. Here it was about 3', tho it was a neat maneuver.
Next came L'Apres-Midi d'Un Faun. I translated the poem years ago, heaven help me, tho Mallarme is a very difficult poet for the likes of me. And I like the moody moment that Debussy creates. The piece is sexual, yes, but there's a nympholeptic quality over all that seems to be the real intersection of poem, music, and dance. The audience reacted as if this was a tour de force. I did not catch it quite like that but it was great.
Finally, The Rites of Spring. Years and years ago I wrote a thing that consisted of stupid vignettes involving the Brooklyn Dodgers (I had just read Boys of Summer), written in a blend of English and rudimentary French. Title: The Rites of Spring Training. The vignettes were of the order of: Jackie Robinson said to Clem Labine, "Qui est. l'homme avec les cheveux gris. And Clem Labine replied, "Il s'appelle Duke Snider." Which I mention only because I was reminded. The curtain rises and along the back of the stage is a line of fire (gas jets, of course). Wow, rock on! Yes, this was raucous stuff in the day. My father got season tickets to the Boston Pops because a neighbour was confronted by Bolero and refused to have anything more to do with an orchestra that would play such music, and so gave my father the tickets. Music and dance, Rites was muscular and vivid. I should write more, but I am tired.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Angels and Demons, the book
When I see people reading in public, I want to know what they are reading. Usually it is popular fiction, which, indeed, is what I likely will be carrying. Tho one time on the train someone said to me, Hey, Freire's awesome. Meaning Paolo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which I happened to be reading. I think I have actually had Hegel as reading matter, but he is not ideal. Zippy fiction is the thing.
Which is all preface to saying that I am reading Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown. Brown wrote Da Vinci Code. OR DID HE ??? Okay, fake controversy. Altho...
Angels was published in 2000, a few years before Code. I am pretty sure, as I think of the 2 books, that Brown must have performed a global search & replace to 'write' Code. this in itself is not damning. P G Wodehouse only wrote one plot and 4, maybe 5, characters. Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu books all have the same plot. Such need be no problem, because it is the intensity of the author that counts. With Brown, the repetition is more that of a hack than of an obsessed. He is fascinated by weird nether worlds but, alas, he voices that interest thru a dullard (Langdon). He distances himself from the crazies, so the crazies just seem overblown.
The parallel features between Code and Angels are pretty exacting: the super focused assassin, the officious police type, the beautiful mystery woman, and the frantic run hither and yon (mostly yawn). Plus the conspiracy angle. I'll give Brown plus points for delving into interesting worlds, however over the top he does so.
When I saw the trailer for Code, I was hooked, it had the look of weird action, tho in fact the movie was largely a run around. Hanks looked uncomfortable but Gandalf is worth watching and I seem to like Jean Reno a lot. I did not hate the movie, but I could see how others might.
As to Angels, wow, Brown keeps asking the reader to nod unthinkingly. The protagonista and her father managed to use the CERN facilities to manufacture a goodly gob of antimatter with no supervision. Oh, ok. And the bad guys stole it. Right. Yup, and the antimatter was deposited in Vatican City, ready to annihilate a vast area. Gotcha.
That is as far as I have gotten. Those loopholes in reasonableness are distracting. Brown insists in making his Harvard expert in symbology (sic) explain everything to us, the dumb readers, so Langdon comes across as none too bright. Both the Illuminati and Agnus Dei are involved in producing cockamamy puzzles. Our hero the symbolist comes across as someone who is good at the Times crossword.
Despite the failings, the book rollicks along, tho I do not care for the mindless run from place to place. In Code the movie, Hanks had to climb out of a bathroom window and I saw there a terminal insistence on daffy plot evolution. Which, it appears, is a hallmark of the Brownian 'style'. I still have 500 pages to go, which I am sure will prove a little wearying. Plots based on peregrination need more than regular application of the author's assurance that the situation is frantic. We shall see.
Brown is Umberto Eco without the erudition or the humour. Still, I want to find out if Vatican City is blown up and if the Illuminati destroys the world as we know it. What do you think?
Which is all preface to saying that I am reading Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown. Brown wrote Da Vinci Code. OR DID HE ??? Okay, fake controversy. Altho...
Angels was published in 2000, a few years before Code. I am pretty sure, as I think of the 2 books, that Brown must have performed a global search & replace to 'write' Code. this in itself is not damning. P G Wodehouse only wrote one plot and 4, maybe 5, characters. Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu books all have the same plot. Such need be no problem, because it is the intensity of the author that counts. With Brown, the repetition is more that of a hack than of an obsessed. He is fascinated by weird nether worlds but, alas, he voices that interest thru a dullard (Langdon). He distances himself from the crazies, so the crazies just seem overblown.
The parallel features between Code and Angels are pretty exacting: the super focused assassin, the officious police type, the beautiful mystery woman, and the frantic run hither and yon (mostly yawn). Plus the conspiracy angle. I'll give Brown plus points for delving into interesting worlds, however over the top he does so.
When I saw the trailer for Code, I was hooked, it had the look of weird action, tho in fact the movie was largely a run around. Hanks looked uncomfortable but Gandalf is worth watching and I seem to like Jean Reno a lot. I did not hate the movie, but I could see how others might.
As to Angels, wow, Brown keeps asking the reader to nod unthinkingly. The protagonista and her father managed to use the CERN facilities to manufacture a goodly gob of antimatter with no supervision. Oh, ok. And the bad guys stole it. Right. Yup, and the antimatter was deposited in Vatican City, ready to annihilate a vast area. Gotcha.
That is as far as I have gotten. Those loopholes in reasonableness are distracting. Brown insists in making his Harvard expert in symbology (sic) explain everything to us, the dumb readers, so Langdon comes across as none too bright. Both the Illuminati and Agnus Dei are involved in producing cockamamy puzzles. Our hero the symbolist comes across as someone who is good at the Times crossword.
Despite the failings, the book rollicks along, tho I do not care for the mindless run from place to place. In Code the movie, Hanks had to climb out of a bathroom window and I saw there a terminal insistence on daffy plot evolution. Which, it appears, is a hallmark of the Brownian 'style'. I still have 500 pages to go, which I am sure will prove a little wearying. Plots based on peregrination need more than regular application of the author's assurance that the situation is frantic. We shall see.
Brown is Umberto Eco without the erudition or the humour. Still, I want to find out if Vatican City is blown up and if the Illuminati destroys the world as we know it. What do you think?
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Priscilla Queen of the Desert
Watched Priscilla Queen of the Desert yestreen. Beth had seen it years ago and recommended it. I remember when it appeared and so had some sense of it. Three drag queens on a journey into the Australian Outback (i. e. Heart of Darkness), if indeed where they went was so named. It looked like Montana or South Dakota to me (who have been to neither), except more of.
Okay, so the three aforementioned must travel a significant distance to do a show. All three are at crucial points in their lives. I cannot remember the names of the characters so bear with me. The most flamboyant and outrageous of them is who I take to be the youngest. He is the one that got his mother to pay for the bus by which they make their journey. A brash fello
The character who is the dramatic focus is somewhat older. We learn that not only is he married, but he has a son. This is the crux of the movie.
The final character is played by Terrence Stamp. No one else in the movie is familiar to me. Stamp is older. He has just suffered the loss of a lover.
And there we are. They travel into the Outback on their bus, called Priscilla of the Desert, and bicker and have adventures. Stamp is the fulcrum. The other two are wacky and outrageous, while he is stately, which is a nice balance. It is a graceful, warm performance. The humour is at times goofy but the movie is genuinely warm-hearted without excess. Lots of ABBA, 70s disco, and the like.
* * *Spoiler Alert!!!* * *
Gatsby dies!!!
Okay, so the three aforementioned must travel a significant distance to do a show. All three are at crucial points in their lives. I cannot remember the names of the characters so bear with me. The most flamboyant and outrageous of them is who I take to be the youngest. He is the one that got his mother to pay for the bus by which they make their journey. A brash fello
The character who is the dramatic focus is somewhat older. We learn that not only is he married, but he has a son. This is the crux of the movie.
