knee peepers above bathwater lines
cold for me is hot for you
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Celibatory Handshake
I'm keeping the dick out of my mouth
just long enough to learn
to say my own name so
don't you worry about me
Thursday, August 28, 2008
UBC MFA Grad Show
The Sooner the Better Later than Never
If you're in Vancouver, B.C. between September 5th and Septembe 21st go check out the UBC Fine Arts Grad Exhibition. The opening is Thursday September 4th 7-10pm at The Belkin Art Gallery.
I wrote the catalog for one of the artists (my good friend) Raymond Boisjoly. I'll post the catalog here or a link to it once the show opens.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Big Ups to Maxwell
Thank you, Maxwell for your excellent reportage! I would please welcome all of you who participated in KSW's Positions Colloquium to continue the conversation here if you feel the inclination, are currently without blog or feel like responding directly to Mr. Heller.
For myself, I have nothing interesting to say. I just finished herding 16 4th graders for 3 hours. I'm going to have a beer and stare at the wall for a bit.
Goodnight and thank you again, Maxwell Dearheart.
love,
Lindsey
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Day Five: Over and Out
12:40 PM - 24 August 2008
"I'd like to thank all the people who call themselves part of KSW, and all the people who don't but are." —(?)
Laura Elrick's Stalk last night: A video projection of the poet herself, hooded and handcuffed, dressed in the orange jumpsuit of a Guantanamo detainee, shuffling between baffled pedestrians on the Kenneth-Cole/HSBC/W.W.Norton blocks of Fifth Avenue. Obviously, the daily (con)text of New York, here repurposed, takes on new ugliness ("Forever 21", "ShoeMania!") when paired with the detainee image (when paired with the image of an artist in action?). As the film plays, Elrick reads the reactions she overheard, or snippets of dialog between herself and the camera person, or phrases from an interrogation transcript called "Secret Orcon Interrogation Log."* "Continued silence while the evidence builds against you will not be tolerated." All components are in balance—real elegance (in the string-theory sense of the word). (Again, apologies for simplifying).
"I am poetry, hear me mingle." —(?)
"What I suck, I happily fund." —Catriona Strang
"Doubtless there are still people who experience things personally..." —Judy Radul
So, Poetry Camp 2008 ended at around 3 AM this morning with 6 pitchers and 30-odd pints of Canadian Beer (read: global-warming run-off ). Mark Wallace did a performance piece called Who Hasn’t Paid Their Part of the Bill? which explored the nature of sudden and total silence among poets in re-appropriated social space. I experienced small feelings of feeling. Lorraine Graham discussed the problem / absence of literary reviews in post-printed-matter America. Per usual, someone confessed that they had hated me initially, but then had a change of heart. Tom Orange gave a little context for some of the KPC performances, starting with an analysis of each poet’s past readings and working back to Hegel.
And now (taking Célan’s assertion that all poets are Jews): diaspora.
“What was scattered gathers / what was gathered blows apart.” —Heraclitus
"The farce is finished / glass is made of sand." —Laura Elrick
*I originally wrote that the interrogation dialog was fictional, but Elrick pointed me to the original (very real) document.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Day Four or Something.
4:33 PM - 23 August 2008
So Sianne Ngai frontmattered her panel this morning with a lecture on zany-ness. Allow me to oversimplify: Etymologically speaking, the word "zany" is derived from "Zanni," the name of a stock character in 16th century Italian comedic theater that satirized "Giannis" (migrant workers). The Zany character is essentially a disaster-magnet laborer that just can't seem to work—see: Lucille Ball selling Vitameatavegamin, Lucille Ball and Charlie Chaplin at work in factories, Amelia Bedelia keeping house (me in the office)—but for Ngai, the Zany is also a pop- and/or high-culture (depending) manifestation of our anxieties about labor in a capitalist system. There's an absurdity to our 'work so you can rest so you can get up and work to get home in time to rest to get to work on time' lives, and perhaps the Zany allows us to see that without having to say it. We're tired of "cool," of neatly presented info, of smooth-running paperwork, or orderly emails—we take pleasure seeing gears get jammed. (Simplifying.) But there was so much to her talk (zany gender issues, zany longing for bottom-up instead of top-down management (zany-synidicalism?)) and people descended on Ngai like flies on a soft plum afterward.
