alien space pod hatching facility

alien space pod hatching facility, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

curb

curb, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

train time

train time, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

in the Good Taste is Timeless Dept., saw a kindergarten called Magic Touch. having remarked that, let's not go there.

we're in the midst of moving, just down the street but still, so I'm in no condition for one of my typically brilliant posts. in lieu of same, I offer Vanilla Fudge, part of my Youtube time wastage. they made a name for themselves in the 60s (harbinger of the 70, which led to the 80s, I believe) by whiteboying soul songs, substituting muscle for inflection. quite a few of their songs are in a time signature called sludge, but here we have a bit more energy. the drummer could give Bonzo Bonham a run for heavy hands. the drama tires me, tho, as does the singer's hand gestures. they give a pretty thunderous application of sound, but strangely anemic for all that flexing. I guess i should have pointed to this version. ah yes, Doc Strange on bass. god, it's like bad poetry. it's great to see such great dancing, too. this IS poetry, right here, fresh 2007 imitation soul. I mean, this kind of inflated crap's pretty common in the poetryworld, yes?

I meant to include this photo of Stephen Rodefer in the post below but couldn't find it on Ben Friedlander's Flickr account. and it was right there all along. as well as another pose in the same startling paisley pjs (does paisley grow?). I only know about Rodefer by way of unsubstantiated rumours, but the picture fits the impression that I've gleaned.

Stephen Rodefer's Four Lectures now online. the ardent hilarity situates some serious terms in poetry and language.

I offer thee this odd piece of 60s pop culture. closer to English music hall than rock music, id est not exactly the Yardbirds, but hey, the sudden channeling of Jerry (not Lee) Lewis, and that laugh...

Tom Beckett is the first publicly to take the gloves off with Days Poem. he notes his encounter here, his worthy blog. I am honoured by his notice. he is a serious, generous presence in the poetry world that counts, the one where words actively associate in their process, not merely in the social construct. aesthetics-wise, he and I may seem to stand at antipodes. does my flow seem exhaustive? whereas Tom metes out each word with deliberation. I see Tom caring for every word. I saw this in Robert Grenier, too, an implacable attention. I care too. my own attention, however, does not boil down like Tom's does. it bubbles up. I don't see this as conflict or contraries. DAYS POEM was written willfully as a marathon, an exercise of extent. tho it comprises 1000 pages, those pages are filled with scads of paragraph-sized bits. those bits are for you, if you will take them. aptly, Tom wrote his note on Thoreau's birthday, Thoreau, and Walden (his creation), being frequent visitors to DAYS POEM. a poem is a poem, a map, a membrane, a shock, suddenly, when day seemed ordinary. I can only proffer what I wrote. thanks to Tom for the touch. thanks again, too, to Eileen Tabios for taking the machine I gave her and letting it run. Eileen is too too.

I haven't done Youtube justice, what with musical groups to catch glimpses of (Moby Grape on Mike Douglas Show, where they are introduced, typical, as the Moby Grapes) but for the nonce, this bit about Led Zep. begins like a Monty Python skit, which, essentially, it is. the controlled, disdainful 'aesthetic' argument here is no different from any other representation of the new in the fuddy world. Led Zeppelin as the latest thing that the youths have come up with. the BBC tool is just playing along with the joke. this is exactly how poetry dies slowly, how the arts get boxed in. the taxonomists use their tried and true metric to measure the anomaly, having 1st determined that it is an anomaly. it's a defensive reaction, as if the walls will be overwhelmed by this new mutation. which, perhaps, they will. and is that so bad? but really, Led Zep doesn't cancel The Beatles, nor vice versa, and I daresay the Grecian Urn remains despite Charles Bernstein deciding to write poems. I HATE AESTHETICS.

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

a friend gave me a copy of For the Time Being, an anthology edited by Tyler Doherty & Tom Morgan, and published by Bootstrap Press. it is 'about' journals and features many writers of interest: Joanne Kyger, Joel Sloman, Marcella Durand, Joseph Massey (and many more), id est: old and new. Bootstrap strikes me as a going concern, which the bleak metro Boston landscape could use, in spades. the press has just published A Book of Prophecies (did you follow the link above or did I waste my time throwing my html knowledge around???) and seems to be providing some local energy hereabouts. the press is based in Lowell, where falling apart and getting back together are just about synonymous. work the good up keep is what I say, or better still: carry on for the greater glory. I look forward to scraping my nose across the pages of this book.

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

Gary Sullivan's comic Elsewhere no. 3 arrived yesterday. a departure from previous numbers. 1 & 2 were impressionistic (I hate that word too but it seems appropriately descriptive in this case), #1 being trippy sights and sounds of Japan, #2 of Coney Island. #3 collects the comix Gary did for Rain Taxi. placed in an autobiographical vector, there is some similarity to that mordantly British and hilarious (if those two terms aren't synonymous) cartoonist whose name scandalously escapes me, partly in the humour but especially in the thick lines and consequential black patches. the cartoons revel in goofiness yet intersect with a "pure" poetry, that being the literature that drives us to words, rather than the aesthetic bickering and social compunction of the Poetry World. some of these cartoons are homages to poets, Paul Blackburn for instance, featuring portraits derived largely from well known photos. these portraits are very sweet, reflecting the sincerity even the worst of us carries for those writers who meant something to that burgeoning writer within us. some of the images Gary offers are wisecracks, like the one labeled "Stein Discovers Repetition" which shows her swallowed in a vertiginous maelstrom. or "O'Hara takes on NYC", with Frank, flying above rooftops, thinking "must... have lunch...with LeRoi... then write Pollock monograph... and catch Billie's last set...!!". which is a pretty good encapsulation of how we see him, now. the more localized historical bits, like about flarf, flounder some in a defensive mode. the loving distance isn't employed in these instances. put it this way, much of the pretty considerations and confrontations have been sweated off Creeley and Blackburn, whereas there really is a Poetry Project and whatever pull and tug that goes on there (of which I know little, only guess). the battles of flarf aren't so interesting, nor were the decades of Langpo battle, surely not when we can read the poetry instead. so there's that. there's brief mention here of Ernst Herbeck, Gary's translations of whom are really wonderful and to be looked for. anyway, that's my brief initial look. I just scanned my book trove to remind myself of the British cartoonist to whom I've related Gary: Glen Baxter. there is a visual similarity I think you can see, and they share a skewed autobiographical element, but never to make overmuch of comparisons. the comic is self-published and available thru Gary at Gary Sullivan World Headquarters. he's on a great and varied project with Elsewhere. I was about to write recommended but somehow I don't think anyone's on the edge of their seat waiting for my proclamation, and yet, I mean it as I see it.