The final character is played by Terrence Stamp. No one else in the movie is familiar to me. Stamp is older. He has just suffered the loss of a lover.
And there we are. They travel into the Outback on their bus, called Priscilla of the Desert, and bicker and have adventures. Stamp is the fulcrum. The other two are wacky and outrageous, while he is stately, which is a nice balance. It is a graceful, warm performance. The humour is at times goofy but the movie is genuinely warm-hearted without excess. Lots of ABBA, 70s disco, and the like.
Gatsby dies!!!
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
I listened to a presentation of The Psalms that I found on iTunes. It was a recording of an event in NYC in 2007. Forgive that I do not have the names of the participants in my head. It was like this: a new translator of the Psalms, and two people who read these translations and discussed them, plus some musical settings. I am no scholar of The Bible but have read it, as any curious, literate person might. The Psalms are certainly due for a rewrite, since the Elizabethan floridity of the King James version creates an entirely different experience for modern readers than for Jamesian contemporaries. Some of the Psalms were read in the original, and the experience of that--the sound, that is, I do not know Hebrew--certainly differs from the loping of King James. There were several good musical settings but one was embarrassing. It had a jarringly frisky piano accompaniment and the vocalists pushed the words forward with Broadway sincerity. Ouch! The words themselves should serve, they need not be impressed upon the auditor, but that is not how Broadway musicals roll. It was like Godspell or Jesus Christ Superstar, a collaboration with bolstered insincerity. There is this muddle that the religious aspect instigates, that you must read the Psalms with appropriate religious respect. I think treated as poetry, with the sanctity of poetry's implication, the Psalms resound more deeply. Appropriated, they sound like whingeing. In other lit news, I put my hand on The Third Policeman this morning and got sucked right in. Flann O'Brien is a wonder. I do not know that any of his novels are perfect, but the buoying intent is marvelous in every one. At Swim Two-Birds is exuberant to the point of pyrotechnic exhaustion (exhaustion, that is, on the reader's part). Dalkey Archives, I remember, had its wonders, ferlies, which I need to revisit. The Third Policeman is cinematic in its clear visual clues. The humour is a red shift, a kind of trail from some ordinary stance to an enveloping verity. O'Brien had a queer career, distracted from the assault in a way that Joyce, for one, was not. I would put O'Brien right alongside Joyce, as maybe Joyce would too. Wonderful.
Friday, May 01, 2009
Super Goat Man by Jonathan Lethem, etc
Barnes & Noble offers 9 free audiobooks here. One of the offerings is Super Goat Man by Jonathan Lethem, which I recently listened to. I've read Lethem's Fortress of Solitude and his essay collection, oh, and some while ago I also read another Lethem novel. Problematic.
There is something alluring about Lethem's work, and something disappointing. In saying disappointing, I mean that he fails to satisfy some expectation that I have. My expectation is not something that an author must fulfill, but I think Lethem gives evidence of what I should expect.
Super Goat Man is probably a novella (I always loved the distinctions: short story, novel, novella, novelette), about 40 minutes long. Lethem reads the story and does so excellently: clear and patient.
Like in FOS, there is a comics undercurrent (or overcurrent). The title character is indeed presented as a comic book hero, albeit one with no evident power or accomplishment. The narrator, as a boy, meets SGM, who lives in a hippie commune near to the narrator in Brooklyn (whence comes Lethem). SGM is a fallen hero, fallen mainly because he just wasn't interesting. He is also presented as an actual comic book character. The narrator's father collects comics and tries to interest the narrator in the genre.
SGM is just a mysterious connection for the narrator. The narrator evinces some dull fascination towards SGM, as likewise the narrator's father. There is intimation that there may have been dalliance between SGM and the narrator's mother. Tempus fugit.
The narrator goes to college and finds that SGM is a professor there. No strong tie occurs but the vague sense of connection and fascination remains. Then occurs the dramatic apex, in which some drunk students climb the clock tower and call out SGM, disgraced superhero, who attempts to save one of them who teetered on the brink, but fails. SGM seems superpowered, tho this remains unclear.
As a lengthy act 5 we are given the facts of the still young narrator's marriage to a student, then meeting SGM in SGM's decrepitude. In this presumably last meeting, it becomes clear that the narrator's wife, before they were married, had had an affair with SGM. And there we are.
I apologize for recounting the narrative, it sounds so plangent. On a sentence level, a level that I think is important, Lethem writes well. His words flow with generative connection. The plot, tho, seems too contrived, loaded.
What gets me, and this came thru when I read FOS, is how the essays reveal Lethem's interests, the seeds of his fiction. The straightforward essays offer a much more compelling sensibility than the contrivance of his novels. SGM raced to a conclusion that was, in iffy fashion, a surprise. The narrator's issues with parents and wife are jarringly turned towards the failed superhero. The end.
I am bothered by how narrative overwhelms the living parts of fiction. One notes that Lethem resides in the narrator, in the interests presented, not to delve into this as autobiographical resource. Okay. Yet reading on, one wants the superheroes to live within the context of the narrative world, instead of being daydreamy adjuncts.
Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann intrigued me simply by the title and whiff of plot. It is about a special world that intersects 'this' one. The story is more mundane than that, finally, tho not fully removed from that initial impression. Lethem's work has that same feeling of reality intersected by fantasy. Lethem's essays, in their straightforward acceptance of the importance of Jack Kirby and comics, etc, betray a greater sense of imaginative marvel than do the novels. Guess what: plot gets in the way.
The novels that I admire are willing to minimize plot. Plot compulsion becomes a muddling agent as the author feels required to stick to the inherited mathematics. I say let the magic begin.
There is something alluring about Lethem's work, and something disappointing. In saying disappointing, I mean that he fails to satisfy some expectation that I have. My expectation is not something that an author must fulfill, but I think Lethem gives evidence of what I should expect.
Super Goat Man is probably a novella (I always loved the distinctions: short story, novel, novella, novelette), about 40 minutes long. Lethem reads the story and does so excellently: clear and patient.
Like in FOS, there is a comics undercurrent (or overcurrent). The title character is indeed presented as a comic book hero, albeit one with no evident power or accomplishment. The narrator, as a boy, meets SGM, who lives in a hippie commune near to the narrator in Brooklyn (whence comes Lethem). SGM is a fallen hero, fallen mainly because he just wasn't interesting. He is also presented as an actual comic book character. The narrator's father collects comics and tries to interest the narrator in the genre.
SGM is just a mysterious connection for the narrator. The narrator evinces some dull fascination towards SGM, as likewise the narrator's father. There is intimation that there may have been dalliance between SGM and the narrator's mother. Tempus fugit.
The narrator goes to college and finds that SGM is a professor there. No strong tie occurs but the vague sense of connection and fascination remains. Then occurs the dramatic apex, in which some drunk students climb the clock tower and call out SGM, disgraced superhero, who attempts to save one of them who teetered on the brink, but fails. SGM seems superpowered, tho this remains unclear.
As a lengthy act 5 we are given the facts of the still young narrator's marriage to a student, then meeting SGM in SGM's decrepitude. In this presumably last meeting, it becomes clear that the narrator's wife, before they were married, had had an affair with SGM. And there we are.
I apologize for recounting the narrative, it sounds so plangent. On a sentence level, a level that I think is important, Lethem writes well. His words flow with generative connection. The plot, tho, seems too contrived, loaded.
What gets me, and this came thru when I read FOS, is how the essays reveal Lethem's interests, the seeds of his fiction. The straightforward essays offer a much more compelling sensibility than the contrivance of his novels. SGM raced to a conclusion that was, in iffy fashion, a surprise. The narrator's issues with parents and wife are jarringly turned towards the failed superhero. The end.
I am bothered by how narrative overwhelms the living parts of fiction. One notes that Lethem resides in the narrator, in the interests presented, not to delve into this as autobiographical resource. Okay. Yet reading on, one wants the superheroes to live within the context of the narrative world, instead of being daydreamy adjuncts.
Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann intrigued me simply by the title and whiff of plot. It is about a special world that intersects 'this' one. The story is more mundane than that, finally, tho not fully removed from that initial impression. Lethem's work has that same feeling of reality intersected by fantasy. Lethem's essays, in their straightforward acceptance of the importance of Jack Kirby and comics, etc, betray a greater sense of imaginative marvel than do the novels. Guess what: plot gets in the way.
The novels that I admire are willing to minimize plot. Plot compulsion becomes a muddling agent as the author feels required to stick to the inherited mathematics. I say let the magic begin.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Lenin, Stalin, Whee!
I got an urge to read some of Lenin's work, tho my sense of political expediency resides in the personal more than the united plunge into utility. I mean by that only that I am suspicious of the group effect, tho I recognize a need for teamwork, yo. So I got a few books from the library. One was a collection of Lenin's writing's on, as it was called, the women's issue. Wherein there are a lot of declarations that would fit perfectly in the Constitution. Lenin's self-consciousness and sense of effect, the need for that, deflates the vigour of his assertions for me, but I think he is worth reading, if for no other reason than to let his actual assertions bear the weight, rather than the straw dogs that 2nd hand pundits might have erected. This is a poetics of words speaking for themselves rather than as launchings of interested predicative. Or whatever...
Anyway, I also got a book by Stalin, a collection of his writings. It was edited by Bruce Franklin, in 1972. Franklin, who I do not know, adverts a familiar shrillness as a declared Communist. You know, university professor cum anti-war protester, cum professor without tenure. His assertions necessarily are tinged by the need to propagandize, which is unfortunate. Many years ago, my friend and I were wandering in Cambridge, aka the People's Republic. We noticed a Communist bookstore, and my friend had to investigate. It proved to be a rather spacious store front. Books and tracts were available, as I recall, but there really was much more room in the place than the offerings required. A copy of London calling by The Clash was available. The proprietor said that he took it in trade, but was dismissive of such commodity. I think my friend entered into discussion with the proprietor of the place, that would be like my friend. I kept quiet, being less schooled in historical matters as I should have been. On the wall were portraits of Communist heroes: Marx, Engels, Mao, Lenin, and, surprisingly to me, Stalin. I did not feel well prepared for debate then but I was able to speak one word to the proprietor: pogrom. The guy admitted that there were errors made by Stalin. Errors just does not seem to cover what Stalin did, does it? And not only that, Stalin was not even a comrade, he was an overlord. And irony just does not exist. I have not read Stalin's words yet, but Franklin clearly is in the same camp as the store proprietor, more intent on making a safe house for his theories than examining the actions of his hero. The drawing on the book cover (published by Doubleday, not some commie publishing inflection) shows Stalin in declarative action. He is at a podium. Left hand rests on some papers. His right hand reaches out to the audience. He has a benign expression. Despite the brown uniform that he wears, he looks like he is selling produce, Ey, try my fresh-picked apples. I think he owned many dachas, certainly wrested mucho power, ice ax to the head a-many opponents and otherwise scoffed the words he efforted to define. We do that in Americay, too. It is not just about inflection, but extension of words into action, and how action is the root of words. As in, how does one's words act. Poetry wants words in their naked selfhood. Not pleadings but stances in the mire, fought for. NotRobert's rules of order, but ambiance of meaning.
Anyway, I also got a book by Stalin, a collection of his writings. It was edited by Bruce Franklin, in 1972. Franklin, who I do not know, adverts a familiar shrillness as a declared Communist. You know, university professor cum anti-war protester, cum professor without tenure. His assertions necessarily are tinged by the need to propagandize, which is unfortunate. Many years ago, my friend and I were wandering in Cambridge, aka the People's Republic. We noticed a Communist bookstore, and my friend had to investigate. It proved to be a rather spacious store front. Books and tracts were available, as I recall, but there really was much more room in the place than the offerings required. A copy of London calling by The Clash was available. The proprietor said that he took it in trade, but was dismissive of such commodity. I think my friend entered into discussion with the proprietor of the place, that would be like my friend. I kept quiet, being less schooled in historical matters as I should have been. On the wall were portraits of Communist heroes: Marx, Engels, Mao, Lenin, and, surprisingly to me, Stalin. I did not feel well prepared for debate then but I was able to speak one word to the proprietor: pogrom. The guy admitted that there were errors made by Stalin. Errors just does not seem to cover what Stalin did, does it? And not only that, Stalin was not even a comrade, he was an overlord. And irony just does not exist. I have not read Stalin's words yet, but Franklin clearly is in the same camp as the store proprietor, more intent on making a safe house for his theories than examining the actions of his hero. The drawing on the book cover (published by Doubleday, not some commie publishing inflection) shows Stalin in declarative action. He is at a podium. Left hand rests on some papers. His right hand reaches out to the audience. He has a benign expression. Despite the brown uniform that he wears, he looks like he is selling produce, Ey, try my fresh-picked apples. I think he owned many dachas, certainly wrested mucho power, ice ax to the head a-many opponents and otherwise scoffed the words he efforted to define. We do that in Americay, too. It is not just about inflection, but extension of words into action, and how action is the root of words. As in, how does one's words act. Poetry wants words in their naked selfhood. Not pleadings but stances in the mire, fought for. NotRobert's rules of order, but ambiance of meaning.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Great Gatsby, OMG!
I have been listening to a recording of The Great Gatsby. ever hear of the book??? well yeah, it is a warhorse. I 1st read it in high school, 9th grade. and I liked it, I think. that it is as ubiquitous a cultural item as, say, Vivaldi's Four Seasons should not take away from the pleasure of the book. Fitzgerald had a magnificent ease with his writing. edit that, his best writing was honey smooth. I dutifully read Tender is the Night and it was pretty much of a botch. too much effort following thought out strictures rather than allowing the story to find itself. the plot of Gatsby is meticulous to the point of being burdensome. it is wonderful to see the intricate play of elements but that ends up seeming like gimcrack. the interwoven relationships work, but they derive from that basic novelistic falsity that does not draw me in much. I am taken with how Scott's satiric edge merges with his fascination. he belongs to the world of which he writes yet also stands aside. the tension of those 2 viewpoints holds the story together. I saw the movies after having read Gatsby at least a couple of times, and the look of the movie (I mean the version with Robert Redford) informs how I imagine the characters and look of the book. Redford's crisp woodenness seems perfect for Gatsby, and just seeing all that white flannel and those airy mansions evokes a milieu and an era. Scott's description of the social interactions between people is Proustian in its presence. certainly Scott was not attempting the depth charge that Proust committed to, but the prickling light bouncing off the social surfaces in Gatsby are pretty vivid. the scene in which Tom Buchanan dismally honks about the need for racial purity, and the women prattle about his great intellect, is clustered unknowing fatuousness. and there's the library of uncut books, and that ridiculous drunken car crash at the first Gatsby party that Nick attends. oh, and I love the litany of attendees to Gatsby's party, with the goofy names and desperate invocation of importance as in the society page of the newspaper. about which I wonder, whither goest? as newspapers conk out, will there be a venue for those pictures of Dr and Mrs Whosis at the charity ball? I mean, would a website serve so lusciously? a brave new world is nigh. anyway, Scott's short stories, which Gatsby extends from, are flush with a humoured embrace of present giddy particulars. Tender represents the artist's attempt to create weight. the result is something that cannot bear its own weight. I think of Truman Capote's Answered Prayers, which is his attempt to find value in the tacky social network he teased himself into. Capote had Proust and probably Fitzgerald clanking in his head as he tattled about his friends and acquaintances. he missed the boat entirely. everyone had the clef to his roman, probably because he had gossiped it all right along. and these elite are not so fascinating, of themselves, as he believes. Lee Radziwill? Babe Paley? Fitzgerald was not just fascinated by the milieu of America's rich explosion. Gatsby ends, almost jarringly, with a reminder that the main players in the drama were Midwesterners. the implication of the American turbine may not be drawn out enough but it is a node of interest and relevancy in the book. I do not entirely trust Fitzgerald or, in fact, many of the most interesting 20th Century American novelists. Hemingway interests me almost not at all, but Wolfe and Dos Passos have their moments, and I really like immersing in Faulkner, but there is something that I do not trust about them, all of them. it is something about these United States that scars or misshapens the work. dare I say that the pure products of America go crazy? there is something to that, tho I recognize that a curveball exists in the word pure.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