Quote of the day: "Why do we still need a dancing hot dog in the age of coolness?" —Sianne Ngai
Mark Wallace tells us that labor can be pleasurable and that, therefore, we can count poetic acts as labor. *Poetry is labor.* Words can "elect to dance and caper," and still serve a serious function.
Um, just overheard: "So, like, how do you self-publish something?"
Note: everything in quotes is lifted from the KPC poets, their lectures and their poems. I have to acknowledge how many words I've 'ganked.'
Day Four: We Spell it "Kanada"
10:09 AM - Saturday, 23 August 2008
I'm considering Vancouver poet Michael Turner, whose book I found in this triangular café. Why isn't Mr. Turner here at this conference? His work "think[s] about cities and people" which, like, is the whole point of the conference. Plus look at his author photo.
Yesterday: The poets talk about seizing social space—Laura Elrick's hooded-and-handcuffed walk through in Manhattan, Jules Boykoff and Kaia Sand's political slogans posted on signs along southern roads. In the capitalist North American context, we're accustomed to living in commercial spaces "created for us, not by us," (in malls looking at adverts, on sidewalks looking at adverts) but maybe we can take some of that space back for social/public (non-commercial) use. Juliana Spahr mentions that, at the very least, these actions remind the polis that poets and artists (read: dissenters) are still among us...
Someone says that "shooting at monuments has a very respectable pedigree."
Louis Cabri discusses etiquette as "the right way to avoid another social class."
Last night: After 2 months of Fury-ous work, Toscano and I performed Protagonistic Forces, a fifty-minute video/audio/movement/text poem. I've been nothing but warped nerves and ulcers while worrying over this piece, but during the performance itself (around the time I donned goggles and started beating a bubble machine to bits with my hammer while the speakers blared "my space! my space!) I attained a real "sublimity" (Toscano's word). People were... taken aback... by the piece... and not just because their feet got splashed with soap-water.
Rod Smith writes a damn good love poem, all razor-sharp social commentary aside. Jeff Derksen shifts smoothly between high and low brows... I think his poems have shark skin. I want to stay at poetry camp all year.
Day Three: KPC Gets Rolling
10:04 AM - Friday, 22 August 2008
Pat O'Riley and Peter Cole kicked off yesterdays *land & language* panel with some very actionable contemplations about indigenous language extinction (10 yards), 'minoritized peoples' vs. 'minorities' (20 yards), English as the [colonial] crowbar of culture destruction (touchdown), mostly in the context of academic institutions. That is: shouldn't first-people/indigenous/native students be allowed to write thesis papers in their own tongue, rather than the Queen's English?
But then, like, here comes Juliana Spahr in full 'gladitorial' gear (whole different game) with a barrage of poetics history (all folks from Edwin Torres to Marianne Moore), talking about "altered and disruptive Englishes" and how they can knock the wobbly vase of *English* from it's power pedestal... and she lets us know who's doing it right now. Incredible.
I had a moment.... met a poet hero of mine. This poet didn't so much "recoil" (as in "retreat disdainfully") fromme, but really "re-coiled" (as in "coiled up to strike—with venom!"). I heard the rattle rattling and... ...
So by 11 PM, we're 7 hours deep in straight-up podium poetry readings (with the exception of Michael Davidson, whose sweet essaies were a real relief) and everyone has read for nearly an hour each. There's more Angelina Jolie, more Abu Ghraib stacks, more mutilated gay men, imperialism, post-colonial jolly slaps, even-tempered slide-shows, "resistance is nubile," "S.O.S... O... Same Old Same Old;" but maybe there's excitement too: a sense of *We*ness. As in: We're all poets here, so we like all of it, even (especially!) hearing (explicitly!) where lines break; we like references. and name dropping.
Essentially, the ball got rolling, the issues surfaced: we're talking about shanking the English language, we're talking about getting poetry out of books and into the "social space." Translation: "fuck grammar, here we come."
Highlight: polyvocalic poetic duet (intoned) by Louis Cabri and Rodrigo Toscano. Cabri reads slowly while Toscano (in white pants?!) spells out each word of the poem. They react to one another's spontaneous tonal shifts. Just gorgeous decentered poetic act—who's the poet here? where's the poem? who's the reader?
