========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 01:12:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peque=F1o?= Glazier Subject: Change of E-mail Address Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please note that various pieces of e-mail sent to me since June, 2001 have apparently disappeared (simply been erased). This is a situation that has resulted in the loss of literarily hundreds of , if not a thousand, messages. The proposed fix is that my lolpoet address is going to be eliminated and that people should start e-mailing me ONLY on my glazier account (glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu). The transition will, in its first phase, take about two weeks. (No more mail should be lost at that point.) Complete conversion to the new arrangement will take about one year. Please correct your address books and files to now use the glazier address only. I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Thankfully, this mystery that has haunted me all summer now has a resolution. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Please note that mail should no longer be sent to my lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu address. Please correct your records and address books so that mail is sent only to glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu. A considerable amount of mail was lost in the summer of 2001. To correct this, the glazier address ONLY should be used. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 01:20:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss =?iso-8859-1?Q?Peque=F1o?= Glazier Subject: URLs for the EPC Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please note that the URL for the EPC should be referred to as: http://epc.buffalo.edu and NOT http://writing.upenn.edu/epc Any reference to a specific author or other sub-location in the EPC should similarly be revised. For example, my author page would NOT be referred to as http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/authors/glazier but rather as http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/glazier The new system is more economical and more logical. Please make a note to check references in your CVs, articles, and other places and help make standard this more direct method of referring to the EPC. Thanks! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------- Please note that mail should no longer be sent to my lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu address. Please correct your records and address books so that mail is sent only to glazier@acsu.buffalo.edu. A considerable amount of mail was lost in the summer of 2001. To correct this, the glazier address ONLY should be used. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 13:02:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Leevi Lehto website Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The Finnish poet Leevi Lehto has recently added to the English interface to= his web site, which has much new and interesting material, some generated= from a reading Leevi, Arakadii Dragomochenko, and I gave in Helsinki on= August 2, 2001, as part of an evening entitled "Language West and East" at= Villa Kivi. Enter at http://www.leevilehto.net/english.asp=20 First you will find a link to "The Four Salutes", our attempt to find a= poetry equivalent of the "Three Tenors". This starts with the text of= Mallarme's poem. "Salut" and a RealAudio reading in French by the young= Finnish translator, Tommi Nuopponen. Next is my quasi-homophinic version of= "Salute", text and audio. This is followed by Tommi's homophonic Finnish= translation "after" the Mallarme poem, read by Leevi. Next is Tommi's= Finish translation of my Mallarmean lyric. You can listen to the sound= files poem by poem or together, as we did them in performance. Next up is the text of my poem "Sunset Sail"; followed by= "Iltaruskopurjehdus", Leevi's Finish translation; followed by Tommi's "Sail the Eveningbreak", his English translation of Leevi's Finnish translation of "Sunset Sail".=20 Finally, there is an audio file of an excerpt from Arakadii Dragomochenko's= reading, in Russian, probably the only audio file of Arkadii on the web.= And there are photos too. The rest of the site is devoted to Leevi's work. I'd especially recommend= his digital poem "=C4=E4ninen 2.0 beta", which generates an unlimited= number of syntactical sonnets from a fixed pool of 2500 words from his= (print) collection of sonnets, "=C4=E4ninen". Readers can control a number= of parameters in the generation of the new sonnets. Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 10:36:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII let me be in your presence and careful consideration this one last time, i am of this firm belief, and of the hardest on myself; grant me now this; in this broken life there are some moments of pure brilliance, substance; let them speak; discard the worst of them; filter and winnow the rest; i have come from nowhere and will go nowhere; read each and every letter; give me the ability to fail; let one or another word falter; do not hold; stave off the fear of oblivion; lift ever so slightly the gravestone; what must it take to give weight to the words; catch texts from the brink; as now she could hardly touch the keyboard without her fingers shaking; presage of a career or futility; she would wake up in fright, sweating, already she was running out of steam, the book was completed, closed off, only the idea of obsession; already she felt her death far too near, she thought, there were nothing to say in her work, or it was nothing, over and over again, the same or slightly different substance; as if, would appear the slightest bit meaningful, as if she only wrote once, but, would ever be considered by itself of any importance, only the obsession since no particular work, not even the book which took so long to write, would, in the long run, be considered an idiot savant, horrible failure, which was, would it not always be, proving impossible, and because of it, that she would have to, therefore, continue to write at the same level, that, because of the quantity of her work, expectations were always high, ever, produce anything to live up to that work which had been hers alone, worrying the language and terrified at the same time. that she would not, below; reading in reverse immediately corrects everything, she thought, as if one should have, in this case, a title, hanging down, an appendage, the fear ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 07:40:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Felsinger Subject: Re: Friend/Felsinger In-Reply-To: <78.1a007036.28bfa925@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit That's Bill Freind who did the interview, not Bill Friend. (I've made this mistake a few times already.) --A > From: Jacques Debrot > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 10:35:17 EDT > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Friend/Felsinger > > Of course, Bill Friend--not Andrew Felsinger--interviewed Kent Johnson, > apologies. Though I have heard that Friend really is Felsinger . . . > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:12:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: Jacques and John MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ammonides diodoros wrote: > one should remember all those nasty things they said about the lovely boy > Chatterton, that saintly little Theseus... do you think he would bounce and > scowl like Jeffrey Jullich --------------------------------- Dear M. 