watched Pineapple Express last night. I now have 2 Apatow/Rogen movies under the belt. it had its moments, and some limitations. Seth Rogen is a likeable presence, everyman lug and wise ass. in this movie he is a process server, which is only relevant for the first few minutes, during which he serves subpoenas and smokes dope. this is Rogen at his most comfortable, and he is funny to watch. the plot shifts to his girlfriend, who is still in high school. which is played for laughs but we are still supposed to take the relationship seriously. it is just awkward, and is largely left behind for the rest of the film. the plot begins in earnest when Rogen goes to buy more pot. his source is James Franco, total stoner. I know Franco only from Spiderman, where he has to be overwrought, but goodlooking. he and Rogen are great together, even to the uncomfortable point of you thinking you knew these guys in college. after Rogen leaves he witnesses a murder by a drug lord. in his distress Rogen leaves a joint at the scene, which the drug lord easily identifies (it is the rare weed pineapple express), so Rogen and Franco go on the run. here things get stupid, and a little tone deaf. there is a Tarrentino mix of murder and mirth that does not settle well with stoner contentment. the humour is slapstick but, well, I must bring up the Three Stooges. the slapstick of the Stooges was stylized in a way that detached the mayhem from gross consequence. in this movie, the violence looks painful, and characters die. so the humour gets quashed. our stoner heroes are joined by another stoner, who is hilarious. the cast is solid, tho Ed begley and Nora dunn are wasted as the girlfriend's parents. when they appeared, it seemed like the movie might be perched on absurdity, but they ended up just fulminating. ApaRogen movies seem improvisational. I imagine that the story is whipped up over a weekend, the script over the following week, then they take a week or so to film, and it is all fun and games. that is how it seems. it works because the cast is solid but I think this sort of production eventually wears thin. I find that I do not want to see another trailer for a Will Ferrell movies, because they are blurring together, and I suspect that Rogen and Apatow may be doing the same thing.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Jack Kimball writes well of the current temperature of the poetry world and its subsistence blogs, here. the zest seems to have passed, drained elsewhere. as in Facebook, Twitter, I don't know. the Poetics list, and others, too, were lively, in their day. lo 10 years ago or so, I came on board this internet, greeted by a network of forces that I had been abstracted from. there was contact with other poets, that is, and it grew my own work immeasurably. I was vitalized by the Poetics list then, and Subpoetics, and some few other lists. they were places of energy. the old neighbourhoods have changed and right now, it feels like nothing has replaced what there was. I guess there's a whiff of nostalgia here. I do not think that blogs have lost their utility, as singular fronts and as community nodes. my own usage has skidded some recently. I always consider this blog a Poetry blog, even tho my posts are often 'off topic'. I associate everything that I write here with poetics, and if you have a moment (make that a few moments), I could explain. not right now, tho. my reading has not been poetry overmuch of late, tho I have just brought down John Milton from the shelf (Paradise Lost, perhaps), having read a Cromwell bio. and I am reading Carl Sauer's 17th Century North America, and been listening to Olson lectures, namely the Vancouver reading (remember when poetry could be exciting???). if we really are a community, then we need to kick out the jams. we are drifting, right now.
Monday, March 30, 2009
saw two more movies over the weekend, Signs and Contact. both of which we own, and have seen before. Signs simply hits me. its atmosphere is claustrophobic and scary. visually it is gratifying. it is not a flashy exercise, it just feels well filmed. Mel Gibson is pretty well tainted at this point, it is hard to forget all the weirdness attached to him now. I am, that is to say, leery of him, even films that appeared before he weirded out. despite this prejudice in which I find myself, he comes across well. the cast is really good. a pall hangs over Gibson and family. Gibson's wife died before the action of the movie. the older child is a morose boy, the younger a quirky girl. and there is Gibson's brother, played by Joachim Phoenix. the relationship of these 4 is funny, human, and convincing. so I have named many of the positives in the film. Gibson's denial of God because his wife died, and his ultimate renovation, is too pat. art is interesting when it doesn't explain. the movie is basically Childhood's End meets Dawn of the Dead meets War of the World's. the freshness of the humour, the compelling atmosphere, and the realness of the relationship of the 4 of them, as family members and as actors, is what distinguishes this movie. I have seen it 3 times and still enter it wide eyed. Contact has a similar underlying wistfulness as Signs. Jodie Foster is ambitious researcher who lost her father at a young age. like in Twister, as it happens. that loss informs her actions thru out. the SETI project is a big I don't know for me. collateral discoveries and advancements aside, I wonder if it is getting very far. it is in the movie but... well anyway, Jodie has a 2001 moment, which is upbeat in that odd heroic way of Carl Sagan. Tom Skerritt and James Woods are nefarious in a pat way, but that doesn't matter. the focus is on Foster's trip, if I can please use that word. which brings me to Foster herself. she is a good actor, very intelligent yet lively, but even when she is giddy, there is a coolness about her. we're not used to smart actors, I mean really smart ones. Hollywood is full of knuckleheads so it must be hard for her. anyway, Foster brings forth that preternatural faith in science that Sagan brought.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
the reading fare at the supermarket has presented what I believe is an inordinate amount of material concerning Jennifer Aniston. I have nothing against her, and admit to having watched Friends for a time. sure, she had the one hit on tv, and smartly did not hustle another one (so far as I know). she did a few modest movies that look to be extensions of Rachel, tho I have not seen them. and there you are, tho I should not forget Leprechaun. the drama with Brad and Angelina, woohoo! plenty acridity there. and I thought she had already broke from John Mayer (loved him with the Bluesbreakers) when I learn that Jen dumped him just now because Mayer claimed he was unavailable to her but was publicly tweeting (probably to Eric Clapton and Peter Green). so look, here's an FAQ (my 1st!) to give you some sense of the real Jennifer Aniston.
- Does Jennifer have the power of flight? of course she does. sadly, she just doesn't have the time to indulge this passion of hers. she is a sight to behold as she flaps her arms and glides thru the tepid Southern California sky.
- so what's up with that expensive hairstylist that she used for the Academy Awards? yes, a lot of money was paid so that Jen and her stylist could work together to make her hair the most beautiful on the planet (Earth) on that magical night. her stylist removes each hair from the follicle, cleans, dries, and perms it separately, and reattaches. such expertise and care does not come cheaply.
- was Jennifer shining shoes at train stations when she met Brad? yes.
- what is the longest that she has stood outside the Branjolina residence, staring grimly? 17 days. it ruined the gown she was wearing.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
watched 40 Year Old Virgin yestreen. and it is indeed what the title indicates. this may be my 1st and only Judd Apatow movie. he seems to be the John Hughes of this generation. at least so I infer, judging by the murmur that I hear. and is Seth Rogen the new Molly Ringwald? the movie opens with a very familiar set up, with Steve Carel as 40YOV, and all these risible details of said character acted out as the opening credits roll. Get Smart began the same way. Carel is quite likeable, being nerdy yet with a modest loopy aggression that sparks the humour. he and Colbert bear similarities, tho obviously they took different routes away from The Daily Show. the idea is that Carel's putative friends help him to get, as they say, laid. it is the sort of plot that so many teen comedies of the 80s wore down, tho it is cast with older tho no less puerile characters. the ensemble is good, with Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen, and I do not know the other guy's name tho he looks familiar. the situations are stupid but the throwaway lines are great. yes, it is so much like a John Hughes movie, before he really crapped out. there's an improvisational feel to all the actors, which makes one wish that the press of narrative could have been detoured more. it ends with Carel singing Aquarius and everyone dancing Hair-style, which went off really well. I think I could bear watching 2 more Apatow movies, then I know they'd just bear on me as the limited entertainments they aimed to be.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
I have pretty much failed Twitter, and am not overly sad about that, because it is just one more thing, but still, it is a gooey mass of (self) interest, if you will. for instance, Christopher Walken tosses off flakes of moments that are quite... something something... evidence at this link... the deal is, poetry could be found or made in this context. that I have accomplished little of either is not the point.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
saw As You Like It by roughly the same troupe as was involved with the home school coop. the person in charge of the production today was the initial force, and director, behind the previous productions (most of which I wrote about here in Tributary Land). I think we can say that creative differences caused her to leave the aegis of the coop behind. and so...
