========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 14:00:17 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: thinking about translation, re:Lorca (long) A week or so back, Ernesto Grosman sent the RIF/T questionnaire about translation to the list, shortly after I'd sent a translation of the opening speech of Lorca's first play Bad Dream of the Butterflies. My head has been absolutely buzzing with ideas since starting the Lorca translation, and so I'm going to be arrogant enough to attempt a public reply to the questions on Ernesto's questionnaire, with mostly specific respect to this Lorca translation. Do, please, everyone, leave this message here if this seems to you as arrogant a presumption on my part as it seems to me, but I do want to answer: > "QUESTIONNAIRE/CUESTIONARIO *How would you define translation? As a process or as product?" I am writing the Lorca very much for an ordinary theatre audience, going on my feelings for what audiences around me have responded to in theatre I've seen. I don't expect a very active audience, which for me is required when I do what I think of as process work. For example, as part of my long poem DISABUSE, I translate the opening pages of Foucault's History of Sexuality - precisely as a *close reading*, giving me the opportunity to offer frequent footnotes on what I think is going on, where I differ as a thinker etc. In other words, I do the Foucault translation as something to be read as part of the debate on how readers *construct* and *write* what they think they're reading, in other words a *process* that *appropriates* the original writing. In a similar way, in the same long poem, I "translate" a new story, set on a journey around the world by airplane from New Zealand to England, pretty much line for line on top of the first Canto of the _Cantos of Ezra Pound_. But this translation from Pound is much less antagonistic, much more a way of saying that Pound has got at some essence of the pain of travelling to and from loved ones, finding one's shipmates and so on. My Lorca is much more a *product*, something vying to be published as an official translation, not as a response of mine to Lorca but as helping Lorca speak to the English-speaking. >"*Who is translating?" I was drawing especially on the persona of Joel Grey in _Cabaret_. My first master of translation, Donald Davie, very much inspired me to choose an existing English-speaking model - or preferably fuse two or more. Nevertheless these are more like flavourings, the approach to language, I think, remains very consistent from translation to translation of mine, very mandarin and autocratic - when translating Foucault or Lorca or Beckett or Mallarme or Rainault. In some ways I am attracted to translating them because I have trouble being authoritative, governmental, about my own themes and concerns, having gravitas, and want to learn how. My own work is more process-like, written for other artists (not by utter choice, but artists are who respond best to it, unlike the Lorca or others, who I've shown to lots of appreciative people). My one exception is the Pound, which struck a real chord of vulnerability and stoic suffering for me, but then I wasn't having to be so close word-by-word. > "*What is being translated?" For me, something is being presented. It must be interesting to people who only speak English, and it must be as interesting as work written in English first. It's a lot like the problem with academic critical essays; it mustn't be worthy and cold, so you have to work really hard to read it; it must have joi de vivre, like Davie's essays or Marjorie Perloff's. > "*Do you consider some texts to be untranslatable? If so, how would you describe the obstacle?" Very pun-laden work seems hard, which I myself do; though my Foucault was done precisely to rescue him, like a lot of the post-structuralists, from readers (and his official translator) who were missing all his puns. I translated him with lots of 1990s pop culture references, to try to put his work back into a leather jacket not a dust jacket! > "*Isn't the idea of "version" a funny place for the translator to be left in?" My Pound was a version, and the Lorca and the French poets a translation; I don't like Robert Lowell's "versions" of poems at all; they're so muscle bound and over-rich. As I say above, I think of the work as first of all a rival for original poetry; the technical question of how close the version is only interests me if I like it; I'm not a *translator*, or a versioner; I *use* translation, like I *use* other forms, and get *used* by them; lots of the writers who I know who are *translators*, who do whole books of versions or translations, are awful. >"*When see some of your own texts translated into a different language from the one you wrote them in, what kind of relation would you established between the two of them?" I've had my writing set to music once; because I couldn't sing it, it was too personal; the singer who set and sang it sang it from my heart. "*Is it true that today there are fewer people translating? If so, why?" I suspect there is just the same ratio of people doing good translations to people doing bad work as there always was. > "*What does it say about our present situation that translation seems to occur almost only when the "original" material is has been canonized within its own culture?" This is a big one for me. I tend to re-translate, with the exception of the Beckett, from bi-lingual editions, when the existing translation really bums me out. I hate the fact that, like so many authors, they are read badly; are in the public or canonical space but are not really understood (like Pound's Selected Poems being bought only for the imagist work, which is then travestied by admirers). The Lorca play I'm doing has only been translated once, by Gwyn Edwards, who translates Lorca wholesale - albeit from a deep love of Lorca - and seems to have rushed over this one for comprehensive coverage at the cost of specificity. Most translations are "canonised" oddly; my favourite approach would be to have anthologies of translations of Lorca, or Mallarme, or Baudelaire, collecting all the best translations of individual poems in magazines or the translator's collected works, eg Davie's Collected Poems has several marvellous individual translations, and he has many uncollected. My Lorca would have the Station Hill translations, Langston Hughes' Blood Wedding, very little by Gwyn Edwards. I'd ask the question: why do people feel safer reading one foreign poet exclusively translated by one translator? I like the Picador collected Rilke, and Michael Hamburger's Celan, Stephen Rodefer's Villon, but few others on this model. I'm raising here the question of collected work from a foreign writer writing in discrete different forms, eg Lorca's many different types of play, or a lyric poet's different poems. >"*And what would be the possible relation between this kind of selection and that other relationship between imperialism & translation?" Lowell seems very imperialist, decadent and loud; my favourite translations however make the English accomodate the other culture, the feel and the facts, and send me to the culture; then it is up to *me*, as a person, not to be imperialist; I think there are no signs of imperialist *writing* or *translating*, though there may be larger effects, and the work may be used as part of or to justify an imperialist strategy. > "*Are you ready to accept translation as another way of writing?" If there's time. "*When you or somebody else refers to a text as illegible, what do you does she/he mean by that? Do you see any connection between the notion of a text being illegible and the task of translation?" Most illegible things are illegible in their own way, a different way from the way any other illegible thing is illegible. That different way can be emulated in a translation. "*Do you think of some texts as more worthy of a translation than others? Could you elaborate on it?" I do think people go for comfort too easily, and I do think some work is more complex, and sometimes more true, than others; but I just want to tell someone to stop, not make them. Then maybe they might teach me something in their response. "*Would you say that you translate a text or a person?" In the Lorca, I did try to produce effects that would perturb a gay separatist, or a homophobe; that would make a reader wonder where I stand, and to emphasise an inwardness, a belonging, with both cruising on the heath and living a regular life in the suburbs; trying to speak the lingo, the parlance, of disparate groups; and to use nineties' references, and to be a little brazen or shocking now, as I think Lorca was then, while not losing a sense of it being a play from the 20s altogether. I tried to avoid being one thing and not the other, as I think that's what resonates for me in Lorca's vision of love. To learn from, to be intimate, to steal, to go undercover, and to speak out from within, a community, a friend, a text. I'd also emphasise how much for me metaphor came up as a big issue when translating Foucault and Lorca - so much so, that I was making copious observations in a notebook about metaphor as a route to everything; the Lorca really got me writing my own work again, a sequence about metaphor, which I'll backchannel anyone who wants to see it. It was the best way of reconciling the critical act of reading as a trained critic, and the creative act of translation. By which I mean, I would think of four or more sentences to translate one sentence of the Lorca and then be able to discard them by alluding to it in a metaphor. For example, the Lorca I sent has a second half which begins, in paraphrase, a wood sylph who walks with the aid of crutches, and who came from a Shakespeare play, met the poet one day after all the cattle had been penned in, and gave the poet this story. I worked for *hours* on this line; I was so interested that the sylph had come from a Shakespeare play, I thought of Ariel as much as Titania, so interested that a fictional character was talked about as living, so interested in the fact that a fictional character had given a real author a play, and so on. I really liked making the sylph a "veteran Shakesperean fairy" as it could be an actor or a character, conjured up Gielgud and Wilde and other queer men who are allowed to be fey and feminine and powerful (which I want to be); I liked giving him a cane, rather than crutches, for elegance and dignity in the advantage of being old enough to have a cane where it's too much in a young man. I started out with a line not in the Spanish at all; "so many are dying to get out of books", but then just worked it in to "escaped to the living wood pulp of a real heath" which is a pretty close if colourful periphrasis for Lorca's own emphasis throughout the piece on how things usually get simplified by the way they're put, in holy books and folk legends, and in the line on the fact that the sylph comes from a *real* wood (there's that word *real* again!). I really enjoyed the fact that the expression "gave him the plot" popped into my head for "gave the poet this story"; like a lot of my translation this carries a perfectly workable simple meaning, but also means "clued him in", "wised up the dodo" etc. > "*Do you consider yourself a translation?" Not simply. > "*Could you imagine life without translation?" Yeah, I'd just live, others would just live. Unmanageable population growth, and the fact that one of the major population killers, AIDS, is killing off our world's best people, oppressed from birth and who sees the world in more detail than a survivor who has to, would mean we'd succumb to thoughtless regulation and regression. To fight for translation, we must do much more than fight for words; luckily, translation will be a luxury we'll have if we make the more basic simple changes. Sorry to go on and on and on, Ira Lightman I.LIGHTMAN@UEA.AC.UK P.S. I only have French, from classes between 11 and 18 years old, and Latin. I worked through the Spanish of the Lorca by my French, by intuition, by hard work, and with the existing Gwyn Edwards translation. I didn't work with a Spanish dictionary or a Spanish speaker. P.P.S. I think of translation as emotional and cultural rather than trying to match language to language - though as I've tried to show above, I find all the responses that explode *out* of a reading of the original find themselves folded back in, usually using metaphor, in very similar word order in the translation. P.P.P.S Further thoughts since writing the above two days ago. I've since read the whole play through in the not so bad Gwyn Edwards version - perhaps he sped through the intro speech and worked hard on the play proper? It seems spooky, yet part of the kind of psychic atmosphere that leads me to find works to read or translate in my path at crucial times, that I finished my questionnaire with a reference to AIDS, which has been much on my mind lately, and then found so much anticipated in Lorca's play. I'd just read an Aaron Shurin piece on AIDS in the mag ACTS 10, which I've had on my bedroom floor for a while but felt an urge to pick up yesterday; then read the whole of the Bad Dream of the Butterflies, then came onto campus today and found the recent New Republic issue on AIDS - at no point did I do an archive search, or consciously purposed to research AIDS more, it's just happened this way. Things to translate fall into my path in the same way. I don't know how I'm going to make the rest of my Lorca translation accomodate all these contexts of reading, especially concerning AIDS, that are, it seems to me, coming in in the exact space between reading and reformulating-as-new-writing. One needs a politically and experientially mature audience, as opposed to a stylistically or formalism-experienced audience, to be able to do what I want. Once again, as in the veteran fairy with the cane, there is a wounded butterfly, who the characters often call a fairy, in the play, who is the wisest and most utopian soul. The characters around the butterfly very simply, or synchronically one might say, equate the butterfly's poorliness with what they see as the misguided quest for a radical love/freedom/society; they don't see the butterfly as a pioneer on a quest, as the pioneer of a future line, heroically putting everything into the quest. Nor do they see the wounds as in any way their fault, as something inflicted by the world they make, that the butterfly strives through. I don't know. I don't know now whether to write this translation as a process work of reading, grounded on my assumption that it is impossible to stage it, because there isn't a mature audience, one that won't, as Lorca's introduction says, recoil or titter. What Aaron Shurin writes about is a private, rejected world of heroes, extraordinary courage, people made experts in sensitivity and powerful emotion. If I turned my translation into a book, it would be a process work, for other vanguardists to read and collaborate in - process as an act of community, not creating a process in *any* reader, but a communique between reader/writers who *are* in process already. The opening speech that I've already done was designed to intrigue, haunt and stir up; to unsettle. I can't see a way right now to do that with the whole play. For me, to make a product out of the Lorca would be to make something opaque yet compelling - which I could do out of the opening speech but not out of the play. P.P.P.P.S AS I seem to be connecting translation with the questions of health and dis-ease, and also fortuitious, oracular, "coincidence", I'll mention too that I also found to hand a translation *from* English, of a far from publically canonical figure, the English poet Tom Raworth, by the French poet Pierre Alferi. This is in the bilingual pamphlet, _The Mosquito and the Moon_, by Tom Raworth, Ankle Press, 1994, available from 153 Gwydir Street, Cambridge - the publisher, Luke Youngman, is also on e-mail, and anyone who mails me I'll forward e-mail to him. The Mosquito and the Moon seems to me to be partly about how, if you cannot maintain enough health, or you need a quicker cure because you can't afford to take time off work, you can't avoid hospitals and medical services, and you need in some way to surrender agency. Yet the extent and the quality of the surrender affects how the bones set, and the soul is affected. I quote the opening page: c'est assez dur comme ca it is hard enough plus qu'une affaire de croyance not merely a matter of belief le bruit est un autre probleme noise is another problem de limiter encore continuing yet to confine le grand tas de depouilles the great heap of spoils tourne a gauche dans la boutique turn left through the shop ca cloche, une erreur de calcul something wrong, miscalculated demolit les cellules breaking cells completely mesurer n'est qu'un aspect measuring is an aspect survivre pour produire surviving to produce donner sur un chemin fini ending on a defined route dispose en anneau arranged in a ring petits trous ponctuels small localised holes de reflexion profonde of intellectual depth bariolee d'allusions heavily coloured by allusions conduisit la voiture au parking brought the car to the kerb parlant depuis un seuil speaking across a threshold des signes au fusain pointent charcoal marks indicate pierre alferi tom raworth I'll start by saying I think this is great translation, great bilingual work, where it is hard to see which is the original and which the translation, line by line, as each manages either a more simple plangency or a more haunting cadence of the "image"/"sense". Reading through the whole book I notice, not as an iron rule, that the more ironic and clipped the one side the more sobbing and heartwrenching the other. The subject matter is *always* heartwrenching, but Raworth's opening here (I think) is curt and almost spitting, where Alferi's column is more sonorous and like a stately threnody. Yet, on the next page, Raworth gets more sonorous and stately, Alferi gets more clipped (to my ear): vers la tete du lit towards the front of the bed tragique mais respirant encore tragic but still breathing ils portent les anciennes they carry the old lettres couvrant des decennies letters running through decades trouvant l'experience affective find emotional experience pleine de mots filled with words porteurs d'aleas bearers of randomness heurtant et bousculant bumping and pushing des signes intimement connus intimately familiar signs (It's like all these terms - lettres, mots, porteurs, connus - are familiarly treacherous to the wise French, language or person, yet freshly and surprisingly treacherous to the more trusting naif English). Last reflections then (anyone still reading?): is it because both figures are currently non-canonical that the translator can be so equal with the poet, or should that be the mark of all translation - while the mark of all bad translation is that the original is like safe collateral to draw on, dead and still fetching a good price, a possession passed around but never understood, including by the translator, who doesn't wish to suggest to the reader that the canonical figure may ever have been *alive*, being treated as badly as the heroes of our day are being treated by most readers, while they promote bad contemporary writers in emulation of what they think the dead would have been to us now? Two, is using biography to translate both (an idea of) the person and the person's text *allowed* when the poets are contemporaries, have met each other, speak each other's languages, have seen each other perform at readings? Anyone who knows Tom at all knows that he has had many setbacks to his health and medical interventions of a crass sort - can one posit an Alferi showing he's taking the throwaway self-deprecations with the pain they hide, as the currently more healthy do with stricken loved ones? Certainly his care with mimicking Tom's reading style is amazing. I recommend one way of reading this translation is listen to anyone's recording of one of Tom's rapid-fire deliveries of his poems; Alferi has really *got* the overall rhythm of heavily stressing the opening word of a line then letting the cadence fall and quieten. The funny thing is that I'm not even sure that that *performance rhythm* of Tom's is *in* the English on the page; though it's something to keep in the ear if you go back to the books after hearing him, he has other rhythms on the page too, thought rhythms, paradoxes (what does a paradox *sound* like, say, in a score?). Pierre Alferi's translation is also thus, for me, a reading, a transcription foregrounding an aspect, so that one can go back to the Raworth and fold that back in. Reading the columns together, for me, is *like* reading Tom while hearing him, on tape, or at a reading, but not *set in time*, as that would be. Even if I lose all Tom's recordings, and can never find another, reading this bilingual edition will always galvanise my memory again. Maybe this is not translation. Maybe this is love not killing the author. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 14:07:13 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: writing about the body Hi POETICS people I was sent the following poem backchannel after I posted a message about writing and the body, and absolutely love it, so obtained the writer's permission to forward it to the list. As I've said to the writer backchannel, this poem brilliantly outmanoeuvred my own message's attempt at critic's proscription: I was teasing Jackson MacLow for using metaphors of penetration without really examining them, ie using them as realist transparent language, and called for a poetry questioning and denying itself metaphors of penetration; the poem I'm forwarding however does not deny itself metaphors of penetration, but uses them with an uncommon urgency and relish in an unexpected direction that just as or in fact more accurately does what I was hoping for. Sorry it's so late. ******************************************************** sonnets to bodily love if my tongue were long enough i'd let it drop down your throat and push all the way to the inner curl of your testicles, then scoop it slowly around and up, collecting all the warm bodies of your insides in my tongue's cradle, and draw it to my mouth and swallow the life of you, then i'd crawl my whole insides into your waiting torso and remain there, containing in my belly your whole vitality, and being the vitality of you. or else i'd slip my two hands under the invitations of your skin and reach once more down this time to the inside bottoms of your feet to grasp the flesh and pull up in a sacred rupture until your body was all inside out, and then i'd put my feet against the inside flesh of yours and slowly mold your skin to me like the visible clay of love, pulling it right side out again over the skin of me so that not missing anything i'd be inside the container of you. "little nell" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 11:26:19 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: writing about the body I presume that the "backchannel" communication regarding the bacchanalian poem (lovely) "sonnets to bodily love" is an intentional pun? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 15:45:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: Sentimentality and contempt Ed Foster, and Poetics, >Ed wrote: What do we mean when we call someone's work sentimental? that it refers to that which it does not/cannot contain. i.e., it lies. Doesn't it limit poetry too much to give up lies? Was Blake telling the truth? Was Milton? Was Susan Howe? Was Ron Padgett? [Were poets only "containers" between Whitman and Stevens?] And what exactly did Jackson mean by "sentimental" when he said he stopped using a certain device because he found he was generating sentimental works? Is this from Hume, or James Whitcomb Riley? Anyway, thanks, Ed, Dodie Bellamy, Carl Peters, Jim Rosenberg, Charles Alexander, Marisa Januzzi and Alan Sondheim, for talking a little bit about sentimentality. I wonder if any so-called G2 writers could write something here about contempt and its uses in poetry. (G1 writers and others with special knowledge on the topic are also welcome to comment.) Listening, Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 08:56:37 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Actually actual? The old Man etc.: Hassan is Abba(toir) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 18:52:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: Sentimentality and contempt In message <2fce402c3de4002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > Ed Foster, and Poetics, > > >Ed wrote: > What do we mean when we call someone's work sentimental? that it refers to > that > which it does not/cannot contain. i.e., it lies. > > Doesn't it limit poetry too much to give up lies? Was Blake telling the > truth? Was Milton? Was Susan Howe? Was Ron Padgett? [Were poets only > "containers" between Whitman and Stevens?] And what exactly did Jackson mean > by "sentimental" when he said he stopped using a certain device because he > found he was generating sentimental works? Is this from Hume, or James > Whitcomb Riley? > > Anyway, thanks, Ed, Dodie Bellamy, Carl Peters, Jim Rosenberg, Charles > Alexander, Marisa Januzzi and Alan Sondheim, for talking a little bit about > sentimentality. > > I wonder if any so-called G2 writers could write something here about > contempt and its uses in poetry. (G1 writers and others with special > knowledge on the topic are also welcome to comment.) > > Listening, > Jordan Davis what's g1? what's g2? spicer cd be considered contemptuous, but it's an effect of his desire for authenticity. impatient may be a kinder word. there's a book called simply "Humiliation" by a medievalist at ? UWisc-Madison or Milwaukee? or is it UMich? that might have something to do with the micropolitics (social dynamics) of contempt...--maria ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 20:15:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Scroggins Subject: Meet the G that killed me In-Reply-To: <199506012357.TAA20654@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu> Maria: G1 & G2 are generational handles _someone_ on the list dreamed up to designate "older" & "younger" generation poets on the innovative side of the equation: G1--Bernstein, Silliman, Hejinian, Scalapino, Watten, usw. G2--Liz Willis, Juliana Spahr, Andy Levy, Melanie Nielsen, Jessica Grim,usw. Shorthand wd. say _In the American Tree_=G1 and the O-blek "New Coast" issue = G2. Gets kind of complicated when you have not-so-young poets emerging late--is Cecil Giscombe (say) G1 or 2? He's about the same age as Ted Pearson, but has only really hit the fan in the last five years or so (after many moons in the vineyard of course). It all reminds me of the "Baby Boomer"/"Generation X" thing--Dad insists I'm a boomer, but is my only alternative to be a slacker? Mark Scroggins ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 00:01:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Byrum Subject: Re: art after art after art Dear Tony Green, Thank you for your recent message. In 1979 I sat at my father's death bed. He couldn't speak. When I tried to give him an awkward kiss, our glasses collided. Then I left him and my mother to go back to work in another city several hundred miles away where I lived (and still do). Then he died and I wasn't there. Then I went back for the funeral. Now my mother is living in our city and has lost most of her memory. I take care of her as best I can. Now also I am sitting at the death bed of my marriage, which my conflicted desires poisoned. It is hard to imagine ever feeling at peace again. These are all real to me. Thanks for sharing your real. Best to you all, John Byrum ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 04:05:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: thinking about translation Ira's wonderful post on translation reminded me of a story that Lydia Davis tells. When she was translating Sartre's Life/Situations, she brought the manuscript into the publisher in person (Viking? I forget). The receptionist buzzed her editor on the intercom and said, "The typist is here." Ron Silliman Rsillima@ix.netcom.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 08:15:55 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" Organization: University of NC at Greensboro Subject: sentimentality Sentimentality consists of experiencing or evoking emotion for something which does not deserve the emotion. Most commonly the inappropriate emotion is sympathetic to its object: pity, love, affection, admiration, adoration. But there are other kinds of sentimentality. For example, inappropriate kinds of emotion. Adoration of George Patton, for example, would seem to me sentimental (or worse). Admiration for certain traits in Patton, perhaps not. It also seems to me that a bug accidentally flushed down a toilet deserves a certain degree of sympathy, but protracted mourning would seem sentimental to me, not to say pathological. There is also a kind of inverted sentimentality--a sentimentality of understatement. Hemingway tried so hard to be unsentimental that at times he is worse than the Poe of "Annabel Lee." But there is an enormous problem in deciding what is sentimental and what is not, especially if we are not going to allow the cumulative wisdom and judgment of generations and multitudes of others to affect how we view things. For the Nazi camp guard, pity for a Jewish child was sentimentality. The Nazis didn't last long. I have several pairs of socks that have lasted twice as long as the Third Reich did. Unsound judgments about human things, though they can always recur, tend not to hold up very well, especially when they are shared only by groups or persons who consider themselves specially elected and chosen--set above or apart from other human beings. In such a context contempt for everything beyond the pale is concomitant with sentimental adulation. Catullus's poem about the death of his girl friend's pet bird balances a delicate cynicism against the intrinsic sentimentality of its subject. Even the monks through whose hands the manuscripts passed must have liked the poem, and people still read it. It escapes sentimentality. Boorish and ill-tempered readers, of course, can find reasons to dislike almost anything. Williams's famous plums are full of affection, both for the plums and for Floss. Crabby people might find his poem sentimental. But people go on reading and liking that poem. For really bad sentimental poetry, take a look at a lot of what Yeats included in the 1936 OXFORD BOOK OF MODERN POETRY. It is common to say of someone, "She (usually he) is a terrible poet but a great anthologist (editor)," and I suppose the reverse can be true, too. Tom Kirby-Smith ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 13:43:06 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: thinking about translation Thanks for the message, Ron ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 13:49:05 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: thinking about translation Oh, I was signed off the list for a while, then got to look through the May digest just now, and saw the questions about "sweet fumes of grass" in the Lorca. Hur hur, that was cool, seems to be the tone. Lorca has words to the effect "perfume of the grass", but I wanted to include a contemporary allusion (as I explained in my long note yesterday), in order to characterise another kind of mindless pleasure community, as mindless as a straight community that has a "natural love, only concerned with how to love". A kind of pastoral stupidity in an urban community. Having said which, I emphasise that I say it all with Lorca's own sense of love - that mindless pleasure is not easily dismissed, but nor are the arguments against it. I do hate drugs myself, though, and my Lorca would consider them an enemy of poetry, the way they're normally done, Ira ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 11:45:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me It's interesting that scroggins names as g2ers the most derivative poets of the gi styles in the New Coast anthology....just an onservation (i mean observation).... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 10:25:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In-Reply-To: <199506020121.SAA14373@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Mark Scroggins" at Jun 1, 95 08:15:57 pm Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation. We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you, he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence. By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means. Ryan (p.s. if anyone is in vancouver after the Blaser conference or is here anyway, Lindz and I are reading at the Vancouver Press Club on June 14--you can backchannel me for more info if it tickles your fancy) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 10:41:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506021224.FAA10552@whistler.sfu.ca> from "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" at Jun 2, 95 08:15:55 am It seems to me that this issue of sentimentality has everything to do with the hallmark discussion which floated around this list when I first signed on. I think the sentimentality being picked on here is tha hallmark of hallmark. But what about sentimentality in music or painting? Is it less problematic then? I find whitman extremely sentimental, but it works for me. Same with Vivaldi. I think Nichol tried to publish poetry's obituary in the Toronto Star (?), which is very touching. So, i suppose my question really is are we quick to think of sentimentality as graceless because it is more common to the grocery store library? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 17:43:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Sentimentality and contempt jordan, you miss the point, i think. there's no reason not to work from/with lies, but there's all the difference between that and the work that insists that it contains x and in fact only refers to it. and that's not poetry but rhetoric. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 19:39:36 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me >some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means... a term coined by Alfred Jarry in _Ubu Roi_, originally being a transrational system in which opposites are seen as neither contradicting each other nor resolving, but as coexisting as an open-ended, continually variable system, irrational and energy-producing... carried forward by the "college de 'pataphysicque", whose "members" included Raymond Queneau, who later was associated w/ OuLiPo... (this lifted & badly paraphrased frm the introduction to _Pataphysical Poems_ by Queneau, translated by Teo Savory) cheers lbd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 18:37:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In-Reply-To: <199506022155.OAA02092@unixg.ubc.ca> On Fri, 2 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote: > Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early > twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation. > We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you, > he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's > a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence. > > By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means. > > Ryan > I too was offended by the bubblegum attack on our generation, but I've been too tired and lacking wit to reply. I guess its partly that I lack a work ethic that some of our seniors have had installed in them when they were tads. I'm also bored with defending our generation, I'm painfully aware that everything has been done before. I'm a lyrical vulture, A scavenger of verse. I don't pick bones, I pick words. Ryan, thanks for the free pubilicity, see you at the reading on Sunday. I hope Bowering is feeling (seeing) better. Lindz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 22:12:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: sentimentality "Sentimentality is a failure of feeling"--Stevens ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 2 Jun 1995 19:50:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In-Reply-To: <199506030138.SAA19157@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Lindz Williamson" at Jun 2, 95 06:37:47 pm > > On Fri, 2 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote: > > > Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early > > twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation. > > We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you, > > he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's > > a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence. > > > > By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means. > > > > Ryan > > > I too was offended by the bubblegum attack on our generation, but I've > been too tired and lacking wit to reply. I guess its partly that I lack > a work ethic that some of our seniors have had installed in them when they > were tads. I'm also bored with defending our generation, I'm painfully > aware that everything has been done before. > > > > I'm a lyrical vulture, > A scavenger of verse. > I don't pick bones, > I pick words. > > > Ryan, thanks for the free pubilicity, see you at the reading on Sunday. > > I hope Bowering is feeling (seeing) better. > > > > Lindz > hell, anything they can -- we can do better! c ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 00:32:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Byrum Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In a recent post, Ryan Knighton asked what pataphysical means. It means if you can pat it, its physical. John ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 09:27:13 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "H. T. KIRBY-SMITH" Organization: University of NC at Greensboro Subject: pataphysics If I remember correctly one of the arguments of pataphysics was that to have a body was a good thing because if you have a body you can wear clothes, and clothes have pockets, and pockets are extremely useful. I believe that was a contention of Doctor Faustroll, Jarry's Professor of Pataphysics, whose eyeballs were vessels of India ink in which swam golden spermatozoans. Merdre! Tom Kirby-Smith ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 09:03:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In message <2fcfce1715d7002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > > > > On Fri, 2 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote: > > > > > Well, according to one writer on this list, those of us in our early > > > twenties (hi lindz) aren't quite developed enough to be a generation. > > > We're merely "Tads", which is an ol' guy term, i suppose. Mind you, > > > he says things like "hou's your ol' straw hat " too. Now there's > > > a reason for feeling the anxiety of influence. > > > > > > By the by, some of us tads would like to know what "pataphysical" means. > > > > > > Ryan > > > > > I too was offended by the bubblegum attack on our generation, but I've > > been too tired and lacking wit to reply. I guess its partly that I lack > > a work ethic that some of our seniors have had installed in them when they > > were tads. I'm also bored with defending our generation, I'm painfully > > aware that everything has been done before. > > > > > > > > I'm a lyrical vulture, > > A scavenger of verse. > > I don't pick bones, > > I pick words. > > > > > > Ryan, thanks for the free pubilicity, see you at the reading on Sunday. > > > > I hope Bowering is feeling (seeing) better. > > > > > > > > Lindz > > > > > hell, anything they can -- we can do better! > c come on guys, chill in this generational warfare, i certainly can't tell what age anyone is from their posts (except, i must say, lindz, when you got into the i'm white and sick of kissing ass routine --that sounded kinda young, too much like my students resentful of their compulsory "cultural pluralism" classes) --many of us 30 and 40 somethings never developed a work ethic either --which is why we have teaching positions that allow us to play around on the e-nets provided by our employers.--md ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 10:14:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: sentimentality there are two very distinct definitions of "sentimentality" floating here: the hallmark variety, which is the conventional, more limited use of the word, and the eighteenth-century's distinction, which is close to 60's discussions of authenticity. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 07:25:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Rothenberg's Gematria --picked this up at the blaser fest. what a wonder-full bk! --gematria as concrete poetry! --just a thot... interesting, tho: my receipt -- the invoice they gave me when i bought the book is number "33" -- christ's age when he was crucified. my bill came to $26.43: that works out to 6 33 works out to 6; hence: with that other 6 i get: 66 so my invoice as ready-made, comprised of both sacred and profane aspects Donne Donn e Donne Donn e Donne Donn e Donne c ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 09:54:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: braman sandra Subject: missing mail Poetics List -- Just back from several weeks out of the country to find that weeks of my e-mail have disappeared (from about May 10 to the end of May). I'm sorry to have missed the poetics discussions -- but if there's anyone out there who sent a personal message, please resend. Sandra Braman s-braman@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 11:14:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: speaking of blaser conf. speaking of the blaser conference, cd someone --or several of you --so we can compile a composite profile --give us a report over the net for those of us who are interested but unable to attend? hi pts, lo pts, entertaining anecdotes, and overall vibe-picture? how's he doing anyway? descriptions, poems, riffs, meditations and reminiscences? thanks in advance! --maria d ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 13:52:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In-Reply-To: <199506030437.VAA08469@ferrari.sfu.ca> from "John Byrum" at Jun 3, 95 00:32:26 am I originally asumed it had something to do with my dad getting a check-up (cymbal clash please) John B. wrote: > > In a recent post, Ryan Knighton asked what pataphysical means. It means if > you can pat it, its physical. > > John > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 13:57:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In-Reply-To: <199506031406.HAA06643@whistler.sfu.ca> from "maria damon" at Jun 3, 95 09:03:43 am Maria daemon: I can't speak fo rLindz or Carl, but I didn't mean to pitch a post about "generational warfare". I still can't figure out which one is mine. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 3 Jun 1995 16:27:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: Re: Meet the G that killed me In-Reply-To: <199506032058.NAA05568@unixg.ubc.ca> On Sat, 3 Jun 1995, Ryan Knighton wrote: > > I can't speak fo rLindz or Carl, but I didn't mean to pitch a post > about "generational warfare". I still can't figure out which one is mine. > My intention isn't warfare either, just mild reactive annoyance. And ryan it seems to me that you straddle genertions. And on the "apology" thing that stirred up so much hot water awhile ago I have had some new experiences. I recently spent several hours at Chicago airport and was amazed that every worker in the service industry was of a non-white ethnic background. This is something I had never experience before as the tertiary economy is the basis of most economic activity in Vancouver. I'm used to a melting pot, where I work seven different languages are being spoken at all times. Race or ethnic background has never inhibited anyone that I know from moving up in the world, but obviously that is not the case elsewhere. Therefore my rant was more self indulgent than analytical of a whole system. Lindz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 10:57:06 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: articles of (praps) interest in jPMC saw a coupla pieces in the latest jrnl of postmodern culture that might be of interest to folks here; & so this forward of abstracts & instructions... lbd POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE P RNCU REPO ODER E P O S T M O D E R N P TMOD RNCU U EP S ODER ULTU E C U L T U R E P RNCU UR OS ODER ULTURE P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER ULTU E an electronic journal P TMODERNCU UREPOS ODER E of interdisciplinary POSTMODERNCULTUREPOSTMODERNCULTURE criticism ----------------------------------------------------------------- Volume 5, Number 3 (May, 1995) ISSN: 1053-1920 ----------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------- ABSTRACTS Paul Naylor, "The 'Mired Sublime' of Nathaniel Mackey's _Song of the Andoumboulou_" ABSTRACT: This essay situates Nathaniel Mackey's ongoing serial poem, _Song of the Andoumboulou_, in the tradition of the American "world-poem" begun in _The Cantos_ of Ezra pound and continued in Louis Zukofsky's _A_, H.D.'s _Trilogy_, and Robert Duncan's _Passages_. Each of these works, in their own distinct way, holds out the possibility of a utopian vision created in and by poetry. Yet these previous instances of the world-poem often have the unfortunate effects of reducing cultural diversity to a transcendent sameness in the service of an all-encompassing view of world history, in effect all too evident in parts of _The Cantos_. Mackey's _Song of the Andoumboulou_ not only extends the genre's range of cultural references by bringing together the traditions of African-American music, Caribbean and Arabic poetry, and West African mythology, among others, with the Western traditions of philosophy, poetry, and music; it also attempts to cure us of the desire to reduce the representation of diversity and difference to the kind of all-encompassing sameness that compromises some of the initial instances of the American world-poem. --PN Elisabeth A. Frost, "Signifyin(g) on Stein: The Revisionist Poetics of Harryette Mullen and Leslie Scalapino ABSTRACT: This article takes Stein as one (if not the only) source for feminist avant-garde poetry--writing that uses experimental language to distinctly feminist ends. A number of recent feminist poets owe a debt to _Tender Buttons_, and Stein's work remains a subject of homage. But, changes working their way through feminist thought appear in some feminist avant-garde writing that doesn't simply acknowledge Stein's language experiments but contests them as well. I examine the influence of, and divergence from, Steinian poetics in Harryette Mullen and Stein's "modern" vision by merging "public" speech and "private" experience--the language of the public spheres of the street and the marketplace with the experiences of intimacy and the erotic. Mullen and Scalapino blur the border between public and private discourse that Stein relied upon in order to reveal (and, paradoxically, *not* reveal) her lesbian sexuality in a revolution of ordinary domestic language. In response in part to Stein, each poet illuminates language as a locus of the political and the erotic, altering both eroticized and "public" language as signs of a culture in need of a fundamental awareness about the relationships between our most private and public acts. --EF ----------------------------------------------------------------- HOW TO GET PMC BY ANONYMOUS FTP: All PMC files are available via anonymous ftp; to retrieve items in this way, ftp to: ftp jefferson.village.virginia.edu Log in as "anonymous" or "ftp" using your email userid as a password. When you have logged in, type: cd pub/pubs/pmc/issue.595 ----- HOW TO GET PMC BY GOPHER: PMC's gopher server is at: jefferson.village.virginia.edu Once you've connected, choose "Publications of the Institute" and then choose "Postmodern Culture": you will find a menu listing all published issues of the journal, and within each issue, full text of all the issue's contents. ----- HOW TO GET PMC BY WORLD-WIDE WEB: If you have access to a World-Wide Web client, you will find the hypermedia version of PMC at: http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/pmc/contents.all.html Once you've connected, you will find all back issues arranged by volume and issue, but also arranged by category (all the reviews, all the popular culture columns, all the creative works, etc.). ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 4 Jun 1995 19:09:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: "pataphysics additional note to ryan re "pataphysics: --be interested in hearing what you think abt bp's essay: "The Pata of Letter Feet, or, The English Written Character as a Medium for Poetry" (_open letter_1985 [or 86?]), which i consider the best and most direct article on the subject. mccaffery, at the blaser conference yesterday, was introduced as north america's leading "pataphysician [the word is supposed to be written with the double _"_ in front of the p, and left open], but i disagree with that completely. north america's leading, most outstanding, poet of this other dimension is _bpNichol_ -- but you knew i was going to say that... ...the blaser fest was outstanding. i'm exhausted! take care, c ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 17:13:10 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: sentimentality I saw Benjamin Britten's _War Requiem_ this weekend, and it seemed to me to be a sentimental *event*. Some lovely atonal music, and some lovely vocal arrangments, but the atheism in Britten seemed puerile, the parts mimicking the sound of war excruciating, and above all, the dumbheaded applause - as if here we are attending a piece of work that has to thoroughly and cathartically (and popularly) tackled war that there will never be war again, ho ho. People clapping themselves for coming. No room for saying, I liked that bit, but I didn't like this bit, because that would be to be pro-war, to make a technical criticism of a piece that is anti-war. And what I would say was sentimental was the way that, as a narrative, a kind of modernist opera rather than a collection of songs, the piece did nothing to attack British culture, and actually revelled in the possibility of *emotional release only in extremity* (you can care, and love, in warfare); having said that, it is the *framing* which I find sentimental, the actual moments of release were often gorgeous, and I would happily make myself a tape of my favourite bits and play them out of context. I spoke to several music students who didn't care about the overall framing, don't have any feel for musical narratives, but just see the narrative as an arbitrary structure for some lovely music. I think that attitude is sentimental, and that actually most of these music students are profoundly conservative and reactionary politically, and happy to be British. On the other hand, maybe someone was there who would have been frightened off if the piece had been more holistically exciting and challenging (it sets Wilfred Owen's poetry, which I think is often also enjoyed sentimentally and not holistically); maybe that person is now "sentimental* but got off on the "non-sentimental* fragments, would have been frightened off *if* the whole piece had been "non-sentimental* ie maybe sentimentality exists in time, as part of process; or maybe a person might attend "sentimental" art and live a non-sentimental life, so is the art sentimental? Ira ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 17:45:21 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: I wannabe a G1-abee As Ron Silliman says in the introduction to In The American Tree, one will often find that the younger poets are often truer to the theory of earlier practitioners than the earlier (now older) practitioners is; one will find too that one of the most exciting thing about the Language Writers was that they went back to the last two turning points, of projective verse and modernism, and included back in all the things the prjectivists and modernists left out, like stein and the futurists. As Ron also said, generations tend to pull in the more marginal figures from an older group and make them central ancestors; he also said that generations tend to hit a critical mass; I, for one, see this happening and would be happy to put a list of ten names in a sealed envelope to be opened in ten years' time when they've all redrawn the map. Anyway, a decent open interest and respect for each other would be healthy, especially since, as I for one have said before, it sticks in the craw to be told that us poets in our twenties are doing work derivative of others, only nostalgic and plagiaristic, when that is very clearly what many from G1 have been doing for ten years! At least our work is going to change! Ira ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 09:56:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Sheila E. Murphy" Subject: Re: sentimentality I liked what you said, Ira, concerning the Britten experience. And am reminded that the construct of an audience is putty in the hands (that is, a laboratory) of/for anyone wanting to play the buttons, construct an imagined harmony that matches something sought in mind. Pseudo "faiths" seem to grow out of an assemblage of people. In which reacting to this or that would be to violate the "agreed upon" (although it's really forced) the reigning sentiment. Overall, sentimentality is a cheap replacement for honesty. Something truly felt tends to be individual. It would be too coincidental for hoards of people to feel in unison; my own feelings seem so specific (It would be hypocrisy for me to presume to presume use of the plural!). A side note: isn't it frustrating when the textual component is there to prop up or otherwise not disturb a centrally musical event? Happy Monday! Sheila ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 10:10:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: adios muchachos In-Reply-To: <9506051618.AA17732@hub.ubc.ca> Went to the last reading of the conference last night, Bowering was his usual "kid in a candy store" charming, Ondaatje was enthralling, and here's to Sharon Thesen's latest work *Aurora*, everyone must get this book. I'm running out of email time so I have to combine messages. Kevin Ryan, passed on the message, sorry I didn't meet you, but I'll see what I can put together. He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air. Chris S. GOt the book today, I'll get back to you after I have a chance to look at it for a bit. Welcome home to everyone else, it will be good to get some action on the line again. Lindz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 19:34:36 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: sentimentality Thanks for what you posted, Sheila. Is it a pop vs classical thing, I wonder... er, no, I answer myself, but the sweeping statement says something: like the way I've never been to a Dylan concert that wasn't totally exciting *for nearly everyone in the room* for a few minutes, part of a song, or a whole song. And, of course, being a fan of a new band and seeing them when they're fresh, tends to unite the room in a way that's not phony. Or (but this is where the pop vs classical thing breaks down) being at a new composition by a groundbreaker, like maybe at a New Music concert in the fifties, or at a Judith Weir concert when she was just starting - when you know the normal classical audience is going to hate it (though they'll later swallow and assimilate it). My flatmate, Mike Higgins, does this pieces with two or three sustained chords filling the room, and they always unite everyone who goes - it's so strong an experience, requiring such endurance (for maybe an hour), that you bump into another of the, usually no more than forty-strong, audience, and you kind of feel like you've shared a big experience. I also went to the Beethoven symphony that was written after Napoleon's return(?) at the same cathedral where the Britten was played, and it *did* seem to be about war and excite the audience, and yet the Beethoven didn't seem as sentimental as the Britten was. I'd love to know the specific examples you were thinking of, of words being used incidentally to the music. Mike says, after living with me, he's really embarrassed by all the titles he used to give to his pieces! I was commissioned to write words for an electro-acoustic piece by a friend here, and I wanted to get past the usual "musician's use of words, which for me was either didactic romanticism, like Owen, or fragmentary modernism, using words for the sound but in a really word-hating "words can't move one like music" kind of way.... So I wrote something, as asked, with lots of onomatopeia, but threaded them slyly into a Basil Bunting-like narrative. Ira ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 11:53:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Kevin or Dodie In-Reply-To: <199506051618.JAA02564@whistler.sfu.ca> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun 5, 95 05:13:10 pm Hi. It was wonderful to have finally met some efaces. I said i would send some schtuff to you, however Mirage doesn't have an address. Could you forward me one? You can backchannel me at knighton@sfu.ca Best, Ryan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 14:58:58 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: adios muchachos Thanks, Lindz, for agreeing to supply "canadian stuff" to Ryan and others of us who might want it. I was particularly glad to hear your enthusiasm for Sharon Thesen's book, as I've always found her work courageous and dynamic, altogether its own, and altogether unknown any place I've lived. But when you say, "He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air." -- I'm not certain what you mean, or if you are just replying to Ryan in some personal way I don't get. Just know that not all tuned to this list have loyalties to Toronto or Vancouver or Buffalo or any particular place. My own are curiously displaced toward the Arizona desert, where there are a few people who are on this poetics list as well. charles charles alexander chax press minnesota center for book arts phone & fax: 612-721-6063 e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 16:25:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: message fr criss cheek cris, hi: are you out there? --just wanted to know if you received my last post re the visual poetries loop? experiencing some challenges here trying to work the cc and alias functions, and understand there are some alternatives which we could discuss look forward to hearing from you, carl ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 22:43:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Poetics List Reviews Poetics List Reviews from Loss Glazier --------------------------------------------------------------------- Charles Bernstein, _The Subject_. 1995. Handsomely-produced booklet from Meow Press containing the libretto of _The Subject_ from a scenario conceived with Ben Yarmolinski and as produced in NYC in 1992. But a person who calls himself a psychologist is in a peculiar position these days. Experiments show that Norway rats die quickly if their whiskers are clipped and they are thrown into tanks of water. This libretto now in print. Edition of 300, available from SPD. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Kenneth Sherwood, _Text Squared_. 1995. A tactile relation to the text as this book unfolds into juxtaposed folds. To a pattern of textual variants and overstrikes and pattern: "loosened there began to try save words bring back to turn there is nothing more in beginning than say return seems less..." Edition of 100, a Tailspin Chapbook, where the writer is sculptor. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 22:09:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf. In-Reply-To: <199506031617.JAA09433@whistler.sfu.ca> from "maria damon" at Jun 3, 95 11:14:56 am Well, for me the lowest point of the Blaser conference was when my wife fell head over heels over Pierre Joris! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 01:19:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf. In-Reply-To: <199506060509.BAA10694@sarah.albany.edu> from "George Bowering" at Jun 5, 95 10:09:03 pm > > Well, for me the lowest point of the Blaser conference was when my > wife fell head over heels over Pierre Joris! > Shucks honey, for me the lowest moment was when one George Bowering introduced me as being from Belgium! ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 5 Jun 1995 23:29:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: Re: adios muchachos In-Reply-To: <199506060009.RAA06943@unixg.ubc.ca> But when you say, "He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air." -- I'm not certain what you mean, or if you are just replying to Ryan in some personal way I don't get. Just know that not all tuned to this list have loyalties to Toronto or Vancouver or Buffalo or any particular place. My own are curiously displaced toward the Arizona desert, where there are a few people who are on this poetics list as well. Charles, I wasn't replying to Ryan, rather Ryan was approached by Kevin Killian at the reading last night and I accompanied Ryan to the reading along with Reg ( new to the list). Kevin expressed an interest in receiving new Canadian poetry from Ryan and I and any others we knew because he had little except from established writers. The western reference is just part of the continuing war amongst East and West in Canada. We the west ( Granola Heads) enjoy poking at the Snobs with snow in the east. As far as I know Ondaatje was the only Eastern based writer at the reading last night. It's all part of the Canadian mentality, if you say you're driving across Canada it means you're either going east to Toronto or Montreal, or west to Vancouver. The prairies and the maritimes although great sources of Canadian culture are not included in the concept of the civilized world. They are a source of great insecurity and pride. My Mom's a maritimer (Newfie) which puts me at the but of several jokes. I'll leave you with one (note my Mom has seven brothers) How does a Newfie girl stay a virgin? Run faster than her brothers. Lindz ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:18:38 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: sentimentality Some questions: *Does* music move more than poetry - or does the average musical concert move more than the average (avant-garde or otherwise) poetry gig? Is this because of the ways music and poetry are being written; the physicality of playing (what about concerts with taped material?)? Do poets rehearse as much as musicians, or at all, for a gig? Is professionalism and/or discipline uncool in a poet? Ira ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 14:28:17 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: message fr criss cheek X-cc: Kenneth Goldsmith , braman sandra , "I.LIGHTMAN" , Caroline Bergvall , Erik Belgum , Gary Sullivan , John Cayley , Robert A Harrison , "Sheila E. Murphy" , John Byrum , Mn Center For Book Arts , w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz, Blair Seagram , selby@slip.net Hi - posting this broad - it's still the mechanics of construction discussion. >cris, hi: are you out there? --just wanted to know if you received my >last post re the visual poetries loop? experiencing some challenges here >trying to work the cc and alias functions, and understand there are some >alternatives which we could discuss > >look forward to hearing from you, >carl hi carl I am here and listening. Just soaked in exams this couple of weeks and reeling from a conference as you must also be. >Hi, >My name is Jody and I'm helping Carl with this. We tried to create a >private group with aliases here to simplify this, but our software won't >let us put outside addresses in alias groups. The easiest way to do this >would be for you to use a programme called majordomo which is quite >common at unix sites, or perhaps you have access to listserver software. >These sorts of programmes are really the only reliable way to manage >lists. Without them your group will probably be unmnageable in any >practical sense. Contact your system/mail administrator(s) and see if >they can help. > >Jody >gilbert@sfu.ca I'm aware of the majordomo system and no i don't have access to that listserv software. It's how I get info on Chiapas through Harry Cleaver at Texas for example. I wanted to do it like Funkhauser's d i u and that's the system i was trying. But i categorically don't want to 'run a list' or become any kind of surrogate sysop. It just seemed that there were areas of discussion, particularly in respect of visual and performance poetries that could be a thread running parallel to but not clog into the main 'poetics' list. I'd hoped to kickstart something that would grow organically and be de-centred and self-generative. What next? love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:32:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: a=a is sentimentality Ed, Okay, but what's poetry got to do with truth value? And what thing doesn't exactly fill the container of itself? Sounds. Sounds like. Sounds like teen spirit. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:57:47 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: a=a is sentimentality Jordan, It seems to me that if you are going to move from "sentimentality" to the question of "truth value" then you are now in the realm of subjectivity-objectivity, and in this realm it seems to me that either kind of language approaches "truth" though in different ways. Moreover, poetic Objectivism, for instance, is at heart, perhaps, grounded in subjectivity, whereas philosophical objectivism is grounded in . . . ?--that is, say, Quine versus Heidegger. As Rorty wrote some time ago already, "Non-Kantian philosophers like Heidegger and Derrida [versus Neo-Kantians like Putnam, Strawson, and Rawls] are emblematic figures who not only do not solve problems, they do not *have* arguments or theses." Rorty continues: Derrida is the latest in a line of philosophers who attempt "to shatter the Kantians' ingenuous image of themselves as accurately representing how things really are." Burt Kimmelman kimmelman@admin.njit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 11:58:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: a=a is sentimentality tho liking teen spirit, it's a problem. sounds=true, well, the greeks undid that, i mean c. 5th cent. b.c.e., that'll do for a date as well as any. and, ah, what doesn't fill the container of itself? well, whatever PROPOSES to be, tho on 3rd thought ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 09:35:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: WITZ ANNOUNCEMENT The new issue of _Witz_, a journal of contemporary poetics, is now available. This issue (volume III, number 2) contains essays by Mark Wallace ("On The Lyric As Experimental Possibility") and Karl Young ("Roman Reading"). There are two reviews of Don Byrd's _The Poetics of the Common Knowledge_, one by Robert Grenier and one by Chris Stroffolino. Daniel Barbiero reviews _The Art of Practice_; and Harry Polkinhorn reviews a number of books from Left Hand Press. _Witz_ is published in a newsletter format (8-1/2" x 11"), sixteen to twenty pages per issue, stapled. A single copy is $4, but if you'd like a sample copy, send a 55-cent stamp to the address below. Individual subscriptions are $10 for three issues ($30 for institutions). Please make checks payable to Christopher Reiner and send them to: WITZ 10604 Whipple Street Toluca Lake, California 91602 If you have any questions about _Witz_, or if you'd like to send a review or essay, you can e-mail me (creiner@crl.com) or send it by regular post. Subjects and themes are always open (i.e., I don't do theme issues). ASCII files of previous issues (1.1 to 2.1) of _Witz_ can be downloaded from the Electronic Poetry Center. All back issues are available from me. I was going to include a list of back issues and their contents, but it ran a little long (about 75 lines). I'll e-mail it to anyone who wants it. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Christopher Reiner creiner@crl.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 12:40:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: New Releases From Hard Press/Lingo Date: 06 Jun 95 09:49:17 EDT From: Jonathan Gams <74014.1142@compuserve.com> Hard Press, Inc. P.O. Box 184 West Stockbridge, Ma., 01266 413-232-4690 email: Jonathan Gams <74014.1142@compuserve.com> New from Hard Press: ============================================================= lingo: A Journal of the Arts Issue # 4 featuring a 30-page music section including Mark Swed on new composers who incorporate pop elements into concert music and Peter Occhiogrosso's Highly Selective Guide to Recent Concert Music * Kent Jones on Abel Ferrara and his Films * Color Portfolio including Philip Guston, Anna Bialobroda, and Noel Dolla * Art essays by John Yau and Raphael Rubinstein * Hubert Selby Jr.'s short story A Christmas Tale * Photography by Judy Fiskin, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Ben Watkins, and others * Keith & Rosmarie Waldrop Interview Claude Royet-Journoud * Chris Stroffolino reviews David Shapiro's After a Lost Original * Work by Bob Perelman, Dodie Bellamy, Lisa Jarnot, Will Alexander, Kevin Killian, Kim Lyons, Anselm Hollo and many more. $12.50 ============================================================ THE DESIRES OF MOTHERS TO PLEASE OTHERS IN LETTERS By Bernadette Mayer A monumental St. Bernadette to the initiates, this work has achieved something like the status of "Manuscript Classic." An epistolary text which takes as its formal parameters the nine months of Ms. Mayer's last pregnancy-an augury by bee sting- and writes the reader's psyche to the fences... $12.95 ============================================================ LOWELL CONNECTOR: LINES AND SHOTS FROM KEROUAC'S TOWN By Clark Coolidge, Michael Gizzi, and John Yau. Photographs by Bill Barrette and Celia Coolidge. As homage to a writing hero, and as catalyst for their own work, the authors of Lowell Connector made several trips to Kerouac's hometown of Lowell, Massachusetts. The procedure was to visit specific sights described in Kerouac's work, taking in the homes, haunts, schools and literary memorials as a kind of memory protein in the activation of their own work. $12.95 ============================================================ New From HARD PRESS: House of Outside First Book Series Solow By Lynn Crawford Haven't wanted to read anything lately, certainly not any of the 500 manuscripts and galleys I get a year. However, I found Solow facinating. It reminds me of early John Hawkes which is still for me the best Hawkes. The whole dreamscape was especially vivid.- Jim Harrison $10.00 ============================================================ The Geographics By Albert Mobilio This impressive first book manages the double ground of a nightmarish surrealism and a dryly perceptive wit. It's as if Humphrey Bogart were taking a good, if final, look at what's called the world. These are poems of a survivor, urbane, intellegent, fact of hope and despair equally. The Geographics is an ultimate detox center for "reality" addicts as thinking becomes the only way out. - Robert Creeley $10.00 ============================================================ Hard Press, Inc. P.O. Box 184 West Stockbridge, Ma., 01266 413-232-4690 email: Jonathan Gams <74014.1142@compuserve.com> ============================================================================= Kenneth Goldsmith kgolds@panix.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 10:06:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Sheila E. Murphy" Subject: Re: sentimentality Ira asks: >*Does* music move more than poetry - or does the average musical concert >move more than the average (avant-garde or otherwise) poetry gig? It would appear that music DOES move more than poetry. The combination is even MORE potentially stirring than music independently. >Is this because of the ways music and poetry are being written; the >physicality of playing (what about concerts with taped material?)? I think that music is more closely connected to the core of us. That the materials being worked with are inherently capable of a generating a more powerful response. As one who made a conscious choice to replace musical composition and performance with poetry composition and performance, I actually felt I'd shifted over to a medium that is congenial to music in ways that some writers don't get into. Not that everyone should. It's just a auditory inclination. >Do poets rehearse as much as musicians, or at all, for a gig? Is >professionalism and/or discipline uncool in a poet? Most poets do not rehearse very much at all. Some sterling performers prepare the frame that allows the nuances to emerge and show in the actual performance. Discipline is at the core of any human competence. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:10:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marisa A Januzzi Subject: Re: a=a is sent In-Reply-To: <199506061334.AA26969@mailhub.cc.columbia.edu> Ira: Hey, put the names in an *electronic* envelope, how about! I don't think music moves more than poetry in performance, but then this might be a question of audience. I'm in New York City, where "concert" very often means $20/ 2 drink min., or else snoozing retirees on their regular matinee expedition. (On the other hand, the first time I saw "The Rites of Spring" performed by an orchestra was at Carnegie Hall, and there was a white-haired woman in front of me who came to life to the extent that she worked the brown velvet ribbon right off the back of her head, with all her air conducting and seated ballet twists.) I would love to reroute the sentimentality thread toward the question of beauty. (WAIT, don't hit the delete button yet...) In the past couple of yrs I've asked some people on this list the question "What about beauty," and interestingly I've found that while one might expect to be lectured on the institutional underpinnings of that construction, in fact I've been treated to just the opposite. One poet told me to read Sobin. A friend who used to help run the Kitchen told me to listen to Morton Feldman's THREE VOICES FOR JOAN LA BARBARA, a setting of a Frank OHara poem which sounds like a vocal snowfall. And I heard "beauty," and I am still wondering how it is that when you ask, people who one mght think would've discarded the word as too problematic in fact have a special category for it, a sort of unacknowledged one. Sentiment, Subjectivity, or something else? ------------------------Marisa ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 10:51:31 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506061221.FAA21148@whistler.sfu.ca> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun 6, 95 01:18:38 pm > > Some questions: > > *Does* music move more than poetry - or does the average musical concert > move more than the average (avant-garde or otherwise) poetry gig? > > Is this because of the ways music and poetry are being written; the > physicality of playing (what about concerts with taped material?)? > > Do poets rehearse as much as musicians, or at all, for a gig? Is > professionalism and/or discipline uncool in a poet? > > Ira > ---what a wonderful series of questions. my first initial response is that rock, pop or whatever is the ultimate art form -- i can't qualify that -- i'm going on instinct, and that "rock stars" are the real _Shamans_ c --- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 11:09:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: message fr criss cheek In-Reply-To: <199506061333.GAA23982@whistler.sfu.ca> from "cris cheek" at Jun 6, 95 02:28:17 pm cris, hi: --with respect to what you noted regarding the formation of a list for visual/sound poetry, i'm told a list can be enacted here (at simon fraser univ. in vancouver), and if you wish to consider that i can get the ball rolling. but i know this is completely your baby, and it will remain so. like yourself, though, i have a serious interest in and love of "concrete," and want to do anything i can to re-invent the public for it. but it's your call look forward to hearing from you carl ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 13:10:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: discipline In-Reply-To: <199506061221.FAA21148@whistler.sfu.ca> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun 6, 95 01:18:38 pm Ira asks in a recent post "is discipline uncool in a poet". A wonderful question, I think, being unestablished and undefined by a tradition or "school", as of yet. Reg and I were discussing this very problem recently, which is, in some respects, a source of great despair to us. My understanding is that Vancouver is not unlike many other cities in the dynamics of its younger poetry scene (I mean the scene freqented by G1'ers, or goners, if you like). REg teaches at Simon Fraser and I study there and perhaps for this reason our poetry is very aware of its historicity, of where matters of style and imagination come from, and that whole business of the anxiety of influence. When I look at some of my poems in a stack, it reminds me of little league and how you had to shake the hands of all the other team's players when the game was over:"Good game, good game, good game....". Each poem acknowledges with love who I've been playing with and against. And I think this is necessary and inevitable for a time. But there is an open-mike circuit in Vancouver which is not interested in "traditions" or the discipline which informs a work. Rather, it is a fast, aggressive and usually nihilistic crowd which resents academically informed work. I think Patrick Lane described this circuit of poets as wanting poems to work like t.v. chat shows: confessional, sensational, voyeuristic and quick. I suppose this is a tradition now, maybe cultivated from a media interpretation of the beats, on the surface. But it is very popular and what students and the like want to hear while they're drinking. I've written poems specifically for this kind of occasion with some success, and it was fun. But that was all it was about. So, my question is, how does tradition and its disciplines fit into a venue or readership where entertainment and mass production are the rules of the game? Perhaps I'm just whining out of personal taste, but this is not the league I want to play in, despite its growing popularity. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 17:34:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Warren Sonbert 1947-1995 Warren Sonbert died on Wednesday, at home and surrounded by friends. He was 47 years old. I got the news in a letters from Lyn Hejinian and Tom Mandel. Tom wrote: Charles, the news may have reached you already. Warren died yesterday (wednesday) at 10:30 am. In his bed, in his sleep, and with friends at his side. Beth and I had been in SF the whole weekend, left tuesday, and were with him daily. He was conscious on thursday when we arrived, tho in pain with organs failing and unable to speak or to move much, and would confirm requests by squeezing his hand around yours. We read to him, to a strong attention. Whitman. The days that followed he was agitated, feverish, only occasionally responsive (hands) and in much discomfort increasing. By sunday evening it had become obvious that fluids and pureed food only caused intense pain and prolonged it too, by whatever number of hours or few days, and the decision was taken to limit them severely and to up his morphine substantially. By monday afternoon, when I kissed him goodbye, he was fading and probably not conscious of one's presence or only fleetingly and as shallow this sense of any world as his breath, shallow, effortful, unsustaining. I will miss him, deeply and for a long time. tom * Lyn, after telling me the news, and remembering Warren, mentioned that there is to be a screening of his early films at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco on June 22. Carla Harryman will introduce. ********************************************************************** Warren's wonderful, poetic, films immeasurably enriched the art of cinema. His 15 films are: Amphetamine (1966). "First film, heavy influence by Goddard and Warhol -- designed to shock." (sound/10 min.) Where Did Our Love Go? (1966). "First pleasure romp: along the various venues of culture, circa 1966, New York." (sound/15 min.) Hall of Mirrors (1966) -- made while a student at NYU film school: `correcting' dailies from a 1947 murder film, with added sequences of Rene Ricard at home, Gerard Malanga at a show of Lucas Samaras's `Hall of Mirrors'. (sound/7 min) The Bad and the Beautiful (1967). "Mutual (I film them, they film each other) portraits of eight New York couples, mercifully, you'll be relieved to learn, only one pair of whom are still together. Editing in camera" (sound/30 min.) Holiday (1967). "High spirited glances (along with *Truth Serum*) at Coney Island, Appalachian Trail, New Jersey, the Janis Gallery." (silent/15 min.) Truth Serum (1967). (silent/12 min) Carriage Trade (1971) -- the first film of his most characteristic mode consisting of a procession of intercut images, an open-ended collage of shots taken in widely disparate locations. Warren himself wrote: "Magnum opus (and my first real silent) made up of section of [early films]. The strategies of combing `old' images with recent trips through Asia, North Africa, Europe and North America. I went to see this film with my daughter Emma (then 9) this past fall; it played as part of the Museum of Modern Art's October Sonbert retrospective. It is hard to believe that a film this stylistically commanding and elegant was made by Warren when he was in his early 20s. Like many of Warren's films, there is an elegiac quality to the passing of the images, of the evanescent quality of scenes screened, time slipping by. (silent / 61 min.) Rude Awakening (1972). "Tautening this silent period's approach." (silent/36 min) Divided Loyalties (1978). "Further development of editing concerns." (silent/22 min.) Noblesse Oblige (1981). "Furthest distillation (along with *The Cup and the Lip*) of later manner editing/dislocation approach." (silent/58 min.) A Woman's Touch (1983). "A backslide into earlier `personality' scheme." (silent/23 min.) The Cup and the Lip (1987). (silent/20 min.) Honor and Obey (1988). "Quick setting (two weeks?) of a film on a dare for the NY Film Festival." (silent/22 minutes.) Since Warren often worked for years on setting, eg cutting, his films, his comment is striking. It was fun to see Sonbert's film as among the few such works shown at the NY Film Festival. At this point, such films were shown as shorts, accompanying feature films, always provoking the ire of the "sophisticated" film festival audience. The running joke was that someone would yell out "SOUND!". Later, the festival grouped such films together under the title "avant garde visions" as I recall: they've got narrative we've got visions. Actually, Sonbert's films are a running revision of the possibility of narrative in the cinema. Friendly Witness (1989). NY Film Festival again with music/image interplay. (32 min.) Short Fuse (1991). "Last NY Film Festival music/image experiment." (37 min.) [All quotes from the flier for his October 1995 MoMA retrospective.] * Whiplash - According to Tom Mandel a rough cut of this film exists; hopefully, a version of this final film will one day be available. ((((()))))) "The body dies, the body's beauty lives" -- Wallace Stevens On the Poetics list there has been a recent discussion of sentimentality and I suppose it's in a notice like this that it is most difficult to find a balance between sentiment and substance. Because nothing you can say can account for the fact of Warren's death at 47 and because grief over Warren's dying also echos with that of many others of our generation who have died of AIDS. So there is a need to balance that hideous, unrepresentable, general fact with the specifics of this particular person. Warren had an extraordinary grace both in his films and in his life. Talking about this quality of Warren's with Abby Child yesterday she said "he was a `prince'". But only in the sense that he made you feel graceful too, to be with him, to talk of movies or poetry or music or gossip about friends. He seemed to live a charmed life -- travelling the world, attending operas in Europe and North American, having his work shown at Festivals and museums. But charms are haunted. As part of his MoMA retrospective, Warren got to pick four feature films that he particularly liked, and these were shown alongside his films. For those who can't get one of Warren's films, rent a video of one of these and watch it in his honor: Lubitsch's "The Man I Killed (Broken Lullaby)" (1932), Wilder's "Kiss Me Stupid" (1964), Preminger's "The Cardinal" (1963), and Vertov's "Man with a Movie Camera" (1929). Last night, AMC was playing one of the Sirk films that Warren loved: "Imitation of Life" (where early on the earnest young photographer tells of his implausible ambition to have his pictures shown at the Museum of Modern Art). When I mentioned this to Tom Mandel he pointed to Sirk's "Magnificent Obsession"; catch it, if you can, *tonight* on AMC. When Warren was visiting us in the Fall, Emma was taping interviews of friends, relatives, and neighbors. She asked Warren what his favorite holiday was. He said, "Halloween, because I like to dress up." This prince is dead. His films live to light up the shadow his death has cast. --Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 14:28:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Clark Subject: GIANTESS: the organ of the New Abjectionists In-Reply-To: <199506061820.LAA21712@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Christopher Reiner" at Jun 6, 95 09:35:17 am Dear All, The first issue of *GIANTESS : the organ of the New Abjectionists* -- an 18-page stapled object which opens to 28 cherry inches widthways -- is now available. We exhausted a first run, giving it away at the Blaserfest here, but will print further copies for those of you who have been waiting for your subscription copy (GIANTESS is the defunct *Q'ir'i* collapsed into the sadly defunct *Barscheit*), or for others who want to order copies or begin a subscription in the next couple of months (ie before the next issue). Please send $4 for an issue, postpaid. Or subscribe for $9 for three issues (or $5 with a subscription to RADDLE MOON). Single copy orders and subscriptions to : 2239 Stephens Street, Vancouver, BC, V6K 3W5 Canada. We can bank United Statesian money/cheques/money orders; please be tactful however and refrain from "converting" : $4 is $4, $9 is $9. The first issue has : the opening pages of *Phatic*, a novel in progress by Lisa Robertson; "Punctured," Dodie Bellamy's response to the fundamentalist comic artist, Jack Chick; Christine Stewart's "Classical Tragical Play," *DuRiving*; and Catriona Strang's poem, 'Gap' RADDLE MOON 14 (product description following in a day or two) is due from the printer this weeks. A good time to subscribe/support, with our thanks; it absolutely helps. (*Raddle Moon* subscriptions are $12 for two issues; $24 for four, etc.; single copies are $7, back list [various prices] is available.) My email is : clarkd@sfu.ca Good to meet and re-meet so many of you here. I wish we could do this -- I mean something like -- every year. good wishes, Susan Clark clarkd@sfu.ca ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 15:21:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reginald Johanson Subject: discipline I like Ryan's move on the question of whether discipline is uncool, placing at the boundary between the university/small presses (often run by people trained in the university) and the open-mike scene which often expresses contempt for that poetry. It seems to be a question of whose camp one is in: the university has never recognized anything as poetry except that which it chooses to anthologize, and its anthologies reflect its concerns. The open mike business is anarchic, poet as punk, and doesn't leave a record of itself because it can't concentrate that long. Then there are people like me on the margins of both comfortable in neither. Now what, eh? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:04:21 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: discipline In-Reply-To: <199506070038.RAA22895@ferrari.sfu.ca> from "Reginald Johanson" at Jun 6, 95 03:21:03 pm The open mike scene is usually disappointing, isnt it, Reg? If it isnt, why isnt it? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:20:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506062000.NAA04352@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Carl Lynden Peters" at Jun 6, 95 10:51:31 am Regarding Carl Peters' remark that rock stars are artists etc. I figure he is trying to be silly or maybe provocative. The electric guitar amped is easy to play, easy enough to do that strumming they do in them punky bands. I decicded to watch that band called "Hole" on TV. Ohhh, look at the funny clothes, that's got to be worth 1000 points. oooh look how she has her hair over her eyes, wow. Ooh look how she leans way back and strums, woopie. 2000 more points. That ought to tax the minds and souls of any 12-year-old. I am amused by the pathetic yearning after respect by thye industry. 3-chord strummers call themselves "artists" instead of children's music entertainers. They perform at "concerts" instead of shows. Etc. They usyally appeal to the kind of refined and complkicated miond that likes Charles Bukowski's poems. There are good musicians with some brain and chops, like Frank Zappa. "Hot Rats" is really good. It might be as good as Delibes. But Nine Centimeter nails, etc? So what if your friends think yr a goop for saying you doubt whether they are really good artists? Listen to a little Monk, for god's sake. And when the whang whang boys and girls arent taking words from serious adult music, they try to swipe it from jazz and blues, steal lingo from great 1940s Black artists. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:29:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: adios muchachos In-Reply-To: <199506060632.XAA11181@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Lindz Williamson" at Jun 5, 95 11:29:16 pm I dont know where Lindz gets the idea about east-west bashing at the Blaserfest and readings. I was there all the way and didnt notice it. It is also not true that Ondaatje was the only eastern Canadian poet at the readings; there were plenty. McCaffery and Mac Cormack, Robt Hogg, Victor Coleman, for examples. Erin Moure was there. And we embraced all these people as ourselves. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:30:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf. In-Reply-To: <199506060521.WAA07977@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Pierre Joris" at Jun 6, 95 01:19:25 am Yeah, Pierre, but I also introduced Eshleman as being from Kalamazoo. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 00:50:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506070427.AAA17780@panix4.panix.com> You're serious? You're really serious? You don't get Hole? If it's satire below, it's missing the point; if it's not, I'm scared... Alan On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote: > Regarding Carl Peters' remark that rock stars are artists etc. I > figure he is trying to be silly or maybe provocative. The electric > guitar amped is easy to play, easy enough to do that strumming they > do in them punky bands. I decicded to watch that band called "Hole" > on TV. Ohhh, look at the funny clothes, that's got to be worth 1000 > points. oooh look how she has her hair over her eyes, wow. Ooh look > how she leans way back and strums, woopie. 2000 more points. That > ought to tax the minds and souls of any 12-year-old. I am amused by > the pathetic yearning after respect by thye industry. 3-chord > strummers call themselves "artists" instead of children's music > entertainers. They perform at "concerts" instead of shows. Etc. They > usyally appeal to the kind of refined and complkicated miond that > likes Charles Bukowski's poems. There are good musicians with some > brain and chops, like Frank Zappa. "Hot Rats" is really good. It > might be as good as Delibes. But Nine Centimeter nails, etc? So what > if your friends think yr a goop for saying you doubt whether they are > really good artists? Listen to a little Monk, for god's sake. And > when the whang whang boys and girls arent taking words from serious > adult music, they try to swipe it from jazz and blues, steal lingo > from great 1940s Black artists. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 21:57:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506070452.VAA17279@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Alan Sondheim" at Jun 7, 95 00:50:32 am Well, if "Hole" is satire, it's about as funny as Conan O'Brien. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 01:03:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506070458.AAA21783@panix4.panix.com> I was referring to your writing; I like Hole, a hell of a lot better than Nirvana for that matter, the energy, the edge, Love's writing on the Net which is some of the best and most intense stuff I've seen. I don't even think that Monk would figure music to be "about" technique, and I wouldn't care how many chords Hole does or doesn't use, any more than I care about the range of PJ Harvey's voice or Bratmobile's backup. It's like worrying Robert Frank's focusing and grey scale. It's about something else and you may not like it but you're missing it wide of the mark. Alan On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote: > Well, if "Hole" is satire, it's about as funny as Conan O'Brien. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 22:37:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Actually actual? In-Reply-To: <199505310325.UAA21811@whistler.sfu.ca> from "maria damon" at May 30, 95 10:23:56 pm Oh hell, ten or however many years ago people were telling me that ABBA was good, so I listened and it was crap, and now those people are making fun of it. Now they say listen to Hole, so I listen to Hole. It is crap. So I await another decade. I just dont get the withitness that intellectuals try to achieve by praising dumnWdumb children's music instead of getting up the nerve for hard stuff. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 22:46:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: art after art after art In-Reply-To: <199505261845.LAA23717@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Herb Levy" at May 26, 95 10:21:02 am I remember that some time in the 50s Marshall McLuhan said something to the effect that the artists are not ahead of their time, but that they are in the present, while most people are living in the past. He later used the trope of the rear view mirror. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 01:46:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: Actually actual? In-Reply-To: <199506070540.BAA26704@panix4.panix.com> It's probably hard for you to believe but the "withitness" is simply loving the music. And what constitutes children's music? And what's the waiting another decade bit? I still listen to the Sex Pistols and they're not exactly Monk-like; I listen to them more than Monk in fact. I'm not arguing taste with you, it's the blatant dismissal of stuff that's I find bizarre. So you don't like it? I don't like Monk. I don't remember Abba, but I listen to SPK, Albert Ayler, and Hole. And now that I think of it, thank God a lot of this stuff is children's music... Alan On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote: > Oh hell, ten or however many years ago people were telling me that > ABBA was good, so I listened and it was crap, and now those people > are making fun of it. Now they say listen to Hole, so I listen to > Hole. It is crap. So I await another decade. I just dont get the > withitness that intellectuals try to achieve by praising dumnWdumb > children's music instead of getting up the nerve for hard stuff. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 02:00:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: art after art after art In-Reply-To: <199506070549.BAA27731@panix4.panix.com> This brings up a constant argument I have here in NY in relation to the artworld; the Net itself seems to embody more interesting (no def. here) aesthetics than the artworks placed upon it or using it. As if artists are attempting to keep up with a culture that has by and large outstripped them. In this regard, I'm amazed at the inventiveness, say, of MOOs, of Usenet groups such as alt.destroy-the-internet and alt.adjective.noun.verb.verb. verb, alt.dirty-whores, or the Monster Truck Neutopians on alt.society. neutopia, of John December's Web Pages, and so forth. The mirror you mention may well be a computer screen, accessible to all, and "art" itself is becoming unclear, blurred, muddied. I'd say that most artists I know are living in the past in relation to the Net, and an awful lot of Net people are burning towards the future, artists or not. Sorry for the meandering reply. Alan On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote: > I remember that some time in the 50s Marshall McLuhan said something > to the effect that the artists are not ahead of their time, but that > they are in the present, while most people are living in the past. He > later used the trope of the rear view mirror. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 00:09:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Sheila E. Murphy" Subject: Re: discipline Ryan, I enjoyed your post about discipline (one of my favorite topics!). The short answer would be that for whatever level of intensity you choose for the discipline you want or need, there will be a venue. The bell curve is alive and well out there. No need to genuflect to any process that's not enough for you. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:43:51 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" Subject: Sentimentality, music etc In-Reply-To: <199506070402.FAA12584@tucana.dur.ac.uk> Re: Britten's War Requiem: it's necessary for players and audience to make some attempt to think it back to its original context, or at least out of the rather sterile concert hall context. Written late 50s early 60s, (a time when the UK certainly did need refocussing on the wastage of war, which isn't to say that other places/times didn't/don't) for the reconsecration of Coventry Cathedral (Coventry, you remember, was the city the Allies allowed to be destroyed rather than reveal to the Germans that they'd cracked their radio code) by a gay pacifist who was still (at that time) outside the UK establishment, its intention was to "reach" a lot of people. To do this, Britten opened out and simplified his style a lot (it's not atonal music in any sense) and chose "accessible" texts by Owen - to my mind, mistakenly (when Tippett came to write his polemic piece "A Child of Our Time" he wrote his own libretto). The key to it all is the Dies Irae: normally when composers set this they go for a big, wrath-filled, melodramatic sound - Britten's is the only setting I can think of which is tiny, guilt-ridden and fearful. The war music, likewise, should be clumsy and childish. The whole thing is stamped with the human and fallible, and a performance which doesn't respect this, I'd say, would fail. But there's a tendency these days in concert performances and recordings to go for "lovely sounds" in contexts where it's not appropriate (Gorecki suffers from this, to my ears) - as if we looked at those Goya execution scenes and said they had "lovely colours". This comes down to "dumbheaded" audiences and (in the case of music) insincere performances. And it suggests to me that sentimentality (if that's what this love of lushness is) is to do with audiences and consumers, rather than makers of things. Now (to take my own case) I freely confess to being both - and it's possible that if a consumer response slips into my poetry (and I don't cut it out) the result is sentimental poetry. In which case, let he/she who is without wotsit cast the first thingumy. Cards on the table: I was never a very good performing musician, and any explanation I give as to why I shifted from a formal musical training to poetry could be tempered with cries of "sour grapes". But it does seem to me that much of the music bizz is to do with consumerism ("giving the public what they want") rather than actually making anything. There are exceptions, of course. Equally, I'm often horrified by the amateurishness of many poets over their reading/performance practice (one UK poet who turned up to give a reading actually prefaced it with "I don't think I'm a very good reader, I think my poems are better studied on the page..." but he still claimed his fee). Uncool it may be, but (to the consternation of my family) I do indeed read work aloud during the composition process, and when preparing for a reading. I used at one stage to record myself, and play it back to myself, as part of this process. It was very instructive, and also very destructive. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 04:29:36 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: adios muchachos Thanks, Lindz. Being originally from Oklahoma, I think I understand. Although it should be noted that several of the second or third wave New York School poets (Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, and a couple of others) are actually from Oklahoma and followed Ted Berrigan from Tulsa to NY after he taught in Tulsa for one or two years. Me, I went west, and only recently ended up in this upper Midwestern place which is still foreign territory. But wasn't Steve McCaffery at the Vancouver reading? Is he considered Eastern Canadian, or as a migrant from England, is he altogether out of the Canadian east/west context? I'd be proud to be a Maritimer, too. all best, charles charles alexander chax press minnesota center for book arts phone & fax: 612-721-6063 e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:39:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf. In-Reply-To: <199506070434.AAA08366@sarah.albany.edu> from "George Bowering" at Jun 6, 95 09:30:39 pm > > Yeah, Pierre, but I also introduced Eshleman as being from Kalamazoo. Well, George, someone or other will have seent hat as the high or low point, as the case may be. But kidding aside, the high point of the conference was obviously Robin, & given that Robin was there all the time, the high point was all the time. I had a wonderful time, so, thank you Vancouver & -ites.> ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:48:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Warren Sonbert 1947-1995 So--why doesn't somebody with money (like James $herry or somebody) put on a Warren Sonbert retrospective and film festival in some poetry/art space in NYC (and somebody else can do it on the west coast)--- The reason i ask is because there is so little crossover between genres these days---it seems the specialization of the art world is harder to overcome than it was 35 or even 20 years ago--Who are the young experiental filmakers of my generation? (or of LINDzzzzz's generation)? Are they too busy trying to get funding to come down and meet us poets? Are they working in video? Maybe I haven't looked around enough, so I'm trying to keep my eyes pried open. Chris (oh--I got off the point--the point is that for those of us who have only the vaguest memory of Sonbert from college experimental film shows-- it would be good for the poetry community to actually get out of its sick little "words words words" attitude at least for awhile and come together over (it))..... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:52:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: sentimentality Mr. Peters certainly sounds snooty today-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:03:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Actually actual? And george bowering also claims that intellectuals could only possibly like bands like Hole and not the "hard stuff" for spurious reasons of "hipness"---- When I worked on the editorial board of a poetry magazine in the late 80's--the editor made me listen to PARSIFAL (sp?) and if i seemed appreciative I was in (it was part of the screening process)--- Ironically, his love of OPERA--especially aryan opera--and other "difficult high culture"(and yes I know opera was ORIGINALLY low culture--like jazz before it was called "African American Classical") was not parelleled in his love of literature--he went for the Bly, Hugo,Logan nexus in poetry. I on the other hand preferred Ashbery, O'Hara, etc---but to "unwind" found myself listening more to rock and blues and reggae and stuff than classical and even jazz... I certainly do not want to be dogmatic about this, or eclectic-- but just who ARE these people to be so PRESCRIPTIVE about what music a good poet should listen to---it guarantees nothing, my friends, except perhaps a verbal sophistication when talking to someone like a famous poet who doesn't like talking about poetry at parties and so you gotta find something else to talk about (and "politics" gets boring--so it turns to music--but then there's these fights over music--I was a t a party once where one friend called another "a musical nazi")... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:06:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: a=a is what does bad poetry do Marisa, Okay, let's go the other way. Ed, Now don't you proposition me! Burt, Re truth: Ed started it! Question for the group--what harm does bad poetry do? Love, Jordan ("Sincerity is verbal etiquette--it works for some boys"--Barscheit Nation) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 15:51:59 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc Just to say I really found Ric's posting informative. Also want to support Alan (yeah a Bratmobile fan!): there is a way of looking a song that uses three chords as minimalist, a la Reich and Glass, as milking a small set of materials for all you can. Oh I like Nirvana and Hole and Abba, and Debussy and Ravel and Berio, but I absolutely hate any jazz other than fifties be-bop. Oh, and I've also done quite intellectual work at open mike events, with all the timing and precision and rehearsal and intensity I can manage, and it usually gets respect. If I stood there hating that audience for not being a trained avant-garde audience I'd get nowhere. That isn't selling, or selling out, it's communicating, give a little, demand a little. Plus of course a pop artist can be a much more effective bridging person than most arts programmes or courses; I'm thinking of the way Cobain drew a lot of people's attention to neglected independent label bands *or* the way Lennon name-dropped (and engaged with) Stockhausen and Yoko Ono in other arts. But I don't think rock is the highest art form, I think there are people for whom each of the arts form is the highest, and if yours is not it, and you can still get at what the spirit of pure form is in their form ie make your music sculptural, or your cooking painterly, you can win them over *and* stretch yourself at the same time. *I* was *trying* in my original questions to ponder if it wasn't that any art, say music instead of poetry, was an intrinsically higher art - but that poets could learn from musicians, as Sheila was saying; I'm often ashamed to take Mike, my flatmate who writes classical music and pop songs with me, to poetry gigs because, as he memorably put it me after one event: "poets really have it easy". He can't get *any* of his scores, or writing about music, published or distributed or performed, except by himself. Ira ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 11:20:24 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: NEW POETRY FROM SPUYTEN DUYVIL From: TESLA::KIMMELMAN 7-JUN-1995 11:18:47.12 To: ADMIN::KIMMELMAN CC: Subj: ANNOUNCEMENT New poetry books from Spuyten Duyvil: Wave-Run by Tod Thilleman ($7.95): about Wave-Run: "Those who sound the language of Tod Thilleman's Wave-Run may at first feel submerged in a foreign language only to arrive at a later--and deeper, more alive--realization of english and of a different sea." - John Taggart "Thilleman's craft, the drive and punning images of his language, movingly replay in contemporary terms the old myth of Ocean and our fascinated love of it." - Michael Heller Also from Spuyten Duyvil: Musaics by Burt Kimmelman ($8.95) about Musaics: ". . . artful, fastidious, learned--in love with the world of painting and the intricacies of language." - Alfred Kazin "We find the arts restate the questions we have been asking and the ways they clean and stretch our questions reward us more than answers would." - William Bronk After Asia by Michael Stephens ($10.00) about After Asia: "A lovely book of poems! So various and human and (usefully) sweet! These poems are a pleasure! Oh!" - Robert Creeley Books may be purchased from SPD / Small Press Distribution (1-800-869-7553), 1814 San Pablo avenue, Berkeley, CA 94702; or at individual prices plus $1.50 shipping and handling ($.50 for each additional book) from Spuyten Duyvil (1-212-978-3353), Box 1852, Cathedral Station, NYC 10025. Coming soon from SD: Occur by Wayne Oakes. about Occur: ". . . one page story-moments limned in the ink of intensity." - Ed Sanders The Ceiling of the World by Alice Rose George. about The Ceiling of the World. ". . . exquisite . . . intensely ecstatic. . . ." - Carol Muske "Alice Rose George transforms our shared world from heartbreak to a difficult and qualified joy." - April Bernard ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:14:10 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Actually actual? >...I just dont get the >withitnessthat intellectuals try to achieve by praising dumnWdumb >children's music instead of getting up the nerve for hard stuff. sound like you think it's an either/or choice? or am i misreading. i enjoy hole, & monk, & bach, & gid tanner and the skillet lickers (who could probably play a whole barndance w/ only 2 chords)... all for different reasons & in differnt ways. or, to bring it back to poetics, i've even read some bukowski that i enjoyed-- why compare apples & sardines, or choose between 'em? unless yr trying to impress... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:49:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Actually actual? true, chris, so very true. arab music is good, those modes and all that, plus bach for complex baroque interiors, but KISS, all those old recordings still wonderful. hey, anyone who's prescriptive about anything is only one thing: wrong. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 13:09:07 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Linda Lane Reinfeld Subject: singing benna Just rereading Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" for a class I'm teaching tonight and wishing I knew what "benna" sounded like... Standard references in the public library don't help. Here's some context: "... is it true that you sing benna in Sunday School? ... don't sing benna in Sunday School ... but I don't sing benna on Sundays at all and never in Sunday School..." If you've got a fast answer for me, please email to lreinfeld@eckert.acadcomp.monroecc.edu Thanks -- Linda Reinfeld ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:58:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: a=a is what does bad poetry do jordan, jordan, as Keats said, "I look upon fine Phrases like a Lover." And the _harm_ in bad poetry? Well without "fine Phrases," how/what can one feel? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:45:13 EDT Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: beard@MET.CO.NZ Subject: Re: open mike scene, music etc. Various posters on open readings: >But there is an open-mike circuit in Vancouver which is not interested >in "traditions" or the discipline which informs a work. Rather, >it is a fast, aggressive and usually nihilistic crowd which resents >academically informed work. I think Patrick Lane described this circuit >of poets as wanting poems to work like t.v. chat shows: confessional, >sensational, voyeuristic and quick. I suppose this is a tradition now, >maybe cultivated from a media interpretation of the beats, on the >surface. >question of whose camp one is in: the university has never recognized >anything as poetry except that which it chooses to anthologize, and >its anthologies reflect its concerns. The open mike business is >anarchic, poet as punk, and doesn't leave a record of itself because >it can't concentrate that long. Then there are people like me on the >margins of both comfortable in neither. Now what, eh? This is the gap into which I've fallen, too. I've never felt comfortable in the poets' pub scene - too many first-years in DMs in love with the idea of being a Poet, rather than with poetry itself. On the other hand, I feel distanced from the university scenes (not having studied the arts at university) and believe that poetry _deserves_ an audience wider than a small circle of poets and professional critics. I used to run the NZ Poetry Society in Wellington, and this was the closest thing to a happy medium that I've come across. There were a fair number of people not directly associated with the Victoria University Press mafia, but still with a serious interest in poetry as literature (rather than therapy), involved in the society. Of course, the open readings always attracted a hard core of (WARNING! non-PC terms ahead) little old ladies reading haiku about their cats, and gruff old men reciting ballads about pig hunting, but at least there was an attentive audience for difficult, thoughtful, and/or experimental work. > Ironically, his love of OPERA--especially aryan opera--and other > "difficult high culture"(and yes I know opera was ORIGINALLY low > culture--like jazz before it was called "African American Classical") > was not parelleled in his love of literature--he went for the Bly, > Hugo,Logan nexus in poetry. I on the other hand preferred Ashbery, > O'Hara, etc---but to "unwind" found myself listening more to rock and > blues and reggae and stuff than classical and even jazz... It's interesting that the "alternative" sub-culture of pub poetry is far more conservative stylistically (and even in terms of content) that what might be termed the "mainstream", whereas the opposite is the case in pop music. I wonder if this is because populist (written) poetry does not really exist these days, so that the "mainstream" is defined by academic and government-funded cultural groups, rather than commercial demand. Hence your average pub poet fumes because his predictable and poorly-written teen-angst rant was rejected by Landfall, and consoles himself by telling himself that he is too dangerous and radical for the conservative elite. Maybe if pop music worked the same way, then M People and Brian Adams would consider themselves subversive. > Oh I like Nirvana and Hole and Abba, > and Debussy and Ravel and Berio, but I absolutely hate any jazz other than > fifties be-bop. I've never been able to understand the appeal of grunge. Maybe I'm Generation W (I'd much rather wear Armani than Mossimo). I got fed up with the way that pub poets idolise the cliche of poet as self-destructive visionary outsider, a la Bukowksi, Dylan Thomas, James K. Baxter, Jim Morrison etc. After sitting through one too many "Elegy for Kurt Cobain", I wrote the following, and read it at the poets' pub: That stupid club ---------------- Hart Crane Sylvia Plath Anne Sexton John Berryman Ian Curtis Kurt Cobain ...think of it as evolution in action Well, it got a reaction at least (the last lines are from Niven and Pournelle). Apologies to anyone on the list who might have known any of the above - it's the _romanticisation_ of suicide to which I object. I still read occasionally at the poets' pub in Auckland, but I won't be for a while, since on Monday nights I'll be attending a writing group run by Alan Loney. I guess that shows where my allegiances might be heading! Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 10:46:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <01HRF56NIR2G8ZE54A@albnyvms.BITNET> from "Chris Stroffolino" at Jun 7, 95 09:52:53 am ----i don't get this -- what are you talking abt? c > > Mr. Peters certainly sounds snooty today-- > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 09:24:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: speaking of blaser conf. In-Reply-To: <199506071339.JAA17575@loki.albany.edu> from "Pierre Joris" at Jun 7, 95 09:39:12 am Pierre, it was just amazing that Blaser went to everything. Not just because of his health, but because he's notoriously not at everything; or if he does gfo to something he leaves the second it's over. People remarked on this. I take it that Blaser was showing his respect for all the people. I think that he was really mived around. I bet he's been resting ever since. Hey, Vancouver was glad to have all you folks. Van. loves big p[oetry things. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 11:04:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506070427.VAA16068@whistler.sfu.ca> from "George Bowering" at Jun 6, 95 09:20:23 pm wait, let me explain a little: i should have specified this, but i was thinking of the context they have -- which is usually a context which gives them a large and immediate audience. --and i certainly think there are musicians out there who take their art seriously. what abt neil young? some real rock & roll c > > Regarding Carl Peters' remark that rock stars are artists etc. I > figure he is trying to be silly or maybe provocative. The electric > guitar amped is easy to play, easy enough to do that strumming they > do in them punky bands. I decicded to watch that band called "Hole" > on TV. Ohhh, look at the funny clothes, that's got to be worth 1000 > points. oooh look how she has her hair over her eyes, wow. Ooh look > how she leans way back and strums, woopie. 2000 more points. That > ought to tax the minds and souls of any 12-year-old. I am amused by > the pathetic yearning after respect by thye industry. 3-chord > strummers call themselves "artists" instead of children's music > entertainers. They perform at "concerts" instead of shows. Etc. They > usyally appeal to the kind of refined and complkicated miond that > likes Charles Bukowski's poems. There are good musicians with some > brain and chops, like Frank Zappa. "Hot Rats" is really good. It > might be as good as Delibes. But Nine Centimeter nails, etc? So what > if your friends think yr a goop for saying you doubt whether they are > really good artists? Listen to a little Monk, for god's sake. And > when the whang whang boys and girls arent taking words from serious > adult music, they try to swipe it from jazz and blues, steal lingo > from great 1940s Black artists. > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 13:47:35 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: discipline In message <2fd528fd57dd002@maroon.tc.umn.edu> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > The open mike scene is usually disappointing, isnt it, Reg? If it > isnt, why isnt it? this, like (I'm sorry folks) the hallmark card discussion, is of interest in my thinking about what what poetry is or might/cd./ (not "should," tho i think people may have a deeply buried "should" in there under everything) do, be, etc. what is it that one expects that results in disappointment when it's not there in an open mike scene. and, as george asks, when one isn't disappointed, what is it that is there, what expectation is being met? i for one enjoy open mike readings if there's a lot of energy there and the participants are excited about what they're doing. md ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 15:28:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: EFF Newsletter (fwrd) I am forwarding the new issue of EFF newsletter. At the very end of the message, many screens away for those of you like me who must scroll this screen to screen, is SUBSCRIPTION information for EFF. Since each of you can subscribe to this yourself, it is not my plan to forwarded further issues to POETICS. However, if people on the list would prefer to have these newsletters forwarded to the list, send me (not the list) a message. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 6 Jun 1995 19:13:41 -0400 From:editor@eff.org To: effector mailing list Subject: EFFector Online 08.07 - June 6 '95 - ALERT: Last chance on Exon bill! ======================================================================== ________________ _______________ _______________ /_______________/\ /_______________\ /\______________\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||||||||||||||| / //////////////// \\\\\________/\ |||||________\ / /////______\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\/____ |||||||||||||| / ///////////// \\\\\___________/\ ||||| / //// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||| \//// ======================================================================== EFFector Online Volume 08 No. 07 June 6, 1995 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 IN THIS ISSUE: ALERT: Communications Decency Act - Imminent Passage or Failure - Act NOW! The Latest News What You Can Do Now -- U.S. and non-U.S. citizens Senate Contact List For More Information List Of Participating Organizations Newsbytes Dole/Grassley Legislation Threatens Online Free Speech - Worse Than CDA New Draft of Communications Decency Legislation Sen. Lott to Attempt to Rip Sysop Defenses from Exon Bill The Other Side of the Coin: Feinstein Bill v. Bomb Material Online Prodigy Potentially Liable for User Postings Calendar of Events Quote of the Week What YOU Can Do Administrivia * See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ALERT: Communications Decency Act - Act NOW! * EMERGENCY UPDATE: Just as this issue was going to virtual press, more and * very dire news has arrived. Senators Bob Dole (R-KS) and Charles Grassley * (R-IA) have announced they are sponsoring, and probably introducing very * soon, new Internet censorship legislation even more threatening * to free speech than the Exon "Communications Decency Act". Unlike the * Leahy alternative to the CDA, the Dole/Grassley legislation is not, * according to sponsor Grassley, intended to be offered as a replacement * for the Exon language in the Senate telecom reform bill, but rather is * intended as free-standing bill. As CDT, a member of the Stop314 Coalition * with EFF, notes, the advent of the Dole/Grassley bill creates an even * greater need for support of Senator Leahy's alternative (S. 714). If * the Senate rejects Senator Leahy's alternative, it will pass either the * Exon bill or the even more draconian Dole/Grassley proposal, and the * net as we know it will never be the same again. Please, take the very * few minutes it will require to call your Senators and sign the Leahy * petition, as detailed in the lead article below. More info on the * Dole/Grassley proposal is in the Newsbytes section of this newsletter. Below is the latest action alert from the Stop314 Coalition (including EFF). *This may look like alerts you've seen on previous days and weeks, but it is new.* Please take the time to check it out - the time has come to direct your activism toward your Senators. The petition drive for the Leahy opposition bill has receive over 20,000 signatures in a very short time, but it is not enough. Please pardon the length of this EFFector, but this is the most important action alert that has appeared in EFFector this year. ________________________________________________________________________ CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE EXON/GORTON COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT Update: -Senate changes gears, we're caught with little time -What You Can Do Now (US and non-US citizens) CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT June 6, 1995 PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL June 20, 1995 REPRODUCE THIS ALERT ONLY IN RELEVANT FORUMS Distributed by the Voters Telecommunications Watch (vtw@vtw.org) [NOTE: EFF has added two bracketed additions to the "What You Can Do Now" section, in light of the sudden appearance of the Dole/Grassley bill and the Lott amendment.] ________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS The Latest News What You Can Do Now -- U.S. and non-U.S. citizens Senate Contact List For More Information List Of Participating Organizations ________________________________________________________________________ THE LATEST NEWS The Senate is ready to act on the Telecommunications Reform Bill this week, perhaps as soon as Wednesday, June 7th. We had thought the Counter Terrorism bill would take all week, but the Senate changed its schedule without consulting us. :-) (We sincerely apologize for issuing another alert on the heels of the prior one, but the Senate's readiness to move on this legislation was not anticipated. We'll watch out for such a situation again and avoid releasing two alerts so close together in the future. We also apologize for the length of this Alert, but it contains the entire Senate contact info.) Note that there are few people who don't know about the bill. However if you are unfamiliar with the bill, take a moment to retrieve the materials listed in the "For More Information" section. ________________________________________________________________________ WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW -- U.S. and non-U.S. citizens The Telecomm Reform Bill, will, in all likelihood, include either the Exon Amendment (formerly the Communications Decency Act) or the Leahy Amendment. It is essential that the Leahy language be substituted for Exon's, and therefore it is essential: 1. That all citizens call or fax their Senators as soon as possible. There is no time for written letters and email is too easily discounted or ignored. Non-U.S. citizens should contact Vice President Gore. Note, if you decide to send a fax, you'll want to write an expanded version of the statement below. It's very important that you always be cool, collected, and polite. U.S. citizens: "Hello, Senator ________'s office" "Hi, I'm a constituent and would like to register my opinion on the Telecommunications Reform bill to the Senator." "Hold On please. Alright, go ahead." "Please vote to remove the Communications Decency Act provision (Title 4 of S652) from the Telecomm Reform bill and replace it with the Leahy alternative (S714). My name and address is ________." "Thanks for calling." [Addition in light of emergency update: Ask your Senators to also oppose the Lott amendment S.714, and to oppose the Dole/Grassley alternative to the CDA.] Non-U.S. citizens: "Dear Vice President Gore, The world looks to the United States as one leader in developing a Global Information Infrastructure. Title 4 of the Telecomm Reform bill (the Communications Decency Act) [like the Dole/Grassley Internet censorship bill,] imperils that leadership. Please work to remove it from the Telecomm Reform bill (S652) and replace it with Senator Leahy's sensible alternative (S714). I'm calling from ____________." 