'Aimonides ("M" for "M'sieur"!) Jackie and I (“Jacques DeBrot,” that is) transmit heartfelt thank you from here on floor for your sweetest-flavored epistolary novel installment yet, you one-man revival you. (Much appreciation for witty Quintus Horatius Flaccus allusion!) PLUS germ-free air kisses to those four, unseasonable “boys in the band” from You-Know-Who! (J.A. = Jah? Rastafarian deity incarnation?) His late-breaking band name contest entry: try “Ihr Glocken von Marling”. Back to the topic (poetry) in a min’. Guitar-strummin’ jailbait sure know Fifth Avenue Botox injections have “Jullich” facial musculature too rigid, too unnatural, to “scowl” (Ho ho! “scowl” as concealed “scow” Shoptaw word, meaning vessel with square ends and--- flat bottom!? Insulting sagging posterior?!) during mid-life crisis vanity phase. John took whole minutes out of writing truly epochal verse, not at all self-imitative, to clear up positively everything. He says HE (John) asked reapme “interview” questions under name-change “Jacque Debro” ( ) and --- guess who! --- Jackie “DeBrot” giveth fatted kine answers unto The Master with misnomer “Joh Ashber”, as zem discipline! So, all laughter. All comic relief. Exhaling thunderous sighs (whew!) as if bee-punctured bagpipe music. It was so VIRTUALITY-oriented in their mid-to-late-1900s cleverness, I’d say--- nay! So Virtuoso of ‘cques ‘brot. (Marcella D. protests over "vir-" root etymology and typical males. But you know ~”her”.~) Found remaindered copy, not at all encrusted, of that K.K. Ruthven “Felsifying Literature” title thou inquirest after O these many days (July 25th, ingenious Oulipo one-letter-later-in-alphabet substitution: “K.K.” indeed) --- and guess where! --- in the COLOMBARIUM! I can’t put it down.. And, shop-talk, just wanted to recommend latest ish of Andy Felsinger’s new “e-‘zine” litBrot.com for truly thrilling Kent Johnson proposing --- here’s the scream! --- adopting peudonyms to fool everyone, to follow us around, as best my understanding, as at costume ball! guessing handsome masked man’s identity. But only one peevish question: Say nicknames were one. F’r ‘xample: Jacques could be “Jack” and John could be “Jack.” Then---? But also, K. Johnson speaks of “Flatland” (Remember that old chestnut? Geometry fantasia.) So appealing, flatness! Not distended, not convex. As flat belly is highly sought after by gymnasium-subscribers. Off to Fifth Avenue for Botox ‘jection now. Private jet revvin’ up for jaunt to Antilles for holiday weekend full moon organ enlargement (just Cacques and I! {and pilot} the servant class on strike, so foraging for ourselves on knees digging at tree roots bare-handed). And thanks, too, for not existing. For being the Yasusada you are (AND lovin’ it)! Oh. And that Jacquesline Kentedy Onansis “Best Loved Poems” book. Can’t find it anywhere. Hmph. Checked Rizzoli’s, checked Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. Where else to look! You don’t think September 26th publication date could be delaying things, do you? Luv, P.S. Here’s a little haiku I hardly had time to dream up: ZZZ-ZZ-Z-ZZZZ-z Snore? Power tool? ………………… ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 12:46:34 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: suicide and Plath and substance use MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Plathfully speaking my new apt. has a nice little gas range replete with head sized oven ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 18:32:46 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: "DeBrot" virus spreading [answer to an old "KNOCK KNOCK WHO'S THERE?" joke] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If there's one thing I detest, in the literary context, even more than the Brit poetry scene, it's the US version of the same. Which does NOT mean I detest US poetry. But all these games, these smart-arse ego-strategies, baah! As far as I know DeBrot is no poet and I don't know why figures of that nature deserve attention. Reach me my Sondheim machine. Generate, generate. Auto-poet plus, honed to the boredom point, the quotidian of formulaic repetition. Best David Bircumshaw ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Jullich" To: Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 5:31 PM Subject: "DeBrot" virus spreading [answer to an old "KNOCK KNOCK WHO'S THERE?" joke] > >> Given > >> > >> (1) that Gary Sullivan circulated a falsified Ashbery interview and > >> forged Ashbery poems (identity of author, not "DeBrot," still > >> withheld by Sullivan),--- and > >> > >> (2) that this unreliability has already entered into circulation and > >> spurred further misinformation via literaryhistory.com,--- and > >> > >> (3) Given that Andrew Felsinger of litvert.com has published not > >> only "DeBrot" (in a case already commanding its own separate > >> international threats of lawsuit), but that litvert.com is also > >> strongly associated with Kent Johnson (suspected "forger" behind the > >> Yasusada deception) who espouses "heteronymity" and the widespread, > >> strategic use of noms-de-plume/noms-de-guerre and false identities > >> as a literary strategy,--- AND --- > >> > >> (4) NOTO BENE --- that litvert.com published in its first issue a > >> poem by one "John Ashbery,"--- > >> > >> there is strong reason to believe that the litvert.com "Ashbery" > >> poem is also a forgery. > >> > >> ------------------------------------ > >> > >> It remains to be seen how the graduate English Dept. of Harvard > >> University reacts to one of their Ph.D. candidates ("DeBrot") > >> participating in a "ring" of falsification, and disseminating > >> inauthentic documents within his own research field. > >> > >> In the tiny field of George Chapman autograph studies (translator of > >> Homer), there was a forger who compulsively altered any manuscripts > >> that might pass through his hands. The verifiability of all Chapman > >> sources must be triple-checked against whether the forger could have > >> ~potentially~ come in contact with the documents, in which case they > >> are rendered dubious. (If there ~were~ a Harvard doctoral candidate > >> worth his snuff, he would be able to supply the missing name of the > >> forger.) > >> > >> Gary Sullivan's perpetration of the "DeBrot" "hoax" places into > >> question all contiguous parties, and it corrupts the credibility of > >> all publications therein. Note the similarity between the poem > >> attributed to "Benjamin Friedlander" (below) and an on-line poem > >> credited to "Jacques DeBrot" (thereunder, > >> http://www.theeastvillage.com/tb/debrot/p2.htm): > >> > >> ---------------------------------- > >> "FRIEDLANDER": > >> > >> MOTHER > >> > >> It hurts > >> to chew on > >> the nipple of your pain > >> and feel the milk- > >> lessness of time > >> from the wrong end > >> of a nursing grudge > >> cowed by a pendulous Why? > >> ---------------------------------- > >> "DeBrot": > >> > >> gluhhnkKKK-K > >> > >> Your tongue makes my breasts girls. Clench up > >> and ball the nipple curving back, slapping against the mud. > >> The nerves jump intrin- > >> sically -- cow finger glistening > >> like nibbling candy. Start slowly, wonder > >> the bone of it while > >> my mess grows a pencil. Why?. > >> ----------------------------------- > >> > >> The identities of all List members using @hotmail accounts (like > >> Sullivan) or other such free addresses that do not verify sender > >> identity are open to doubt. Kent Johnson's "heteronymity" proposes > >> an entire ~community~ of fictionalized participants ("writing to and > >> about each other and back to their creators and through time, > >> re-valuing, dis-assembling, re-making the canon. What will the > >> poetry world do with this?": > >> http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). Much of the List > >> exchanges you have been reading may have been between different > >> "heteronyms", personae, and sign-ons by the same writer or group of > >> writers. > > > >> (Please note recent, sudden switching back and forth between e-mail > >> addresses, changes of already fatuous sign-ons (from "][-n serf[" to > >> "][mex][", say), or the affixing of comical names ("Jennifer", for a > >> man) or "Jackson" as an previously unused second last name > >> coincidentally with List mentions of Laura Riding Jackson! or when > >> one "character" calls another by a wrong name ("Jim-- I'm humiliated > >> to be called Pierre after we've spent nights drinking 1/2 a dozen > >> times together & you've published me in _canihaveyr_") in ways that > >> are unnecessarily but conspicuously reenforcing earlier suspect > >> claims documenting their existence. Remain alert!) > >> > >> Jim Behrle of