the venue was the grange building in Groton, MA. grange!!! not a great place for a play, but that difficulty is something of a funky plus. the audience has a different involvement when performances are other than slick.
the largish room on the 1st floor was the dressing room. upstairs was a similarly-sized room, with a small stage at the end. the stage size certainly proved a logistical problem.
probably more than half of the cast had formerly been involved with the homeschool coop. Rosalind was played by the girl who played Juliet a couple of years ago. she did a great job in that. for this production she was music director and composer and was a dance coordinator. she wants to be a classicist (Latin and Greek), and is a member of a sword dancing team. zowie! she handled Ganymede's dazzling wit delightfully. her Romeo from the previous production played Orlando. he has a slapsticky presence (he is almost as tall as Erin) and likes to ham it up, but he is strong in dramatic roles, as well.
I do not want to critique the acting too much because I am impressed by all the actors. they all get their lines capably, and some few, like the above, put dimension in the lines.
there was quite a bit of music in the production, all played live. I was struck that a girl of 4 or 5 was given 2 solos. I would not have asked it of her but she did a good job with those quirky melodies and rhythms (I do not believe that the songs were composed by the Rosalind actress, probably adapted).
there was a stairway from the dressing room to the side of the stage. one can both come on stage or enter the hall. near the end of the play a girl came thru the door into the hall and marched in front of the stage and sat down in the front row. it seemed at first that she had just used the bathroom but did come up the other staircase, as we were told to do. the adult she sat next to tried to hold her in the seat but she got up and moved. then she stood at the front of the stage. then she went on stage. by this time it was clear that she was autistic. and as it happens, a member of the cast, tho not of this specific production (two full productions are run). I do not remember which character it was took the girl (9 years old) by the hand and kept her out of the way. nobody panicked or got upset, which is nice. perhaps the girl should've been dressed in her costume even tho she was not in the day's production. when the characters danced and sang together, the girl joined in.
autism and Alzheimer's are 2 shocking human revelations. engaged in the idea of normalcy, we see people who are tuned to some key that we cannot hear. and how difficult it is for us to accept that difference. we lodge in the difficulties that we see, very real difficulties. we labour with these differences. we stand stunned in front of these differences. we expect people to understand the world in the way we understand it. I think that we can take from Shakespeare the idea that we do not know what other people's role is, nor even our own, on this stage.
my reading of Shakespeare is not exhaustive, perhaps half of the plays. it is a lovely thing to see productions, e'en such amateur ones as this. his work has life, still. this life may muchly owe to his rep, the cultural ok that he has. imagine the Mermaid Tavern, and Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson, plus whoever else (no scholarship talking here), talking brilliant whatnot. they were not gods. and remember the Monty Python skit in which Whistler and Wilde exchange bon mots, which devolves to mere vitriol. maybe the brilliance of Shakespeare is the same as is evinced in Lost, or whatever other hot tv show that I have not seen. Shakespeare seems supercharged now but there were cheap seats then as now. I cannnot answer any of that, but these plays are mighty instigations, for sure.
the venue was the grange building in Groton, MA. grange!!! not a great place for a play, but that difficulty is something of a funky plus. the audience has a different involvement when performances are other than slick.
the largish room on the 1st floor was the dressing room. upstairs was a similarly-sized room, with a small stage at the end. the stage size certainly proved a logistical problem.
probably more than half of the cast had formerly been involved with the homeschool coop. Rosalind was played by the girl who played Juliet a couple of years ago. she did a great job in that. for this production she was music director and composer and was a dance coordinator. she wants to be a classicist (Latin and Greek), and is a member of a sword dancing team. zowie! she handled Ganymede's dazzling wit delightfully. her Romeo from the previous production played Orlando. he has a slapsticky presence (he is almost as tall as Erin) and likes to ham it up, but he is strong in dramatic roles, as well.
I do not want to critique the acting too much because I am impressed by all the actors. they all get their lines capably, and some few, like the above, put dimension in the lines.
there was quite a bit of music in the production, all played live. I was struck that a girl of 4 or 5 was given 2 solos. I would not have asked it of her but she did a good job with those quirky melodies and rhythms (I do not believe that the songs were composed by the Rosalind actress, probably adapted).
there was a stairway from the dressing room to the side of the stage. one can both come on stage or enter the hall. near the end of the play a girl came thru the door into the hall and marched in front of the stage and sat down in the front row. it seemed at first that she had just used the bathroom but did come up the other staircase, as we were told to do. the adult she sat next to tried to hold her in the seat but she got up and moved. then she stood at the front of the stage. then she went on stage. by this time it was clear that she was autistic. and as it happens, a member of the cast, tho not of this specific production (two full productions are run). I do not remember which character it was took the girl (9 years old) by the hand and kept her out of the way. nobody panicked or got upset, which is nice. perhaps the girl should've been dressed in her costume even tho she was not in the day's production. when the characters danced and sang together, the girl joined in.
autism and Alzheimer's are 2 shocking human revelations. engaged in the idea of normalcy, we see people who are tuned to some key that we cannot hear. and how difficult it is for us to accept that difference. we lodge in the difficulties that we see, very real difficulties. we labour with these differences. we stand stunned in front of these differences. we expect people to understand the world in the way we understand it. I think that we can take from Shakespeare the idea that we do not know what other people's role is, nor even our own, on this stage.
my reading of Shakespeare is not exhaustive, perhaps half of the plays. it is a lovely thing to see productions, e'en such amateur ones as this. his work has life, still. this life may muchly owe to his rep, the cultural ok that he has. imagine the Mermaid Tavern, and Shakespeare, Marlowe and Jonson, plus whoever else (no scholarship talking here), talking brilliant whatnot. they were not gods. and remember the Monty Python skit in which Whistler and Wilde exchange bon mots, which devolves to mere vitriol. maybe the brilliance of Shakespeare is the same as is evinced in Lost, or whatever other hot tv show that I have not seen. Shakespeare seems supercharged now but there were cheap seats then as now. I cannnot answer any of that, but these plays are mighty instigations, for sure.