we watched Epic Movie yestreen. of particular interest to Erin, but the tv ads when it was in theatres looked funny: I was all for killing the evening with it. of course the ads cornered the humour available in the flick, but so it goes. I have a pretty heady tolerance for these 2-bit parodies, like Scary Movie (I've seen parts of at least 2), and so forth. EP is by no means as well crafted as the various movies by the creators of Airplane. instead, it survives with a throw it in the moat and see if anyone salutes motivation. so there's much that is stupid, lame, puerile, as well as a few hearty laughs. welladay! it begins by posing the idea that it has a plot. brief back stories parodying Snakes on the Plane, X-Men, Nacho Libre and DaVinci Code brings the 4 lead characters together. there's a disturbing outing into Willy Wonka land (despite Depp, I was in no mood to meet that film) then it's a scuffle largely with Narnia. one starts to feel the compelling sag of the originals. I mean, just a little undermining serves to send the whole mountain sliding. the cast is nameless, except for a few recognizable cameos like David Carradine and Fred Willard. some of the satire was no more than imitation. Nacho Libre looked no different from the original, and now I wonder if I really liked the original. and I've sat thru Narnia twice, but seeing it twisted a trifle, I wonder at that as well. it's rather fascinating to see these cinematic wonders without the lens of movie magic, i.e. big budget. a nice bit was the glorioso battle from Narnia. in EP, it hinges on one of our heroes finding the clicker from that Adam Sandler film from last year. he stops the evil army in its tracks then, with his family, proceeds to lay havoc on the frozen warriors. all this muddle seems potent with some sort of aesthetic intention. or it is a learning node. think of poetry as signs of the poetic. so much of the crudzoid poetry we meet daily consists of signals telling us that we are in the presence of poetry. lofty sentiments and rococco malarkey and the whole 9 yards. the appeal of crappy and/or minor movies situates in the deft insincerity in which they work. don't those Oscar-worthy movies that are cranked out yearly overflow with sweet crude quality sincerity? sincerity of the commonest manufacture. we deconstruct with the urge to discover the real thing beneath the crap. Fred Allen said something like, Hollywood is a place where you brush away the tinsel to see the real tinsel inside. our daily duty, in poetry, is something similar. we seek to eject the clunky weak contributions of imitated energy. I guess I'm saying that Epic Movie gives a view of that process.

been reading Stephen Vincent's new book, Walking Theory (Junction Press 2007). of which this current ramble mayn't be a review. because, 'istorin, find out for yourself, but really, the book causeth mental ramblings. so look: first poem is simply the route of a walk, Nathan Whiting-style. and further on Vincent goes divagation and ponder. I don't mean to be lame here, just thinking of methodology in the option of walking, walking. when I ran more assiduously, 80+ miles a week, I used to fairly regularly transcribe the runs afterwards. couldn't help it. what Stephen does is more mature and philosophic, a thoughtful sense of place, in time as well as in space. death is present here because death was present for Stephen as the work was written. death of brother and father, fading of mother. I can only say his work with his mother is exquisite, makes me sad at my own failings as my parents drew towards the edge. but I shan't go further here regarding Stephen's work, I'll save that for another time and when. I'm drawn into thoughts of Thoreau, for instance. who certainly had his own walking theory. I live near the centre of a circle of say 25 miles diameter, just guessing, that Thoreau covered. check out his journals, crisscrossing his world. he applied himself to the world as if it were new and wonderful. isn't that the treasure of poetry? not, say, in the emotions described or enacted, but in its language. death and its lack of mercy may likely be a topic or starting point for a poem, for a writing, anybody's, but that aint the news. the news is the juncture of language and the person. Thoreau, or Vincent, wander, and see. writing is a way of seeing. I don't know the details but Stephen makes walking a part of his writing process. and Thoreau, you can see him rise in the morning, step from his cabin and apply himself to the miles and landscape, to see specific eggs hatch, or buds break. you can stretch it to Berrigan or O'Hara, this will in the world. I mean, you can stretch it to any poet worth the name, but those 2 make nice pictures. wandering out there under whatever impetus, writing swift briefs of their momentum. think of Dickinson, more painstaking, perhaps, and much more local and constrained. and what is Silliman's BART but that same acceptance. it appears I have no focus at this time so let me hint just this vaguely at the resonances I hear in these varied. each day and its opportunity. and I offer Walking Theory as kindly exemplar of method and process, of a mature arrogation of the writing act.

days at the library

days library, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

two towering human monuments

two towering human monuments, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.

DAYS POEM in a tree

DAYS POEM in a tree, originally uploaded by allen_bramhall.