Are you surprised?
Maxwell Heller. Francis Bacon. The Brooklyn Rail.
The answer is no.
Showing posts with label Maxwell Heller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Maxwell Heller. Show all posts
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Friday, April 3, 2009
Chelsea Daily by Maxwell Heller
WORLD: Hilary Clinton Throws Down
After several weeks in the middle and far East during which she shattered convention by mentioning pertinent issues, Mrs. Clinton took time out with staff to bust some moves on a flattened cardboard box. "Oh no she di'n't!" reported one staff member (on the condition of anonymity) after Clinton spun three times on her back and then did the splits during a headstand.
NATION: Oregon Woman's Life Book-Ended by Misery
"Oh..." said Oregon resident Betsy Fuller, 84, as she quietly passed away earlier this morning in the company of her financially ruined family. After watching a FoxNews special on the shanty towns appearing across the US, which brought back memories of her childhood during the Great Depression, Mrs. Fuller realized that she had lived just long enough to suffer for the financial mistakes of both her parents and her children.
LOCAL: Local Man Experiences Moment of Doubt
For the first time since Britney Spears botched her comeback performance at the MTV Awards (2007), local man Alex Trent, creative director for 2(x)ist, experienced a moment of doubt. Having checked his clothes at the door of the Black Party, an annual Chelsea Bacchanal, he was about to have a claim number Sharpied onto his naked body when he blinked twice, shook his head, and seemed to grasp what he was doing for a split second. Fortunately, friends talked him through the moment, and sources say that he was able to stay for duration of the 18 hour amphetamine-fueled event. (Not Pictured)
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Saturday, August 23, 2008
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.)
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