Friday, March 20, 2009
love this little story about Clayton Eshleman that Jack Kimball found. Jack demurs on the suggestion that Eshleman may be the next John Keats with this perfect encapsulation: "Yes, if Keats had worked out more on the poetry-is-applied-dabbling-raised-to-revelation side of things." I like Eshleman for Sulfur, which delivered an exhaustive amount of work (I have more than 40 issues of the journal), as well as his own weird historical modernism. Jack has posted several times perceptivesly on Eshleman readings, if you would like to peek in the pantaloons.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
reading at Furtherance by J H Prynne (The Figures). I say reading at because I have not read thru, which I do not usually do anyway with poetry books. it is a collection of 4 tiny publications (the whole is slightly more than 100pp). well, I just want to say that it is quite lovely. Prynne tickled my interest because of an Olsonian connection, I think (hazily) that Olson bespoke Prynne. what ev, Allen: what of the POETRY? ok, given the critical standards of the day, I might asseverate that Prynne totally rocks, using ESPECIALLY emphatic italics there. there is something post-Olson about Prynne, where the methodological study of Olson has been transformed into a capable and common usage. by which I mean Olson's self-conscious quest has been transformed into a general tool. reading these poems, I think of the 3rd Maximus volume, where Olson returns to a more straightforward narrative and even a lyrical integer. there is a LANGUAGEy sort of intuition in Prynne, but free of the self-referential inscape of academic promulgation. I mean, isn't there a touch of conscious academic outreach in the LANGUAGE parlance? as I entered the LANGUAGE realm, in discovery mode, I was dismayed by the clanking vocabulary of the critical matter. I got the loopy satire of, say, Bruce Andrews, and appreciated the cogency of Silliman and Susan Howe, and I trusted, having some 1st hand experience (hoka hey! I am Facebooked among former Franconians (Franconia College, just to be clear), tho Grenier is not as yet among that number), Grenier's wired interest. but beyond some few, I discerned in LANGcrit a rattled academic barf of big words meant to look big, and fit the academy's need. which I did not see in Olson, tho he talked over my head so often. Prynne pragmatically takes a LANGUAGE sort of involvement, and an intellectual embrace, and presses that verbal activity into a diurnal sort of squeeze of process and margin. please nod if you catch my drift. I am also confronted with how English in the UK sounds different from that of the American states, as furthermore does the poetry of Canada sound in slightly different, slightly unfamiliar, tones. vive la difference, fer sure, tho I might struggle with unfamiliarity.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Carl Annarummo published my recent chapbook, but beyond that evidence of percipience, he makes really nifty books. look at what he has produced. I recommend all of his work.
unrelated, but another wonder worker, Donna Kuhn and ferlies of visual and word.
unrelated, but another wonder worker, Donna Kuhn and ferlies of visual and word.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
taking a moment to feed my blog, on a springy, daylight saved day in southern New England... I downloaded a word processor called Jarte (and you can too). it is a simple word processor without a lot of extras. writers do not necessarily need all those extras as offered by Word and OpenOffice, both of which I regularly use. it occurred to me that I get the same jolt from getting a new word processor as I do a new pen or notebook. just as a new pen or notebook seems to open possibilities, likewise different word processors. just the difference of the interface, I guess. changing where I write has always seemed to come thru in the writing. watched portions of 3 movies yesterday, while doing other things.
- that movie by the Farrelly Brothers about Siamese twins, starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear. clearly a South Parkian willingness to risk bad taste. Damon and Kinnear are connected at the waist, they share a liver. while their condition is occasionally awkward it is never disabling. it helps that they can switch sides at times, which is not explained and is barely pointed to. it is a surprisingly goodhearted movie. playing somewhat against type, Kinnear is the confident one and Damon is tremulous.
- that smoking industry movie starring Aaron Eckert. his character is a lot like his role in Dark Knight. his character is a crisply accomplished and efficient lawyer defending the tobacco industry. he is pretty charismatic.
- Troy. seeing the trailer at the theatre had me, specifically the shot from above of the 1000 face-launched ships headed towards Troy. I have seen it several times and enjoy it, tho it has its weaknesses. the gods have been excluded from the story, which is okay. Zeus and the gang would distract from the human story. the movie opens with a nice evocation of a battlefield, with Agamemnon's army about to face that of Thessaly. it is hard to conceive of the hand to hand clash of such armies. the battle of Cannae, Hannibal's greatest victory over Rome, saw an army of at least 50,000 Romans destroyed. some of those were made slaves but most were slaughtered slaughtered slaughtered. having a visual rendering of something like that, I mean a representation of two large armies meeting, is fascinating to me. whoever played Agamemnon was perfect. he is beefy and blustering and pompous as I imagine Agamemnon to have been. Brad Pitt as Achilles is good despite an overarching Brad Pittiness. you cannot forget that it is Pitt there, the guy married to the goddess Angelina (and not to that pale hamadryad Jennifer). Pitt is convincing vis-Ã -vis the physical prowess. early on he goes up against a steroid giant, whom he efficiently dispatches with a Michael Jordan sort of leaping feint. when Achilles and the Myrmidons hit the Normandy shore, Achilles is blurry ferocity. this ferocity brings to mind John Cleese's Lancelot in Holy Grail. the movie presents a lot of great shots of Troy and the battleground, a lot of presence. Eric Bana as Hector is terrific. he clearly hath not th'advantages of Achilles but proceeds nobly natheless. Orlando Bloom, despite all the great swordplay in Pirates and Rings, is stuck being a washout as Paris. it is a thankless role. there are plenty of changes in what we know of the Troy story, some of which seem gratuitous. Patroclus is the nephew of Achilles, brash due to youth rather than hubris, and Achilles can focus his attention on Briseis. the movie fizzles out after Hector dies, mainly because that love story is tired.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Steve Tills comments on my reaction to Elizabeth Willis' intro to Lisa Robertson, below. I should say that when I make bold statements, I imply, and you should infer, a question mark. as in, in this instance, is Willis' intro as disturbing as I think it is? that would require you (Dear Reader) to go to iTunes and download the podcast. I have read Willis' poetry, and like it, but I wonder why poetry should be transmuted into an academic quandary of code. poetry itself is a code, but the key is, poetry's code is immediacy. words in poetry are leaping life. Emerson was right enough that every word was, initially, a poem, an exalted expression of the world's experience. trapping poetry in a dialectic of segregated meaning is distressing. I wish others would listen to Willis and tell me how far off the mark I may be. as I said earlier, what she says is not meaningless. her words just seemed to have a push away, as if poetry were an Arcanum. it may be. when pressed, I have told people that I wrote poetry, which often seems to amount to admitting that I do weird, if not quite criminal, things. that is a sad encroachment. Robert Grenier did not speak in an involved haze, in the classes I took with him, but in the realm of personal (his) experience. school should not change that. but maybe I am prickly on this point, and unfair to Elizabeth Willis. does poetry need to be an isolation? maybe so, that is largely my experience. I gravitated to writing poetry because the field was open. I did not know what poetry was, so I could make up the necessities. the necessities flowed in and out. writing is a directive, and impetus toward confirmation. sorry if I compelled sleepiness with that sentence. one writes as an act of discovery. that would imply a personal language. the stutter of writers like Olson or Creeley, or Dickinson--look at her work--is instructive, a revelation in speech. speech is active. poetry is an active moment in language. it will not be rightly described by stalled words. I acknowledge my ignorance and my resistance in these matters, because poetry is not, after all, not easy or easily quantifiable.
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
In Podcasting News...
- listening to a podcast called Jordan Jesse Go, which is 2 guys talking, mostly. they are funny, often unexpectedly so. in the most recent episode they mention a teacher they had at UC Santa Clara, or whatever it is exactly called. said teacher was Kasey Mohammad, whom they describe as strange but interesting. hey, I almost know Kasey, beyond rep, from being on the Flarf list... in a similar vein, Stephen King mentions Creeley and Olson in his novels. the world of poetry is so small...
- in another podcast, from iTunes U, actually, is a reading given by Lisa Robertson. I have not read much of her work so that is fine. thing is, Elizabeth Willis gave an atrocious intro. the atrocity of which I speak concerns the stodgy academic talkspeak she employus. it is not gibberish that she speaks, but a stultifying overlay. is poetry indeed such a code of segregation? the4 lecture by Harold Bloom that I have mentioned here was a pleasure to me because he revealed his pleasure in the works of poetry. Willis' intro had the makings of a bad lecture, a congestion of words around but somehow not in a subject. let's not do that sort of thing, k?
Sunday, February 22, 2009
I herewith advert 2 pieces that I myself wrote:
- Some Songs. I wrote this oh 8-9 years ago, a translation (if you do not notice) of the 1st 3 Duino Elegies. I took a Project Gutenberg translation of Rilke's work and just changed a lot of words. what I like here is how something of the original (twice translated) remains. I posted it some time ago on my crappy website, the one with all the pop ups, but here I clean it up a tad and you avoid the pop ups.