2. Send VTW a note telling us what you did. If you contacted your two Senators, send a letter to vtw@vtw.org with a subject line of "XX ack" where "XX" is your state. For example: To: vtw@vtw.org Subject: OH ack I called my Ohio Senators and expressed my opinion. If you contact Senators outside your state, please let us know what state you're from. If you contacted Vice President Gore, send a letter to vtw@vtw.org with a subject line of "gore ack". For example: To: vtw@vtw.org Subject: gore ack I called VP Gore and expressed my opinion. I'm from France. An automatic responder will return an updated contact tally. 3. Forward this Alert to relevant forums on other online services and BBS's. Check the letter you get back to see which Senators are underrepresented by citizen contacts. Forward the Alert to any friends and colleagues in those states. 4. If you haven't yet signed the petition to support Sen. Leahy, do so now. Send mail to vtw@vtw.org with a subject line of "send petition" for directions. 5. Congratulate yourself! Your two-minute activism joins that of many thousands of others over the past two months. ________________________________________________________________________ SENATE CONTACT LIST Vice President Gore can be reached at: White House comment line Telephone: (202) 456-1111 (M-F 9-5 EST) Facsimile: (202) 456-2461 (M-F 9-5 EST) Email: vice-president@whitehouse.gov US Senate Listing: D ST Name (Party) Phone Fax = == ============ ===== === R AK Murkowski, Frank H. 1-202-224-6665 1-202-224-5301 R AK Stevens, Ted 1-202-224-3004 1-202-224-1044 D AL Heflin, Howell T. 1-202-224-4124 1-202-224-3149 R AL Shelby, Richard C. 1-202-224-5744 1-202-224-3416 D AR Bumpers, Dale 1-202-224-4843 1-202-224-6435 D AR Pryor, David 1-202-224-2353 1-202-224-8261 R AZ Kyl, Jon 1-202-224-4521 1-202-224-2302 R AZ McCain, John 1-202-224-2235 1-202-228-2862 D CA Boxer, Barbara 1-202-224-3553 na D CA Feinstein, Dianne 1-202-224-3841 1-202-228-3954 D CO Campbell, Ben N. 1-202-224-5852 1-202-225-0228 R CO Brown, Henry 1-202-224-5941 1-202-224-6471 D CT Dodd, Christopher J. 1-202-224-2823 na D CT Lieberman, Joseph I. 1-202-224-4041 1-202-224-9750 D DE Biden Jr., Joseph R. 1-202-224-5042 1-202-224-0139 R DE Roth Jr. William V. 1-202-224-2441 1-202-224-2805 D FL Graham, Robert 1-202-224-3041 1-202-224-2237 R FL Mack, Connie 1-202-224-5274 1-202-224-8022 D GA Nunn, Samuel 1-202-224-3521 1-202-224-0072 R GA Coverdell, Paul 1-202-224-3643 1-202-228-3783 D HI Akaka, Daniel K. 1-202-224-6361 1-202-224-2126 D HI Inouye, Daniel K. 1-202-224-3934 1-202-224-6747 D IA Harkin, Thomas 1-202-224-3254 1-202-224-7431 R IA Grassley, Charles E. 1-202-224-3744 1-202-224-6020 R ID Craig, Larry E. 1-202-224-2752 1-202-224-2573 R ID Kempthorne, Dirk 1-202-224-6142 1-202-224-5893 D IL Moseley-Braun, Carol 1-202-224-2854 1-202-224-2626 D IL Simon, Paul 1-202-224-2152 1-202-224-0868 R IN Coats, Daniel R. 1-202-224-5623 1-202-224-8964 R IN Lugar, Richard G. 1-202-224-4814 1-202-224-7877 R KS Dole, Robert 1-202-224-6521 1-202-224-8952 R KS Kassebaum, Nancy L. 1-202-224-4774 1-202-224-3514 D KY Ford, Wendell H. 1-202-224-4343 1-202-224-0046 R KY McConnell, Mitch 1-202-224-2541 1-202-224-2499 D LA Breaux, John B. 1-202-224-4623 na D LA Johnston, J. Bennett 1-202-224-5824 1-202-224-2952 D MA Kennedy, Edward M. 1-202-224-4543 1-202-224-2417 D MA Kerry, John F. 1-202-224-2742 1-202-224-8525 D MD Mikulski, Barbara A. 1-202-224-4654 1-202-224-8858 D MD Sarbanes, Paul S. 1-202-224-4524 1-202-224-1651 R ME Snowe, Olympia 1-202-224-5344 1-202-224-6853 R ME Cohen, William S. 1-202-224-2523 1-202-224-2693 D MI Levin, Carl 1-202-224-6221 na R MI Abraham, Spencer 1-202-224-4822 1-202-224-8834 D MN Wellstone, Paul 1-202-224-5641 1-202-224-8438 R MN Grams, Rod 1-202-224-3244 1-202-224-9931 R MO Bond, Christopher S. 1-202-224-5721 1-202-224-8149 R MO Ashcroft, John 1-202-224-6154 na R MS Cochran, Thad 1-202-224-5054 1-202-224-3576 R MS Lott, Trent 1-202-224-6253 1-202-224-2262 D MT Baucus, Max 1-202-224-2651 na R MT Burns, Conrad R. 1-202-224-2644 1-202-224-8594 R NC Faircloth, D. M. 1-202-224-3154 1-202-224-7406 R NC Helms, Jesse 1-202-224-6342 1-202-224-7588 D ND Conrad, Kent 1-202-224-2043 1-202-224-7776 D ND Dorgan, Byron L. 1-202-224-2551 1-202-224-1193 D NE Exon, J. J. 1-202-224-4224 1-202-224-5213 D NE Kerrey, Bob 1-202-224-6551 1-202-224-7645 R NH Gregg, Judd 1-202-224-3324 1-202-224-4952 R NH Smith, Robert 1-202-224-2841 1-202-224-1353 D NJ Bradley, William 1-202-224-3224 1-202-224-8567 D NJ Lautenberg, Frank R. 1-202-224-4744 1-202-224-9707 D NM Bingaman, Jeff 1-202-224-5521 na R NM Domenici, Pete V. 1-202-224-6621 1-202-224-7371 D NV Bryan, Richard H. 1-202-224-6244 1-202-224-1867 D NV Reid, Harry 1-202-224-3542 1-202-224-7327 D NY Moynihan, Daniel P. 1-202-224-4451 na R NY D'Amato, Alfonse M. 1-202-224-6542 1-202-224-5871 D OH Glenn, John 1-202-224-3353 1-202-224-7983 R OH Dewine, Michael 1-202-224-2315 1-202-224-6519 R OK Inhofe, James 1-202-224-4721 R OK Nickles, Donald 1-202-224-5754 1-202-224-6008 R OR Hatfield, Mark O. 1-202-224-3753 1-202-224-0276 R OR Packwood, Robert 1-202-224-5244 1-202-228-3576 R PA Santorum, Rick 1-202-224-6324 1-202-228-4991 R PA Specter, Arlen 1-202-224-4254 1-202-224-1893 D RI Pell, Claiborne 1-202-224-4642 1-202-224-4680 R RI Chafee, John H. 1-202-224-2921 na D SC Hollings, Ernest F. 1-202-224-6121 1-202-224-4293 R SC Thurmond, Strom 1-202-224-5972 1-202-224-1300 D SD Daschle, Thomas A. 1-202-224-2321 1-202-224-2047 R SD Pressler, Larry 1-202-224-5842 1-202-224-1259* R TN Thompson, Fred 1-202-224-4944 1-202-228-3679 R TN Frist, Bill 1-202-224-3344 1-202-224-8062 R TX Hutchison, Kay Bailey 1-202-224-5922 1-202-224-0776 R TX Gramm, Phil 1-202-224-2934 1-202-228-2856 R UT Bennett, Robert 1-202-224-5444 1-202-224-6717 R UT Hatch, Orrin G. 1-202-224-5251 1-202-224-6331 D VA Robb, Charles S. 1-202-224-4024 1-202-224-8689 R VA Warner, John W. 1-202-224-2023 1-202-224-6295 D VT Leahy, Patrick J. 1-202-224-4242 1-202-224-3595 R VT Jeffords, James M. 1-202-224-5141 na D WA Murray, Patty 1-202-224-2621 1-202-224-0238 R WA Gorton, Slade 1-202-224-3441 1-202-224-9393 D WI Feingold, Russell 1-202-224-5323 na D WI Kohl, Herbert H. 1-202-224-5653 1-202-224-9787 D WV Byrd, Robert C. 1-202-224-3954 1-202-224-4025 D WV Rockefeller, John D. 1-202-224-6472 na R WY Simpson, Alan K. 1-202-224-3424 1-202-224-1315 R WY Thomas, Craig 1-202-224-6441 1-202-224-3230 ________________________________________________________________________ FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information on the Communications Decency Act, visit the following resources: Web Sites URL:http://www.panix.com/vtw/exon/ URL:http://epic.org/ URL:http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ URL:http://www.cdt.org/cda.html FTP Archives URL:ftp://ftp.cdt.org/pub/cdt/policy/freespeech/00-INDEX.FREESPEECH URL:ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ Gopher Archives: URL:gopher://gopher.panix.com/11/vtw/exon URL:gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/Alerts Email: vtw@vtw.org (put "send help" in the subject line) cda-info@cdt.org (General CDA information) cda-stat@cdt.org (Current status of the CDA) ________________________________________________________________________ LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS In order to use the net more effectively, several organizations have joined forces on a single Congressional net campaign to stop the Communications Decency Act. In alphabetical order: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) infoaclu@aclu.org American Communication Association (ACA) comminfo@cavern.uark.edu American Council for the Arts Arts & Technology Society cyberguy@well.com biancaTroll productions bianca@bianca.com Californians Against Censorship Together BobbyLilly@aol.com Center For Democracy And Technology (CDT) info@cdt.org Centre for Democratic Communications (CDC) cshariff@aztec.co.za Center for Public Representation (CPR) mgpritch@facstaff.wisc.edu Computer Communicators Association community@pigpen.demon.co.uk Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility cpsr@cpsr.org Cross Connections staff@xconn.com Cyber-Rights Campaign cyber-rights@cpsr.org CyberQueer Lounge tomh@cyberzine.org Electronic Frontier Canada (EFC) efc@graceland.uwaterloo.ca Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) info@eff.org Electronic Frontier Foundation - Austin eff-austin@tic.com Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) efa-info@efa.org.au Electronic Frontiers Houston (EFH) efh@efh.org Electronic Frontiers New Hampshire (EFNH) efnh@mv.com Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) info@epic.org Feminists For Free Expression (FFE) FFE@aol.com First Amendment Teach-In croth@omnifest.uwm.edu Florida Coalition Against Censorship pipking@mail.firn.edu FACTS (Friendly Anti-Censorship Taskforce for Students) jt885291@oak.cats.ohiou.edu Hands Off! The Net baby-x@phanton.com Human Rights Watch (HRW) infohrw@hrw.org Inland Book Company David1756@aol.com Inner Circle Technologies, Inc. aka. NovaLink Inst. for Global Communications igc-info@igc.org National Libertarian Party 73163.3063@compuserve.com Libertarian Party (national) (LP) lphq@access.digex.net Marijuana Policy Project MPProject@AOL.com Metropolitan Data Networks Ltd. MindVox system@phantom.com National Bicycle Greenway cycleam@cruzio.com National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) ncac@netcom.com National Public Telecomputing Network (NPTN) info@nptn.org National Writers Union (UAW Local 1981 AFL-CIO) kip@world.std.com Oregon Coast Rural Information Service Cooperative Panix Public Access Internet info@panix.com People for the American Way jlessern@reach.com Rock Out Censorship TWieseROC@aol.com Society for Electronic Access sea@sea.org The Thing International BBS Network (TTNet) info@thing.nyc.ny.us The WELL info@well.com Voters Telecommunications Watch (VTW) vtw@vtw.org (Note: All 'Electronic Frontier' organizations are independent entities, not EFF chapters or divisions.) [End of Alert] ------------------------------ Subject: Newsbytes ------------------ * Dole/Grassley Legislation Threatens Online Free Speech - Worse Than CDA [This summary provided by Center for Democracy & Technology, info@cdt.org] The Dole/Grassley bill would create new penalties in Title 18 for all operators of electronic communications services who knowingly transmit indecent material to anyone under 18 years of age. The bill would also create criminal liability for system operators who willfully permit minors to use an electronic communications service in order to obtain indecent material from another service. The Dole/Grassley bill would impose criminal liability on online service providers, electronic bulletin board operators, as well as any other entity that uses computer storage to deliver information to users, including video dialtone services, cable television video on demand services, etc. The degree of knowledge required to impose liability is unclear, but it appears that an entity could be said to have the requisite knowledge if it is merely informed by a third party that some material on its system is indecent. The text of the Dole/Grassley bill (currently unintroduced and without a bill number) is at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/dole_grassley_95.bill ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/dole_grassley_95.bill gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts, dole_grassley_95.bill * New Draft of Communications Decency Legislation Sen. Exon, the Dept. of Justice, and some unnamed online service providers have attempted to fix the "bugs" in the Exon/Gorton Communications Decency Act, recently folded into the Senate telecom reform bill, S.652. All in all, the amendment fixes only superficial problems, leaving the core faults of the bill intact. The revisions are not currently out of the draft stage as far as can be determined, but may be intended to be introduced by Exon on the Senate floor in an attempt to convince the Senate that the CDA is "fixed" and should be preferred over the Leahy counter-legislation. The draft changes various minor parts of the bill (e.g. changes "knowingly and willfully" to "knowingly"); allows but fails dismally to require that the implementation of technology to enable the user to restrict or prevent access to "obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent" material may be used to avoid liability on the part of system operators; and separates out some offenses from others more clearly. The revisions also aim to satisfy the concerns the Justice Dept. had regarding the poorly written CDA's negative effect on law enforcement's ability to enforce "dial-a-porn" statutes and (to the DoJ's credit) its negative effect on the protection citizens enjoy under privacy laws. Whether the changes actually do address these problems is highly questionable. The Exon legislation revised by this draft amendment will remain unconstitutional, as it still attempts to ban expression protected by the First Amendment. Even the regulation of indecency has been limited by the courts to very narrowly defined circumstances - none of which apply to online media. Such restrictions, even if eventually overturned after years of expensive legal battles, will greatly hamper networking development and will stifle freedom of expression online, rendering all electronic communications subject to censorship so that adults are limited to accessing and expressing only that which is suitable for children. Additionally, the new version introduces a new problem: It protects only large commercial service providers from more-restrictive state laws. The draft states: "No State or local government may impose any liability for commercial activities or actions by commercial entities...that is inconsistent with the treatment of those violations under this section..." EFF concurs with the Center for Democracy & Technology in finding no valid argument for according greater protection to commercial than non-commercial speech. Indeed the entire history of commercial regulation and free speech jurisprudence in the U.S. points in the opposite direction. The CDA revisions would leave individuals, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, users' groups and all others besides commercial interests subject to whatever censorship measures states might wish to enact on whatever whim. The draft changes to the Exon bill, showing what was deleted and what was added, are available at: http://www.eff.org/pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/s652_051995_amend.draft ftp.eff.org, /pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/s652_051995_amend.draft gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Legislation/Bills_by_number, s652_051995_amend.draft * Sen. Lott to Attempt to Rip Sysop Defenses from Exon Bill CDT in their alert regarding the Dole/Grassley bill also note that Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) has announced plans to introduce an amendment to S.652 to remove all of the service provider defenses from the Exon language (the CDA). *This move would make the Exon bill even more of a privacy and free speech threat than the original Exon bill.* Holding system operators liable for the posts of users over which they hold no editorial control threatens to put most providers out of business, stifle free expression online, and force the remaining providers to become full-time censors and invaders of user privacy. [Apologies to those who also receive CDT newsletters and get essentially two copies of this information, but its relevance here and its effect on the now extreme urgency of the main action alert in this newsletter and on the Leahy petition drive requires at least summarizing the main points here again.] The text of the Lott amendment will be available as soon as we receive it from: http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts Look for a file with "lott" in the filename. * The Other Side of the Coin: Feinstein Bill v. Bomb Material Online Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has drafted an amendment to the Senate Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention bill, S.735, of Sen. Dole. Like the CDA revisions, this remains an unintroduced draft, on hold until its parent bill is in open discussion in the Senate. The draft intends to: "prohibit the dissemination of information on the making of explosive materials with intent or knowledge that such information will be used for a criminal purpose." The draft amendment would mandate up to twenty years in prison for anyone who "teach[es] or demonstrate[s] the making of explosive materials, or... disseminate[s] by any means information pertaining to, in whole or in part, the manufacture of explosive materials" if the person even "resonably should know" that such explosives or information "is [sic] likely to be used for, or in furtherance of, a federal offense or other criminal purpose affecting interstate commerce." Though the legislation does not directly mention the Internet, it is certainly drafted to apply to online media, and was inspired by what Feinstein perceives (or hears about in the media, since it is unlikely the Senator has actually ever logged in and found any bombmaking instructions online) as tools for terrorism on computer networks. The agenda is clear. Feinstein, herself a near-victim of a failed letter-bombing attempt, along with other legislators, representatives of the Administration, and spokespersons from the civil liberties community, participated in a May 11 Senate Terrorism Committee hearing on "The Availability of Bomb Making Information On The Internet". Feinstein suggested that bomb-making data be banned from the net, according to _Interactive_Week_. Calling such materials information that "teaches people to kill" she stated that it is "pushing the envelope of free speech to the extremes." Feinstein was asked, and did not answer, if she intended to ban such materials (e.g. the widely available _Anarchist_Cookbook_) from bookstores, after she suggested that the "doctrine of prior restraint is one we have to look at", because such information "isn't what this country is all about." Others likely to support the Feinstein amendment if introduced when the anti-terrorism bill hits the Senate floor include Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) and the Justice Department. Kohl at the same hearing commented that Americans would be shocked at the "dark back alleys of the Internet... In other words, the industry acts now, or Congress will do it for you... After all, if we have the technology to get kids on the Internet, we have should have the technology to get them off." Expanding on the overused outrage-generator of protecting kids from the evils of electronic communications, Dep. Asst. Atty. Gen. Robert Litt, testified, "Not only do would-be terrorists have access to detailed information on how to construct explosives, but so do children." Experienced BBS and Internet users may marvel at the seeming gullibility of these hearing pronouncements. It is clear that Kohl, Feinstein and Litt are unware, or choose to ignore, that most of the material they are decrying is actually written by minors - neither very accurate nor likely at all to be used by terrorists - and that far more reliable information on topics like the anatomy of a bomb can be had from most public libraries (e.g. in the _Encyclopaedia_Britannica_), and from the U.S. government itself. Brock Meeks writing for _Interactive_Week_ notes that the very bomb type used to destroy the Federal Building in Oklahoma City is covered in a "detailed recipe" in the Forestry Service's own readily available _Blaster's_Handbook_. Others at the hearing, including Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), warned against looking to censorship for a solution. Leahy retorted that the real problem is "harmful and dangerous conduct, not speech". Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA), who chaired the hearing, appeared to remain rather neutral on the issue, being neither certain that censorship and access restriction to online material was technically feasible, nor encouraged to call for censorship by the DoJ's admission that they had no evidence at all of crimes taking place as a result of information gathered from the Internet. The full text of the Feinstein draft can be found at http://www.eff.org/Bills_by_number/s735_95_feinstein_amend.draft ftp.eff.org, /pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/s735_95_feinstein_amend.draft gopher.eff.org, 1/Legislation/Bills_by_number, s735_95_feinstein_amend.draft There's plenty more to worry about from this and other anti-terrorism legislation, most of which proposes one or more unconstitional "solutions" to perceived problems, and many of which seek to expand, in some cases radically, law enforcement and intelligence wiretapping authority and abilities. These bills, archived by bill number, are also available in the Bills_by_number directory at the sites above. * Prodigy Potentially Liable for User Postings In a case that could have major ramifications for BBS system operators and Internet newsgroup moderators, a New York state trial court ruled that communications service provider Prodigy Services Company may be liable for potentially libelous statements made by one of its users. Prodigy was sued by the securities investment banking firm of Stratton Oakmont, Inc., and its president, Daniel Porush, for statements made by an unidentified poster on Prodigy's Money Talk bulletin board. The statements claimed that Stratton Oakmont committed criminal and fraudulant acts in connection with the initial public offering of stock of Solomon-Page, Ltd. Stratton Oakmont and Porush sued Prodigy, the volunteer moderator of the Money Talk forum, and the anonymous user who made the postings. Prodigy filed a motion for summary judgment, asking to be dismissed from the case on the claim that Prodigy could not be held responsible for the postings of its users. On May 24, 1995, the court held that Prodigy had editorial control over the messages in the Money Talk forum and was therefore liable for the content of those messages. According to the New York Supreme Court (which is a trial level court in New York), Prodigy's policy of systematically monitoring messages made it liable for the content of these messages. In addition, the court held that since Prodigy directed and controlled the actions of volunteer Board Leaders, at least for the limited purpose of monitoring and editing the Money Talk bulletin board, Prodigy was responsible for the actions of its Board Leaders. ------------------------------ Subject: Calendar of Events --------------------------- This schedule lists EFF events, and those we feel might be of interest to our members. EFF events (those sponsored by us or featuring an EFF speaker) are marked with a "*" instead of a "-" after the date. Simlarly, government events, such as deadlines for comments on reports or testimony submission, are marked with "!" in place of the "-" after the date. If you know of an event of some sort that should be listed here, please send info about it to Stanton McCandlish (mech@eff.org) The latest full version of this calendar, which includes material for later in the year as well as the next couple of months, is available from: ftp: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/calendar.eff gopher: gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF, calendar.eff http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/calendar.eff Updated: Jun. 6, 1995 June 7- 9 - Third International Conference on Artificial Intelligence Applications on Wall Street; Pace University, New York City, NY. Contact: +1 914 763 8820 (voice), +1 914 763 9324 (fax) Email: satwell@mcimail.com June 8- 10 - Exploring the VideoClass Alternative; Raleigh, N. Carolina. Email: tom_russell@ncsu.edu June 11- 14 - Society & the Future of Computing (SFC'95); Tamarron Lodge, Durango, Colorado. Sponsored by the Assoc. for Computing Machinery, LANL, U. of Md., IEEE. Speakers will include Phil Agre (UCSD), Leslie Sandberg (Institute for Telemedicine), Wm. Halverson (PacBell), Don Norman (Apple), Linda Garcia (Congressional Office of Technology Assessment), John Cherniavsky (Natl. Science Found.) and several others. Email: sfc95@lanl.gov WWW: http://www.lanl.gov/LANLNews/Conferences/.sfc95/sfcHome.html/ June 13- 15 - IDT 95 - 12th Congress on Information Markets and Industries; Paris, France. Organized by ADBS (a society of information professionals), ANRT (National Association of Technological Research), and GFII (French association of information industries). Contact: +33 1 43 72 25 25 (voice), +33 1 43 72 30 41 (fax) June 17- 19 - NECC'95: Emerging Technologies and Lifelong Learning: 16th Annual National Educational Computing Conf., sponsored by International Society for Technology in Education; Baltimore, Maryland. VP Gore and Sec'y. of Labor Robert Reich invited as keynote speakers. Other speakers include: John Phillipo (CELT), Frank Knott (MGITB) Contact: +1 503 346 2834 (voice), +1 503 346 5890 (fax) Email: necc95@ccmail.uoregon.edu June 18- 21 - ED-MEDIA'95; Graz, Austria. A world conference on educational multimedia and hypermedia. Sponsor: The Association for the Advancement of Computing. Contact: +1 804 973 3987 (voice) Email: aace@virginia.edu. June 24- 28 - Workshop on Ethical & Professional Issues in Computing; Rensselaer Polytechnic Inst., Troy, NY. Deadline for submissions: Apr. 15. Contact: +1 518 276 8503 (voice), +1 518 276 2659 (fax) Email: cherkt@rpi.edu June 27- 29 - Women in Technology Conference: Channels for Change; Santa Clara Conv. Ctr., Santa Clara, Calif. Speakers include: Gloria Steinem. Sponsored by Int'l. Network of Women in Technology (WITI). Contact: +1 818 990 1987 (voice), +1 818 906 3299 (fax) Email: witi@crl.com June 28- 30 - INET '95 Internet Society 5th Ann. International Networking Conf.; Honolulu, Hawaii. Sponsored by Internet Society (ISoc). See Jan. 13 for proposal deadline Contact: +1 703 648 9888 (voice) FTP: ftp.isoc.org, /isoc/inet95/ Gopher: gopher.isoc.org, 1/isoc/inet95 WWW: http://www.isoc.org/inet95.html Email: inet95@isoc.org July 5- 7 - Key Players in the Introduction of Information Technology: Their Social Responsibility & Professional Training; Namur, Belgium. Sponsored by CREIS. Email: nolod@ccr.jussieu.fr, clobet@info.fundp.ac.be July 5- 8 - Alliance for Community Media International Conference and Trade Show. [See Jan. 31 for proposal submission deadline info]. Contact: Alliance c/o MATV, 145 Pleasant St., Malden, MA 02148 Fax: (617) 321-7121; Voice: Rika Welsh (617) 321-6400 Email: matv@world.std.com July 5- 8 - 18th International Conf. on Research & Development in Information Retrieval; Sheraton Hotel, Seattle, Wash. Email: sigir95@u.washington.edu July 6- 7 ! Interoperability & the Economics of Information Infrastructure; Freedom Forum, Rosslyn, Virginia. IITF/NSF/Harvard/FFMSC joint workshop to "analyze and evaluate economic incentives and impediments to achieving interoperability in the National Information Infrastructure. The goal is to help agencies, associations, the Administration, and the Congress to develop sound policies for realizing the vision of a seamless, interoperating NII. Deadline for proposals: Mar. 17. Deadline for submissions: June 15. Contact: +1 617 495 8903 (voice), +1 617 495 5776 (fax) Email: kahin@harvard.edu July 11- 15 - '95 Joint International Conference: Association for Computers and the Humanties, and Association for Literacy and Linguistic Computing; UCSB, Santa Barbara, Calif. Will highlight the development of new computing methodologies for research and teaching in the humanities Contact: Eric Dahlin, +1 805 687 5003 (voice) Email: hcf1dahl@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu July 22- 26 - Syllabus'95; Sonoma State U., Rohnert Park, Calif. "The premier conference covering the use of technology in the curriculum" Contact: 1-800-773-0670 (voice, US-only), +1 408 746 200 (voice, elsewhere) Email: syllabus@netcom.com ------------------------------ Subject: Quote of the Week -------------------------- In light of the advent of Sen. Feinstein's draft bill, we'll keep last issue's quote of the week for this issue too: "It is no solution to define words as violence or prejudice as oppression, and then by cracking down on words or thoughts pretend that we are doing something about violence and oppression. No doubt it is easier to pass a speech code or hate-crimes law and proclaim the streets safer than actually to make the streets safer, but the one must never be confused with the other...Indeed, equating "verbal violence" with physical violence is a treacherous, mischievous business." - Jonathon Rauch, in an essay in _Harper's_Magazine_, May 1995 Find yourself wondering if your privacy and freedom of speech are safe when bills to censor the Internet are swimming about in a sea of of surveillance legislation and anti-terrorism hysteria? Worried that in the rush to protect us from ourselves that our government representatives may deprive us of our essential civil liberties? Join EFF! ------------------------------ Subject: What YOU Can Do ------------------------ * Communications Decency Act (the Exon Legislation) The Communications Decency Act poses serious threats to freedom of expression online, and to the livelihoods of system operators. The legislation also undermines several crucial privacy protections. Business/industry persons concerned should alert their corporate govt. affairs office and/or legal counsel. Everyone should write to their own Senators and ask them to support the replacement of Exon's communications decency language in the Senate telecom reform bill s.652 with S. 714, Sen. Leahy's alternative to the Comm. Decency Act. Explain quickly, clearly and politely, why you feel the Exon language is dangerous. S.652, the Senate telecom deregulation bill, now contains Sen. Exon's "Communications Decency Act" (formerly S.314.) The House version of the CDA, H.R.1004, is essentially stalled. The House telecom reform bill will almost certainly include the Leahy language, a fact that may be worth mentioning to your Senators. For more information on what you can do to help stop this and other dangerous legislation, see: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ If you do not have full internet access, send your request for information to ask@eff.org. * The Dole/Grassley Draft Internet Censorship Bill As above, contact your Senators, and ask them to oppose this legislation, and to support the Leahy amendment to S.652. * The Lott Draft Amendment to the Exon Legislation As above, contact your Senators, and ask them to oppose this amendment to the Senate Telecom Bill. Ask the to not only oppose this but oppose all of the Communications Decency Act, urging them to support the Leahy alternative, currently S.714. * The Feinstein Draft Internet Censorship Bill As above, contact your Senators, and ask them to oppose the addition of any such legislation, particular that authored by Sen. Feinstein, to the Dole "Comprehensive Terrorism Prevention Act", S.735. You may also wish to express your concerns about other civil liberties problems raised by the bill, and encourage your Senator to vote against such proposals until a proper study and period of public evaluation an input have taken place. * Find Out Who Your Congresspersons Are Writing letters to, faxing, and phoning your representatives in Congress is one very important strategy of activism, and an essential way of making sure YOUR voice is heard on vital issues. EFF has lists of the Senate and House with contact information, as well as lists of Congressional committees. These lists are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Issues/Activism/Congress_cmtes http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ The full Senate and House lists are senate.list and hr.list, respectively. Those not in the U.S. should seek out similar information about their own legislative bodies. EFF will be happy to archive any such information provided. If you do not know who your Representatives are, you should contact you local League of Women Voters, who typically maintain databases that can help you find out. * Join EFF! You *know* privacy, freedom of speech and ability to make your voice heard in government are important. You have probably participated in our online campaigns and forums. Have you become a member of EFF yet? The best way to protect your online rights is to be fully informed and to make your opinions heard. EFF members are informed and are making a difference. Join EFF today! For EFF membership info, send queries to membership@eff.org, or send any message to info@eff.org for basic EFF info, and a membership form. ------------------------------ Administrivia ============= EFFector Online is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1667 K St. NW, Suite 801 Washington DC 20006-1605 USA +1 202 861 7700 (voice) +1 202 861 1258 (fax) +1 202 861 1223 (BBS - 16.8k ZyXEL) +1 202 861 1224 (BBS - 14.4k V.32bis) Membership & donations: membership@eff.org Legal services: ssteele@eff.org Hardcopy publications: pubs@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org Editor: Stanton McCandlish, Online Services Mgr./Activist/Archivist (mech@eff.org) This newsletter printed on 100% recycled electrons. Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements may be reproduced individ- ually at will. To subscribe to EFFector via email, send message body of "subscribe effector-online" (without the "quotes") to listserv@eff.org, which will add you to a subscription list for EFFector. Back issues are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ To get the latest issue, send any message to effector-reflector@eff.org (or er@eff.org), and it will be mailed to you automagically. You can also get the file "current" from the EFFector directory at the above sites at any time for a copy of the current issue. HTML editions available at: http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/HTML/ at EFFweb. End of EFFector Online v08 #07 Digest ************************************* $$ --Boundary (ID 5DUVCRxR4cSyiQPnYiT/yw)-- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:36:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc In-Reply-To: <00991877.16418D60.3310@cpcmg.uea.ac.uk> from "I.LIGHTMAN" at Jun 7, 95 03:51:59 pm It seems that this dichotomy of three-chord vs. non-three-chord music dovetails into the, albeit short, "discipline discussion. I would agree with George on the basis of craft and complexity that Hole lives up to its name. But I too find that when you aren't looking for a bravado fireworks of musical discipline, there is a raw grace to powerchords which enoys the subtlety of broad strokes. Fine. Posing I don't need. Jesus & Mary Chain, the old stuff like Psychocandy, comes to mind. Biker disco. I find my favourite music falls into genre bending. Tom Waits and Cowboy Junkies have opened me to Western and Crooning by interrogating the conventions and storylines that accompany, usually. Tom Waits acts, assumes a voice and character: Gun Street Girl, for ex. The music follows not out of loyalty to theory or tradition, but to the costumes and cracks. asdf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 12:54:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: discipline In-Reply-To: <199506070710.AAA23612@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Sheila E. Murphy" at Jun 7, 95 00:09:57 am Sheila, I'm glad you enjoyed the post and I appreciate your encouragement. I think what is daunting,t o me, is that Vancouver is not yet a metropolis bursting at the seams. The result is a small scene, say, six or seven open mike venues, usually run by friends with similar expectations about mikepoetry and presuppositions about the audience. The result is deja-vu from club to club and an incestuous quality. Case in point: One reader at a local club reads everyweek with great applause and guffaw because he is soooo offensive and gross: "Fuck cops / they should die with guns up their ass" stuff. The audience gets a kick out of watching how naughty someone can be, it seems. He now has a large following and because he sells seats his friends are reading too: same stuff. One even wrote a tribute to the "cop guy", as he's known. I don't think this is a new situation in poetry, but it is felt more where venues and audience's are limited and liminal. It also makes me wonder more about the audience than the writer: is this a community of poetry readers which has always been, or is it new and growing? Best, Ryan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 21:07:24 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: fibrous optical site locations Comments: cc: Kenneth Goldsmith , braman sandra , "I.LIGHTMAN" , Caroline Bergvall , Erik Belgum , Gary Sullivan , John Cayley , Robert A Harrison , "Sheila E. Murphy" , John Byrum , Mn Center For Book Arts , w.curnow@auckland.ac.nz, Blair Seagram , selby@slip.net >cris, hi: > >--with respect to what you noted regarding the formation of a list for >visual/sound poetry, i'm told a list can be enacted here (at simon fraser >univ. in vancouver), and if you wish to consider that i can get the ball >rolling. but i know this is completely your baby, and it will remain so. >like yourself, though, i have a serious interest in and love of >"concrete," and want to do anything i can to re-invent the public for it. >but it's your call > >look forward to hearing from you >carl Carl, all bowing and kssing of hands aside - help - it's not 'my baby', the point I was hoping to make. It's a shared interest and I was seekng a simple mechanism for exchange. So if there's majordomo tech at Simon Fraser and there's the energy to set that in motion I'd say great, please go for that. >cris-- > >yesterday blair sent me a gif of a visual poem via e-mail. it worked >beautifully! this is the way to go! Backing this message up. That's all. Waiting to hear from others but my sense is go on Carl - yep, let's move. Doesn't preempt poetics list discussions or digests in that space either. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 14:48:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: fibrous optical site locations In-Reply-To: <9506072104.aa07536@post.demon.co.uk> from "cris cheek" at Jun 7, 95 09:07:24 pm criss, ok, i'll see what i can do, and get back to you soon take care, carl ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 14:51:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reginald Johanson Subject: discipline On June 6, George Bowering said that the open mike scene was usually dissapointing. And I would say yes it is--but disappointing to whom, and why? Disappointing very often to me, but is that strictly a matter of bruised ego that then gets intellectualized into a statement like "they wouldn't know a good poem if one slapped them in the face"? I think there may be something of this in my disappointment. And, as someone else has mentioned here (sorry name escapes me) the young poet whose stuff is rejected by the lit. establishment university people says the same thing and goes to the open mike night where they *really* appreciate *real* poetry etc. So maybe, if myself and others are on the margins between these two (and other) traditions that's actually a rather dynamic place to be, drawing (hopefully) on the best of all of it. reg ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 15:36:50 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: opportunity knocks Hey people, I'm putting together a reading series for the fall and winter of next year, for Small Press Traffic. It is to be an experimental series with a heavy multi-cultural emphasis--and it is to highlight 5 small presses (one press per evening, two readers published by that press), to promote those presses. Included in the project will be a newsletter with work by the readers, as well as reviews of various books by the presses. There is some money for this, but I'm not sure exactly how much. All the readers will be paid. I may do more than 5 evenings. So, anybody interested in this? Anybody published by a small press planning to be in the Bay Area in the fall or winter? I'd like to put a tentative list together by the end of this month. Thanks, Dodie Bellamy And, Maria D.--other than the fact that Susan Howe's reading was mouth-gapingly incredible, anything else interesting I'd have to say about Blaserfest would be strictly backchannel, i.e., Gossipfest. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 19:08:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc In-Reply-To: <00991877.16418D60.3310@cpcmg.uea.ac.uk> I had another meeting with someone from Cybermind today and we were talking about alternative rock music and both realized that strangely enough it's the one area that's remained impervious to academia. Even performance art/video have their place in the middle of the university, but it's hard to assimilate Hole and the like and that's part of what's incredible about the music, that it can be analyzed (to death) within institutional structures, but remains outside, even with recording contracts, etc. Just a look at CBGB's compared to St. Mark's down the street or a writing class. So there's a lot of nervous energy and some incredible stuff going on at what might still be considered the margins (Soul Coughing for example)... Alan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 19:30:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506071805.LAA20998@fraser.sfu.ca> I've known a fair number of rock stars, some were students of mine, some just friends, and they took their work as seriously as I take mine or as the poets I've known take theirs. I don't see why rock isn't as much an art as any other cultural form; I don't even see what possible argument could be made against it. If you don't like it, fine, but not to _recog- nize_ it as art is something else again. I wouldn't want to be the student for example of someone who couldn't understand why I'd take Hole, whatever, seriously. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:46:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: hole In-Reply-To: <199506070431.VAA11937@unixg.ubc.ca> On Tue, 6 Jun 1995, George Bowering wrote: > I dont know where Lindz gets the idea about east-west bashing at the > Blaserfest and readings. I was there all the way and didnt notice it. > It is also not true that Ondaatje was the only eastern Canadian poet > at the readings; there were plenty. McCaffery and Mac Cormack, Robt > Hogg, Victor Coleman, for examples. Erin Moure was there. And we > embraced all these people as ourselves. > I seem to remeber several references to grilling and serving sundried things in a couple poems, which are things I never hear or see in TOronto. Victor himself who just moved west 18 months ago seemed pretty eager to boast of seeing the light and moving west. At the same time there was a sense of I've been ther, done that, lived the tough life in the east, but I'm adjusting to things out here. Aswell personally I don't mind Hole, it's good to listen to loud and jump around to when I'm feeling pissy. But Courtney Love is an idiot. I read in an interview with Trent Reznor( Nine Inch Nails) that when she was opening for them she passed out on a pool table after a show. HEr band mates proceeded to hike her dress up under her pits and snap shots of her panties and bare ass. Now that is grunge. Lindz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 17:57:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Watts Subject: Re: adios muchachos In-Reply-To: <199506060632.XAA11181@whistler.sfu.ca> from "Lindz Williamson" at Jun 5, 95 11:29:16 pm Lindz, You forgot to mention (notice?) that in addition to Michael Ondaatje, there were Bob Hogg (Ottawa), Steve McCaffery (Kingston/Toronto), Karen Mac Cormack (ditto), Jed Rasula (ditto), and Victor Coleman (Toronto if there ever was one). And from east of Vancouver but still in the west: E.D. Blodgett (Edmonton), Fred Wah (Calgary), Hilary Clark (Sakatoon). Certainly not a huge showing of easterners, but certainly not an attempt to freeze out easterners. In fact: Brian Fawcett (previously of Vancouver but now of Toronto) was asked (couldn't come); Lola Tostevin (Toronto) was asked, thought she might, but ultimately couldn't come; Nicole Brossard (Montreal) was asked; couldn't come. A serious miss, someone I wanted to have but never quite got to: Chris Dewdney (Toronto). It would have been wonderful to have Chris there, as it would have been to have Nicole and Lola and Brian. Yes, it's true, there was a much greater representation of the Canadian west than of the east (what would you expect of a festival in honour of a poet whose residence for the past thirty years has been in Vancouver, whose closest friends are in Vancouver?) but "Toronto bashing?" Never even a consideration. Remember that Coach House (Toronto) published THE HOLY FOREST. More important issues than local rivalries were the stuff of the conference. I can't imagine a non-issue more beside the point, or more grotesquely misrepresenting the spirit of the conference and festival--which included quite a few writers from outside Canada. Charles Watts> > But when you say, "He tells me you don't get enough Canadian stuff and > we'll be pleased to supply, but not represent the whole as the Conference > was a "western" affair. Lots of Toronto bashing was in the air." -- I'm > not certain what you mean, or if you are just replying to Ryan in some > personal way I don't get. Just know that not all tuned to this list have > loyalties to Toronto or Vancouver or Buffalo or any particular place. My > own are curiously displaced toward the Arizona desert, where there are a > few people who are on this poetics list as well. > > Charles, > > I wasn't replying to Ryan, rather Ryan was approached by Kevin > Killian at the reading last night and I accompanied Ryan to the reading > along with Reg ( new to the list). Kevin expressed an interest in > receiving new Canadian poetry from Ryan and I and any others we knew > because he had little except from established writers. The western > reference is just part of the continuing war amongst East and West in > Canada. We the west ( Granola Heads) enjoy poking at the Snobs with snow > in the east. As far as I know Ondaatje was the only Eastern based writer > at the reading last night. > It's all part of the Canadian mentality, if you say you're driving > across Canada it means you're either going east to Toronto or Montreal, or > west to Vancouver. The prairies and the maritimes although great sources > of Canadian culture are not included in the concept of the civilized > world. They are a source of great insecurity and pride. My Mom's a > maritimer (Newfie) which puts me at the but of several jokes. I'll leave > you with one (note my Mom has seven brothers) > > > How does a Newfie girl stay a virgin? > > Run faster than her brothers. > > > Lindz > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 18:11:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reginald Johanson Subject: sentimentality Whenever I want to take pop music "seriously", I'm almost always defeated by the musicians themselves, many of whom would find this (w)Hole discussion completely absurd: "Artists?" I can hear them saying, "we'd rather be dead than artists. Pete bloody Townshend thinks he's an artist." reg ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 12:46:08 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: sentimentality >Whenever I want to take pop music "seriously", I'm almost always >defeated by the musicians themselves, many of whom would find this >(w)Hole discussion completely absurd: "Artists?" I can hear them >saying, "we'd rather be dead than artists. Pete bloody Townshend >thinks he's an artist." >reg I thought Pete "bloody" Townshend was a poet!!! Seriously, I 'discovered' poetry by reading the lyrics to rock songs as a teenager and I still think 'pop' music can be taken seriously. Of course there is pop music and pop music - one might have trouble taking Abba seriously while it is far too easy to take Nick Cave seriously! Could I ask the question can one take 'jazz' seriously. I mean some of those jazz players.......... Mark ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 13:00:12 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Roberts Subject: Re: Sentimentality, music etc >I had another meeting with someone from Cybermind today and we were >talking about alternative rock music and both realized that strangely >enough it's the one area that's remained impervious to academia. Even >performance art/video have their place in the middle of the university, >but it's hard to assimilate Hole and the like and that's part of what's >incredible about the music, that it can be analyzed (to death) within >institutional structures, but remains outside, even with recording >contracts, etc. Just a look at CBGB's compared to St. Mark's down the >street or a writing class. So there's a lot of nervous energy and some >incredible stuff going on at what might still be considered the margins >(Soul Coughing for example)... > >Alan There have been some attempts that have almost succeeded. Back in the late 70's when I was an undergrad at Sydney Uni the Philosophy dept had split in two with the traditional philosophers going one way and the marxists, feminists, punks etc going the other. I remember some amazing aesthetics discussion on punk culture/music . Some of the lecturers were in a band called The Slugfuckers - great stuff. Mark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 23:07:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: sentimentality In-Reply-To: <199506080111.SAA21438@fraser.sfu.ca> Depends on the musicians. Many of the ones I know would find it absurd _not_ to be considered artists. The same as poets or any other group. And who cares how Courtney behaves? Rimbaud was a model, Chatterton? People are people... Alan On Wed, 7 Jun 1995, Reginald Johanson wrote: > Whenever I want to take pop music "seriously", I'm almost always > defeated by the musicians themselves, many of whom would find this > (w)Hole discussion completely absurd: "Artists?" I can hear them > saying, "we'd rather be dead than artists. Pete bloody Townshend > thinks he's an artist." > reg > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 21:02:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: sensitive In-Reply-To: <199506080057.RAA23315@monashee.sfu.ca> I only attended the sunday night reading, not the Saturday night reading which had a by far more diverse and longer line up. I was merely refering to murmurs I heard in passing through the crowd during the intermissions. I might be hyper sensitive to Easterns because of recent experiences on campus when young Torontonians folk west to get their BA, take up snowboarding and excahnge snow for mild rainy winters. All I ever hear is " This is such a town. . ." "We had/ got /did / this ages ago in Toronto. . ." " Everyone is so laid back and happy here, what's wrong with you people." and so forth. I was merely pleased that on Sunday the west was being appreciated. Some of my favorite writers are from the east, some of my most dear friends are in the east. But what I've constantly been overwhelmed by lately is the emerging regionality of Canada. In matters of economy, geography, and social atmosphere I find relationships form from North to South. Seattle has more incommon with Vancouver than Calgary, Winnipeg or Toronto. In matters of writing I find the same trend follows. I can only write what I know and feel and represent wher I have been. And from MY interpretaion of the SUnday night reading western Canadian experinces were largely the basis of the reading. Victor even presented a poem ( the title escapes me ) about how he had to adjust to living in Vancouver (remember the alphabet poem). Ondaatje spole beautifully of the unearthing of Buddhist statues, now although he resides in eastern Cnada this is an out of Province, country, continent, experience. He may not write about Canada, but I belive Cnada does exsist if not influence his writing. Would coming through slaughter be the same book if was written in the Queen Charlottes? Or a better example is Runnign In the Family, the duality of experience between Sri Lanka and Canada is totally evident in the writing. My point is geography affects/ infects not only writing, but audiences, and conferences, and readings. LIndz ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 00:30:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Byrum Subject: Re: sentimentality Hey George, listen to some Nirvana. Good stuff, some interesting lyrics reminiscent of Lang Po approaches to composition; sung in gravelly voice and "scream style", with suitably "bad" "I can't give a shit 'cause the world's too fucked up (teen angst)" guitars & arrangements. Nirvana was the best available in the current "alternative" entertainment scene. NOTE: This reply has: Half of tongue in cheek, half drug along ground. John Byrum ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 22:26:01 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: Warren Sonbert 1947-1995 Thank you Charles for reminding us all about Warren Sonbert. >Warren Sonbert died on Wednesday, at home and surrounded by friends. He was >47 years old. He >seemed to live a charmed life -- travelling the world, attending operas in >Europe and North American, having his work shown at Festivals and museums. >But charms are haunted. > Oh how I remember how I kept bugging Warren to "cast" me in one of his films & him explaining patiently that his films weren't really "cast" in that way-he said once that my shadow could appear in one-but that wasn't enough for me . . . I remember how he was so generous & expansive & we argued about George Cukor over and over. How when my 2nd play appeared he wrote this thumbs-up review in the paper that thrilled all of us who were in it, tho' I knew he only came in the 1st place to take in Carla Harryman's skillful, wiggy impersonation of Dodie. Oh, when will this terrible disease leave us all alone & go back to whatever hole it climbed out of in space, but that will never happen unless we do more. God bless him & thank you again, Charles. -Kevin Killian ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 7 Jun 1995 23:36:41 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Report on Blaser Conference Maria Damon wrote: >speaking of the blaser conference, cd someone --or several of you --so we can >compile a composite profile --give us a report over the net for those of us who >are interested but unable to attend? hi pts, lo pts, entertaining anecdotes, >and overall vibe-picture? how's he doing anyway? descriptions, poems, riffs, >meditations and reminiscences? thanks in advance! --maria d My Report-Kevin Killian Brief & sketchy. Okay, well the "hi pts" for me were as follows: Dodie is right about Susan Howe & that she stole the show during this one long reading with 22 poets. She stood on tiptoes and read & made everyone else seem half baked-no-pallid. Well actually I enjoyed some other readings quite a bit-incl. Deanna Ferguson, Dorothy Lusk Trujillo or whatever her name is, and other Canadian poets new to me. Pierre Joris, your camel poem sure pleased the crowd, or was it camels, or horses? Steve McCaffery is a God. Susan Clark gave a very emotional, moving reading, and Lisa Robertson is becoming the new updated Elizabeth Smart. I had heard Karen MacCormack here in San Francisco before, but now she is even better, understated, in control, dignified, a dynamo too. Joanne Kyger read a piece about seeing Quan Yin-the Buddhist goddess-or whatever-and Dodie interviewed her in the women's "washroom" asking her if she really saw Quan Yin and JK said, "Yes, but you have to be on the right substance." Gosh, I seem to be praising all these women, well, that's me to a T. I didn't even mention Anne Waldman yet, a show all to herself . . . And what about that Rachel Blau Du Plessis! Rachel if you're listening to this, "Drafts" 24 has opened up to a new theatricality & largeness of expression and scope that's just marvelous. Several have noted how Robin was in attendance during every event-for 4 days, from 9:30 a.m. till past midnight. Needless to say I didn't match his record & there were several panels I skipped or missed. I don't have his stamina-however maybe if it was all about me I would have attended it all too. His reading which climaxed the whole affaire was outstanding, he read "Exody," "Even on Sunday," the new poem "Nomad" and another poem that's in progress, very much so. Great starpower! Speaking of which, I have a new dream man, Canadian poet & novelist Michael Ondaatje. We had heard that he was the sexiest writer in Canada, which is not quite the case close up, but nevertheless he has piercing blue eyes & this wonderful accent I could listen to for a week on end. Dodie spotted him first but I wasn't far behind. After that, all he had to do was open his mouth or eyes and we were transfixed, like two American rabbits caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Duh. A genius as far as I'm concerned. Dodie was quite jealous when she overheard M.O. telling Catriona Strang that she was brilliant. Okay, but Catriona was brilliant; the performance she gave with Francois Houle, the avant-garde clarinetist, playing 2 clarinets at once at times, while Catriona barked out syllables, words, gritty demanding sentences, around the letters "R" and "B" made a sensation at the Festival Opening. Charles Bernstein opened the "opening" with a very smart witty talk that hit the right notes, including a rapidfire mention of all the groups Robin has been associated with (Boston Gang, Vancouver poets, SF Renaissance, New American poets, Berkeley Renaissance) then reminding us that he has been all these things and more and none. The organizers worked like dogs. I felt sorry for them but they did not seem to be feeling sorry for themselves. Bravo to all! I saw most of Charles Watts and Karen Tallman but everyone seemed totally together. I did feel the strange disquieting presence of Warren Tallman, like a ghost, haunting the whole conference and the whole city and I kept wondering what he was making of all this hoopla. One man called "Robert Hullot-Kentor" gave a fine, iconoclastic paper, very Adorno-based, basically saying that there's no point to recovering the public world, that today there's no public and in fact no world. Next door to the Emily Carr School where the panels were held was a very fine show called "In Search of Orpheus: Some Bay Area Poets & Painters 1945-65," curated by Scott Watson. Jess, Tom Field, Harry Jacobus, Blaser himself, Lyn Brockway, a bright crayon drawing by Spicer, etc., etc, most of the work from Blaser's own collection. Here the work of Fran Herndon shone like a revelation. Here were the lithographs she did for Spicer's book The Heads of the Town up to the Aether, and the larger sports-themed collages you can see reproduced in Jim Herndon's book "Everything as Expected." Fran Herndon was in Vancouver attending the conference in person & received a tremendous ovation when picked out of the audience and introduced. It's about time such a talented artist began receiving the recognition due her. So to see it all happening before one's eyes was an incredible lift. (Best news is, some of the work-including that shown at the gallery- is for sale) (and not expensive either) (E mail me for more details if you're interested) Kristin Prevallet made a stir with her slide presentation, during the first panel, "Companions," outlining the life & work of the late Helen Adam. Prevallet's research into the Adam papers at the Lockwood Library showed us all for the first time the extent and power of Adam's greatness as a poet & writer. And artist too, for Prevallet was able to bring out of the archives several-eight or nine?-of Helen Adam's unique collage-based works, which were shown in the Scott Gallery as part of the Orpheus show-in fact it's hard to figure how incomplete the show would have been without them. For bibliophiles-the appearance of a dozen or so copies of Helen Adam's rare White Rabbit book "The Queen o' Crow's Castle" (1958) ill. by Jess-on the book table-for sale-and only $15.00 (Canadian) apiece-would have made you swoon! Try and get one in San Francisco for less than $100.00 (American)-and these were white as snow, no trace of fading or foxing-MINT! Well-they're all gone now for sure! In fact the book table-book section-organized by Vancouver's Black Sheep Books-was totally tempting & I must have spent, oh, God, I don't even want to remember. I had fun having lunch with Joanne Kyger, Dora FitzGerald, George Stanley and Fran Herndon one sunny afternoon & then all of them sparking each other to more and more remembrances of Spicer faster than I could take it all in . . . and introducing them to Kristen so that they could tell her all about Helen Adam . . . I had this eerie feeling of history right in my hands. There could have been another wonderful reading just culled from those who were there in the audience, quite a swell crowd including Lee Ann Brown, Elizabeth Willis, Erin Moure, Myung Mi Kim, Kevin Magee, Laynie Browne, Matthew Stadler, Colin Smith, etc., etc. I felt safe going up to Vancouver because, with the help of so many pals, I had secured quite a number of "tributes" to Robin from those who could not attend. With those in my attache case I felt like a king. Ellen Tallman & I got to read them out loud at the dinner. Some of them were from people on this Poetics List, and I will be writing to you privately, each of you, to thank you at length, but for now let me close by thanking you all in toto-Giorgio Agamben, Don Allen, Bruce Andrews, James Broughton, Cid Corman, Robert Creeley, Samuel R. Delany, Allen Ginsberg, Robert Gluck, Barbara Guest, Thom Gunn, Lyn Hejinian, Jess, Robert Kelly, Gerrit Lansing, Denise Levertov, Jackson Mac Low, Bob Perelman, Avital Ronell, Claude Royet-Journoud, Ron Silliman and I'm leaving 1 or 2 out. But thanks to you all! And then to come back home and realize that Warren Sonbert was dying just when DB and I were getting onto the plane. All right! That's enough from me. P.S., to Maria, Dodie is still going to mail you her version of events, BlaserFest Back Channel. You too Rae. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 09:43:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: More on the Blaser Do Further high points of the Blaser conference for me included Kevin himself (too modest, I guess, to mention his own performance) with his darkly humourous account of the inescapable brutalities of eros in the Blaser/Duncan/Spicer circles, Peter Quartermain's marvelous discussion of laughter generally and specifically in Robin's poems, George Stanley's poetic response to the eros panel, Peter Middleton's wonderful invocation of Winie the Pooh in his discussion of performance, Steve Dickison's discussion of various musics (Feldman, Nono, etc.) contemporary with Robin's writing employing parallel compositional principles, and the conversation provoked by the last panel between Don Byrd, Charlie Altieri, and Robin about questions of agency, form, and structure. Even in sketching out this little recollection, I'm leaving out so much that I enjoyed and was provoked by. Kevin pretty well covered the poetry (and music) part of things, although let me just mention here the readings by Norma Cole (remember her "catastrophes"?) and Michelle Leggott. Not to mention Fred Wah and George Bowering. Wow. I could just go on and on. I'm still buzzing. Robert Hullot-Kentor's presentation on the impossibility of recovering a public world when the world is determined by the Market was certainly provocative and interesting, though I did feel we may have recovered a little corner of it, or at least temporarily occupied it. (It was toward the back of that big open market where a group of us had lunch.) The fact that this moment was made possible by and pitched its tent in the middle of Robin's poetics was itself a testament to the continuing power of the image to move us to marvels. It may not have been the Pyramids or Chartres Cathedral, but, man, we were, as they (used to) say, groovin'. Best, Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 09:52:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: SUBJECT field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Warren Sonbert * * * Independent filmmaker Warren Sonbert, 47, died May 31 at his home in San Francisco, of complications from AIDS. His work is of particular interest to poets, and not just because he counted many poets and writers, especially in New York and San Francisco, among his friends. Warren's career as a filmmaker began in the mid-60s while he was still at NYU film school. Although based in San Francisco since the early 1970s, he spent much time in New York and traveled frequently throughout North America and Europe, making nearly 200 personal appearances at one-person shows of his work. Passionate interest in film, opera, classical music, other performing and visual arts, and travel is reflected in his films, which document a life totally engaged in art and in the daily experience that provides the artist's material. The titles of his later films reveal a poet's concern with ironies and valences of received phrase--Carriage Trade, Rude Awakening, Divided Loyalties, Noblesse Oblige, A Woman's Touch, The Cup and the Lip, Honor and Obey, Friendly Witness, Short Fuse--just as his earlier titles conjure up the mid-60s New York underground where he came on the scene--Amphetamine, Where Did Our Love Go?, Hall of Mirrors, Truth Serum, The Bad and the Beautiful, Holiday--not to mention his lifelong fascination with Hollywood and the narrative film. Warren's own work is non-narrative, not following characters through a foregrounded plotline but, rather, has been called collisional montage. "Critics have tried to pin down Sonbert's cinema with catchy formulations . . . . His works are not really diary films, since their carefully shaped contours are determined more by aesthetic insight than daily experience, and to compare them with 'explosions in a postcard factory' is to acknowledge their boisterous variety while missing their ecstatic precision," wrote Christian Science Monitor review David Sterritt. Of his own work, Warren said, "I think the films I make are, hopefully, a series of arguments, with each image, shot, a statement to be read and digested in turn," ("Film Syntax," a transcript of a talk that is at once an intensely close reading of several shot sequences and a primer on the art of film, published in Hills, 1980, republished by So. Illinois University Press in Hills/Talks, ed. Bob Perelman). Asked about discontinuity by David Simpson in a mid-80s interview, Warren said, "For me, one of the aspects of producing works, or art, let's say, is that there's definitely an element of disturbance, or astounding--sort of like some kind of conjuring trick. And one thing that's always attracted me about film, as opposed to photography or painting, is the ability to do that by removing an image and replacing it with another. And it's both an aesthetic and moral, ethical choice to do that. . . . The works that most astound and influence me are the ones that I can't, as you say, predict. . . ." Anyone pondering the affinity between Warren and poets could start right there. Although film was his primary medium, Warren was just as serious and meticulous about his writing. His music, opera, book, and film reviews--sometimes written under the Scotty Ferguson byline (protagonist of Hitchcock's Vertigo, perhaps Warren's favorite narrative film) appeared for years in weekly gay publications in San Francisco. Not a musician himself, he was intensely involved in the classical and operatic repertoire. Warren made 18 films, widely exhibited at arts, educational, and cultural institutions in the United States and Europe, as well as at the world's major film festivals. He was honored by numerous retrospectives, by six Cineprobes at the Museum of Modern Art and six Biennals at the Whitney Museum of American Art. His films are in the collections of more than a dozen prominent archives and universities. He also taught filmmaking at the San Francisco Art Institute, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and Bard College, and gave graduate seminars at a dozen other institutions. Warren is survived by his companion, Ascension Serrano, of San Francisco; his father, Jack Sonbert, of San Diego; and two brothers. For over 15 years he lived with graphic designer and art historian Ray Larsen, who died in 1992. The San Francisco Cinematheque is presenting a tribute to Sonbert, including an exhibition of three of his early films, 7:30 p.m., Thursday, June 22 at the Media Screening Room, Center for the Arts, Yerba Buena Gardens. Admission, $6.00. A memorial is planned for July at the San Francisco Zen Center Green Gulch Farm in Marin. Date to be announced. The Museum of Modern Art Department of Film in New York City is hosting an informal memorial gathering Wednesday evening, June 28, in the upstairs screening room. Call Department of Film for details. --Alan Bernheimer abernhei@hooked.net ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 10:48:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: note: previous Sonbert post is by Alan Bernheimer The previous message on Warren Sonbert is by Alan Bernheimer. The forwarded header making that clear was automatically removed in transmission. Alan asked me to pass on his obituary for Warren to our list. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 10:12:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: Report on Blaser Conference > > My Report-Kevin Killian > > Brief & sketchy. Okay, well the "hi pts" for me were as follows: > > wowie zowie baby yr so fine --thanks for the exhaustive and jealousy-inducing rundown, kevin. i've enjoyed george b's and pierre j's one-liners and lindz's regional radar (i agree, lindz, that regionalism is a huge under-theorized area --my big discovery when i took this job at MN and was utterly unprepared for the profound culture shock that plunged me into a spectacular 2-year depression). jeez, why'd i put papergrading before blaser? sorry robin. when's the next blaserfest?--maria ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 16:29:57 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "I.LIGHTMAN" Subject: Re: hole But in Hole's performances, the band is really tight and together, which is a mark of a band, I mean it's not just the number of chords you compose with, or how you arrange them, it's getting four musicians to play as a synergy and in time, this is very *rare*, and also only partly true of the two guys in Kurt Cobain's backing band. Tom, I say let the elegies to Kurt flow; he was a better artist than you or I or 90% of this list's members will ever be, musically anyway. And the arrangements in Abba's songs were amazing; technically they were much more ambitious and experimental with melody and harmony than many pop bands; do their critics on this list mean that Abba were "bad" because they were kitsch (though they still tug mine and many a queer person's heartstrings) or silly Swedes or what; Elvis Costello has admitted to getting most of his early musical ideas from Abba, the whole of Oliver's Army for example; his lyrics may not seem sentimental (macho, misogynist, crap, overblown, yes), and Abba's seem sentimental; but Abba are better. Ira ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 10:49:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Watts Subject: Re: sensitive In-Reply-To: from "Lindz Williamson" at Jun 7, 95 09:02:42 pm Thanks, Lindz, for yr response to my somewhat heated riposte to the remark that "Toronto bashing was in the air." I also think that place is an important non-dismissible ground for writing, and I hear what you say about the evident regionalism of thought in Canada. But the poetics that formed the issues of concern in the Recovery of the Public World conference have less to do with regionalism or with the notion of place as represented in much criticism and writing of the sixties, seventies, eighties than with resistance to a monocultural hegemony which would override particulars and differences of place, culture, sexual, social, ideological diversity; so that, in this sense, your remarks on region are very welcome, since they do speak of a particularity that living in the west or in Ontario or wherever imparts to a writer's work caught, as it is, within a larger issue of contending with that monocultural drive which would flatten or uproot or nomadize the diversities. Charles ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 18:02:55 EDT Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: beard@MET.CO.NZ Subject: Who killed Laura Ranger? The big news in New Zealand poetry recently has been Laura Ranger - a ten-year old Wellingtonian whose first book, `Laura's Poems', was the best selling NZ book for quite some time. Not just best-selling book of poetry, but beating novels and non-fiction, and probably selling more than all other NZ poets put together for several years. Her work shows definite talent, and many of the poems are enjoyable in their own right, but it says something about the audience for poetry when it takes non-textual factors like age to make a poet a best-seller. Of course, everyone's asking `Can she live up to our expectations, or will the media hype kill her talent?' - many other `child prodigies' have been stifled by this sort of pressure. Partly in response to this, also mulling over in my head Eco's `Interpretation and Overinterpretation' re Rorty's idea of `using' a text (is there a line between use and abuse?), also discovering how close the vocabulary of the senses is to erotic language (or perhaps that sexuality is essentially innocent?), and getting in a few playful digs at PoMo tropes - here are three found poems in possibly dubious taste. The numbers in the left margin are page references to the original lines in `Laura's Poems'. The Postmodern Laura 43 i sat on th ledge & 25 blue irises 28 appear 36 in th heart 42 they crawl on yr eyes 39 the wind 57 is begging to get thru 41 the wind is writing 55 but i cannot tell 20 i can't tell where it is 56 or how to speak th language 55 i have a secret word 43 it was knowledge Laura and Sappho 18 She's got extremely long legs, 34 worn out stockings, 42 with huge green eyes. 35 she arrives home sighing, 19 as soft as a cat. 23 In my room 23 I play with Eloise. 40 Her hair curls, 39 the clouds curl and turn, 40 she reaches out to touch me. 45 I go mining for gold. Who killed Laura Ranger? 12 My skin is as smooth 37 as a burnt piece of coal. 57 The crescent moon 24 is as white as a hospital room. 15 He knows I am writing a poem now, 61 his ears soar up and down. 54 Outside, everywhere, 45 the dollars flutter to the ground. 60 This is a smelly verse -- 57 it gets dark, 48 the colour is lost. 39 I grow as cold as stone. ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 15:52:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: palinode on a nightingale Ed et al So what will happen if we talk about beauty? Hasn't there been a shift in what poets consider necessary for a poem, away from beauty and towards heat death? Might be nicer to talk about subject/verb agreement. What do people wish would happen on this list? Speculating, Pinky ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 15:36:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: More on the Blaser Do In message <199506081343.JAA06727@blues.epas.utoronto.ca> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > Further high points of the Blaser conference for me included Kevin > himself (too modest, I guess, to mention his own performance) with his > darkly humourous account of the inescapable brutalities of eros in the > Blaser/Duncan/Spicer circles, Peter Quartermain's marvelous discussion > of laughter generally and specifically in Robin's poems, George > Stanley's poetic response to the eros panel, Peter Middleton's > wonderful invocation of Winie the Pooh in his discussion of > performance, Steve Dickison's discussion of various musics (Feldman, > Nono, etc.) contemporary with Robin's writing employing parallel > compositional principles, and the conversation provoked by the last > panel between Don Byrd, Charlie Altieri, and Robin about questions of > agency, form, and structure. Even in sketching out this little > recollection, I'm leaving out so much that I enjoyed and was provoked > by. Kevin pretty well covered the poetry (and music) part of things, > although let me just mention here the readings by Norma Cole (remember > her "catastrophes"?) and Michelle Leggott. Not to mention Fred Wah and > George Bowering. Wow. I could just go on and on. I'm still buzzing. > > Robert Hullot-Kentor's presentation on the impossibility of recovering > a public world when the world is determined by the Market was certainly > provocative and interesting, though I did feel we may have recovered a > little corner of it, or at least temporarily occupied it. (It was toward > the back of that big open market where a group of us had lunch.) > The fact that this moment was made possible by and pitched its tent in > the middle of Robin's poetics was itself a testament to the continuing > power of the image to move us to marvels. It may not have been the > Pyramids or Chartres Cathedral, but, man, we were, as they (used to) > say, groovin'. > > Best, > Mike > mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca thanks to you too, mike, i'm getting a contact high just from reading all these groovy names and lists and topics and vibes. --md ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:49:48 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: opportunity knocks >Hey people, > >I'm putting together a reading series for the fall and winter of next year, >for Small Press Traffic. It is to be an experimental series with a heavy >multi-cultural emphasis--and it is to highlight 5 small presses (one press >per evening, two readers published by that press), to promote those >presses. Included in the project will be a newsletter with work by the >readers, as well as reviews of various books by the presses. There is some >money for this, but I'm not sure exactly how much. All the readers will be >paid. I may do more than 5 evenings. > >So, anybody interested in this? Anybody published by a small press >planning to be in the Bay Area in the fall or winter? I'd like to put a >tentative list together by the end of this month. > >Thanks, >Dodie Bellamy > >And, Maria D.--other than the fact that Susan Howe's reading was >mouth-gapingly incredible, anything else interesting I'd have to say about >Blaserfest would be strictly backchannel, i.e., Gossipfest. Hi Dodie, you mean this year or next year? I'm serious. You talking '96 here or ? Cause whether it would interest you or not - and you nothing about my stuff I'm going to be over in fall '96 at conference in New Hampshire and plan doing events with Allen Fisher and Miles Champion and Sianed Jones under the Sound & Language curtain. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:50:01 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: tendermentality It's hard to believe - coming back here to talk of beards and pipes and whether drains are slacks or who's drugs were those notes. If PJ Monk or Sun Fitgerald discipline our hearts the most. Which art is higher or where lower orders work two chords who cares. Thanks to Alan Sondheim and Bob Drake for touching ground. Thanks also for the tender posts on Warren - moved cris ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 18:01:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rae Armantrout Subject: Re: opportunity knocks Dear Dodie, Fanny and I were talking about trying to get a reading in the Bay Area. Well, actually, Fanny wanted to read at Cal and I 've been trying to investigate that remote possibility, but it's just too daunting. Maybe we could read in your series. We've both been published by Sun And Moon - though in her case it was fiction not poetry. I might try to scam some sort of reading in Vancouver too. I've never been there (and I'm still awaiting the real conference gossip). Rae ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 15:53:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Watts Subject: Re: Report on Blaser Conference In-Reply-To: from "Kevin Killian" at Jun 7, 95 11:36:41 pm Thank you, Kevin (I still feel a bit as if I'm onstage making another announcement, but this one is heart felt) for this report, for your superb perceptions of events at the conference & readings. I had thought to add, as I was reading, that you had made a great contribution by seeking out so many letters and kudos from friends of Robin's, and now you've made even that easier by remembering them yourself. But you neglected to mention the enormous gifts you gave the conference in the form of your own reading, among the most moving I heard, and your brilliant paper on the enmitous wars of the Spicerites and Duncanians, with Robin the triage man getting hit more often than not himself (everything Kevin said is true, Robin told me). My absolute gratitude to you, you wonderful, generous man, you maker. (I mentioned to Daphne Marlatt, that at one point I'd thought to subtitle the conference "A conference of the birds," as in the medieval Arab and European tales of which Chaucer's "Parlement of Foules" is a late example. Your paper gave that early thought, considered and then dropped, new meaning! Love, Charles ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:24:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Poetics Backfiles Poetics list backfiles have been updated in the EPC for the months of April and May, 1995. The search feature will be updated momentarily. Best wishes, Loss ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:56:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: EPC Indexes - wow Just finished generating the index for the entire EPC (Poetics Archive index also done) and how's this the _dictionary_ for the EPC contains over 1 million words (1,090,000 plus). Our collective vocabulary exceeds the average desk dictionary by FIVE times. Interesting, no? (Please bear with me, I'm spending my evening generating EPC indexes so maybe I'm in a haze here but if you throw out those scientific terms in most dictionaries, we have really collectively used a lot of unique words!) Well, not meant for response really but just interesting, with my hands deep into the gears of the machine, how much has been generated! Loss ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 20:24:09 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale Jorday Davis writes, "So what will happen if we talk about beauty? Hasn't there been a shift in what poets consider necessary for a poem, away from beauty and towards heat death? Might be nicer to talk about subject/verb agreement. What do people wish would happen on this list?" What is "heat death?" Ah, beauty . . . Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind. charles charles alexander chax press minnesota center for book arts phone & fax: 612-721-6063 e-mail: mcba@maroon.tc.umn.