Pat O'Riley and Peter Cole kicked off yesterdays *land & language* panel with some very actionable contemplations about indigenous language extinction (10 yards), 'minoritized peoples' vs. 'minorities' (20 yards), English as the [colonial] crowbar of culture destruction (touchdown), mostly in the context of academic institutions. That is: shouldn't first-people/indigenous/native students be allowed to write thesis papers in their own tongue, rather than the Queen's English?
But then, like, here comes Juliana Spahr in full 'gladitorial' gear (whole different game) with a barrage of poetics history (all folks from Edwin Torres to Marianne Moore), talking about "altered and disruptive Englishes" and how they can knock the wobbly vase of *English* from it's power pedestal... and she lets us know who's doing it right now. Incredible.
I had a moment.... met a poet hero of mine. This poet didn't so much "recoil" (as in "retreat disdainfully") fromme, but really "re-coiled" (as in "coiled up to strike—with venom!"). I heard the rattle rattling and... ...
So by 11 PM, we're 7 hours deep in straight-up podium poetry readings (with the exception of Michael Davidson, whose sweet essaies were a real relief) and everyone has read for nearly an hour each. There's more Angelina Jolie, more Abu Ghraib stacks, more mutilated gay men, imperialism, post-colonial jolly slaps, even-tempered slide-shows, "resistance is nubile," "S.O.S... O... Same Old Same Old;" but maybe there's excitement too: a sense of *We*ness. As in: We're all poets here, so we like all of it, even (especially!) hearing (explicitly!) where lines break; we like references. and name dropping.
Essentially, the ball got rolling, the issues surfaced: we're talking about shanking the English language, we're talking about getting poetry out of books and into the "social space." Translation: "fuck grammar, here we come."
Highlight: polyvocalic poetic duet (intoned) by Louis Cabri and Rodrigo Toscano. Cabri reads slowly while Toscano (in white pants?!) spells out each word of the poem. They react to one another's spontaneous tonal shifts. Just gorgeous decentered poetic act—who's the poet here? where's the poem? who's the reader?
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Day Two: MH for RHT @ KPC @ Vivo, Vancouver, BC.
Wednesday 8:32 AM - Vancouver, B.C.
One moment of levity / clarity last night: As Brian Kim Stefans prepared to read, a film projection of his computer-animated word / visual / appropriation (!) piece shuddered against the far wall, the podium stood empty... and then he stepped up to the podium, so that the projected images played across his face. "I'll read in front of the screen. It's an intervention into the, um, digital... social... blah blah blah," he said. Big audience laughter.
Are we serious, here, are we joking? Yes, no; no yes. Social criticism plus in-jokes... do the in-jokes negate the social criticism? Some are perturbed that the KPC hasn't been serious enough, others think that it's been too too, too, already.
Also featured: funereal reading of homophonic translations; semi-Oedipal Angelina Jolie leitmotif (throughout the evening, for real); major enlargement/insertion of Self in Robert Fitterman's slideshow of a single self-portrait (comforting); and real big laughs over a climactic what-if-Ezra-Pound-had-a-blog? poem (Pound jokes get to SF poets every time).
Other news: on Canada's Pakistani news radio, "critical condition" is the only phrase spoken in English; at a glance, my "Smells Great / All Day!" deodorant looks like it "Smells Gay!"; East coast women struggle to accept Pacific Northwest incurable hair-frizz effect (advice, Maggie?); Lindsey, in Canada, it's "Mind the Lip" not "Step Up."
One moment of levity / clarity last night: As Brian Kim Stefans prepared to read, a film projection of his computer-animated word / visual / appropriation (!) piece shuddered against the far wall, the podium stood empty... and then he stepped up to the podium, so that the projected images played across his face. "I'll read in front of the screen. It's an intervention into the, um, digital... social... blah blah blah," he said. Big audience laughter.
Are we serious, here, are we joking? Yes, no; no yes. Social criticism plus in-jokes... do the in-jokes negate the social criticism? Some are perturbed that the KPC hasn't been serious enough, others think that it's been too too, too, already.
Also featured: funereal reading of homophonic translations; semi-Oedipal Angelina Jolie leitmotif (throughout the evening, for real); major enlargement/insertion of Self in Robert Fitterman's slideshow of a single self-portrait (comforting); and real big laughs over a climactic what-if-Ezra-Pound-had-a-blog? poem (Pound jokes get to SF poets every time).