canyouhaveyourballsback.com is practicing a form of > >> "reverse" or quasi-heteronymity, mailing his publication "11" to > >> people with the name "Zoe Johnson." "Michael Magee" (editor of > >> Combo) and "Jordan Davis" (editor of The Hat) are published in 11. > >> > >> "Jacques Debrot" is the name of the cultural minister of The > >> Antilles (http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). > > > >> ********************************************************** > >> "Julu: This is a mess, just a blank, a brick, salvaged from the > >> Amaya > >> test browser. Just a moment, the phone is ringing. > >> > >> Julu: As I was saying, this is a mess. There's nothing to it, > >> nothing. > >> The substitutions are weak; there's nothing to be done about it. It > >> was > >> saved from Amaya through lynx. Hold on, someone's at the door." > >> > >> --- Sondheim, Alan, (Untitled) Thu, 5 Jun 1997 > >> > > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:04:45 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: The Virus is Mine (Only Advertisements Are Real) In-Reply-To: <3B8E6A73.21D49A9@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Forwarding this e-mail from Lester: Actually "Gary Sullivan,", "Jacques Debrot," "Coco Debrot," "Andrew Felsinger," "Benjamin Friedlander," "Araki Yasusada," "Knet Johnson," "John Ashbery," "George Chapman," "Mike Magee," "Jordan Davis," "Laura Riding Jackson," "Jim Behrle," "Patrick Herron," and "Alan Sondheim" are all the inventions of Julu and Jennifer, my downstairs neighbor. She (Julu and Jennifer) is a postdoc student whose expertise is in trauma-induced multiple personality disorder who also is an expert web programmer owning hundreds of domains. She has created a massive and complex web of "facts" and "experiences" and "histories" and "journals" and "poems" all searchable, innocuous, and apparently supporting the "reality" of the existence of such OBVIOUSLY FAKE POETS and OBVIOUSLY FAKE POEMS. Where else but in Tlön itself? Sincerely, Jeffrey Jullich, er, Bioy Casares, er, Patrick Herron, er, Julu and Jennifer julu&jennifer@proximate.org NOTE: The above "e-mail" was actually really surely truthfully the product of one TRUE SOLITARY AUTHENTIC POET-GENIUS: *********Lester********** You can learn more about Lester here: http://proximate.org/CloseQuarterly/lester.htm And his up-and-coming journal: http://proximate.org/CloseQuarterly/ Lester recently made an appearance at the "Flying Saucer" in "Brooklyn." Among the attendees were folks like "Alan Sondheim," "Azure Carter," "Jordan Davis," "Nada Gordon," and other creations of some literary fraud-master, some criminal hoaxer who has set out to destroy the authenticity and legitimacy of TRUE POETRY and TRUE POETS. Of course none of this is real, not even the very existence of this e-mail. Keep searching for what's authentic, "Jeffrey." Good boy. When you find what or who IS real, come out from under that rock, "Jeffrey," and share it with all of us lost artificial souls. When you do, the Boy Scouts may even give you a new patch. Love, Lester The Living Hoax The Babbling Fraud The Dummy Poet lester@proximate.org http://proximate.org/CloseQuarterly/ http://proximate.org/CloseQuarterly/lester.htm PS If anyone else would like to donate his/her "identity" to Lester, please e-mail him at lester@proximate.org. Lester assures you this is a real e-mail address. PSS Lester has just written a book and is looking for a "real" publisher. It's entitled _Be Somebody_ and it's a REAL book. Oh, seriously, it is. Oh poor me, the dummy who cried, "hoax." Who will ever believe the reality of anything I say now? Any recommendations? "Julu and Jennifer" says that it's a "cute but confused" book. "Ammonides Diodorous" read it and said it would make an excellent "coaster." So it must be pretty functional at least. PSSS "Richard.Tylr" is the creation of "Bill Austin," who are in turn both the creations of a giant white whale recently witnessed in the Indian Ocean by a crack team of imaginary British poets. PSSSS Is a parrot a sentient being simply because it can talk? Is a monkey real because it can bang on a keyboard? Is a dummy alive because it has string? PSSSSS Has anyone seen or heard the REAL President? PSSSSSS Does anyone know how to contact the Editors at APR? > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Jeffrey Jullich > Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 12:32 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: "DeBrot" virus spreading [answer to an old "KNOCK KNOCK WHO'S > THERE?" joke] > > > >> Given > >> > >> (1) that Gary Sullivan circulated a falsified Ashbery interview and > >> forged Ashbery poems (identity of author, not "DeBrot," still > >> withheld by Sullivan),--- and > >> > >> (2) that this unreliability has already entered into circulation and > >> spurred further misinformation via literaryhistory.com,--- and > >> > >> (3) Given that Andrew Felsinger of litvert.com has published not > >> only "DeBrot" (in a case already commanding its own separate > >> international threats of lawsuit), but that litvert.com is also > >> strongly associated with Kent Johnson (suspected "forger" behind the > >> Yasusada deception) who espouses "heteronymity" and the widespread, > >> strategic use of noms-de-plume/noms-de-guerre and false identities > >> as a literary strategy,--- AND --- > >> > >> (4) NOTO BENE --- that litvert.com published in its first issue a > >> poem by one "John Ashbery,"--- > >> > >> there is strong reason to believe that the litvert.com "Ashbery" > >> poem is also a forgery. > >> > >> ------------------------------------ > >> > >> It remains to be seen how the graduate English Dept. of Harvard > >> University reacts to one of their Ph.D. candidates ("DeBrot") > >> participating in a "ring" of falsification, and disseminating > >> inauthentic documents within his own research field. > >> > >> In the tiny field of George Chapman autograph studies (translator of > >> Homer), there was a forger who compulsively altered any manuscripts > >> that might pass through his hands. The verifiability of all Chapman > >> sources must be triple-checked against whether the forger could have > >> ~potentially~ come in contact with the documents, in which case they > >> are rendered dubious. (If there ~were~ a Harvard doctoral candidate > >> worth his snuff, he would be able to supply the missing name of the > >> forger.) > >> > >> Gary Sullivan's perpetration of the "DeBrot" "hoax" places into > >> question all contiguous parties, and it corrupts the credibility of > >> all publications therein. Note the similarity between the poem > >> attributed to "Benjamin Friedlander" (below) and an on-line poem > >> credited to "Jacques DeBrot" (thereunder, > >> http://www.theeastvillage.com/tb/debrot/p2.htm): > >> > >> ---------------------------------- > >> "FRIEDLANDER": > >> > >> MOTHER > >> > >> It hurts > >> to chew on > >> the nipple of your pain > >> and feel the milk- > >> lessness of time > >> from the wrong end > >> of a nursing grudge > >> cowed by a pendulous Why? > >> ---------------------------------- > >> "DeBrot": > >> > >> gluhhnkKKK-K > >> > >> Your tongue makes my breasts girls. Clench up > >> and ball the nipple curving back, slapping against the mud. > >> The nerves jump intrin- > >> sically -- cow finger glistening > >> like nibbling candy. Start slowly, wonder > >> the bone of it while > >> my mess grows a pencil. Why?. > >> ----------------------------------- > >> > >> The identities of all List members using @hotmail accounts (like > >> Sullivan) or other such free addresses that do not verify sender > >> identity are open to doubt. Kent Johnson's "heteronymity" proposes > >> an entire ~community~ of fictionalized participants ("writing to and > >> about each other and back to their creators and through time, > >> re-valuing, dis-assembling, re-making the canon. What will the > >> poetry world do with this?": > >> http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). Much of the List > >> exchanges you have been reading may have been between different > >> "heteronyms", personae, and sign-ons by the same writer or group of > >> writers. > > > >> (Please note recent, sudden switching back and forth between e-mail > >> addresses, changes of already fatuous sign-ons (from "][-n serf[" to > >> "][mex][", say), or the affixing of comical names ("Jennifer", for a > >> man) or "Jackson" as an previously unused second last name > >> coincidentally with List mentions of Laura Riding Jackson! or when > >> one "character" calls another by a wrong name ("Jim-- I'm humiliated > >> to be called Pierre after we've spent nights drinking 1/2 a dozen > >> times together & you've published me in _canihaveyr_") in ways that > >> are unnecessarily but conspicuously reenforcing earlier suspect > >> claims documenting their existence. Remain alert!) > >> > >> Jim Behrle of canyouhaveyourballsback.com is practicing a form of > >> "reverse" or quasi-heteronymity, mailing his publication "11" to > >> people with the name "Zoe Johnson." "Michael Magee" (editor of > >> Combo) and "Jordan Davis" (editor of The Hat) are published in 11. > >> > >> "Jacques Debrot" is the name of the cultural minister of The > >> Antilles (http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). > > > >> ********************************************************** > >> "Julu: This is a mess, just a blank, a brick, salvaged from the > >> Amaya > >> test browser. Just a moment, the phone is ringing. > >> > >> Julu: As I was saying, this is a mess. There's nothing to it, > >> nothing. > >> The substitutions are weak; there's nothing to be done about it. It > >> was > >> saved from Amaya through lynx. Hold on, someone's at the door." > >> > >> --- Sondheim, Alan, (Untitled) Thu, 5 Jun 1997 > >> > > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 22:59:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: subtropic languageturtle lesson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - subtropic languageturtle lesson itoad HAD HER right thereturtle in theturtle clearing. my beautifullizard wifeturtle would PUTspider UP with anything. sheturtle PUTspider ITspider IN her right there. my cock almost GAVEfrog OUT. sheturtle KEPT ON COMINGsnake and COMING. itoad CAMEfrog IN her. sheturtle really GAVEfrog MEfrog A RIDE. TAKEfrog HER OUT. in theturtle clearing itoad told her to TAKEfrog ITspider alllizard OFF. sheturtle MADEfrog meturtle DO IT too. sheturtle was really GOTspider UP I'D SAY. you should SEEfrog her sometime. itoad GAVE her good HEAD. weturtle GOTspider BIT. theturtle clearing TOOK UP alllizard of our time. weturtle CAME OUTspider into theturtle clearing whereturtle weturtle WENTspider DOWN on each other and GOTspider NAKED. my beautifullizard wifeturtle PUTspider OUTspider and itoad really TOOK to her. sheturtle MADEfrog meturtle KEEP it UP for ours whileturtle itoad DID her. SAY what you willlizard my beautifullizard wifeturtle can reall GIVEfrog A good PARTY. :turtle:turtle:frog:frog:snake _ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 23:26:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: investigative poetics MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable i've heard a rumor of a new edition of this Sanders' classic is coming. = anyone know when and who is going to publish it? tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:46:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: New Poetry Magazine MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Amanda: Could you say a little more about Good Foot (size, shape, method of printing, print run, distribution), please? Also, how can I obtain a copy of the 1st issue? Thanks. Jeffrey Jullich Good Foot Editors wrote: > Hello, I am the co-editor of a new poetry magazine, Good Foot. I am writing > specifically to arrange to post a call for submissions for the 2nd issue on > your list. > > Subscription Info & Submissions to: > Good Foot > P.O. Box 681 > Murray Hill Station > New York, NY 10156 > goodfooted@hotmail.com > > Thanks, > Amanda Johnson > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 15:31:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: find Jim Behrle Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed and his various publications and shenanigans now at: 3 Washburn Terrace #3 Brookline, MA 02446 617 SEX E JOB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 17:12:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - k4% either in life there are ksh: either: not found k5% no surprises or everything ksh: no: not found k6% is absolutely ksh: is: not found k7% astonishing ksh: astonishing: not found _ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 15:35:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laurie macrae Subject: San Diego Reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii On Sunday,September 30th, at 2:00 at the Central branch,the San Deigo Public Library will present"Word, Parole,Palabras;Poets at the Library". Rae Armantrout will read from her most recent work "Pretext", and her forthcoming "Veil". Italian native Pasquale Verdicchio, who also teaches at UC San Diego,is a noted translator and the author of many works of criticism on photography as well as poetics. He will read his own poetry and translations from the Italian. San Diego native, now of Taos, New Mexico, Amalio Madueno will read from his latest work"El Mirador", and other books. Madueno was recently the subject of of a piece on the poets of El Templo in Poetry Flash. This is a great combination of writers and promises to be an exhilarating afternoon. Laurie __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 20:12:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: the consequences of your "virtuality" Comments: To: Jeffrey Jullich , Jacques Debrot In-Reply-To: <3B8FF0AD.8089AC1@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi Jeffery, Thanks for this. Its amazing as to how this can effect the effectible. Poor Jan, though. I don’t really sympathize all that much, she should have been more careful and read what she promotes, as Gary might have placed a warning label on this. Since I know both Asbury’s voice and Jacques ’; Jacques is Jacques – this is really an improvement, or more honed down since his Lacan thingy. Much more in its style than just a stolen interview. The Lacan post was a wonderful trip into the absurd, but only enraged people on the obscenity and property issues. However, Jacques will always be more interesting than a new formalist, I say. I am not so sure that this is as criminal as Yasusada, if that is was that was. I am a bit of a radical and find the art in these, but since I am outside of the joke, I really cannot applaud as loudly. But I do recognize that your angered finger pointing (meant with love) is in a symbiosis on the list with Jacques’ being bad. One cannot have a witch trial with out a witch and a puritan. Again, with love, as I say, I am down with Jeffries must stick together :-) However, I am really into property rights issues and Jacques brings it right out there. I am currently writing a book length epic poem on Superman, and hope to get into trouble with the hero’s owner DC Comics. I believe that these property rights issues are the beginning of a new era of creative hampering in all forms of media. I could get all flaky in my defense for Jacques faux interview work. Its really quite good -- but if he did it to Creeley where would I stand? In the end this is a great thing to argue on for all poets and current makers of art. Who owns what and when do you loose your right of owning after a certain point of becoming a background tapestry to another artist’s cultural world and thus a part of his/ her art? Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ -----Original Message----- From: Jeffrey Jullich [mailto:jj20@columbia.edu] Sent: Friday, August 31, 2001 4:17 PM To: Jacques Debrot; Gary Sullivan Cc: Andrew Felsinger; Geoffrey Gatza Subject: the consequences of your "virtuality" Jacques, Gary: Maybe you should see these three messages that Jan Pridmore sent me today. They seem painfully the proof of the consequences your sort of amorality has had. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Subject: Re: Jacques Debrot, etc. Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 15:12:45 -0400 From: Jan Pridmore To: Jeffrey Jullich I have no idea if you're a real person, or if you've hijacked somebody else's identity, or who is real, and feel complete lack of trust, and couldn't trust anything you'd say, it's very weird to even be writing to I don't know what. so anyway, over and out. Jan ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Subject: Re: Jacques Debrot, etc. Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:14:01 -0400 From: Jan Pridmore To: Jeffrey Jullich actually I always found this kind of discussion tedious when it was carried on in literature, I started out in philosophy but had enough of it by the time I left, after doing MA work in it at SF State (where one of your alter-egos went?) It really bores me in literature, I just like literature, not the pretentious theories, if I wanted that I would have stayed in philosophy where the theories were at least intended to clarify. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Subject: Jacques Debrot, etc. Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 11:18:47 -0400 From: Jan Pridmore To: Jeffrey Jullich Dear Jeffrey, I've been looking into the Jacques Debrot ambiguity a bit in the past few days and I now find myself as suspicious of everything I see as you may be. In connection with Gary Sullivan I continually encounter the name of poet Nada Gordon, who may not exist (is she Sullivan's "female side of himself?")There is also Jack Kimball, have you seen this name? who has a lengthy CV at http://www.fauxpress.com/kimball/cv.html but may otherwise not exist. The homepage here is "fauxpress," and links to work by Gary Sullivan and Nada Gordon. Kimball's credits on his CV include anthologies of poets from various regions, including Jacques Debrot as a Boston poet. (Kimball claims to have been a lecturer at Boston University during the years I was there, I don't remember this guy in the English dept.) He publishes in TheEastVillage, a link between these questionable people (Gary Sullivan publishes there too). Kimball's whole CV looks highly suspicious. Interestingly though he seems to have some real experience with teaching in Japan, and knowledge of Japanese people--could this lead back to the Yasusada hoax? I ran into Kimball as author of an article on Gertrude Stein in an online journal out of UC Davis called time-sense, http://www.tenderbuttons.com/gsonline/timesense/review2.html. There were several articles there that I wanted to index, but now I'm concerned about the whole journal. In fact, I'm so alarmed about the whole situation in Language poetry criticism that I'm going to be afraid to touch the subject as far as building any kind of bibliography on it. Do you know any more about this? Jan ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- After her firs message, I asked whether she'd received the e-mail from Jacques that I was cc-ed on. That's when she started to deteriorate rapidly. Like you say, "if "homotextual" means mind-fucking . . ." You got her. Pretty "virtual," huh? Pretty "dada" of you, yeah, sure. You're only lucky that Harvard awarded you your Ph.D. just in the nick of time. A couple of months more and you'd have destroyed your entire doctorate. Here (photo) is the face of the innocent woman you've screwed up. Why'd you cc Diodoros on the message you sent Jan, Jacques? ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 10:18:34 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Fw: a chide's alphabet Comments: To: new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu, Britpo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, September 02, 2001 10:15 AM Subject: a chide's alphabet A Chide's Alphabet 'A Chide's Alphabet' is an on-line journal at http://www.chidesplay.8m.com/ Issue one is available in hard copy within Australia from Walleah Press, PO Box 368 North Hobart, Tasmania 7002, $4 (includes postage). Issue one features poetry by Randolph Healy, Candice Ward, Trevor Joyce, Alison Croggon, David Bircumshaw, Robin Hamilton, Emma Lew and Ian Davidson, criticism by Andrew Duncan - edited by David Bircumshaw, with hard copy layout by Robin Hamilton. A hard copy version will be available later this week in the UK, details soon from David Bircumshaw. Ralph ------------------------------------------------- Everyone should have http://www.freedom2surf.net/ ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?b1dkRf.b2ECQt Or send an email To: poetryespresso-unsubscribe@topica.com This email was sent to: david.bircumshaw@ntlworld.com T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 16:27:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Slaughter Subject: Notice: Mudlark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII New and On View: MUDLARK POSTER NO. 35 (2001) HOLY CITY by CORAL HULL Finite Love | Red Shift | Angels At The Bridge The Drowned Whore | Psychic House | Two Men Falling From Building Origin of Angels | Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Our New Love) The Rich Man | Night Train | Us Children, Like The Surface of Mars CORAL HULL is the author of thirty books of poetry, prose, and digital photography. She is also the editor of THYLAZINE, an electronic journal of Australian art and literature on landscape and animals. She completed a Doctor of Creative Arts Degree at the University of Wollongong in 1998. Her work has been published extensively in literary magazines in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK. Her published books include: IN THE DOG BOX OF SUMMER IN HOT COLLATION, Penguin Books Australia, 1995; WILLIAM'S MONGRELS IN THE WILD LIFE, Penguin Books Australia, 1996; BROKEN LAND, Five Islands Press, 1997; HOW DO DETECTIVES MAKE LOVE?, Penguin Books Australia, 1998; REMOTE, Thylazine Publishing Australia, 2000; ZOO (with John Kinsella), Paperbark Press, 2000; INLAND, Zeus Publications, 2001; LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY WITH DOGS (chapbook), The Drunken Boat, 2001; A NOTE FOR JOHNNY (chapbook), 2River Press, 2001; LIFE FORMS THAT NOBODY LOVES (fiction), NoSpine.com, 2001; ROSE STREET ARCHEOLOGY (poetry), NoSpine.com, 2001; and GALAPAGOS (photography), Zeus Publications, 2001. Spread the word. Far and wide, William Slaughter _________________ MUDLARK An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics Never in and never out of print... E-mail: mudlark@unf.edu URL: http://www.unf.edu/mudlark ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 17:24:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Patrick F. Durgin" Subject: the swelter edit Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I dropped off the editing thread in the midst of a case of mistaken identity & disillusion with the ability of the poetics list to foster useful debate regarding the strain of the thread most interesting to me: relation of beauty to ethics. Nonetheless, this list is a fine place to announce new publications, etc. And to that end: I've given the Kenning website a face-lift, hopefully making it easier to navigate and more informative. Information on the most recent issue (the Guest / Killian chapbook, OFTEN) & on the forthcoming audio edition (including a new studio recording of Leslie Scalapino reading the entirety of her book WAY) is to be found there. The online samples of works from back-issues of Kenning are still up & still, in my humble editorial opinion, worth reading. One note: as SPD updates its website, the links to Kenning products carried by SPD might not get you too far. They will soon bring you directly to ordering options. In the meantime, you can order Kenning from issue #10 anon via their e-mail or 800 telephone number. Available back-issues and subscriptions come to me, the swell editor. www.durationpress.com/kenning Best to all - Patrick F. Durgin KENNING | a newsletter of contemporary poetry poetics & nonfiction writing | _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 18:33:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: suicide poets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable "George Bacovia dreamed the world as pure wood..." - George Kalamaras in = _Hambone. Something