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:36:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Diane Marie Ward Subject: Music, culture & Sondheim Irony, Coincidence, or Psychic Powers? As I sauntered over to my computer with blackberry tea in hand, I thought it might be wise to put in a cassette tape to listen to as I catch up on 4 days worth of email. I had 2 requirements: 1.) the music must provide a stress release & 2.) have an enigmatic quality - I did not want to be force-fed emotions or (God forbid) sentimental moanings from mainstream radio. My right hand reached for Beethoven's Heroica, but my left grabbed Hole's cassette. It was amusing that as I began to read Alan Sondheim's defense of Hole, she began to below through my speakers "I'm Miss World..." (Definitely a scene suitable for a Dickens novel!) If I may note, last week Martha Stewart was the Goddess of the Week and now Courtney Love is : the ultimate gulf between these 2 women is undeniable, but the fact that both are of interest to poets rests in the fact (I believe, and please pardon me if this has been written prior) that each represents an extreme in contemporary culture, and the EXTREME is a function of the REAL. If I may offer 2 quotes in support of Sondheim from D.H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature: "You can idealize or intellectualize. Or, on the contrary, you can let the dark soul in you see for itself. An artist usually intellectualizes on top, and his dark under-consciousness goes on contradicting him beneath." "Everything has its hour of ridicule - everything." --------------------------------------------------- --possessor of many Martha Stewart gardening books & cooking videos Diane Marie Ursula Ward ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 15:02:19 GMT+1300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Who killed Laura Ranger? Comments: To: beard@MET.CO.NZ Dear Tom, Shouldn't we tell them the real NEWS flash, that Michele Leggott arrived home from Vancouver and the Blaser fest where she read from DIA yesterday to learn on the TV news that night that that collection had won her the National Book Award for Poetry? Michele, as well as Bob Creeley and myself, gave presentations at the STASIS Conference in Auckland this morning, and it seemed her feet were still some distance from the ground. Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 20:08:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: discipline Reginald Johanson posts: >On June 6, George Bowering said that the open mike scene was usually >dissapointing. And I would say yes it is--but disappointing to whom, >and why? Disappointing very often to me, but is that strictly a >matter of bruised ego that then gets intellectualized into a >statement like "they wouldn't know a good poem if one slapped them in >the face"? I think there may be something of this in my >disappointment. And, as someone else has mentioned here (sorry name >escapes me) the young poet whose stuff is rejected by the lit. >establishment university people says the same thing and goes to the >open mike night where they *really* appreciate *real* poetry etc. So >maybe, if myself and others are on the margins between these two (and >other) traditions that's actually a rather dynamic place to be, >drawing (hopefully) on the best of all of it. I get frustrated with the open mic poetry scene in S.F.--it's anti-intellectual, anti-"craft", and generally run like a rock-n-roll scene; there are "stars" whose big egos are indulged, which discourages them from veering outside of certain narrow conceptualizations of "life". It's poetry as psychotherapy--and yet there *is* that energy and enthusiasm. If it can only be connected to the deeper places in the soul--and it can and occasionally is... Steve ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 19:21:31 -0600 Reply-To: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: peter quartermain Subject: Summer break and a book Let this lurker violate (!) his lurkerdom and announce that I'm off to England (to work, of course!), return 15 July, leaving the list for the duration. I'll catch up on my delinquent mail back channel before I leave. and add this, first: on 11 May Charles Bernstein said "some people on this list . . . have books out in the past few years but never announced them." Let me mention Richard Caddel's editing of _SHARP STUDY AND LONG TOIL: BASIL BUNTING SPECIAL ISSUE_ of the Durham University Journal, March 1 1995, available for ten pounds from Basil Bunting Poetry Centre, Durham Univesity Library, Palace Green, Durham DH1 3RN -- add about a pound for postage. This really good collection includes work by Basil Bunting, Carl Rakosi, Eric Mottram, Tony Lopez, Roy Fisher, Catherine Walsh, Susan Howe, Robert Creeley, George Evans; and prose by Donald Wesling, Peter Quartermain, John Seed, Harry Gilonis, Joseph Vicary, Peter Robinson, Rebecca Smalley, Mary de Rachewiltz, Dennis Goacher, Stephen Rodefer and Charles Tomlinson, plus some good book reviews by such as Wendy Mulford, Tony Baker, Ken Edwards, and others. Well worth the small money (about $21.00 or so USA). Back in five weeks! __________________________________________________________________________ Peter Quartermain 128 East 23rd Avenue voice and fax (604) 876 8061 Vancouver B.C. e-mail: quarterm@unixg.ubc.ca Canada V5V 1X2 __________________________________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:42:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: poetry 'n roll Hi all-- Of course, 90% of the people making rock 'n' roll are simply doing it for the ego boost, just like 90% of the people writing poetry probably are. But there are some (like Cobain, Love, some of the open-mic crowd, and of course most of you folks!) who really are tapping a source way deeper than the lack of whatever-it-is-we-usually-look-for-in-art would lead us to believe. KC's *articulation* of self-hatred, insecurity, etc. is actually profoundly moving in much the same way, to me, that Monk's dislocations of rhythm and melody are. To say this is not to idolize self-destruction--hell, I wish he'd had a way of stepping out of that space that he mapped so well for us--only to acknowledge how intense an experience he was able to communicate. The first influences on my poetry also were musical: Lennon, Morrison, Dylan, etc. Following is one of a series of poems I've been working on that take the lyrics to a pop song and reconfigure them, creating a response-poem out of a popsong vocabulary (which of course deals with music and musicality in a completely different way, but the fact that the music *moves* the words is central to both, I think...) Hey, Your Highness' Complaint for Kurt Cobain A new angel's debt to breath drawn down into pisces: Hey, you orchids left me no advice box inside forever yet; I just throw back your priceless complaint, I got one broken wait shaped in black magnet, wish shaped of heart-like pit. A locked hymen (your new I) could cut forever umbilical meat. Baby's been in your trap, a she-box to turn your weeks to noose. When black for priceless tar--hey, can I eat right advice forever? I've been new, myself, so weak in complaint I'm eating your debt. I've got your eyes' wait on when I cancer your advice, am hair and heart, I've got priceless debt, I've a climb, wait...forgive... Steve p.s. right on Ira Lightman! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 21:42:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: a=a is what does bad poetry do Jordan Davis asks: >Question for the group--what harm does bad poetry do? > >Love, >Jordan None--that's why it's bad. Now that's a kind of flip, overly reductive way of saying what I really want to say, which is, first of all, that there really isn't any "bad" poetry except as a subjective category--there's only stuff that doesn't work for me *as poetry*. As to harm, I've been thinking a lot lately about the notion that it's fear of death that keeps us from really living, and therefore to decide to live is to accept (and hence risk) harm and death; similarly, to decide to attempt to think outside the models provided and encouraged by the culture is to risk harm to one's sanity. I find that poetry which works for me often risks these kinds of harm; poetry which doesn't, doesn't. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:14:10 -0700 Reply-To: Eric Michael Vacin Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eric Michael Vacin Subject: reading in Santa Cruz If anyone is going to be in Santa Cruz tomorrow (June 9) Robert Gluck and Earl Jackson will be reading at the Casa Nova Cafe on Pacific at 6 p.m. The reading will celebrate the first issue of Red Wheelbarrow, a student run publication at UC Santa Cruz. E. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 00:21:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: braman sandra Subject: Re: EPC Indexes - wow In-Reply-To: <199506090156.VAA14402@orichalc.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Loss Glazier" at Jun 8, 95 09:56:20 pm Re the vocabulary of the EPC index, per Loss Glazier's comment -- the average high school graduate has a vocabulary of only about 10,000 words -- we aim only to get them up to about 40,000 by the time they graduate college. Average computer vocabulary much higher. Shakespeare the writer, of course, who used the largest percentage of the 2-1/2 million words in English.... EPC is doing well! Sandra Braman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 8 Jun 1995 22:41:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 7 Jun 1995 to 8 Jun 1995 In-Reply-To: <199506090401.VAA25387@leland.Stanford.EDU> We all owe Kevin an enormous debt for his wonderful account of the conference.!! Mike too. Well, those of us who couldn't come are green with envy! It's wonderful to know such festivals still occur! Kevin: I hope you'll write it up and send to a "public" place. The Chronicle of Higher Education?? The NY Times? The Village Voice? The word needs to get out! Thanks! Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 09:43:34 GMT0BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Larkin Organization: UNIVERSITY OF WARWICK LIBRARY Subject: New Publication Prest Roots Press has recently published a new title by Drew Milne (editor of the poetry magazine "Parataxis"). The collection called "Carte Blanche" is printed letterpress (Dante Monotype), thread-sewn with printed card covers, 22pp. ISBN 1 871237 14 9. It can be ordered from Paul Green, Spectacular Diseases, 83B London Road, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire PE2 9BS UK at $14 plus postage. Here is a sample from p.19: Wild rose nor old man's beard, rambling on, nor may, blackthorn blossom to quickset hedge, clipped so low in bonds of peat, well moulding, for you to cease to be, o worms for her proud to tread on. Take a chopin of soup, a scone a day, whiles fasting, whiles getting meat, at a squeeze, so to drops, so democrat bloody, factions cut to your every throat, but here you are no relief. ("a chopin of soup" ((not langpo whimsy)) = a Scots half-pint) Peter Larkin Philosophy & Literature Librarian University of Warwick Library, Coventry CV4 7AL UK Tel:01203 524475 Fax:01203 524211 Email: Lyaaz@Libris.Lib.Warwick.ac.uk ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 07:16:50 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Report on Blaser Conference >Thank you, Kevin (I still feel a bit as if I'm onstage making another >announcement, but this one is heart felt) for this report, for your >superb perceptions of events at the conference & readings. I had >thought to add, as I was reading, that you had made a great >contribution by seeking out so many letters and kudos from friends of >Robin's, and now you've made even that easier by remembering them >yourself. But you neglected to mention the enormous gifts you gave the >conference in the form of your own reading, among the most moving I >heard, and your brilliant paper on the enmitous wars of the Spicerites and >Duncanians.. worth mentioning, fr those of us who missed both, kevin's interview w/ david bromige which appeared in Arshile #3 (PO Box 3749, Los Angeles CA 90078; $10.50), which is subtitled "war in heaven: jack spicer vs. robert duncan 1962-64." lbd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 08:00:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale In-Reply-To: <950608155255_66358547@aol.com> from "Jordan Davis." at Jun 8, 95 03:52:55 pm Who says heat death can't be beautiful? Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 08:39:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 7 Jun 1995 to 8 Jun 1995 > > Well, those of us who couldn't come are green with envy! It's wonderful > to know such festivals still occur! > > Kevin: I hope you'll write it up and send to a "public" place. The > Chronicle of Higher Education?? The NY Times? The Village Voice? The > word needs to get out! > > Thanks! > Marjorie Perloff i agree. plus, kevin, what a great epilogue some of this might make for your bio of spicer. anyone else with rich descriptions? this ongoing encomium is great! esp for creating literary history via legend --one such legend is being constructed right now --and i don't mean that cynically but with excitement --the Blaserfest as historical marker of convergence of canada/us, language poetry/spicer-kreis, gay aesthetics/mainstream avant-garde, etc. md. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 09:44:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Pangborn Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale Charles Alexander asks >What is "heat death?" It's what's supposed to happen to our universe at the end of time: total entropy, all energy differences evened-out, nothing left to happen. An interesting conjecture, often (mis)taken for an inevitability by science buffs. It stands thus, also, for a postmodernist tendency to abandon hope of progress, to theorize exhaustion, etc. An ultimate pessimism: maybe an excuse, for some, for cynicism. The whimper at the other end of things from the big bang. As for >Ah, beauty . . . > > Whoso list to hunt? I know where is an hind. > let's go, hey wait, I'll grab my camera. But doesn't that beast hide in a most arduous terrain? I hear it immediately decomposes when you shoot it. --JimP ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 11:17:04 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale Jordan, What do you mean by "heat death"? Is it a form of desire? Burt ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 12:20:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: Hilda Conklin (Laura Ranger) Hi I'd like publication/ordering info for "Laura's Poems." Readers of this list may know the book "Poems of a Little Girl" by Hilda Conklin (or Conkling--book's elsewhere). It was a best seller here earlier in the century. Conklin's poems were collected by her mother (an english professor at Smith, I think) and published by a major house (Macmillan, I think) around the time she was ten. She has a clear, startled and excited style, especially in the poems her mother transcribed when she was five. Also worth examining are David Shapiro's poems in _January_ and _Poems from Deal_, written and published mainly before the author's twentieth birthday. For that matter, David's son Daniel's poem "The Boss Poem" in _After a Lost Original_ bears reading and re-reading. Love, Jordan P.S. What do you wish would happen here? (Shout out to Jim Pangborn for clarifying "heat death") ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 12:27:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale oh, jordan, get off it. where, as rilke spent his life saying, does beauty begin? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 11:31:43 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: braman sandra Subject: desire isn't everything desire..... SBraman ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 13:07:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale This message by ED FOSTER had no message attached to it--- This has been happening alot lately--- I wonder why.... Now that i got your attention I should probably tell you that I've been getting alot of things in the mail lately-- So--here's a plug-- AVEC and WITZ---theough there's been a "divorce" between these two venues, there's much interesting--Steven Farmer, Joe Ross-- etc... Then there's PHOEBE--edited by Jean Donnelley (who appears in new Sulfur too) which has incredible pieces by Jennifer Moxley, Heather Fuller and Leslie Scalapino and others.... Then there's Jennifer Moxley's own THE IMPERCIPIENT--which has work by Joe Ross again (much more up my alley than AN AMERICAN VOYAGE) and Kevin Davies and others--seems like there's a new "political lyric" kinda of voice... I also got the Barret Watten (Free Barry not JAWS!) of AERIAL/EDGE-- and it featurs some interesting writing as well. Alan Davies provides an interesting perspective which makes the book less of a mutual admiration society roast than it might otherwise be--the collaboration poem between Barret and Carla Harryman is interesting. Silliman is thoughtful...Scalapino again....I have not read the whole thing yet. I also got COMPOUND EYE today--- In any event-- it's so much more exciting than hearing Duncan ramble on and on about "CHarles Olson, he was a Big Man--A real big man"--Ho hum so was davey crocket--in the NEw SULFUR--I say this not out of animosity towards Duncan but to once again bring up the idea of "career trajectory" and how this plays into the quality of the work---Dear Clayton, etc., not everything Duncan did was tinged with the gold of the prophets or whatever---- So---FOR THOSE WHO DIDN'T GET TO GO TO VANCOUVER-- let's have our own little Duncan-Spicer battle-- I'll side with Spicer 9it will be like baseball...I usually got picked last and once when i was a third baseman I got bored and when the bat hit the ball I ran home---I don't think I've played baseball since I'm 6--though that song "Boys Of Summer" is "nice")----Chris ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 10:23:35 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Blaserfest Back Channel Here's one tidbit I left out of my backchannel report on BlaserFest that I thought I would share with all you front-channel guys. I talked with a couple of poets who said friends of theirs were giving out conference fashion awards. One of them said that his group decided that the best dressed were going to get Blaser Awards, and the worst dressed were going to get Spicer Awards. I was then, of course, quickly complimented on my conference wardrobe......but I was a bit dubious. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 13:23:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: poetry 'n roll Oh--I forget to mention--in my list of recent magazines read and rec'd that there's also the "dreaded" APEX OF THE M #3--just out--It has great poems by Virginia Hooper and Kristen prevallet--There's also an article on Blake by Penquin Poet Liz Willis an article for those interested in the size of Christopher Columbus's "LOG" and yet another installment in CHRIST ENTERS MANHATTEN or is it CHRIST NOW FINDS HIMSELF SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE--I always forget....chris ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 10:29:35 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: opportunity knocks Sorry, Cris, but it's fall of '95 and winter of '96. xox, Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 10:41:39 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: SPT reading series Rae, I have to book many multi-cultural writers to fulfill the grant application, at least one per reading. I think I could book either you or Fanny, but I'd have to pair you with a multi-cultural writer published by Sun And Moon. Any ideas. Fiction is totally fine. xox, Dodie p.s. I feel guilty about the things I said to you about the "crazy" poet I've been writing to. It turns out, of course, that we've become very close and he's as normal and I am at least, and that both of us were having a lot of misunderstandings due to the extravagances of our written exchanges. I don't like to be spreading rumors about people I care about, especially when they're based on misunderstanding. I was very frustrated when I wrote about him to you, and should have kept my tongue/fingers still. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 16:04:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rae Armantrout Subject: Re: opportunity knocks Dear Listees, Apparently the message I intended to send to Dodie went into the List. Sorry. Technology is not my friend. Rae A ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 16:10:57 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: Blaserfest Back Channel In-Reply-To: from "Kevin Killian" at Jun 9, 95 10:23:35 am The best whiff of nostalgia I heard was from George. Driving to Simon Fraser after the conference finale,he said to me there were moments during readings and panels that he listened for Spicer's grunt or guffaw and consequent stomp to the nearest pub. Or something in that ballpark. Ryan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 18:40:09 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: mea culpa listserv My message to Rae Armantrout was supposed to be personal and not to the whole listserv. Ooops! Oh my God! I *know* this social embarassment is my karma for Blaserfest Back Channel. Oh Gods of Propriety and Good Taste please forgive me for all my sins past and present. Blushing, Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 20:52:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: EMF Info (fwd) & here's a bit more info about EMF. They will also be happy to have input & queries (many on this list are well versed in word/music matters & should, if they feel so, make suggestions for the eMUSIC catalogue) Pierre Forwarded message: > From EMusF@aol.com Fri Jun 9 19:38:13 1995 > From: EMusF@aol.com > Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 19:34:49 -0400 > Message-Id: <950609193448_67660039@aol.com> > To: Emfnet@aol.com > Subject: EMF Info > > Dear Colleague, Friend, Listener, > > We'd like you to know about Electronic Music Foundation. That's why we've > sent you an introductory eMUSIC catalog. If you've received duplicate > mailings, we apologize. We do not want to clutter the wires. Consequently, > to remain on our mailing list after you've read this letter, please do > something: buy a disc, become a Charter Subscriber, or say something simple > like "Please keep me on your list." > > Here is some basic information. > > EMF was founded in September 1994 as a not-for-profit organization in New > York State, USA. EMF's trustees are Joel Chadabe, Paul Lansky, and Neil > Rolnick. Its mission is to disseminate important information and materials > related to the history and current development of electronic music. As EMF's > president Joel Chadabe put it, "The development of electronic musical > instruments through the twentieth century is a fascinating and wonderful > history that should be documented for now and for the future. Yet the most > important work of the pioneering composers, engineers, and > entrepreneurs-including recordings, photographs, and other important > documents-is often difficult to find." > > Our next projects are an electronic music photo archive and an information > dissemination center.We've begun the process of creating an archive of > photographs dealing with the history of electronic music. The archive will > be made available to scholars and the general public in various formats, > including photographic prints, photo-CDs, and books. > > Our information center will publish a newsletter highlighting the > availability of historically important materials-and informing subscribers as > to the location and availability of composers' archives, museums and > collections of historical electronic instruments, and other historical > materials and electronic music projects around the world. > > Through its information center, EMF also plans to sell books and other items, > organize conferences and concerts, produce historically important compact > discs and other materials, and provide archival services such as posthumous > cataloging, evaluation, placement, storage, and/or dissemination of a > composer's works. > > Our international group of Advisors and Charter Subscribers currently > includes Jon Appleton, Larry Austin, Marc Battier, Gerald Bennett, John > Bischoff, Jack Body, Jurg Brennwalder, Herbert Brun, Thomas Buckner, Warren > Burt, Joseph Celli, Chris Chafe, Jacques Chareyron, Hugh Davies, Christopher > Dobrian, John Duesenberry, John Eaton, Simon Emmerson, Emmanuel Ghent, Robert > Gluck, Jonathan Harvey, Folkmar Hein, Gottfried Michael Koenig, Francisco > Kropfl, Paul Lansky, Otto Laske, George Lewis, George Logemann, Peter > Manning, Max Mathews, Barton & Priscilla McLean, Eduardo Miranda, Gordon > Monro, Stephen Montague, Dexter Morrill, Larry Moss, Randy Neal, Phill > Niblock, Pauline Oliveros, Marc Paping, Godfried-Willem Raes, Michel Redolfi, > Juan I Reyes, Tom Rhea, Alistair Riddell, Jean-Claude Risset, Curtis Roads, > Neil Rolnick, Carla Scaletti, Wayne Siegel, Bruno Spoerri, Carl Stone, Mark > Sullivan, Richard Teitelbaum, Diane Thome and Robert Austin, Robert Scott > Thompson, James Tobias, Kazuo Uehara, Alvise Vidolin, Felix Visser, David > Williams, Jan Williams, Patte Wood, David Worrall, Scott Wyatt, Iannis > Xenakis, and David Zicarelli. > > We invite you to join us as a Charter Subscriber-to the eMUSIC Inner Circle, > to our newsletter, indeed to all of our activities-by making a one-time > tax-deductible contribution to EMF. We suggest $100. We do accept credit > cards-Mastercard/Visa. If you can't contribute the full amount now, a pledge > or partial payment will signify your interest. > > We'll be grateful for your support. And we'll return it to you manyfold in > the form of discounts, free discs, or other services. If you're a > professional, look upon a Charter Subscription as a professional > subscription. If you're a listener, look upon it as making available a world > of interesting materials. > > Please be in touch with us by phone, fax, letter, or electronic mail. Our > email address is EMusF@aol.com. We look forward to hearing from you. > > > Julie Panke > Executive Director > > ================================================ > Electronic Music Foundation > 116 North Lake Avenue > Albany NY 12206 > USA > Tel: (518) 434-4110 > Fax: (518) 434-0308 > Email: EMusF@aol.com > > #### > ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 20:48:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Intro to eMUSIC (fwd) Thought the annoucement & catalogue below would be of interest to the inhabitants of this n-space. It truly is a good & useful setup. Enjoy. Pierre Forwarded message: > From EMusF@aol.com Fri Jun 9 19:37:57 1995 > From: EMusF@aol.com > Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 19:37:26 -0400 > Message-Id: <950609193725_67659896@aol.com> > To: Emfnet@aol.com > Subject: Intro to eMUSIC > > WELCOME TO eMUSIC! > =============================== APRIL-MAY 1995 > > eMUSIC is a new worldwide service that -- for the first time -- gives you > easy, direct-mail access to any and all compact discs of experimental, > exceptional, and/or electronic music. Wherever you live, eMUSIC brings you > CDs that may be hard to find, discs published by small companies or > independent composers, even recordings you may not have known existed. > > If you're a composer, compact discs of your works will be available through > eMUSIC. If you're a listener, eMUSIC gives you immediate access to some of > the world's most interesting music. If you're both -- well, better yet! > > How does it work? Every month or so we'll send you a brief catalog of > selected discs available through eMUSIC. You'll find electronic music > history, unusual sounds, new ways of combining words and music, new > approaches to improvisation, computer music, interactive music, portraits of > composers, 20th-century virtuosi...and more! Our goal is to make available > every disc of experimental, exceptional, and electronic music -- in short, > eMUSIC. > > In this introductory catalog, we're setting the tone (so to speak). You'll > find compact discs from the United States, Canada, France, Australia, > Germany, and Switzerland. You'll find two unusual packages representing the > two first European studios of the 1950s: a definitive collection of Pierre > Schaeffer's work in musique concrete and a collection of Stockhausen's early > work in Cologne. And you'll find a special offer. > > But if you don't find what you're looking for, just ask for it. For > information on how to order CDs, read the "How to Order" section that follows > the listing of discs. We suggest you also read the section called "Join the > Inner Circle." > > =============================== THE DISCS > PIONEERS: and a special! > Take 'The Art of the Theremin' free > with a Charter Subscription! > =============================== > > THE ART OF THE THEREMIN > First demonstrated in 1920, the Theremin is played by moving one's hands in > the air. Clara Rockmore is its first virtuoso, accompanied here by Nadia > Reisenberg, pianist. The package includes an informative booklet. It's all > beautiful magic. > => eMUSIC #DE-100 ($15, or free this month with Charter Subscription) > > PIERRE SCHAEFFER: MUSICAL WORKS > The definitive collection, including 'Etude aux Chemins de Fer' ('Railroad > Study', 1948), the first piece of musique concrete, and 'Symphonie pour un > Homme Seul' (1950, 'Symphony for One Man Alone'). Four discs and a book of > essays (in French) and photographs. > => eMUSIC #IN-106 $49 > > STOCKHAUSEN: ELEKTRONISHE MUSIK 1952-1960 > Includes 'Etude' (1952), composed at Pierre Schaeffer's studio in Paris, > 'Studie I' (1953), 'Studie II' (1954), 'Gesang der Junglinge' (1956), and > 'Kontakte' (1960). Also a book of essays and articles on the music in German > and English, scores, and photographs. > => eMUSIC #ST-100 $36 > > ELECTRO ACOUSTIC MUSIC CLASSICS > Includes Edgard Varese' 'Poeme Electronique' (1957), first performed at the > Philips Pavilion at the Brussels World Fair in 1958 in a building designed by > Iannis Xenakis who was at the time working for Le Corbusier as an architect; > Iannis Xenakis' 'Mycenae-Alpha' (1978), composed with Xenakis' original UPIC > System, a graphic input device that let him "draw" sounds; Milton Babbitt's > 'Philomel' (1963) with sounds of the RCA Mark II Sound Synthesizer and Judith > Bettina, soprano; and Roger Reynolds' 'Transfigured Wind IV' (1985), > computer sounds and flutist Harvey Sollberger. > => eMUSIC #NE-103 $16 > > ROARATORIO > One of John Cage's big big big works, composed in 1979, with Cage reading his > text 'Writing for the Second Time Through Finnegans Wake', Irish musicians > playing and singing, and all the sounds mentioned in Finnegans Wake as > assembled by Cage on a 62-track collage tape. Two discs include a > conversation between Cage and Klaus Schoning (who commissioned the work for > the WDR in Cologne) and Cage reading his text. Also two booklets with > essays, conversations, and the text. > => eMUSIC #MO-108 $26 > > FORBIDDEN PLANET > The original 1956 soundtrack to MGM's 'Forbidden Planet' by Louis and Bebe > Barron. In their words, "We created individual cybernetic circuits for > particular themes and leit motifs..." One of the first electronic film > tracks. > => eMUSIC #GN-100 $15 > > JAMES TENNEY: SELECTED WORKS 1961-1969 > Tenney began at Bell Labs at the dawn of computer music. He led the way. > This disc includes 'Collage #1 ("Blue Suede")' (1961), 'Analog #1: Noise > Study' (1961), and other early pieces. > => eMUSIC #AR-106 $14 > > RISSET > Classics of elegant computer music. Includes 'Inharmonique' (1977), which > relates sound and harmony; 'Sud' (1985), based on sounds of the sea near > Marseilles; 'Dialogues' (1975), for flute, clarinet, piano, and percussion > with taped computer sounds; and 'Mutations' (1969), composed at Bell Labs in > New Jersey. > => eMUSIC #IN-103 $16 > > JOHN CHOWNING > Breakthrough moments in computer music, including 'Sabelithe' (1966, revised > 1971), 'Turenas' (1972), 'Stria' (1977), and 'Phone' (1981). Chowning aimed > at sounds that were special to computers yet expressive and beautiful. In > 'Stria', for example, the sounds are simply out of this world. > => eMUSIC #WE-102 $19 > > MORTON SUBOTNICK: TOUCH > Subotnick was there to play the first Buchla synthesizer in 1963. In 'Touch' > (1969), he touches things to control the sound. 'Jacob's Room' (1986), on the > other hand, is hi-tech drama with Joan La Barbara, soprano. From 'Touch' to > 'Jacob's Room' is technology time travel. > => eMUSIC #WE-104 $19 > > TERRY RILEY: IN C > A fabulous performance of music that changed the world. It's about patterns, > shifting tonalities, energy, all around C. 30 musicians playing 30 > instruments plus. 'In C' was originally commissioned in 1964 by the San > Francisco Tape Music Center. > => eMusic #NA-120 $16 > > =============================== > COMBINING WORDS AND MUSIC: > in opera, sound poetry, and improvisation > =============================== > > TRANSPARENCE > Marc Battier, in Paris, transforms -- using Phonogramme, a graphic audio > program -- a fragment of speech by Henri Chopin, a well-known French pioneer > of sound poetry. You hear his voice for a few seconds only, but it's under > everything. As Battier puts it, "The voice of the poet... is reincarnated as > a new skin, it changes form, it is in mutation, it is re-invented." It also > produces extraordinary sounds. > => eMUSIC #UN-100 $16 > > KURT SCHWITTERS: URSONATE > 'Ursonate', a verbal sonata, is a legend of sound poetry, finished in 1932. > Invented words are used as motives, rhythms and themes, and combined in the > form of a sonata. Eberhard Blum brings more than twenty years of > performances to this disc. > => eMUSIC #HA-216 $19 > > eL/AFICIONADO > An electronically-accompanied opera by Robert Ashley, in his words "scenes > from the life of an 'agent'... 'debriefing' to a jury of Interrogators..." > With Thomas Buckner, Robert Ashley, Jacqueline Humbert, and Sam Ashley, all > singing and speaking. The textures and electronic orchestrations are, as in > all of Ashley's music, seductive, beautiful and evocative. Libretto > included. > => eMUSIC #LO-101 $16 > > 73 POEMS > Joan La Barbara's vocal-electronic settings of Kenneth Goldsmith's > multi-level, evocative, sometimes lyrical, sometimes funny, 73-part poem. > It's an exceptional marriage of words and word-sounds as music. > => eMUSIC #LO-123 $15 > > MACHINE FOR MAKING SENSE > Five from Australia. Chris Mann and Amanda Stewart read and sing their > poetry while Stevie Wishart plays violin and hurdy-gurdy, Jim Denley plays > winds, and Rik Rue manipulates sounds, and everyone plays with electronics. > Quite an incredible, rich, complex, and wonderful improvisation. > => eMUSIC #OO-117 $15 > > VALIS > An electronic opera by Tod Machover, commissioned by the Pompidou Center in > Paris for its 10th anniversary in 1987. It's based on the science fiction > novel by Philip K. Dick. Many voices sing and speak with keyboard, > percussion and electronic techniques developed at IRCAM and MIT. Original > English version. Libretto included. > => eMUSIC #BR-101 $16 > > =============================== > PLAYING TOGETHER: unusual approaches > to group activity. > =============================== > > THE HUB: COMPUTER NETWORK MUSIC > Music by John Bischoff, Tim Perkis, Chris Brown, Scot Gresham-Lancaster, Mark > Trayle, and Phil Stone, all in the San Francisco area. Their "Hub" is a > central computer which takes what someone plays and interprets it for the > others so that they're all acting on the same data. It's a network approach > to group performance. > => eMUSIC #AR-101 $14 > > CONCERTO GROSSO > Richard Teitelbaum composed this -- well, he devised the system that produced > it -- in 1985. Improvisations by Teitelbaum (keyboard and computer), Anthony > Braxton (saxophones), and George Lewis (trombone) alternate with > computer-controlled acoustic grand pianos and synthesizers. Lively and > musical. > => eMUSIC #HA-118 $19 > > NO WORLD (TRIO) IMPROVISATIONS > Joseph Celli and Jin Hi Kim, with Alvin Curran, Malcolm Goldstein, Shelley > Hirsch, Adam Plack, and Mor Thiam, come together as a global-village > improvisation group. There's an Australian didjeridoo, Korean komungo and > piri, African percussion, oboe, English horn, violin, voice, and electronics, > and sounds like never before. > => eMUSIC #OO-102 $15 > > MOVIN' ON > Updated jazz. Bruno Spoerri plays saxophones, Synthophone (electronic > saxophone invented by Martin Hurni in Switzerland), synthesizers, and a > Macintosh computer. Reto Weber does a lot with percussion. With Albert > Mengelsdorff, trombonist, and Ernst Reijseger, cellist. > => eMUSIC #TU-100 $15 > > THOUSAND YEAR DREAMING > Parts of it fully scored, parts improvised, Annea Lockwood has assembled Jon > Gibson, Art Baron, Libby Van Cleve, J.D. Parran, Michael Pugliese, Scott > Robinson, John Snyder, Charles Wood, and Peter Zummo to play didjeridoo, > conch shell, trombone, oboe, English horn, clarinet, contrabass clarinet, > tam-tam, clapping sticks, frame drums, pod rattle, tam-tam, superball, > waterphone, and stones. The title refers to Australian aboriginals' sense of > history as dreaming, and the titles of the sections-breathing and dreaming, > the Chi stirs, floating in mid-air, in full bloom-describe the moods. > => eMUSIC #WN-109 $15 > > =============================== > MUSIC ABOUT SOUNDS: finding and > making new sounds at home and abroad. > =============================== > > DENIS SMALLEY: IMPACTS INTERIEURS > For Smalley, "The starting point is always the sound..." 'Valley Flow' > (1991) is the sound of the Canadian Rockies. And what a stunning sound! > Also included: 'Piano Nets' (1991), 'Wind Chimes' (1987), 'Clarinet > Threads' (1985), and 'Darkness After Time's Colours' (1976). > => eMUSIC #IM-106 $15 > > MILA'S JOURNEY INSPIRED BY A DREAM > Eliane Radigue synthesizes atmospheres. Her sounds fill the air, suggesting > peace, time and transformation. This sound is an environment for Milarepa's > songs (Milarepa was an 11th-century Tibetan poet who taught through singing), > sung here by Lama Kunga Rinpoche in Tibetan and recited by Robert Ashley in > English. > => eMUSIC #LO-113 $15 > > HOMEBREW > Paul Lansky takes banged kitchen objects, traffic noises, fairytales, > clapping, a shopping mall, and transforms the sounds. It's an homage to his > family. Can computer music be charming? Yes. > => eMUSIC #BR-107 $15 > > ANGELS AND INSECTS > David Dunn looks to the biosphere: "Beneath the water's surface are a > variety of plants and small insects... While the sounds above water are > comfortable and familiar, those occurring under the surface are shocking... > as if controlled by a mysterious but urgent logic..." They make for > compelling music. > => eMUSIC #WN-108 $15 > > RAINFOREST IMAGES > Priscilla and Barton McLean went far afield for these sounds, among them > Peruvian and Australian bird calls, wooden recorders, and didjeridoo, all > processed electronically in studios in Australia and New York. > => eMUSIC #CA-104 $15 > > OCEAN FLOWS > Rik Rue, Australian sound artist, records sounds and creates soundscapes. > 'Ocean Flows' is about ocean waves over beaches and rocks. 'Ebbs Tides and > Flows' uses the sounds of Sydney Harbor. 'Goondiwindi', an Aboriginal word > meaning "water flowing over rocks," is a water-sound exploration of crevices, > channels and caves. It's hearing a whole new world in what we think we know. > => eMUSIC #TP-103 $19 > > =============================== > COMPILATIONS: surveys, group portraits, > overviews, variety. > =============================== > > THE VIRTUOSO IN THE COMPUTER AGE (II) > Music from five US studios, including Larry Austin's 'Life Pulse Prelude' > (1984), based on sketches for Charles Ives' unfinished Universe Symphony; > Gareth Loy's 'Blood From A Stone' (1992), for Max Mathews' electronic > violin; Chris Chafe's and Dexter Morrill's 'Duo Improvisation' (1991), with > celletto (Chafe's electronic cello), trumpet, and computer; Neil Rolnick's > 'The Persistence of the Clave' (1992); Rodney Waschka II's 'Last Night' > (1990), for alto sax and piano; Jon Appleton's 'Homenaje a Milanes' (1987), > for Synclavier; and Larry Polansky's '(And to rule...)