- On Education. this is another college paper, written within that stricture. even so, I think it is fresh enough in looking at how my work evolved. a great impetus in a writer, in the arts, in many endeavours, is the urge to do it. added to that, tho, is the urge to understand how to do it, and why. we make much of our bi-cameral brains but it is all one brain after all. anyway, I hope this paper is not seen as mere indulgence. to me, it seems bright-eyed.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
reading Nota Bene Eiswein, but I shan't review it at this time (might as well read it before review it, tho I do not wish to set unattainable goals). I am, however, inspired to write a few general words about Eileen Tabios' work. a byproduct of reading her work, for me anyway, is that I want to write. I always want to write but I mean try something different. Eileen's hallmark is adventure, in the sense of setting a challenge for herself, and enjoying the ride (mixed metaphors are the best metaphors). I think of Virginia Woolf, who, at least in the handful of her novels that I have read, seems to have given herself experiments to perform. the relentless wave action of The Waves, the focused quest of To the Lighthouse, the shifting POV of Mrs Dalloway. she sets herself challenges beyond the creation of a story, technical challenges. with Eileen, one sees different methodologies applied with each work. she attaches context to local effort, or the local context is understood as informative of the whole, the whole being Her Work. Nota Bene largely eschews the prose that she often writes in, instead she uses hay(na)ku and similar short lines forms. what she does not eschew with this book is notes and such, which she supplies with every book of hers that I have seen. I love notes and afterwords and all that stuff. Black Sparrow Books were always good for extra matter, which I enjoy. Eileen frequently uses other works of art, as well as historical or personal narratives, as seeds to riff from or with. in the case of NBE, there is an extensive use of the work of Christian Hawkey, whose work I am unfamiliar with. one thing that interests me with Charles Olson: his poetry, his prose, his lectures and interviews, all of it has the same voice. I mean the bold rush and stutter, assertions and questions. Eileen's work, including many blogs and even her place and placement in the Poetry Republic (as writer, editor, instigator), is an embrace of the many in one. all my life I heard one makes many. this is inspirational. it is simply fun to discover what is next with Eileen. when I say fun, I mean including books that embrace her father's death, or the painful nexus of her heritage, as well as the immersion into criticism of her work she allowed with The Blind Chatelaine's Keys (which see). these few words for now...
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
- Nota Bene Eiswein by Eileen Tabios is in hand, product of Ahadada Books. I have not read it yet but it boasts cover art (collage) by Eileen Herself. the work is not in prose, unlike much of her work, but instead owes form to hay(na)ku and other means of counting, short lines. it is always worth reading the work of someone who pays me royalties (check is in hand).
- Anny Ballardini sent a note to Wryting, and presumably elsewhere, adverting her new book, Ghost Dance in 33 Movements, available from Mark Young's excellent publishing adventure Otoliths. Anny's work receives of many tributaries, without formailized attachment. she also presents a wonderful generosity. her blog, par exemple, points to many works not her own. both Anny and Mark do good work. our challenge, should we accept it, is to support their support. this is part of what we can call community, if u willin.
Sunday, February 15, 2009
for those who might be interested, I added numerous texts to my writing portfolio site, yclept Allen Bramhall Writing Portfolio. included in this array is the catalogue for the art show that I did 2 years ago, “Conversations and reactions”. the catalogue is part of my thesis project. I still need to scan in the images. that is a project, and beyond that, many of the pictures exceed, size-wise, the capabilities of my scanner. I wrote the catalogue descriptively, but it would be better with the images. selah, until such time as I can do better. I am hopeful that links, of which there are many, work, and apologize now for whatever glitch I have yet to fix. I will keep nurturing this thing. if you have any involvement with what I write, please let me know.
Friday, February 13, 2009
this is just to say that Meritage Press, in the person (grandeur) of Eileen Tabios, is once again shuffling *** Royalties *** in my direction for Days Poem. royalties mean that there still remain those whose money resides where their mouth is. well, I here declare that I shall take my share of the green grab and add it to the national trickle down, possibly breakfast at Starbucks. it is the least I can do (only Congress can do less). Eileen takes the idea of poetry seriously enough as to treat the publication thereof as if it were something of value. this rare envisionment is in itself of value. I leave it to the Reader to figure out why.
Monday, February 09, 2009
two things in the recent mail:
- A book:
by Eileen Tabios, a wee little book. it is a Teeny Tiny chapbook, produced by Amanda Laughtland, whose other chaps can be seen here. this is an anti-brick, consisting of a single sheet of paper folded into 6 pages, plus covers. the story is a short poetic sortie, with holes open for the reader to fill. it is yet another adventure from the institution that is Eileen Tabios. or do I mean instigation. “Nearby, needless to say, breathed the 1950 Petrus.” I believe I have tasted the 70 vintage of Petrus, which is named for a famous disciple. fwiw.
- A teaching certificate:
I am now licensed to teach. while I seek employ, let me ruminate, perhaps even divagate, on education. just before I entered 2nd grade we moved across town, and I had a different school to attend. this school, for some reason, was experimental, unlike the other elementary schools in town. in the other ones, students stayed in the same classroom all day, whereas in mine we shifted to different classrooms for different classes. the school blended grades somewhat. I was among a handful of students who took French lessons in 3rd grade. the school secretary would round up those of us who took this class and brought us to the weirdo who taught it. weirdo, I came to discover, is synonymous with French teacher. I mean no disrespect, just observing. I learned to conjugate a few verbs in the 4 years of French that I took in elementary school, and I had to sing a lot of baffling French songs. a feature of my elementary school (Franklin School, named after a famous president of the US, or at least so I understood for perhaps too long) was a lot of singing. several teachers that I had could be expected to haul out their guitar, and we had many school wide conventions in the auditorium during which the teachers led a hootenanny. too real! the repertoire was folk music, the Pete Seeger canon, I would say, with a fair taste of international music. it amuses me to think of an auditorium of children singing about marching to Pretoria. come the revolution, brothers and sisters… three teachers from the school actually quit teaching to become folk singers. we gathered in front of the television once to watch them singing somewhere. honest!
my senior year at high school I was offered the opportunity of an experimental program. I mean, the entire senior class was so offered. I took it mostly because my friend did, I think. the program was called Education Without Walls, shortened to, heaven help us, EWOW (ee-wow). the teachers were allowed to offer courses that really interested them, and students too could teach courses. I took my first creative writing course, and my stellar pass/fail evaluation is posted on this very blog, a few weeks back. it was a great experience for me.
et puis--which means look, this proves that I learned something in French class--I went to Franconia College, which was along the lines of Black Mountain or Antioch, I imagine, tho no one ever said so. located in the woolly realm of north central New Hampshire, a federally recognized poverty zone, it was under-financed but had a good heart. I did a lot of writing there. my 1st semester, I was supposed to write 20 pages of material (poetry, in my case) for the semester. I wrote 40 pages before the class had convened the 1st time. this course was taught by a fiction writer who did not feel qualified to critique poetry, tho I found his advice useful and sound. during my 2nd semester a search went for a poetry professor. several candidates read at the school. Robert Grenier was the winner. he left Tufts (where my father went to school), and Kenneth Irby took his place there. Grenier, as I have said a-many times, has had great effect on my course and direction. I recall that all the candidates for the poetry position made much of Olson and Creeley. I think my education did a pretty decent job of not stifling my interest. I remember learning about Heinrich Schliemann in elementary school, and whaling, and dinosaurs, all very exciting. and I am still interested in French, and folk music. education is opportunity. I can legitimately say that I am a lifelong learner. I owe this to the fortuitous facts of my education.
Friday, February 06, 2009
ah, the Super Bowl®. I watched but had other things going so did not pay full attention. it was a good game. certes, that interception at the end of the half was one of those ecstatic, improbable moments that are so beguiling. I do not know why the Steelers were allowed to add 15 blockers on the run back of the interception, nor why the Cards thought waving at Hamilton would help, but so it goes. I write, tho, because of Bruce Springsteen. I have made several failed attempts to record my impressions of Springsteen’s ridiculous performance, but the results have been unsatisfying. why did his performance bother me so?