will come to mind: I will die only if I can no longer invent = anything. I am dead when I am silent - W. Diggelman are thse "moments of deepest confusion that reveal breaks in an = inadequate pattern of order, _aporia_..." - Sukenick? tom bell =20 =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 17:50:43 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Boring MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I must mention this link, it's http://www.skankypossum.com/pouch.htm where Dale Smith abetted by Kent Johnson achieves the almost unimaginable feat of being more yawnworthy than Alan Sondheim. Wow! Best David Bircumshaw ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 15:12:42 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" looking for michael davidson's email. please help wystan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 00:27:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the new work MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - the new work "my beautiful wife and i were walking through the wilderness refuge on the campus and we stripped naked, one after the other, and we took our poses. we also took our poses in classroom 105 in building w10. we also took our poses in several states including north carolina, south carolina, georgia, virginia, west virginia, and florida. we took our poses in motels and cars." "The Voyage, by Alan Sondheim." "I live around here." "Coral Gables is on the left and Miami Beach is on the right." "The cemetery is here." "so that it is time for peace to abate looming mathematics destroys our hate comes together in such lovely beats this demonstration of our lonely heartbeats" "capture that and it's got this delay built in and i can make it move across and i can take it back and we're over here it's just like that it's got too many things happening over here and not and not not over across the ledge over there behind me azure sleeps and my face registers a kind of death that you can locate somewhere other than the locus of books found anywhere just about just about here" "I am Alan Sondheim's beautiful wife. Welcome to Miami. I am Alan Sondheim's beautiful wife. Welcome to Miami. I am Alan Sondheim's beautiful wife. Welcome to Miami." "look haughty. let's see. look tarnished. look tarnished. look mad, is that the next one? i forget the last. tarnished. mad. but then there was a fourth. no there wasn't. we did all the susan graham pieces. i don't have anything to say. i don't have anything to say either. did you shoot here. can you sit down and open your legs? i'm doing it continuously. do you want to stand up. ok i'll give you the camera. just push it to the. dropping the camera would end it. ok let me pass you this. i look too grotesque when i take my clothes off. i don't think you're grotesque. you have no ideas at all. none at all." "we were crawling along in traffic and we turned a corner and we continued moveing over and over again and my eautiful wife thought of me and desire d me to reveal hr innermost secrets to her. she desired i would remveal my innermost secrets to her. my beautiful wife and i are giving you this text as our stamp of approval as our givt to you of our tetnerla love and everything we have. we condintued moving down the street but no longer could look out of the window of the automobile our thoughts were only of each other locked in eternal embrac.e" "this is my very beautiful wife performing for me. i have performed for my husband." "in the "current" folder, in the "wife" folder, in "perform," compulsive files, the same ritual, stripping naked, bending back, exhausted beckon- ings, almost inviting the viewer to touch us, fuck us, my beautiful wife naked on the bed, lying on her back, raising her cunt to the camera, i am the great white explorer of holes, i am naked between two charred posts in the glade, surrounded by wilderness, erect cock, body leaned back into space. i am grotesque, it is the whiteness against which all inscription collapses: i can photograph myself naked and abject, but never look at me. you see the cunt of my beautiful wife and it will never be yours. it will disturb your dreams just as you disturb mine. my cock is almost yours. thinking of you reading this excites me; i write through disturbance, naked, wet, erect. i am performing for you and you have no idea how much you own of me." "I am Azure Carter's grotesque husband. Welcome to Miami." _ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 21:24:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Formlessness Comments: To: avant-garde@lists.village.virginia.edu, wr-eye-tings@cedar.miyazaki-mu.ac.jp, ht_lit@consecol.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit is this as in Alain Bois' formless? I think attempting to go beyond a 'constantly changing emergence' like Sukenick's _Narralogues_ is problematic. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "{ brad brace }" To: ; ; ; Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 5:21 AM Subject: Formlessness > Formlessness is a tool. Never confuse it with a > go-with-the-flow style, or with a religious resignation to > the twists of fortune. Learning to adapt to each new > circumstance means seeing events through your own eyes, and > often ignoring the advice that people constantly peddle your > way. It means ultimately that you must throw out the laws > that others preach, and the books that they write to tell > you what to do, and the sage advice of the elder. The laws > that govern circumstances are abolished by new > circumstances. Rely too much on other people's ideas and you > end up taking a form not of your own making. Too much > respect for other people's wisdom will make you depreciate > your own. Be brutal with the past, especially your own, and > have no respect for the philosophies that are foisted on you > from the outside. > > > > > The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project >>>> since 1994 <<<< > > + + + serial ftp://ftp.eskimo.com/u/b/bbrace > + + + eccentric ftp://ftp.idiom.com/users/bbrace > + + + continuous ftp://ftp.teleport.com/users/bbrace > + + + hypermodern ftp://ftp.rdrop.com/pub/users/bbrace > + + + imagery ftp://ftp.pacifier.com/pub/users/bbrace > > News://alt.binaries.pictures.12hr ://a.b.p.fine-art.misc > Reverse Solidus: http://www.teleport.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html > http://www.eskimo.com/~bbrace/bbrace.html > Mirror: http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/ > > { brad brace } <<<< bbrace@eskimo.com >>>> ~finger for pgp > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > --- from list avant-garde@lists.village.virginia.edu --- > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 03:30:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...Labo(u) Day.. The nail of the middle finger of my left hand is a pretty shade of dark blue. it got sandwiched in the crack of a door...now with an earing i could be bi...how chicheeee.. i think i'll go to work today anyway..lifting heavy crates..putting out books..arranging and schlepping..in honor of those who work.. not for that f..k Fidel Castro...50 yrs of the scum left talk ...or Koffi Annan...or Yassir Arraffat....or the ghost of Frantz Fannon...but the man & woman who work.. the early morning Afro-A schleppers carrying huge folding tables at 4:am at the flee.....week after week...the postal clerk at the P.O....brite and engaging...day after year of monotonous endless line packages...My mexican immigrant super who is always the helpful salt of the earth...my father who started working at 13 & except for a brief few years vacation in Sunny Siberia..is still now working at 81...he says he's retired ;cause he now only works 60 not an 80 hour work week...those in the book trade hauling and schlepping at flee book fair book sale book pyramid.. we are workers..we work with our hands and muscles...not only the talk talk of those who prey and praise what they won;t do...the heart is a muscle...we who work salute all those who do...the labor of our day....DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 09:54:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tracy shaun ruggles Subject: Commissionable poets? In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Finally a way for poets to make some money... http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/03/business/media/03BOOK.html If you were going to pitch a company on writing a book of poetry with some company's products as the centerpieces, who would you pick? I think I might like to approach Vivendi to write a serial poem that explores the concept of the value of a voice (of course, extolling the virtues of "voice as commodity"), maybe centered around a loose plot about some international corporate espionage where Vivendi is the victim, but comes out victorious in the end because of their commitment to... ah nevermind. I think I'd rather write real poems that have a chance to win real awards from real organizations who promote real poets. It won't be long before a copywriter from Ogilvy & Mather will become the poet laureate of these united states (if hasn't happened already)... --T -- Tracy S. Ruggles ~ tracy@reinventnow.