Other news: on Canada's Pakistani news radio, "critical condition" is the only phrase spoken in English; at a glance, my "Smells Great / All Day!" deodorant looks like it "Smells Gay!"; East coast women struggle to accept Pacific Northwest incurable hair-frizz effect (advice, Maggie?); Lindsey, in Canada, it's "Mind the Lip" not "Step Up."
Heller for RHT: En Route—for now.
Tuesday 7:44 AM EST - WA, D.C.
Looking over the KPC poet(ic) statements catalog again, I (re)re-read the selection from Julianna Spahr's Transformation. Last December, I managed to read that entire book thinking that all three main 'characters' were male, when in fact they were two men and a woman (of course...). Odd: I always say that I want to delete / forget my Self, but instead I (um) enlarge and insert my Self everywhere—in reading, in writing... Max-centric. The KPC poets, however, seem 'hellbent to' explore 'recombinatory' activities / utopias in which *the individual* sees himself as singular to a certain degree, but also (more importantly?) sees himself as a small *part* of a whole.... Big picture-ism. How will Max fit in (as a poet? as a person?) here.
Looking over the KPC poet(ic) statements catalog again, I (re)re-read the selection from Julianna Spahr's Transformation. Last December, I managed to read that entire book thinking that all three main 'characters' were male, when in fact they were two men and a woman (of course...). Odd: I always say that I want to delete / forget my Self, but instead I (um) enlarge and insert my Self everywhere—in reading, in writing... Max-centric. The KPC poets, however, seem 'hellbent to' explore 'recombinatory' activities / utopias in which *the individual* sees himself as singular to a certain degree, but also (more importantly?) sees himself as a small *part* of a whole.... Big picture-ism. How will Max fit in (as a poet? as a person?) here.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Max Heller Reports for RHT
"As it turns out... people need to know what you’re doing. You can almost feel the yearning. What are you doing? The ache is palpable."
—Margaret Mason, Morning News
I've ferried several artsy types east toward the concentric rings of Manhattan, but Ridiculous Human Things (RHT) founder LB was by far the most energetic—she interviewed publishers and blogged regularly during her stay, really squeezed blood from stones and "brought something back," as we say in Washington. Now the game has been reversed; I'm heading west to take in the Kootenay School of Writing Positions Colloquium (KPC), and I want to blog a bit about it. I'm not a fire-starter, or a fire-stealer (no Prometheus, nor was meant to be), so, with LB's blessing, I'll be reporting from Vancouver, B.C. (now until the 24th of August) right here on the RHT site. "What a lark."
For now, I'll provide only a few words of context: I've been invited to the KPC as a participant in Rodrigo Toscano's Collapsible Poetics Theater piece Protagonistic Forces, to be "moved through" on August 22, 2008. I've already broken the neck of our camera tripod (sorry) but I found my plane tickets finally, so there's no turning back—"we cannot make the sun stand still, but we can make it run!" (For more information on the KPC, visit the Kootenay School of Writing website at http://www.kswnet.org.)
—Margaret Mason, Morning News
I've ferried several artsy types east toward the concentric rings of Manhattan, but Ridiculous Human Things (RHT) founder LB was by far the most energetic—she interviewed publishers and blogged regularly during her stay, really squeezed blood from stones and "brought something back," as we say in Washington. Now the game has been reversed; I'm heading west to take in the Kootenay School of Writing Positions Colloquium (KPC), and I want to blog a bit about it. I'm not a fire-starter, or a fire-stealer (no Prometheus, nor was meant to be), so, with LB's blessing, I'll be reporting from Vancouver, B.C. (now until the 24th of August) right here on the RHT site. "What a lark."
For now, I'll provide only a few words of context: I've been invited to the KPC as a participant in Rodrigo Toscano's Collapsible Poetics Theater piece Protagonistic Forces, to be "moved through" on August 22, 2008. I've already broken the neck of our camera tripod (sorry) but I found my plane tickets finally, so there's no turning back—"we cannot make the sun stand still, but we can make it run!" (For more information on the KPC, visit the Kootenay School of Writing website at http://www.kswnet.org.)