I am not a fan of Springsteen’s music, but I am not against it either. not to my taste, but I recognize its appeal. I fumed a little at work about what I experienced of his performance, and someone said that he liked hearing those old songs again. och, I do not mean this to be about my musical taste.
the ‘show’ began with Bruce and Clarence posed in profile together. then the lights came up and, inscrutably, Bruce tossed the guitar he was holding to someone. that was disturbing. it appears that the guitar was only a prop. tossing the guitar seemed like a ceremonial detachment. curious, with an unpleasant vibration. Bruce then takes a mike and announces that the greatest rock band in the world will now take over for the next 12 minutes. and suddenly it is Wayne Newton onstage exerting himself to get a rise out of the audience. he smirks, dashes about the stage, exhorts. is irony evident? it does not matter. whether the desperation is joking or serious, it still smells. I forget which song he does 1st, but he goes thru a gamut of shticks. he drops to his knees à la James Brown. he kneels, arching his back dramatically, I guess à la Bruce Springsteen. he runs over to Clarence to mug à la every 80s hair band. oh yeah, sliding across the stage towards the camera, ugh.
the 12 minute high that Bruce offered was full of his tiresome shouty vocals, fake sincerity, over production, and sad lack of promise. it was all a straightforward attempt to move units of his latest release. yes, the agents of dystopia in charge of the show established that Bruce pretend that the claque was the world. just like last year with Tom Petty, and years before, no doubt, the formatted audience waved lit cigarette lighters, just like in the real world. silly.
despite the fakery, Tom Petty’s performance last year came across as sincere. Bruce was awkwardly content to swim the bullshit. and at a time of jitters, one would think this person who has been willing to speak would have said something to the nervous world at large. an acknowledgement that times are tough now, a note of hope about the new administration, something/anything related to the country and world now<. no, it is about those units that need to be moved.
2 of the songs, and they are both legitimately familiar ones, are songs of the frozen past: “Glory Days” and “Born to Run”. so much of Bruce's energy just bubbled in this mire of weary documentation. the anachronism is obvious. his performance was canny bullshit. once again, poetry is dead.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
here is a link to my graduate thesis "Personal Myth in Art", which I have been meaning to put online for some time. it can also be accessed by way of the Bramhall Writing Portfolio link to the right. some years ago, I had the opportunity to write the advertising newsletter for the store where I worked. this newsletter was a significant part of the store's image. it was meant to inform and entertain as well as to advert and entice. I was happy, thrilled really, by the challenge, but at the time, I almost no longer knew how to write appropriately for this venue. my poetry then was written without much punctuation except commas. in addition, the extensive journal writing I was doing then did not really obey sentences. instead, I used dashes rather than periods, and certainly nothing so complex as semi-colons, because I was pouring forth, not developing a structured piece. dashes could be full stops or they could lead on, which is what I wanted from the writing. to write declarative sentences meant that I had to relearn prose writing. I consciously studied good and bad writing, reread Strunk and White, as I do regularly, and paid a lot of attention. to write a college paper meant a similar study, tho less on sentence mechanics and more on developing ideas. one notes in my poetry (prose tho it may be) that I accept dissonance, disjunction, and other deformities of what we define as good English. poetry is, after all, an effort to break thru the received structures of our daily speak to a realm of verbal immediacy. anyway, I commend what I have written to your gentle eyes.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
I read a piece that Gerald Burns presented to the Charles Olson Society (from the minutes thereof: 8/95), to wit: “Maximus Betrayed”. he pretty well excoriates George Butterick, for poor scholarship, poor proofreading, etc. Burns’ criticism unleashes some emotions for me. I went thru hero worship with Olson, whose example meant so much to me. and Butterick, who did so much to bring O to the public, earned 2ndary hero status. but I have grown out of slavish respect. I recognize that Olson had his weaknesses and errors.
O was goofy. he envisioned a community of scholars, best of the best, and tried to entice the historian Carl Sauer, among others, to join. Sauer was too practical for such visions and demurred. Olson was wack, and that is both precious and something to be wary of.
one should remember that Olson was a scholar, but his aims were poetic. those who followed him were of the same vision. presenting a definitive text cannot proceed by such impetus, however.
so O had his acolytes, and Butterick was one of them. Butterick’s dedication was admirable, but was he a rigourous scholar? Burns argues effectively that Butterick was not. Burns has a prickly surety not unlike Dahlberg’s, and I can see that his rigour is well-earned. Butterick, on the other hand, and not surprisingly, is an enthusiast.
the idea of a definitive text presents a set of accepted terms and procedures, like that the last change that a writer makes is the definitive one. we know that both Whitman and Wordsworth reworked their work as time went on, and perhaps not for the better. a public sense could be said to have intruded on their artistic decisions. those changes are definitive, but one might prefer the earlier expressions over the redactions. Butterick’s decisions were not always rigourous.
my emotion here rides on wanting to agree with Butterick, but I see Burns’ point. and please, do we need this singular ownership? Dickinson is sadly trapped by that walled garden in Cambridge, and you can think of myriad other artists monopolized by the whosis with the rights.
papers of mine are housed and available at Ohio State University. yes, that is a weird thing to consider, imagining the future and who might be interested.
when I worked on typewriter, I would retype successive drafts, often for the most minor of changes. I developed the habit of numbering and dating the drafts, but that rigour only put the lie to consistency. there was all that work that preceded the decision to date everything, and there were the times when I neglected to follow my rules.
the computer complicates the situation. every time I hit ctrl-s, a draft is created and another is annihilated. I could go to the trouble of saving each ‘finished’ draft but I don’t, for obvious reasons. those annihilated texts still exist, in some quantum way.
it is difficult to get my mind around definitive. when I make changes, even of sloppy typos, I have the feeling that I make a new poem not change the old one. there is this sense of fluidity in the process. I occasionally make odd errors, like writing which when I clearly meant with. I could and sometimes do stay with the oddity but usually make the correction as quickly as I repair hte.
I read of the debate concerning the last lines of Keats’ Grecian Urn. the wording is fine but exactly what the punctuation should be creates a significant change in meaning. as readers, we create meaning, as much thru our misapprehensions as our care. the possibilities that arise thru this muddle of punctuation resolves in the idea of a poem’s manyness. poetry is not statement.
a definitive text is an effort to agree. in Ulysses, Leopold Bloom is credited with the unlikely chest measurement of 29”. a so called definitive edition of Ulysses came out in the 90s that was supposed to fix all the many errors that entered the text via confused compositor and such. according to Guy Davenport, as many errors as were corrected in that edition were added. we as human beings will err.
an ownership has taken place with Olson, as it has with others. this ownership becomes a slavish reliance. text disappears into mythos. Butterick was obviously energized by Olson. you can see it in his own odd and eccentric Collected Poems. I was so pleased to come upon Butterick’s collected, because it showed him defining space that was his own, not just working Olson’s farm. Butterick’s collected seems incomplete, and not just because he died young. one sees points of interest for him, but it feels as if he never developed the comprehensive vision of his own work that he had with Olson’s. that is, he gave more time to his work with Olson than he did with his own work.
when one looks at the works that Butterick edited one is aware of Butterick expressing himself. one sees an area being protected. I understand that urge, but readers must do their best to ignore such defenses.
the Authors are in eternity, fair enough. editors are still here on earth. I do not want to lionize anymore, not Olson, not Butterick. I just want to continue digging around in the rubble.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
to the right the canny reader will see links to my Resume, my C.V., and my Writing Portfolio. the Portfolio, so far, features some user guides that I wrote, and some academic papers. I shall continue adding to these offerings.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Dr John M Bennett, curator of the Avant Writing Collection at Ohio State informs me that my archival papers are now catalogued. go to library.osu.edu/ and search "Allen Bramhall Collection" as title. you can click on full record and also click on the link to the finding aid. begin writing theses on my work now. seriously, this is something to twist my brain around. I have never done archival research but it fascinates me. I also learned today, via Dan Bouchard's local readings email list, that the Boston Athenaeum has acquired a goodly portion of John Wieners' published work... I'm looking at that now: does that mean they acquired his BOOKS??? well yes, it does, including mimeos and that sort of whatnot. cool.
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