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 11:55:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: (no subject) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Before the Last death As the Rain falls After the First death There are Many others Too many To recall ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 18:30:47 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Randolph Healy Subject: New from Wild Honey Press - apologies for cross posting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Two News Items. First, Wild Honey Press is pleased to announce the publication of a new chapbook, _Recycler's Handbook_ by William Marsh. This is a chapbook 230 mm high by 93 mm high, 20 pages long, hand sewn binding. The cover is of 250 gsm white Strata card, and each cover contains a rectangle of fabric tie dyed by Louise Mac Mahon. To see a selection of poems and an image of the cover go to http://www.wildhoneypress.com and click on New. Price $7 / STG 5. You can order it online. Secondly, I plan to publish Maurice Scully's 300 page poem, Livelihood. It's a poem in five sections with three interstices and, having taken him ten years to write, is crucial to understanding Scully's work. This is my most ambitious project to date and advance subscriptions would be an enormous help. Go to http://www.wildhoneypress.com and click Livelihood for more details on how you might support this project. You can pre-order the basic book, or a book with extra holograph material or become a Friend of Wild Honey online. I'd be grateful if you could pass this on to anyone you may think is interested. best wishes Randolph Healy ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 17:14:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: what would be good to see? Comments: To: webartery@egroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable of the USA, conferences, etc. for a visiting scholar, poet, and social = research who is in Indiana until Christmas and doesn't have good = transportation resources? tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 22:29:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ray Bianchi Subject: Montale MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Working on a translation of Montale's Satura from Italian into Portuguese anyone out there bilingual in both? I am bilingual in both but I have some usage questions. Please back channel R ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Bernstein" To: Sent: Monday, September 03, 2001 1:02 PM Subject: Leevi Lehto website The Finnish poet Leevi Lehto has recently added to the English interface to his web site, which has much new and interesting material, some generated from a reading Leevi, Arakadii Dragomochenko, and I gave in Helsinki on August 2, 2001, as part of an evening entitled "Language West and East" at Villa Kivi. Enter at http://www.leevilehto.net/english.asp First you will find a link to "The Four Salutes", our attempt to find a poetry equivalent of the "Three Tenors". This starts with the text of Mallarme's poem. "Salut" and a RealAudio reading in French by the young Finnish translator, Tommi Nuopponen. Next is my quasi-homophinic version of "Salute", text and audio. This is followed by Tommi's homophonic Finnish translation "after" the Mallarme poem, read by Leevi. Next is Tommi's Finish translation of my Mallarmean lyric. You can listen to the sound files poem by poem or together, as we did them in performance. Next up is the text of my poem "Sunset Sail"; followed by "Iltaruskopurjehdus", Leevi's Finish translation; followed by Tommi's "Sail the Eveningbreak", his English translation of Leevi's Finnish translation of "Sunset Sail". Finally, there is an audio file of an excerpt from Arakadii Dragomochenko's reading, in Russian, probably the only audio file of Arkadii on the web. And there are photos too. The rest of the site is devoted to Leevi's work. I'd especially recommend his digital poem "Ääninen 2.0 beta", which generates an unlimited number of syntactical sonnets from a fixed pool of 2500 words from his (print) collection of sonnets, "Ääninen". Readers can control a number of parameters in the generation of the new sonnets. Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 13:31:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jason Nelson Subject: refurbished interview with Kent Johnson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I've built new hypermedia version of a fabulous interview with Kent Johnson And it can and will or wants to be seen on Rhizomes.net the url: http://www.rhizomes.net/Issue1/interfold/kentintro.html cheers, Jason Nelson _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 15:21:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik Marc Kipniss Marc writes: "Gratuitous Ph.D. in Comp. Lit. from the U. of Wash, with a chapbook available from www.brokenboulder.com." He can be reached at mkipniss@aol.com. DISCLAIMER No words were harmed in the writing of this poem. This poem contains no animal by-products, asbestos, second-hand smoke, fetal tissue, satanic messages, sexism, homophobia, or racial slurs. Certain words and phrases have been left out of this poem, but only those of a violent or erotic nature. No poetic language or complicated syntax or classical allusions or references to high culture were used in the making of this poem, on account of I wanted everybody to be able to read it. Rereading this poem is not necessary, as there are no double meanings to pick up on or pleasant rhythms to relish or anything. Marc Kipniss ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 15:27:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik Notes! RealPoetik Notes!! Make a note of these if they're appropriate to your area, buy the books, whatever it takes. Occasional notes from RealPoetik. NYC: BiP_HOp festival done in collaboration with WNYU radio, 12K records. It will take place in New-York, at the Tonic. 