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
On Laughter
"However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and to be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for."
--Herman Melville from Chapter 5 "Breakfast" of Moby Dick
--Herman Melville from Chapter 5 "Breakfast" of Moby Dick
Crazier 'n me
Heh heh heh. Look what I found. Google image search wins the prize for this one too. I love this for obvious reasons: its glaring Trent Reznor style angst, the tidyness of the pins, the absolute cleanliness of the aggrieved hand and of course the fake blood. Most of all I love that someone took the time to create this thing on their or some other one's hand, to make manifest the pain in their heart for all the world/internt to see and that that manifestation is at once cute (Hello Kitty, Lisa Frank, Hearts and Stars cute) and totally metal. It's real, real high school and it makes me feel good because, someone, the maker of this, is crazier than me...or at least less aware of how completely silly this is. I say, "Good for you, kiddo, and don't you worry. Time heals all wounds, except maybe the fake ones. Those you have to wash off with soap and water."
Monday, August 11, 2008
Tropic of Thunder
Action Alert
Confront Harmful and Offensive Language & Portrayal of People with Intellectual Disabilities.
Tropic of Thunder contributes to Harmful Treatment of People with Disabilities Tropic Thunder, the latest support for offending and degrading people with disabilities. Read the NY Times article on nationwide boycotts here
For more information about the issue and scheduled protests click here.
Confront Harmful and Offensive Language & Portrayal of People with Intellectual Disabilities.
Tropic of Thunder contributes to Harmful Treatment of People with Disabilities Tropic Thunder, the latest support for offending and degrading people with disabilities. Read the NY Times article on nationwide boycotts here
For more information about the issue and scheduled protests click here.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Pain in the heel and calf, sacral and cheek (facial) pain, specifically
Google image search turns up another great illustration from the creators of man-in-pain-with-helmet (see earlier post).
He bows his head, his face, rashy red from a lover's backhand, stares into the floor, touches his calf still hot with the sting of a rude belt or wet towel snap. A mysterious redness blooms from his waistband. Was his left hand tied here? What causes him to gaze so, in such submission, at the carpet below and hold his hand back and lay its back against his? He keeps taking it doesn't he? Whatever it is he's been taking he'll keep on it seems. Come on, guy. Come on now.
He bows his head, his face, rashy red from a lover's backhand, stares into the floor, touches his calf still hot with the sting of a rude belt or wet towel snap. A mysterious redness blooms from his waistband. Was his left hand tied here? What causes him to gaze so, in such submission, at the carpet below and hold his hand back and lay its back against his? He keeps taking it doesn't he? Whatever it is he's been taking he'll keep on it seems. Come on, guy. Come on now.
Thursday, August 7, 2008
Hello Titty
name them like they were something other than. like
this one here is Clammy
this one here named Shoes
this one here is Clammy
this one here named Shoes
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh rates:
Coffee +2 (big surprise)
Honora's new apartment +5
My sweet blonde family members, The Broadlands +10
Ultimate Fighting on the teevee +2
My cousin Danny's pantented invention "The Frankformer" +5 (stay tuned for a full write-up)
Ikea -5 (jerks)
Driving while listening to bangin' hip hop and freaky whitey's +5
The Mardi Gras bar -0- (pretty much everything about this bar is both its plus and its minus, canceling any rating where it sits. For example, having the strongest drinks in town. Trouble.)
Bricks upon bricks + 2
A different sort of green +2
Honora lives there now which makes it pretty much the luckiest city but she doesn't live in San Francisco which makes me the saddest Lindsey so I don't know how to rate that.
Coffee +2 (big surprise)
Honora's new apartment +5
My sweet blonde family members, The Broadlands +10
Ultimate Fighting on the teevee +2
My cousin Danny's pantented invention "The Frankformer" +5 (stay tuned for a full write-up)
Ikea -5 (jerks)
Driving while listening to bangin' hip hop and freaky whitey's +5
The Mardi Gras bar -0- (pretty much everything about this bar is both its plus and its minus, canceling any rating where it sits. For example, having the strongest drinks in town. Trouble.)
Bricks upon bricks + 2
A different sort of green +2
Honora lives there now which makes it pretty much the luckiest city but she doesn't live in San Francisco which makes me the saddest Lindsey so I don't know how to rate that.
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