(Cantillation Study > #2)' (1988), for flute and computer. Assembled by Larry Austin. > => eMUSIC #CE-111 $15 > > SEAMUS > A selection, mostly for taped sounds with and without acoustic-instrument > performances, compiled by the Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the > United States. Includes Larry Nelson's 'Order and Alliance'(1991), Scott > Wyatt's 'Counterpoints' (1992), Joseph Koykkar's 'Triple Play' (1992), Joseph > Anderson's 'in mosaic' (1992), Charles Mason's 'The Blazing Macaw' (1992), > Stephen Beck's 'Love's Not Time's Fool' (1992), Eric Chasalow's 'Fast > Forward' (1988), and Paul Koonce's 'Whitewash' (1992). > => eMUSIC #SE-100 $15 > > JEWEL BOX > Music, performance art, and radio works by Anne LeBaron, Laetitia Sonami, > Sussan Deihim, Bun Ching Lam, Catherine Jauniaux, Ikue Mori, Sapphire, Mary > Ellen Childs, and Michelle Kinney, all exceptional women composers and > performance artists with something to say. Sometimes something spellbinding. > Storytelling and sounds from harp to household objects to electronics to > electronically treated speech. > => eMUSIC #TE-101 $16 > > AUSTRAL VOICES > Exceptional voices from Australia. Alan Lamb records "telegraph wires > singing in the wind." Alistair Riddell plays a computer-driven piano. Sarah > Hopkins extends cello and vocal sounds in the "natural unhurried rhythms of > the environment of the Northern Territory." Warren Burt composes for his > specially made and tuned tuning forks. Ros Bandt records in a hollow > concrete cylinder five floors underground in Melbourne. Jeff Pressing plays > sequencers and synthesizers. Ross Bolleter uses the ruined piano at the > Nallan sheep station north of Perth. > => eMUSIC #NA-107 $16 > > =============================== > COMPOSERS: discs that are indicators > to a single composer's approach. > =============================== > > FRANCOIS BAYLE: FABULAE > Bayle is director of the Groupe de Recherche Musicale in Paris and inheritor > of the tradition of musique concrete. He stretches the tradition. His > sounds start from acoustic activities -- xylophone glissandi, bird calls, > wind, percussion, harps, water bubbling -- but the total effect is of an > unlimited orchestra accompanying an imaginary ballet. > => eMUSIC #IN-124 $16 > > GIUSEPPE G. ENGLERT > Englert was a founding member of the Groupe Art et Informatique de Vincennes > (GAIV) in Paris. He's always looked for new ways to compose, to think. > 'Sopra la Girolmeta' (1991), the electronic work here, is about algorithms > and interactivity. Also: 'Les Avoines folles' (1963) for string quartet; > 'Fragment & Caracol' (1974) for orchestra; 'La Joute des Lierres' (1966) > for string quartet; and 'Babel' (1983) for orchestra. > => eMUSIC #GR-101 $19 > > PAULINE OLIVEROS: CRONE MUSIC > Originally composed to accompany the actors' amplified dialog throughout > Mabou Mines' production of 'Lear', here it's performed by Oliveros on her > expanded accordion -- which employs electronics to process the instrument's > sound during performance. > => eMUSIC #LO-112 $15 > > JERRY HUNT: GROUND > Hunt performed with devices -- usually his own inventions, often involving > visuals and collaborations with other artists -- linked together in systems. > As he puts it, "congruent layers of associations of inflection-calls > evoke... point specific, melody-action strings embedded in a reference > context of conventions of performance." At some point in your life, you must > experience the originality of Jerry Hunt's personality. > => eMUSIC #OO-107 $15 > > DEXTER MORRILL: GETZ VARIATIONS > Underneath Morrill's computer music lurks the soul of a jazz musician. It's > in the turns of the phrases, moods, rhythms, colors. 'Getz Variations' > (1984), 'Sketches for Invisible Man' (1989), and 'Six Studies and an > Improvisation' (1992) all involve saxophones and computers, the lyrical and > the interesting. David Demsey plays the saxophones. > => eMUSIC #CE-120 $15 > > ALCIDES LANZA: TRILOGY > Lanza grew up in Argentina, lived in New York, and now lives in Montreal. > 'Trilogy' is an autobiographical cycle of songs presented as an evening of > music theatre for singer, electronic sounds, and lights, with texts in > English, French, Spanish, and an invented language, sung here by the > impressive Meg Sheppard. > => eMUSIC (#SH-100) $16 > > ROBERT NORMANDEAU: LIEUX INOUIS / UNHEARD-OF PLACES > Normandeau's unheard-of places are in the scenes depicted by his sounds, of > wind, footsteps, water, words... and synthesized electronic sounds, composed > in Montreal, Quebec, Bourges (France), and Ohain (Belgium). With evocative > audio imagery veering between narration and abstract sound, his music casts a > spell. > => eMUSIC #IM-101 $15 > > MICHEL REDOLFI: DESERT TRACKS > Redolfi directs the Centre International de Recherche Musicale in Nice, but > he's also spent a bit of time in California. In 'Desert Tracks' (1988), you > feel the space and heat of the Mohave, of Death Valley -- in Redolfi's words, > "the shivering resonances of the landscapes..." Also: 'Too Much Sky' (1984) > and 'Pacific Tubular Waves' (1979), inspired by the California coast. > Redolfi's sounds glitter like the waves. > => eMUSIC #IN-105 $16 > > CARL STONE: MOM'S BAR-B-Q > "Sometimes," Stone says, "I'm simply attracted to a kind of wonderful > moment..." So he takes the moment and makes something special, like the > extraordinary sound transformations in 'Banteay Srey' (1991) and 'Shing Kee' > (1986). Also: 'Gadberry's' (1989), 'Mom's' (1990), and 'Chao Nue' (1990). > => eMUSIC #NA-114 $16 > > NEIL ROLNICK: MACEDONIAN AIR DRUMMING > Rolnick gets around. He was in Yugoslavia for the sounds in 'Macedonian Air > Drumming' (1990), which he performs with Air Drums. And 'ReRebong' (1989) > uses Indonesian gamelan sounds. 'Sanctus' (1990), a score for Barbara > Hammer's film, is electronically-processed fragments from masses by Machaut, > Byrd, Bach, et al. 'Balkanization' (1988) uses Balkan folk songs. > => eMUSIC #BR-105 $15 > > MARY JANE LEACH: CELESTIAL FIRES > Here's music -- 'Bruckstuck', 'Green Mountain Madrigal', 'Mountain Echoes', > and 'Ariel's Song' -- performed by the New York Treble Singers, a chorus of > women's voices which makes the sounds float like clouds on a breezy day. > There's also 'Feu de Joie' and 'Trio for Duo', instrumental and vocal > pieces. > => eMUSIC #XI-106 $15 > > PHILL NIBLOCK: FOUR FULL FLUTES > Niblock records instruments, in this case played by flutists Petr Kotik and > Eberhard Blum, and mixes the sounds in multiple layers and clusters to form a > big sound, sometimes strident, sometimes harmonic. As Tom Johnson said of > Niblock's music, "It must be heard to be believed." It's true. > => eMUSIC #XI-100 $15 > > BOB WILLEY: PEACE PIECES > Willey lives in California and, in his words, this disc is "new age jazz > bossa nova folk electronic instrumental experimental." Actually, it's more > than that: it's California new age jazz bossa... It's also Norway, > Casteneda, and other places and writers, and it puts a hi tech approach in > the service of easy listening. > => eMUSIC #OU-100 $15 > > =============================== HOW TO ORDER > > To order discs, contact eMUSIC via email, fax, regular mail, telephone, > personal visits -- or, in extreme cases, by carrier pigeon. Give us a list > of the CDs you'd like to buy, and mention their eMUSIC catalog numbers. > Please bear in mind that some discs are available only in relatively small > numbers. We'll fill orders as we receive them. > > Tell us your address (including email) and phone numbers, and where you'd > like the discs shipped (if it's different from your mailing address). > > Please pay in advance. You can calculate the amount of your payment as > follows: > > Add together the prices of the discs you'd like to buy. Then add the > appropriate amount for shipping (priority mail) according to the following > table: > > North America & Mexico: First disc $2.00, each additional disc $1.00. > South America: First disc $3.00, each additional disc $1.50. > Europe: First disc $4.00, each additional disc $2.00. > Asia/Australasia: First disc $5.00, each additional disc $2.50. > > Then, if you live in New York State, add 8% sales tax to the total. (New > York State requires that we charge sales tax also on shipping charges.) > > We accept credit cards (Mastercard and VISA). We also accept checks, bank > drafts and money orders -- but only in US$, drawn on a US bank. > > If you're paying by credit card, we need your name (as it appears on the > card), your card number, the expiration date of the card, and your billing > address and phone number (in case we need to contact you). Please give us > credit card information by fax, phone, or regular mail (rather than email) to > protect the confidentiality of your information. After you've provided us > with your credit card information, you can email your orders -- and just tell > us to charge your card. > > Place your order by: > > Email to: eMusc@aol.com > Fax to: (518) 434-0308 > Telephone to: (518) 434-4110 > Regular mail and carrier pigeon to: eMUSIC, 116 North Lake Avenue, Albany NY > 12206, USA > > =============================== JOIN THE INNER CIRCLE > > eMUSIC is a program of Electronic Music Foundation (EMF), a not-for-profit > organization in New York State, USA. EMF exists to disseminate information > and materials related to the history and current development of electronic > music. > > We invite you to become a Charter Subscriber to all of EMF's activities by > making a one-time gift of $100. Your financial support will help us a great > deal and we'll do everything we can for you in return. > > As a Charter Subscriber, you'll become a part of the eMUSIC "Inner Circle" > and receive special discounts, exclusive offers, and free compact discs. If > you're looking for CDs not listed among our current offerings, if you need > more information, if you have discs that you'd like to bring to our attention > -- in short, if you'd like to become a more integral and interactive part of > the eMUSIC process -- we'll be there to respond, to help, or to work with > you. You'll also receive special notifications and newsletters from > Electronic Music Foundation. > > If you're a professional, look at your Charter Subscription as a business > investment. As a listener, think of your contribution as reserving the best > seat in a "virtual concert hall." > > ===================================================== > eMUSIC and Inner Circle are trademarks of Electronic Music Foundation, Inc. > > Electronic Music Foundation > 116 North Lake Avenue > Albany NY 12206 > USA > Voice: (518) 434-4110 > Fax: (518) 434-0308 > email: eMusF@aol.com > > #### > ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | He who wants to escape the world, translates it. Dept. of English | --Henri Michaux SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Herman has taken to writing poetry. You tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | need not tell anyone, for you know how email: | such things get around." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --Mrs. Melville in a letter to her mother. ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 9 Jun 1995 23:55:25 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Organization: sirius.com Subject: Fireworks at NYU Kerouac Conference I hope you've all read this message from "Levi Asher," which I read on the alt.books.beatgeneration newsgroup. Can anyone on our poetics list confirm this first-hand account of World War III at NYU? Enjoy! K. Killian > RINGSIDE SEAT > > NICOSIA VS. CHARTERS AT THE KEROUAC CONFERENCE > > June 6, 1995 > > The Writings of Jack Kerouac conference at New York University began > on June 4 as scheduled -- and that was about the last thing that went > the way it was supposed to. The first sign that events were spinning > out of control came when the Unbearables, an inspired and largely > disorganized group of angry writers planning to protest the > complacency and dullness of the NYU event, got more publicity in > publications like the Village Voice (and in web sites like Literary > Kicks) than the official conference got. They announced a series of > alternative events, like a Jack Kerouac Impersonators Spontaneous > Prose contest, to take place at the same time as the official events. > > I exchanged e-mail with a few of the Unbearables, and promptly decided > to cast my lot with them. I wasn't sure how much they would have to > say, but whatever it was at least it was going to be new, and they > weren't planning to lighten my wallet by $140 for "registration" > either. Also, panel discussions bore me and I hate wearing "HELLO! My > Name Is ..." tags. Easy decision. > > The Unbearables' protest, though, ended up being upstaged by a much > more shocking one. The fate of Jack Kerouac's estate and legacy has > been a topic of controversy for some time now; the Sampas family > (Kerouac's last wife was Stella Sampas) owns everything, basically, > and Jack's daughter Jan has been vying for a share. Jan Kerouac was > barely recognized as a daughter by Jack during his lifetime, and her > attempts at being included in the "family" now have mostly been > rebuked. Jan (author of a couple of books, including Baby Driver, > which I heard was pretty good) has also been very sick with kidney > failure lately, and this may have contributed to the intensity of > feeling she has been expressing about the ownership of her fathers' > estate. > > That's enough background -- now I'll get to the fireworks. Gerald > Nicosia, author of the most recent and most acclaimed major Kerouac > biography, Memory Babe, was apparently not invited to participate in > any part of the NYU conference. Ann Charters, author of the first > major Kerouac biography, Kerouac (published in 1973), was invited. > Because Ann Charters has been considered 'friendly' by the Sampas > family while Nicosia has expressed support for Jan Kerouac, Nicosia > believes that his exclusion from the conference was a conspiracy > against himself and Jan. > > This may very well be the case. But get this : Nicosia showed up at > the conference anyway, wearing a black t-shirt that said > > "Gerald Nicosia ... > A tiresome wannabe" > -- Ann Charters > > on the front. On the back were pictures of Jan and some member of the > Sampas family (I didn't get a good enough look), and, in rock-concert > style bold colorful print, the words "KEROUAC VS. SAMPAS". He also > wore his "HELLO! My Name Is ..." tag upside down, and had replaced the > words "Kerouac Conference" with "Sampas Conference." > > I found this very surprising. Nicosia is quite an established figure > in the Kerouac 'field,' and I've heard people praise his book -- the > longest and most thorough as well as the most recent of all the > Kerouac biographies -- more than any other, including Charters'. He > was certainly risking his reputation by airing his grievances in such > a public fashion. > > It is also admirable, I suppose, that he is doing this not for > himself, but for Jan Kerouac. At the same time, as I watched him > wander the lobby outside the auditorium where booksellers and > Kerouac-interest-groups had set up tables and where people like me > (who hadn't paid to get in) hung around taking in the scenery, I > detected a certain psychotic intensity to the expression on his face, > and it occurred to me that he was maybe taking this all a little too > seriously. > > This opinion was reinforced when I talked to some other people hanging > out around the lobby. I heard that somebody -- either a Jan/Nicosia > supporter, or Nicosia himself -- had disrupted one of the conferences > in the morning. Later I was talking to someone else about the Beat > figures who were hanging around the lobby (at that moment, Anne > Waldman, Joyce Johnson and Ray Bremser as well as Nicosia) and this > person was telling me about the conversations he'd had with them. He > looked at Nicosia and advised me, "Don't talk to him unless you want > to do a lot of listening." > > That was Act One : Act Two took place at Biblio's bookstore in > Tribeca, where the Unbearables were staging their Jack Kerouac > Impersonators Contest. Ann Charters showed up with her husband Sam (a > legendary Blues author, who wrote Country Blues and The Blues Makers, > and who played a very important part in the late-fifties/early-sixties > rediscovery of Robert Johnson, Son House and many other old bluesmen). > They were sitting at a table with a very nice guy I'd recently talked > to in the NYU lobby (Ralph, from Minneapolis) and since Ralph offered > me a seat near him, I suddenly found myself sitting next to Ann and > Sam Charters. Then in comes Gerald Nicosia, still wearing his black > t-shirt with the nasty Ann Charters quotation on the front, and he > heads straight for our table. Ann sees him coming and looks away. > "Excuse me, Ann," Gerald Nicosia says. "I just had to ask you ... do > you think it's right that I was forcibly removed from the conference > this morning under threat of police intervention?" > > Or something like that. Ann tries to play it cool. "I know nothing > about it, Gerald. I had a cold today, and wasn't even at the > conference." > > "Well, do you think it was right? And do you think it's right that > so-and-so Jan Kerouac-this and Sampas-family that and so-on and > so-forth ..." all in a strident, nearly-threatening tone of voice. He > did not seem far from physical violence, although this would not have > been much of a problem, as Sam Charters was about a foot taller and a > hundred pounds heavier than Nicosia. Ann kept trying to put off his > questions. "I'm very sorry that happened, Gerald" "I really don't know > what it is you want me to do about that" and so on. Nicosia walked > away, simmered for a few minutes, then came back even angrier and > started in again. > > All the time I'm sitting there thinking : Wow. I'm sitting here > watching the two major Kerouac biographers duke it out, and I got a > ringside seat. > > I'm now going to do something I've never done before in Literary > Kicks. I've never expressed my opinion on the Jan vs. Sampas Family > hijinks, and that's mainly because I think the whole thing is kind of > dumb. I also don't think it's very interesting to serious Kerouac > readers -- although from my seat at Biblio's I have to admit it was > starting to get pretty damn interesting. > > Anywhere, here's how I call it, for what it's worth : > > 1. Every family has problems, and there is nothing surprising about > the fact that Jan Kerouac (Jack's daughter from his second marraige, > and a daughter that he refused to recognize and almost never met) is > not friendly with the family of Jack's last wife. I'm not saying the > Sampas family is right to snub her, or that she should not feel free > to express how she feels about being snubbed. But like I said, every > family has problems, and I don't see why this particular problem > (which is all about money, really, and has nothing to do with incest > or rape or death or drugs or anything like that) should be blown up > into such a major public issue. > > 2. Jan Kerouac and Gerald Nicosia are saying that the Sampas family > is getting rich by selling off the Kerouac papers little by little, > and that they should instead donate or sell the entire Kerouac > archive to a library. Well ... okay, whatever. My problem with this > argument is : who really cares? Maybe it's better for a single > library to own the whole thing, but is this really a critical issue? > > You all know how much I care about Kerouac's life and work. But > let's admit it ... the guy published enough stuff even during his > lifetime to keep his readers busy for years, even decades. And > that's not to mention his voluminous letters and journals and art > notebooks, and the reminiscences of his many friends and lovers and > compatriots. If you put me in a room with the entire Kerouac archive > right now, I don't honestly know how interested I'd be. Shit, I > haven't even gotten around to reading Vanity of Duluoz yet! > > I always find it ridiculous when people make too big a deal over a > writer's personal archive. No writer is that good. Kerouac was a > man, not a holy savior. Just chill out, everybody, all right? > > 3. By the end of the night I had spoken to Ann Charters, and I liked > her. I'm aware that many serious students of Beat literature > consider her to be a little too chummy with some of the major living > Beat figures (mainly, Ginsberg). She's been accused of prettying up > the truth in some sections of her book, and she's even been dissed > here in Literary Kicks by Tim Bowden in his Carolyn Cassady memoir > (he accuses her of bringing a friend to Carolyn's house to engage > Carolyn in a vapid discussion while she -- Ann, that is -- furiously > scribbles notes from Carolyn's personal papers.) So I feel she's > already been raked over the coals, and I would just like to say a > word in her defense. > > This woman wrote about Jack Kerouac in 1973, back when nobody took > him seriously as a writer. I mean, NOBODY. Her book wasn't even > published by an established firm : Straight Arrow Books was a > division of Rolling Stone magazine. That was what the mainstream > literary world thought of Jack Kerouac back in '73, four years after > his death. It took courage, vision and selfless dedication to devote > her career to a a writer whose literary reputation had never been > good, and was now in a state of utter ruin. > > Now everybody from Viking Penguin to New York University kisses > Kerouac's ass, and it's an all-new world for Beat scholarship. But > let's have a little respect for the person who put her reputation on > the line back when it meant something. Yeah, Nicosia is sticking up > for Jan Kerouac. But Charters once stuck up for Jack Kerouac, and > that means something more. > > Okay, I'm done talking about this. I'd like to conclude this report > with a big "YEEE-HAHHH!" for the Unbearables, who put on a fun, truly > spontaneous show at Biblio's. It started off with some jokes that were > pretty dumb, focusing mainly on a burly guy in a moustache running > around in a wig and housedress pretending to be Kerouac's mother. > Kinda cute, kinda reminiscent of The Diggers, but also much too long. > Some of the audience left during this part, but then the night started > to get going, and a session of Kerouac-inspired spontaneous rants and > readings began to really generate some steam. Some of it was even good > writing, and almost all of it was good ranting. The Unbearables are a > cool bunch; I've heard they've previously protested the bad poetry in > the New Yorker, to which I can only say : what about the shitty > fiction? > > At one point during the Sip A Beer With Mrs. Kerouac Contest I leaned > over to Ann Charters and said "You know, it just occurred to me that > you're the only person in this room who actually did sip a beer with > Mrs. Kerouac." > > She replied, "It was actually champagne. She only drank champagne." > > "Oh really?" I said. "Expensive stuff, or cheap?" > > "Cheap stuff," Ann Charters said. > > That's the end of my report. You'll notice I didn't say anything about > the conferences themselves. They're still going on today, as I sit at > home writing this up. I have a feeling I'm not missing much. As for > what's going on in the lobby ... I think I've seen enough already. > > -- > ---------------------------------------------------------- > Levi Asher = brooklyn@netcom.com > > Creator of Literary Kicks, the Beat Literature Web Site > URL: http://www.charm.net/~brooklyn/LitKicks.html > > Please preview my new Web project, Queensboro Ballads > URL: http://levity.willow.com/brooklyn/ > > "How can you have any pudding if you won't eat your meat?" > -- Pink Floyd > ---------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 09:29:54 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: Fireworks at NYU Kerouac Conference In message <9506100652.AA06348@SIRIUS.COM> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > I hope you've all read this message from "Levi Asher," which I read on the > alt.books.beatgeneration newsgroup. > > Can anyone on our poetics list confirm this first-hand account of World > War III at NYU? Enjoy! > > K. Killian > > > > RINGSIDE SEAT Well, that's all fine and well, but ... i hate to be pedantic but...how was the conference? any good papers? any good readings? anything other than "dysfunctional family systems" run rampant? (too bad my "beat sensibilities" class just ended, this would've been a fine way to conclude, by bringing in a long printout of family feudings. --maria d > > ---------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 10:30:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: opportunity knocks Dodie--Maybe Rae could read with Will Alexander--I don't know many other multiculturals Sun & Moon has published... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 10:55:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: opportunity knocks OOPS---ignore my message to Dodie too--chris s. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 11:08:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: palinode on a nightingale I'm surprised no one's corrected me-- I quoted Duncan's "Olson was a big man" and said SO WHAT!--So was DAVEY CROCKETT--I think it's really Daniel Boone-- "With a corn cob pipe and a button nose and two eyes made out of..." ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 10 Jun 1995 15:22:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Welcome to Poetics msg (revised) Rev. 6-10-95 ____________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Poetics List & The Electronic Poetry Center ____________________________________________________________________ _______Contents___________ 1. About the Poetics List 2. Subscriptions 3. Who's Subscribed 4. Digest Option 5. When you'll be away 6. Archives of the Poetics List 7. To Subscribe to RIF/T 8. Interfaces, HTML, URL 9. The Electronic Poetry Center (EPC) 10. How to Reach the EPC 11. Poetics Archives at EPC 12. Publishers & Editors Read This! _______________________________ Appendix I: Some Links via EPC Appendix II: Archives (Alternate) [This document was prepared by Charles Bernstein (bernstei@ubvms.cc.buffalo. edu) and Loss Pequen~o Glazier (lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu).] ____________________________________________________________________ 1. About the Poetics List Please note that this is a private list and information about the list should not be posted to other lists or directories of lists. The idea is to keep the list to those with specific rather than general interests, and also to keep the scale of the list small and the volume managable. Word-of-mouth (and its electronic equivalents) seems to be working fine: please feel free to invite people you know to sign-up. It is easier for me if they sign-up by themselves AND send me (bernstei@ubvms) a note telling me how they heard about the list. I will send them *this* document in reply. ____________________________________________________________________ 2. Subscriptions The list has open subscriptions. You can subscribe (sub) or unsubscribe (unsub) by sending a one-line message, with no subject line, to: listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu the one-line message should say: unsub poetics {or} sub poetics Jill Jillway (replacing Jill Jillway with your own name; but note: do not use your name to unsub) I will be sent a notice of all subscription activity. ____________________________________________________________________ 3. Who's Subscribed To see who is subscribed to Poetics, send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu; leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: review poetics ____________________________________________________________________ 4. Digest Option The Poetics List can send a large number of individual messages to your account to each day! If you would prefer to receive ONE message each day, which would include all messages posted to the list for that day, you can now use the digest option: Send this one-line message (no subject line) to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu set poetics digest NOTE:!! Send this message to "listserv" not to Poetics or as a reply to this message!! You can switch back to individual messages by sending this messagage: set poetics mail ____________________________________________________________________ 5. When you'll be away You can temporarily turn off your mail by sending a message: set poetics nomail & turn it on again with: set poetics mail ____________________________________________________________________ 6. Archives of the Poetics List There are two ways to get archives. The easiest way is to use the archives of the list at the Electronic Poetry Center (EPC), for which see section 11 below. The other is described in Appendix II. ____________________________________________________________________ 7. To Subscribe to RIF/T To subscribe to RIF/T, the e-poetry magazine at UB's Poetics Program: Send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu. Leave the "Subject" line of the e-mail message blank. In the body of your e-mail message type: subscribe e-poetry John Milton replacing your real name for "John Milton" You will receive a confirmation of your subscription soon thereafter. ____________________________________________________________________ 8. Interfaces, HTML, URL (EPC Preface) Before describing the resources of the EPC and how to gain access to it, it is useful to understand a few Internet concepts. 8.1 Interface Gopher is an ascii-based interface that offers access through the selection of menus; the web is an ascii-based interface that offers access through _screens_ of information with links to other areas appearing as highlighted text; Mosaic is a graphical interface basically superimposed on the Web structure that offers images, sound, video, and allows you to use your mouse as a navigational tool. The EPC is accessible through any of these interfaces. It is presently evolving strongly towards exclusive Web/Mosaic access. Even as activities converge, it is also the time of divergent interfaces. I am often surprised by the number of our contributors and participants who do not even have gopher access. Most people, we figure, have at least gopher access, though Web access is quickly becoming a standard. Mosaic, it would be assumed, though assuming predominance in the University setting, has hardly become a reality for most dial-up users, particularly internationally. 8.2 HTML The standard for Web/Mosaic documents is the markup protocol called html. These are imbedded codes that you will see once in a while when you download an html document. These codes give instructions to the software about highlighting, fonts, and screen layout, as well as providing for the _hot links_ that make possible Web/Mosaic navigation. 8.3 URL A URL, a "uniform resource locator," is to the Internet what a social security number is to a person. In a web/mosaic interace, the "go to URL" option will specify a specific and unique Internet address for you to go to. ____________________________________________________________________ 9. What is the Electronic Poetry Center? The mission of this World-Wide Web based electronic poetry center is to serve as a hypertextual gateway to the extraordinary range of activity in formally innovative writing in the United States and the world. The Center provides access to numerous electronic resources in the new poetries including RIF/T and other electronic poetry journals, the POETICS List archives, an AUTHOR library of electronic poetic texts, and direct connections to numerous related electronic RESOURCES. For texts housed at the Electronic Poetry Center, texts are "definitive" texts inasmuch as, prior to posting, they have been approved by their producers. JOURNALS distributed by the EPC include: DIU / Albany EPC.News / Buffalo Experioddi(cyber)cist / Florence, AL Inter\face / Albany, NY Passages: A Technopoetics Journal / Albany, NY Poemata - Canadian Poetry Assoc. / London, Ontario (Info)/ RIF/T: Electronic Space for New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics / Buffalo Segue Foundation/Roof Book News / New York TREE: TapRoot Electronic Edition / Lakewood, Ohio We Magazine / Santa Cruz Witz / Toluca Lake, CA / via Syntax The Center also provides information about contemporary print little magazines and SMALL PRESSES engaged in poetry and poetics. The Poetry & Poetics DOCUMENT Archive provides access to a number of documents of use to poets, teachers, and researchers. Here you will find essay material and recent obituaries. The EPC also presently offers GALLERY, SOUND, EXHIBITS, and an ANNOUNCEMENTS area. The Electronic Poetry Center is administered by Loss Glazier and Kenneth Sherwood in collaboration with Charles Bernstein. If you have comments or suggestions about sites to be added to the Center, do not hesitate to contact Loss Pequen~o Glazier, lolpoet@ acsu.buffalo.edu or Kenneth Sherwood, e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu ____________________________________________________________________ 10. How to reach the EPC Via the World-Wide Web, the Center can be reached at http://writing.upenn.edu/internet/library/e-journals/ub/rift (no spaces in the address) (Alternatively, you may gopher to writing.upenn.edu. And use the "Search Wings" feature to locate the EPC. Web access is, however, recommended.) Check with your system administrator if you have problems with access. Also ask about setting a "bookmark" through your system for quick and easy access to the Center when you invoke your interface. ____________________________________________________________________ 11. Poetics Archives via EPC Go to the EPC and select Poetics from the opening screen. Follow the links to Poetics Archives. You may browse the archives by month and year or search them for specific information. Your interface will allow you to print or download any of these files. ____________________________________________________________________ 12. Publishers & Editors Read This! PUBLISHERS & EDITORS: Our listings of poetry and poetics information is open and available to you. We are trying to make access to printed publications as easy as possible to our users and ENCOURAGE you to participate! Send a list of your press/publications to lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu with the words EPC Press Listing in the subject line. You may also send materials on disk. Though files marked up with html are our goal, ascii files are perfectly acceptable. Send us extended information on new publications (including any back cover copy and sample poems) as well as complete catalogs/backlists (including excerpts from reviews, sample poems, etc.). Be sure to include full information for ordering--including prices and addresses and phone numbers both of the press and any distributors. Initially, you might want to send short anouncements of new publications directly to the Poetics list as subscribers do not always (or ever) check the EPC; in your message please include full information for ordering. If you have a fuller listing at EPC, you might also mention that in any Poetics posts. ____________________________________________________________________ Appendix I: Some Links Provided by the EPC Alternative-X Basil Bunting Poetry Centre (Durham, England) [Informational] Best-Quality Audio Web Poems (Rhode Island) Carma Bums 'Tour of Words' CICNET Electronic Journal Archive Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities (Virginia) Internet Poetry Archive (North Carolina) Michigan Electronic Text Archive Nous Refuse Discussion List (Illinois) Postmodern Culture (North Carolina) Whole Earth 'Lectronic Magazine ____________________________________________________________________ Appendix II: Alternate Method for Receiving Poetics Archives You may also receive Poetics archives by e-mail, though the language is somewhat arcane. To receive postings for a particular month, for example, send an e-mail message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu leave the subject line of the message blank and in the body of the message type: get poetics.log9505 f=mail Replace 95 (two digits) with the year and 05 (two digits) for the month you seek. For a complete list of available back files, send the message index poetics f=mail ____________________________________________________________________ END OF POETICS LIST WELCOME ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 16:50:34 EDT Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: beard@MET.CO.NZ Subject: hole/cobain/abba Ira: >Tom, I say let the >elegies to Kurt flow; he was a better artist than you or I or 90% of >this list's members will ever be, musically anyway. I'll reserve judgement on Cobain's music, but I _do_ think that many of his followers are responding more to his life/death than to his music. I know people who have painted pictures or written poems "i.m. K.C.", but who admit to having heard nothing except _Smells like Teen Spirit_. Commercially, death is a smart career move. I just get sick of the Rock cliche of "live fast, die young", and I get especially annoyed at those who believe one has to be psychotic/addictive/angst-ridden/poor/smelly/revolutionary/suicidal in order to be creative. Yawn. >And the arrangements >in Abba's songs were amazing; technically they were much more ambitious >and experimental with melody and harmony than many pop bands; do their >critics on this list mean that Abba were "bad" because they were kitsch >(though they still tug mine and many a queer person's heartstrings) or >silly Swedes or what I agree that many Abba songs stand up very well as cover versions, a sign that song-writing and not just star hysteria was a reason for their success. Chris Knox did an amazing rendition of "Knowing me, knowing you", and I loved Erasure's CD-single "Abba-esque". Incidentally, there's an Aussie band of Abba- imitators called "Bjorn Again" who released a CD of Erasure covers called "Erasure-ish". Hyperreal! This has probably already strayed far enough from Poetics, so I won't describe what _I_ call great music (especially since so much of it is instrumental: Orbital, Kraftwerk, Black Dog, Steve Reich, Michael Nyman) except to mention that my lyrical buttons are pushed by Bristol bands - Portishead, Tricky, Massive Attack. Chilling poetry. Tom. ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 16:20:24 EDT Reply-To: beard@metdp1.met.co.nz Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: beard@MET.CO.NZ Subject: Re: Hilda Conklin (Laura Ranger) Jordan: >I'd like publication/ordering info for "Laura's Poems." Published by Godwit Publishing Ltd, P.O. Box 4325, Auckland 1, New Zealand, ISBN 0 908877 63 3. >Readers of this list may know the book "Poems of a Little Girl" by Hilda >Conklin (or Conkling--book's elsewhere). Another NZ example is Gloria Rawlinson, who is now in her 70s, and has had a collection "Gloria In Excelsis" published recently by Riemke Ensing as a gift. And Wystan, thanks for pointing out Michele's success. DIA deserves to sell as many copies as "Laura's Poems": it's full of poetry that enchants, bewilders, intrigues and excites me. I'm particularly glad that it beat "Skinning a Fish". I didn't hear about the results until yesterday, since I've been on nightshift, and my connection to the "Real" has been even more tenuous than usual. Tom. ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 12:55:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Music, Sentimentality, and a discrete indiscreet BlaserCon comment After coming back from the much fabled (and rightly so) BlaserCon '95 to a week of intermittent Domain Name System errors ("none of the known name servers are responding"), I'm ready to wade into the ongoing musical debate. I read a lot of this in big chunks and hope I have correctly attributed any quotes. I also missed how this thread got titled "sentimentality" but that's not important. A few people (Diane Ward & Luigi Bob Drake - thanks for reminding me of Gid Tanner & the Skillet Lickers - come to mind, I'm sure I've left out some others) note that different musics serve different functions. But much of the discussion seems to fall into a kind of cliched jazz versus rock argument. "if it's too loud, you're too old" kind of argument, with all that that characterization implies for both sides of the, uh, discourse. I'm particularly unclear about George Bowering's insistence on the primacy of "the hard stuff" here, given the range of his interests within jazz. George, it can't just be that Hole's use of only 2 or 3 chords bothers you, 'cause the Ayler Bros. (& I have just sent you something about Don on the back channel) used the same 2 or 3 chords (and, though Ayler's music was timbrally very odd, it was most often limited to traditional harmonic structures). And the Aylers, as you recall, were damned loud live, too. So what is it really? Ira's three questions early on (& the responses from Sheila Murphy and others) raise some of the issues that distinguish music from, not just poetry, but most of the arts. Music may not be more moving than, say, poetry, but there are more standards (which differ greatly according to genre & style, which I think calls into question much of the above referenced Bowering/Sondheim discourse) as to what constitutes a "successful" performance in music. This is especially an issue for me after seeing/hearing more than fifty poets read in four days at BlaserCon. I have to say that some of the "best" readers, as far as performance skills go, were not the best readers as far as getting their work across. Some of the more performative readings were distracting and in one or two instances seemed to contradict the sense of the text being, uh, intoned. But that's a matter of taste and it seems that by tradition we only make critical comments about music on poetics-list, so let me here invoke another poetics-list tradition. "Oops, I didn't mean for that to go out to the whole list. Sorry." Anyway, I've rambled in various directions for long enough. Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 12:55:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Thanks for the EMF catalog I moved this from the body of the much longer music morass I posted earlier to ensure that my thanks to Pierre Joris for posting the EMF catalog to poetics didn't get lost. So thanks, Pierre, for getting this catalog on-line here. It's already given me something to point at for a couple of backchannel talks about new music. I'd only heard about EMF in the formative stages from some folks. Now that it's a happening thing, I find it's a nicely quirky collection of music, with a lot of very good music. There's also a few things I wouldn't want the people who live upstairs to listen to, but I can't hear most of the music they play (& they certainly hear more than their share of weird crap) so why should I complain? They don't have anything by Band of Susans yet, but I'm sure that'll soon be remedied. Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 15:54:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: The Bearables Comments: To: Automatic digest processor In-Reply-To: <199506110403.AAA14770@panix4.panix.com> This may sound hopeless, but WHO ARE the Unbearables and are they really as unbearable as all that? What are their names and where do they publish? James (Pplease reply direct to me since I can't always get to the listserv>) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:20:55 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: sentimentality Not a word about the wonderful musics before Bach in Europe. Fact is if you go at it with focussed determination you can get to anyplace in music. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 15:03:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: cobain Hey LC, LC, You're alright by Me, Superstar If Kurt Cobain deserves a Leonard Cohen heaven then so do I. I too worship sex in temples of suffering where the music and noise are so loud they make my insides hurt. I am equally cursed as I only know Warhol Messiahs that bring deliverance to the pop world. Consumption is my motto as I swallow myself in order not to be eaten alive by paisley clean bureaucratic barracuda. I long to be that silver star shining momentarily on the silver screen with or without packaging and plastic. A truly tragic ending is so much more fun than fanning the proverbial embers of talent. To strive, to seek and not to yield means nothing to me, I do not have Ulysses strength or pride. Good things do not always come to those who wait. I want to explode in a vibrant flash and be consumed by my own brilliance, never to fade into the shadows of the next trend, but to be the innovator herself. I want to feel as though I'm not supposed to be here, ahead of my time or trapped in millennia past. Alienation is respectable, the sad distance protects and preserves an icon from years of abuse and misuse. Poor milk at my idol's feet in the temple when I'm gone, but don't embalm me like little Lenin or the righteous Ramesses. Tattoo my name across your chest but don't condemn me to this place any longer than I have already beared. I've practiced the art of the disgusting and You see I want to be free when I travel to my Leonard Cohen heaven of sex and religion, I need to meet my maker head on so I can see what Nirvana really smells like. Lindz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 11 Jun 1995 18:36:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: All about the taking In-Reply-To: from "Tony Green" at Jun 12, 95 09:20:55 am Just finished rereading Rat Jelly, one of my favourites, right now, and was smitten with aquestion for the list(ners), spurred by the following, unfolding: TAKING It is the formal need to suck blossoms out of the flesh in those we admire planting them private in the brain and cause fruit in lonely gardens. To learn to point the exact arc of steel still soft and crazy before it hits the page. I have stroked teh mood and tone of hundred year dead men and women Emily Dickinson's large dog, Conrad's beard and, for myself, removed them from historical traffic. Having tasted their brain. Or heard the wet sound of a death cough. Their idea of the immaculate moment is now. The rumours pass on the rumours pass on are planted till they become a spine. Every noticed how often "brain" occurs in Ondaatje's poetry? Very stark. Anyhow, as some of you may have noticed, I am really interested in influence. My question is not just what do we make of/with influence, the "taking", but what is the mechanics of influence? How does one translate the inertia? Ryan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 14:25:24 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: All about the taking Dear Ryan, that sounds like the historical effort that could be called appropriation of the personae of the "past" a kind of inhabitation of the self-portrait of the deceased, a way to shift one's identity, not necessarily amelioration, to become something one would wish oneself to be, by the process of bio-graphy. That "taking "is all about the giving of whatever one is able to the deceased (love, pity, questioning, argument, what else?) The deceased are different teachers from the living in the exercise of their usually kinder seeming authority. What do you have on this, it interests me too, and I'm just sketching aloud here...(too damn tired after a long seminar to articulate anything so big as a theory). The statements in the verses seem to lead to somewhere about the same kind of place? Best ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:40:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: The Unbearables/letter from a young poet James: The Unbearables are published (I believe) by Grove. Their Andre Breton is Ron Kolm. Their Eluard is (was?--I think they excommunicated him after the New Yorker printed him) Sparrow. Christian X. Hunter, Michael Carter, Jill Rapaport, Buddy Kold, and dozens of others are associated with the group, which met regularly at Cafe No Bar on 9th btw 1 and A for a year or so. Rilke: Okay, I'm off it. Now, tell me (without cribbing from Zukofsky) what are the minimum and the maximum bounds on a poem? What does a poem have to do to be a good poem? Love, Elvis aron presley ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:40:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: name calling Chris S. What do you wish would happen on this list? Marisa J. What do you wish would happen on this list? Maria D. What do you wish would happen on this list? Kenny G. What do you wish would happen on this list? Lisa J. What do you wish would happen on this list? Sheila E. What do you wish would happen on this list? Curious Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 11:44:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Hilda Conklin (Laura Ranger) i met/corresponded with conklin many years ago; the odd business of a poet whose career ended before she started high school. as i remember, she eventuallylived in a no where town, easthampton, massachusetts. she died a few yrs ago (?) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 12:13:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: FUNKHOUSER CHRISTOPH Subject: BOMB PLANS AVAILABLE This message just appeared on the Aerospace List. I thought it's appearance might be of interest to members of this list. Forwarded message: Posted: Mon, Jun 5, 1995 6:23 PM EDT Msg: IVJF-5161-3293/20 From: ("RFC-822": <(a)uga.cc.uga.edu:owner-aerosp-l(a)SIVM.SI.EDU>, SITE:INTERNET) CC: abutrica/NASA Subj: Historic / Scientific Documents *** Just Released!! Ref No: (q)15967 Mon Jun 5 18:22:48 1995(q)(a) gateway.sprint.com Message Id: sprintf.me.966:05.06.95.22.22.45:us/tel email/internet Authorized by: :(C:USA,ADMD:telemail, PRMD:internet, RFC-822"LWALLYSEAG(a)AOL.COM) Content: Important Original Encoded Information: iA5Text We share a similar interest in the History/Science of WWII. I have a good friend who just retired as the Associate Director of Los Alamos Natl Labs in New Mexico. He gave me the plans to the FAT MAN & LITTLE BOY Atomic Bombs. (Unique commemorative, declassified and "just" released!) This is a "must have" for anyone interested in History or Science. I can provide a Museum quality reproduction (1st Draft ) of these documents to you if you are interested. If you are willing to cover my costs, I will gladly send them to you. My "cost" of production and 1st class postage is $15.00 plus $3.00 shipping for each set. I have a limited supply of 1st drafts, so please let me know asap. ( please forward to anyone who might be interested or benifit from these. ) Make check payable to: Jeff Slaton Sincerely, Jeff Slaton 6808 Truchas Dr. NE Albq., NM 87109 "Support The Sciences" 2 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 13:53:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Internet Censorship (Exxon/Gorton bill) I received this message today from Lucy Komisar of PEN American Center, about a matter that affects all on this list but which only those of us in the U.S. can do much about. **** Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 09:12:18 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Internet censorship on Senate floor The attempt to censor the Internet comes up on the floor tomorrow, Tuesday. It's important for senators to get calls from their constituents. Long distance to Washington is NOT necessary--just call your senators' local offices--they keep a record. Say you want the Senator to vote against the Exon/Gorton and Dole/Grassley amendments to censor the Internet and for the Leahy bill. The operator will ask for your name and address, and that's it. Takes 2 minutes. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 11:18:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carl Lynden Peters Subject: Re: All about the taking In-Reply-To: <199506120136.SAA13270@fraser.sfu.ca> from "Ryan Knighton" at Jun 11, 95 06:36:25 pm ryan, have you read bloom's _anxiety of influence_? -- i've only read one essay by bloom, although that title has come up of late in recent converstations. from what i gather, he talks abt strong poets and weak poets, and how in order for a weak poet to become strong seeks to misread the precursor poet --but that's overly sketchy, i know... ...influence and choice...? take care, c ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 15:48:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Call for Essays ****************** CALL FOR ESSAYS ******************* I am currently investigating the possibility of putting together an anthology of essays on American prosodies after Whitman and Dickinson (and by "American" I mean the whole hemisphere). I'm thinking of prosody in its most expansive sense, the overall sonal structure of the poem, including rhythm, syntax, rhyme, and lineation. This does NOT include discussions of poetics. Approaches might include anything from discussions such as Duncan's "The Adventure of Whitman's Line" to more technical essays, such as Donald Wesling's "The Prosodies of Free Verse." I am not primarily interested in strictly quantitative analyses, i.e. finding the perfect system for measuring speech rhythms, unless they are tied to insights into the poem as a meaningful act. Several years ago Douglas Messerli announced such a book (it was called *The New American Prosody*) but he finally had to abandoned it when he couldn't get enough material. Let's try it again. I think there's a definite need for it. Anyone with material or ideas, please contact: Michael Boughn 653 Euclid Ave. Toronto ON M6G 2T6 Canada e-mail: mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 16:07:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Boughn Subject: Re: Call for Essay Further to my last post about a prosody anthology, does anyone know of any other lists where interested poets and scholars might be hovering? If so, would you please send me relevant addresses back channel? Thanks, Mike mboughn@epas.utoronto.ca ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 17:02:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: improved system of writing Anybody want to go in on the $97 with me? Jordan Improved System of Writing Most readers/writers of written matter are aware of, but generally accept as practically unavoidable, occasional time-consuming, irritating, often irreconcilable, ambiguities/puzzles/incompleteness in written matter, eg: the intended leftward/rightward semirange of an "and/or" or hyphenation function; the intended antecedent of a parenthesized expression, or of a pleural or possessive ending of a word, or the intended antecedent of a word or other syntax portion that suggests the presence of a pertinent antecedent (eg such "procedents" as viz, ergo, eg, ie, therefore, whereby, wherefore, whereas, thus, or, and, but, so, such as, for example), or the intended procedents of antecedents, eg the intended procedents of the above procedents serving as antecedents; the intended leftward range of a comma; what word(s) a modifier, such as an adjective or adverb (eg two nouns separated by an "and" and preceded by an adjective, which may or may not be intended to modify the second noun); the intended grouping of words intended to function as a group; an intended syntactical step in a sentence, or an intended substep within such a step (eg steps of various orders); an improper/desperate use of a comma. A typical reason for the presence of such ambiguities/incompleteness/imprecision in written matter is often one or more unnecessary limitations imposed by typical antiquated syntactical methods, eg the difficulty or apparent impossibility of obtaining greater clarity/precision/depth without substantial loss of compactness eg conciseness/succinctness, eg to make written matter clear/thorough it sometimes has to become quite lengthy/ponderous/cumbersome, utilizing only conventional syntactical techniques, such as using typical punctuation marks/optimally selecting words and their best order. This unnecessarily limits the practicality/efficiency/potency eg multidimensionality of written matter. There is also a need for efficiently, eg compactly, indicating a desired repetition of a selected syntax portion. My improved system of writing is not, of course, purported to be perfect, nor to be a method of speedwriting eg shorthand, but nevertheless offers various, apparently novel, syntactical-in-a-broad-sense techniques that address, and appear to substantially satisfy, the fairly-obvious longstanding widespread need for improved syntactical methods/tools for facilitating more efficient, practical, potent, compact, improved written matter eg a system/protocol/syntactical toolbox for substantially reducing the above-mentioned limitations of conventional antiquated syntactical techniques. To receive additional information on the recently improved system, please write; please send your letter requesting such additional information, and enclosing your check for ninety-seven dollars (U.S. $97.00) to cover handling and mailing costs, to Mark Schuman; 101 G Street S.W. #516; Washington, D.C. 20024. Thank you. If, in your future readings, you look for and note the occasional such deficiencies, you may be surprised at their frequency of occurrence. Also, my improved system of writing tends to compact written matter in general, eg even when inefficient use of typographical space appears to be the only deficiency. If you wish more information, please see above in this paragraph, and acknowledge receipt of all info. The recently improved system utilizes a moderate number of symbols inter-/intrameshed with words, and coding; it appears to be novel, practical, and useful, and should facilitate improved written-matter-in-a-broad-sense. For more info, please see the preceding paragraph. Generally, especially if not all of the available features of the new system are selected, most words should no such symbol on or next to ^it^. --Copyright (C) 1995 Mark Schuman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 18:38:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Goldsmith Subject: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction I am creating a John Cage WWW Site on our WFMU server. To my knowledge, there is no Cage homepage/resource currently on the net. I am soliciting material for the page: ascii, html-tagged docs, BBedit docs, jpegs, gifs, etc. relating to John Cage, his life, his work, those who worked with him, etc. At this point, I am only looking for text & visuals--later we can add audio clips. The site is well traveled and I would like to include as many related links as possible. Things are just under construction now but we should have the site up and running by the end of the summer. Thanks in advance for your interest. Please forward this message to those who might be interested. Kenneth Goldsmith kgolds@panix.com kennyg@wfmu.org check out WFMU's homepage: http://wfmu.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 17:52:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: name calling In message <950612094046_68995951@aol.com> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > Chris S. > What do you wish would happen on this list? > > Marisa J. > What do you wish would happen on this list? > > Maria D. > What do you wish would happen on this list? > > Kenny G. > What do you wish would happen on this list? > > Lisa J. > What do you wish would happen on this list? > > Sheila E. > What do you wish would happen on this list? > > Curious > Jordan do you really wanna know? there are many answers to that question. i want the list to provide me with an exciting social life. I want the list to provide me with an exciting intellectual life. i want the list to provide me with a network of likeminded folks all over the world so that i have at least one kindred spirit in every port. i want someone to offer me a great job. i want the euphoric bliss of the ages. secrets of the universe. a great relationship. instant talent and smartness. uninhibited creativity that finds its perfect expression every time, movement into space with untrammeled decency clarity and adventure. on a more pedestrian level, i want to learn how to read some of the newer work that intimidates me. i like the energy i feel from it, but feel inadequate sometimes to interact with it (let alone to teach it, though one of my fantasies is also to one day not have to teach). i want opportunities to meet, help and be helped by, others who are in touch with the spirit of poesie. basically, i guess you could say i want community. did you mean by the question, what content do i want to see? let me think about that and get back to you later. --maria d ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 20:21:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction In-Reply-To: from "Kenneth Goldsmith" at Jun 12, 95 06:38:22 pm Kenneth, Please post the Cage URL to this list when it is up or even partially up so that we may link to it from the EPC. Loss ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 21:55:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Cayley Subject: Golf was invented in China Could someone re-post this to one of those *huge* PoMo lists or newsgroups. I guess this will qualify as the world's greatest simulacrum: >[CND, 06/11/95] BEIJING -- Chang'an, the capital of the Tang dynasty and >the start of the famous ancient Silk Route is to be re-built to attract more >visitors, Reuter reported. The city will preserve traditional Chinese city >design such as gates, watchtowers and terraces. No construction date or >cost were revealed, however, it will be the world's biggest replica >metropolis. Chang'an is located near Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi province >in central China. (Kun Wang, Jian LIU) ----------- John Cayley Wellsweep Press [in Chinese HZ: ~{?-U\02~} ~{=[i@3v0fIg~}] PERMANENT ADDRESS: 1 Grove End House 150 Highgate Road London NW5 1PD UK Tel & Fax: 0171-267 3525 Email: cayley@shadoof.demon.co.uk TEMPORARY FROM 17 MAY TO 5 AUG 1995: St Leonards Island PO Box 62 Port Carling Ont. P0B 1J0 Canada Tel & Fax (705) 769 3598 Email: cayley@inforamp.net SUMMER 1995 URL: http://www.inforamp.net/~cayley ----------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 19:45:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: name calling What about me, Jordan? Just kidding. Don't let anybody shut you down by pretending that "we've answered all these questions before," because the fact is, often we haven't really answered the question, only finessed it into a question we *can* answer; and even with the questions we do answer, the whole world changes underneath and leaves the answer looking embarrassed and the question needing to be paid attention to anew. I *wish* eternal inner (and outer) PEACE would break out on this list, but I'd settle for many intelligent, inspired people feeling free to communicate with each other about what concerns them and about what provokes thought and feeling. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 19:45:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: The Unbearables/letter from a young poet >Rilke: >Okay, I'm off it. Now, tell me (without cribbing from Zukofsky) what are the >minimum and the maximum bounds on a poem? What does a poem have to do to be a >good poem? Just blow my mind, baby; just blow my fucking mind. Steve (live well die when you're damn good and ready) Carll ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 12 Jun 1995 21:38:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Sheila E. Murphy" Subject: Re: name calling I'm grateful for the question: "What do you wish would happen on this list?" which of course engenders potential sheepishness, as anything I wish that I've not already tried to make happen volleys right back in the form of "Why NOT" - What, after all, could stop desire except a) Lethargy b) Guilt c) Fear d) Lack of Imagination e) Many More Unnamables I'd Just As Soon Not Seep Into My Body's Brain. (Ah, denial!) Maria does a nice job of kicking off an answer. Community's a nice start. One thing I'll admit, having been asked this open thing: I have for many years relished my correspondence with several individuals who have become close through the medium of letters. That kind of thing can happen (the one-to-one) electronically, and does. In SOME, certainly not all, instances, the billboard motif of the list is difficult, as private relationships have their own subtlety and craft themselves of a privacy that is itself delicious beyond what group things usually do for me. And yet, with that, the list offers DIFFERENT things. It was a good vicarious experience to hear many views of the Blaser conference. Perhaps just good to know that it existed and brought so much dazzlement and warmth to so many people, who held and projected what had happened for them. In this way, the list is BETTER THAN private correspondence. So, more of that. What I'd like to see MORE OF is the sharing of new work via the list. Maybe group creations. Yet maybe I don't. You'll notice that I haven't started either one of these myself. Why not? One thing I definitely like are QUESTIONS that bring up issues that people want to whiffle around. It's nice to listen (not to deny the eyes) and to toss in something when it is possible to think back. Are you sorry you asked (me)? But it's good to be asked. Sheila E. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 01:08:03 -40962758 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Re: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction Kenneth Goldsmith: > To my knowledge, > there is no Cage homepage/resource currently on the net. This is incorrect. There is a John Cage Internet mailing list maintained by Joeseph Zitt, who also hosts a Cage home page. His URL is: http://www.realtime.net/~jzitt/ The Cage home page hangs somewhere off of his home page. I believe the correct E-mail address to subscribe to the E-mail list is: majordomo@bga.com with the line subscribe silence -- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.pgh.net ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 09:27:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: everywhere and nowhere Maria, Steve, and Sheila, Thanks. It made me happy to read what you wanted to happen. It does seem like there is a common (strong) interest in radical poetries among the readers of this list. Maria, I'd like to get some energy for/a way into reading newer work, too. For instance, could somebody discuss the ideological distinction between writing in Poetic Briefs/Situation and writing in Apex/Chain? (Maybe we've all heard enough about that. How about someone offering a brief introduction to the work of Mark Wallace, or Chris Stroffolino, or Kristin Prevallet?) Could somebody say something about the work by younger poets in New York that claims to be "against form"? Some people have been posting poems from time to time--reading back through the monthly journals I found poems by Bill Luoma, Charles Alexander, Alan Sondheim and others. It seemed to me like a pretty good (i.e. friendly) way to publish. And how about collaborative works through this list? Maybe a MUD or a MOO or an IRC, some real-time area, would be a better place to write as a group. I don't quite know how those areas work, though. Maybe Chris Funkhouser can explain a little? Chris F., What do you wish would happen on this list? Dodie B., What do you wish would happen on this list? Charles B., What do you wish would happen on this list? Tan L., What do you wish would happen on this list? Carla B., What do you wish would happen on this list? Interested and listening, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 08:32:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: name calling In message <199506130245.TAA21460@slip-1.slip.net> UB Poetics discussion group writes: > What about me, Jordan? > > Just kidding. Don't let anybody shut you down by pretending that "we've > answered all these questions before," because the fact is, often we haven't > really answered the question, only finessed it into a question we *can* > answer; and even with the questions we do answer, the whole world changes > underneath and leaves the answer looking embarrassed and the question > needing to be paid attention to anew. > > I *wish* eternal inner (and outer) PEACE would break out on this list, but > I'd settle for many intelligent, inspired people feeling free to communicate > with each other about what concerns them and about what provokes thought and > feeling. > > Steve the nature of this msg makes me wonder: jordan davis, why dd you ask me (imagine italics on that final syllable)? have i indicated discontent? --maria d ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 11:13:48 -0400 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: everywhere and nowhere >For instance, could somebody discuss the ideological distinction >between writing in Poetic Briefs/Situation and writing in Apex/Chain? (Maybe >we've all heard enough about that. How about someone offering a brief >introduction to the work of Mark Wallace, or Chris Stroffolino, or Kristin >Prevallet? jordan-- i'd very much recommend Mark Wallace's piece "On the Lyric as Experimental Possibility" which appeared in the latest WITZ (spring '95; 10604 Wguooke St,m Toluca Lake CA 91602; creiner@crl.com) as a piece of that puzzle... praps mark or chris reiner (WITZ editor) would be willing to post it, here or at the epc... luigi TRR/Burning Press ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 09:45:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: Re: everywhere and nowhere Comments: To: Robert Drake In-Reply-To: <199506131513.LAA26689@eeyore.INS.CWRU.Edu> On Tue, 13 Jun 1995, Robert Drake wrote: > jordan-- > > i'd very much recommend Mark Wallace's piece "On the Lyric as > Experimental Possibility" which appeared in the latest WITZ (spring > '95; 10604 Wguooke St,m Toluca Lake CA 91602; creiner@crl.com) > as a piece of that puzzle... praps mark or chris reiner (WITZ > editor) would be willing to post it, here or at the epc... > > luigi > TRR/Burning Press I'm a little behind in uploading issues to the epc, but if anyone wants a paper copy of the new Witz, just send me a 55-cent stamp to cover the postage. The address is Witz 10604 Whipple Street Toluca Lake, CA 91602 I'm also interested in responses to Mark Wallace's piece. --Chris Reiner ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 16:24:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: singling Maria Damon wrote: the nature of this msg makes me wonder: jordan davis, why dd you ask me (imagine italics on that final syllable)? have i indicated discontent? --maria d Not at all! I was just curious what you would wish. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:01:18 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: name calling Dear Jordan, I'd like to see the power of the practice of poetics (in any/all "discourse(s)") demonstrated everywhere. The hope I have of any institution (this list included) is that it'll work to that end. Although collab on poems is a nice thought (a why-not), how about (collaborating on) ways of making poetics effective as a way of intervening in all the sites where the arts can be practised, from the obvious of poetry publication to all aspects of the academy and the media. There is an old question lurking here: Does poetry or does poetry not (in the maybe subtle and maybe long-term sense) change the world"? Isn't the pen mightier than the sword? (esp. when "the darkness surrounds us"?). ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 18:32:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lindz Williamson Subject: MEMORABILIA In-Reply-To: We, the self-proclaimed editors, Nicole Critten and Lindsey (LINDZ) Williamson wish to welcome you to the first, and definately not the last, CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS TO MEMORABILIA.. For those who write, we offer the opportunity to be published, along with other local writers (Vancouver, lowermainland, B.C.), in an uncensored forum that is circulated in outlets chosen to provide you with excellent public exposure. For those who read, we wish to provide you with a window into the writing of fresh local talent and encourage your particpation in, and feed back on, what you discover in our pages. Each issue will be loosely based around a theme of importance, such as a time, mood, or place. However, we offer a theme only as a rough creative outline for each issue and encourage any form of expression or response. Memorabilia is a paper with an ecclectic spirit so do not feel limited or inhibited: if it's art, we want to see it! CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: THE SECOND ISSUE OF MEMORABILIA Lies and confessions-childhood, marital, professional, religious, little white lies to cover your ass, big white lies to cover your ass-we ask for all forms of creative expression on this theme by July 10, 1995. We remind you that space is limited so keep all pieces short. Please send a self-addressed-stamped-envelope and $5.00 for each previously unpublished submission to help us cover our costs. Only submissions received by mail will be accepted. We regret that we can't publish everyone, but we will send everyone the edition they applied to appear in. Please note also that you waive all publication rights upon sending us your work. If you have any questions or wish to order a subscription (Issue One is available, featuring Ryan Knighton and Reg Johanson) feel free to write or e-mail us at critten@unixg.ubc.ca. Send submissions to: MEMORABILIA 3675 W 3rd Ave Vancouver, B.C. V6R 1M1 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 01:39:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marisa A Januzzi Subject: Re: name calling In-Reply-To: Jordan: well, like everybody, I want to see my name in lights, so thanks! How disarming it is to be "called." Suddenly I was playing the third quarter of a game there and a pompom seemed to rustle. I absolutely second "what Maria said." And what Jordan said, too: one of the reasons I'm here is for as warm a hand-in as possible to the aesthetics of the very very new. And people on this list have in fact pushed me to read things I wouldn't have had the incentive to read otherwise, like that whole damn double O-Blek (you know who y'all are) and also Rilke, lately, and Jordan Davis in something called Arris. My test of a new poem is pretty pedestrian: the first thing I usually check, is: what is the poet's relation to language, and does s/he seem to have bought into some obnoxious idea about how it ought to circulate or not? Admittedly, I often miss out on stuff that has a certain 'finish' to it, even if it's actually smart (for instance, I'm still struggling past Merrill's veneer)... I'd be curious to hear about poets people on this list have reconsidered at one point or another, and why. I'd also like to see more from Tony Green and anyone else on the "power of the practice of poetics"-- Tony: what do you mean by 'power,' and what by 'practice'? (anecdotes, please!) Three things on my mind lately: finishing this l-o-n-g Mina Loy bibliography, the dynamics of literary revivals, and Salt Lake City. It would be an act of charity if anyone on the list can tell me (backchannel) what's going on with poetry, Salt Lake City, and the University of Utah... someone mentioned Utah once, and I meant to be all over the reference but wasn't. I am moving and I'm grateful you people will all seem to be in the same 'place.' Bye for now--- Marisa ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 00:02:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: John Cage WWW Site Under Construction Kenneth - Don't stop working on your Cage website, but you should know that there are a few more than the one by Joseph Zitt that Jim Rosenberg gave the URL for earlier. I'm not sure, but by now there may be links to these from this web site. One is part of the New Albion Records site. They have a page for each of their artists and their Cage website includes a long autobiographical text & a very good discography of Cage's recordings. For a commercial venture this site is quite low key and is very informative about the various composers and performers who have recordings on New Albion. Another web site on Cage probably isn't permanent. It's from the Philadelphia Museum of Art where the traveling exhibition (which I'm sure I spelled wrong) is currently being shown. The last time I checked this one was kind of rudimentary as far as information goes, but has a few nice examples of scores and other graphic works from the exhibition. There's a page with a lot of links to Cage references of various sorts (some are pretty minor indeed) at Bests, Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:50:26 BST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" Subject: What is this list for? In-Reply-To: <199506140509.GAA12624@tucana.dur.ac.uk> I'm amazed how often this topic crops up when self-evidently the purpose of the list shifts and veers as topics come and go. "Out here" in a fairly isolated situation I DO relish the contact which it brings, and the simple billboard function, which I'd like to see more of. I'd like more: - conference reviews - poetry reading reviews - mag & chapbook reviews - "rediscovered texts" reviews - where "review" is a few lines, rather than full academic discourse! - "Keep it short, boys!" - Val Raworth, preface to a Harwood/Raworth poetry reading. Of course, I like some of the "abstruser musings" too, and when I don't, technology provides me with the solution (delete key). But I do agree that the list isn't the place where personal identities come over, or where personal messages are appropriate - backchannels are the place for that. Indeed, backchanneling contact has for me been one of the most directly useful products of this list. If it's any help, Poetics list readers may like to know that UK librarians have the same soul-searching about the "function" of their e-mail lists - and a lot of them end up talking about the "need to police the internet" and so forth. And that some initial linguistic research (I'm sorry, I don't have the reference) suggest that folk are much more likely to be rude, as in abusive, in e-mail correspondence, than in letters or face-to-face. On which note: Footnote: I dumped the Hole/Love exchanges down to a rock musician I know, who said, (on the phone) Dad, WHY are you reading this blairite* fanzine crap? *blair'ite: n. & adj. Squishy socialist; of or pertaining to the chattering classes. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:37:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: What is this list for? thank you Ric Caddel for the adjective "blair'ite"---Is this then a "blairite" message? That thanks you for the lamnguage with which it can condemn itself? I mean language. Mean language. Squishy socialist--yes backchannel----In America, very little gets done on the FLOORS of congress---if you only knew the dealing that goes on in the back of the store---- chris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:42:54 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: name calling Re.: Power and practice of poets. Are indeed poets the legislators of the world? I don't know, but I do believe that poetry soars, while politics snores. Down with the utilitarian, Tony Green!! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 09:47:57 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: What is this list for? I can't say how happy I am to read Richard Caddel's wonderfully candid remarks about how this list ought to function. New to this list myself, I have bit my tongue--and glad I did because I would have called for something perhaps too prescriptive. Yet I must say that my heart in hiding stirs for Mr. Caddel's words. BACKCHANNEL IS A GOOD THING, otherwise the list becomes too cumbersome. No? Burt Kimmelman kimmelman@admin.njit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:08:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Jordan Davis." Subject: Re: What is this list for? Richard Caddell writes: I'm amazed how often this topic crops up when self-evidently the purpose of the list shifts and veers as topics come and go. Well... sort of. Then later, he writes: If it's any help, Poetics list readers may like to know that UK librarians have the same soul-searching about the "function" of their e-mail lists - and a lot of them end up talking about the "need to police the internet" and so forth. Richard, I wasn't thinking about limiting the functions of this list. I was hoping people would say what they wanted to see--more like market research than the star chamber (maybe they're not the same thing!). Poetics, What "general" magazines do you read? ("General"=high circulation quasi-literary) Love, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:08:43 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: What is this list for? Richard Caddel wrote: >But I do agree that the list isn't the place where personal identities come >over ..... God forgive that our personal identies arise when discussing writing! Beat the personal out of writing/reading with a stick, right? Keep that writing in its analytical cage, boys! Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 12:07:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: maria damon Subject: Re: What is this list for? > > Poetics, > What "general" magazines do you read? ("General"=high circulation > quasi-literary) > > Love, > Jordan Jordan, i welcome your questions as inviting interaction, much like the "what everybody's reading" q a few months ago. it never crossed my mind that you were trying to police the internet. As for journals etc., i (try to) read Public Culture, Diaspora, and occasionally Cultural Anthropology. I have no subscriptions to "literary" periodicals except pmla (which hardly qualifies) but do i read it? nahhh --except for the professional notes and comments at the end. kkillian has sent me a coupla back issues of Mirage, and Gary Sullivan lent me some stuff like grand central. i just picked up the "IT's the Jews!" issue of Long Shot, which I find quite wonderful (esp the cover photo). i was on the editorial board of Signs, that academic feminist journal, for about a year (very demystifying). I've got a coupla issues of Chain that i've lent out to students and colleagues cuz they seem so apropos their work. best--maria ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 12:01:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Re: What is this list for? In-Reply-To: from "R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk" at Jun 14, 95 10:50:26 am > If it's any help, Poetics list readers may like to know that UK > librarians have the same soul-searching about the "function" of their > e-mail lists - and a lot of them end up talking about the "need to > police the internet" and so forth. A note on this is that the current U.S. debate is called (I'm not making this up) the "jeans vs tux" paradigms of the Intenet. The former being wild and unrestrained; the latter being formal, controlled, and regulated. There _is_ some possibility that all we are doing here may be over in a flash (a la the sixties) because the tux forces are not inconsequential in influence and power. It's a curious predicament, possibly deadly, but maybe not so curious if you think that in the US, all media is strictly regulated... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 10:56:50 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: List fantasies Jordan Davis write: >Dodie B., >What do you wish would happen on this list? Frankly, I don't have an agenda, even an imaginary one, for this list. I'd like it if more women wrote in, because there's certainly enough amazing, smart, opinionated women signed up on the list. Let's do some retro-feminist thinking about this, sort of a stroll down memory lane, and think about why more women don't post to this list. Two reasons come to mind. The first one is kind of French--I think a lot of the gals out there are happy wallowing around in their jouissance, and really aren't drawn to partake in a lot of the abstract b.s. that goes on here. Who can blame them--it's hard to get all that motivated about the poetics listserv to cease and subvert it--most of the women on this list *do* have a life. Secondly, there are those old monster feelings of invalidation. I remember reading a very painful essay by a young female poet in which she talked about her fear of speaking, of expressing her opinions--without the slightest suggestion that this was an issue bigger than her personal psychology. (Did somebody flush the seventies down the toilet? Gloria Steinam where are you!) I wanted to put my arm around her shoulder and say, "Honey, you're not alone." Actually, I think there are a lot of sensitive guys out there who share similar insecurities. Around the time I read this woman's essay I was writing a long article on religious cults (which will finally be published June 22 in the San Diego Reader--S. CA campers, check it out!). I fantasized my own feminist New Age Movement, the motto of which would be WHO GIVES A SHIT. It's easy. You think, "Blah Blah will think I'm stupid if I say that." What do you say to yourself? "Who gives a shit!" It works in all social situations, not just in poetics discussions. Remember: Blah Blah must be saying "Who gives a shit" to himself all the time or he wouldn't be throwing out his inane opinions as if they were the god's truth. I hope none of you think I'm silly and stupid and small and ugly for writing this. Who gives a shit! Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 14 Jun 1995 12:23:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Re: What is this list for? In-Reply-To: <199506141601.MAA15775@autarch.acsu.buffalo.edu> from "Loss Glazier" at Jun 14, 95 12:01:48 pm electrically each come and go talking of till human voices wake us and drown (make no mistake, this iis a love song) ryan =========================================================================