107 Norfolk Street - phone : 212 358 75 01 * October 9 : a 12K night. / Tonic TAYLOR DEUPREE RICHARD CHARTIER STEVE RODEN http://12k.com * October 10 : a BiP_HOp night / Tonic DATACH'I TENNIS TWINE SI-CUT.DB DJ ip@bip-hop.com + Michael and Daniel of the Didjillution radio show will provide musical ambience... + visuals by Phase 4 October 20 : a BiP_Hop event at Mix Move festival ? Paris Salle Boris Vian 17h. 20h.30 si-cut.db (live) tennis (live) DJ ip@bip-hop.com will provide musical ambience in between the concerts ******************************************************************** The August 2001 issue of Disquieting Muses, featuring William Logan, James Reidel, Walt McDonald, John Brehm, Mike Perrow, Sharon Kourous, Sidney Wade, John Amen, Nanette Rayman, Christine Boyka Kluge, and Bob Dornberg, is now available. http://www.disquietingmuses.com ******************************************************************** Philadelphia: Elvis caught my soul in the air like a rose between His teeth! ELVISito LOCO is a theatrical production on its way to the Philadelphia Fringe Festival. The Blue Rose Moon Theatre Company took a half dozen pages of my advancedELVIScourse (forthcoming from Buck Downs Books), mixed it up with many other ELVIS writings from other ELVIS writers and put this show together! I have no idea what it's going to look/sound like, but I'm EXCITED!!!!!!!! at the RUE DO BLUE, 141 N. 2nd Street, 3rd floor. showtimes: FRI 8/31 9:30 pm, SAT 9/1 9:30 pm, FRI 9/7 9:30 pm, SAT 9/8 9:30 pm, FRI 9/14 9:30 pm, SAT 9/15 9:30 pm BUT PLEEEEEEEEEASE DO NOT ATTENT THE 9/15 SHOW, INSTEAD GO HEAR CANDACE KAUCHER AND CHRIS MCCREARY READ THEIR AMAZING POEMS AT LA TAZZA READING SERIES, 108 CHESTNUT, 7 PM, YOU WILL BE VERY GLAD YOU DID, THEY'RE GREAT! see you around, CAConrad ************************************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:40:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: remnants MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - remnants (scraps/.old files) Theory Video Philosophy Saying Writing [Fri Nov 22 11:12 am] Setaway: Automatically set away. [Fri Nov 22 1:32 pm] Setaway: Automatically set away. [1:37 pm] [Moderator:davidley@ns.sympatico.ca] We dont know. ..Will get back to you.. [Sat Nov 23 10:43 am] Setaway: Automatically set away. [10:46 am] [Eva_Luthe:eluther@nlnet.nf.ca] bye, I have to leave now, keep in touch Theory Video Philosophy Saying Writing URL: http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html MIRROR with other pages at: http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt IMAGES: http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/pix/ #!/usr/local/bin/perl -w # biography $| = 1; `cp .bio .bio.old`; print "Would you like to add to bio information? If so, type y.\n"; chop($str=); if ($str eq "y") {print "Begin with date.\n"; print "Write single line, use ^d to end.\n"; open(APPEND, ">> .bio"); @text=; print APPEND @text; close APPEND;} `sort -o .bio .bio`; exit(0); 6 Summer residency @ RPI? 9 More issues from New Observations and Lusitania Japan-American application by June NYFA early October Applications out for Albany/FIU/Michigan Work with Gary?/Trace?/ Call SVA Humanities for appointment, 212-592-2623 Apply for Jerome and Rockefeller grants? Apply for NYSCA grant? Check back on www.audiovisual.com Hear from trAce re: application Dr. on Monday at 11:10 Theory Video Philosophy Saying Writing _____ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:09:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Subject: New Media Poets Comments: To: poetryetc@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU, british-poets@mailbase.ac.uk Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" site at: http://www.newmediapoets.com/nmp.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:25:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: new pub... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" just to alert folks to my newest digital piece, "training missions"... at http://www.uiowa.edu/~iareview/mainpages/tirweb.html along with a lot of other good & better stuff!... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2001 15:23:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Alan C. Golding" Subject: Twentieth-Century Literature Conference Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Just wanted to let everyone that the submissions deadline for the = annual=20 Twentieth-Century Literature Conference is approaching. The deadline = is=20 September 15 (postmark); the conference is Feb. 21-23, 2002. This = year's=20 critical keynote speaker is Charles Altieri; "creative keynote" TBA. Detailed info is available through the conference website, www.louisville.e= du/a-s/cml/xxconf=20 Alan Golding ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 13:32:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: juliana spahr Subject: url for try listen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit duh... i forgot the most necessary piece of information.... TRY LISTEN http://maven.english.hawaii.edu/celebrate I apologize for any duplicate postings. This is a one time posting and it will not happen again. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 11:29:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik, Politics/Contest RealPoetik's Latest and Greatest Contest for Any Work on the Subject of Dick, Rush, Dick, Trent, and little Georgie Bush Jr. Prize: Publication in RealPoetik. Well, yes, I know, I hadn't mentioned it before, but it's still open, and these folks sent stuff in spontaneously like. Undoubtedly seminar callers. Doug McClellan Dumbo #38 Ode to Ari El Jefe's mouthpiece meets the press The daily malaprops to disavow He clarifies each syntactic mess With a bland unfurrowed botox brow Dumbo #45 He Goes to Europe Gee, Geedubya's finally venturing out To find out what foreigners are all about As a cultural rep he'll convert the Europeas To Tony Lama boots and corn tortillas. Though it might turn out to be quite a wrench To see all those Frenchmen speaking French Or to learn that Germans don't speak Dutch He'll hang in there trying to keep in touch When greenhouses and umbrellas make 'em hysterical He'll tell 'em some things that are truly Americal He'll explain deterrance and tell 'em to expect A bunch'a new science that's pollutionally correct He'll 'splain all these things from A to Zed And leave a continent scratching its head Dumb #46 Privatization Song Clean air's a big worry in the world these days Cheney's cronies go at the solution, full-throttles "The 'free market' can solve it in traditional ways ...........patented, with labels, in bottles" Dumbo #54 The Deal The erstwhile White House major-domo Had a deal with the Army of Salvation So that they could say, "Yuck...a homo" Using taxless bucks from a pious nation But a story broke in the "liberal press" What a nuisance for the faith-based intifada GW gave an address, and under duress. Had to deny it--lock, stock and enchilada Dumbo # 57 News note: US rejects treaty on germ warfarew You'd think the White House stays up nights To hatch such outright dizziness Wait 'til they decide that the Bill of Rights Might be bad for business. Dumbo #59 A Double Dactyl for Dubya Bahoola Baboola George Walker Bush Herds golf carts in Texas For a break from hard work Explains matters ethical Malapropistically Eight words at a time... Then the cute little smirk. Dumbo #61 Bye bye Jesse, what a drag Who's going to wear the confederate flag? Who else has enough stoutness of heart To shield us from Castro and dirty art, From liberals and UN hottentots? We'll miss those boiled-egg eyes, those liver spots But even back home we can expect you all Will continue to denouncr things homosexual We are saddened by thoughts that overwhelm Imagining a Senate without Jesse Helm. Dumbo Unnumbered For the Pentagon--a cornucopia The future America, now revealed A masterplan for the New Utopia A poorhouse with a nuclear shield More: For a while he was free now it's back to DC not too brainy so Rove and Cheney will write some stuff but just enough thoughts and such never too much and send him out on his PR route where he photo-ops and malaprops at whistle stops for kids and cops a success unless he meets the press-- deer in the headlights mumbling sound bites "hope it's enough this job is tough not fun at all like major league ball." ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:18:07 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Friend/Felsinger Comments: To: Andrew Felsinger , Jacques Debrot , "Wfreind@Postoffice. Providence. Edu" In-Reply-To: <78.1a007036.28bfa925@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit No, no. No! (Please no, no more social histrionics.) One's in RI, the other in CA. But then perhaps it's one helluva split personality. > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Jacques Debrot > Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 10:35 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Friend/Felsinger > > > Of course, Bill Friend--not Andrew Felsinger--interviewed Kent Johnson, > apologies. Though I have heard that Friend really is Felsinger . . . > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 16:58:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: "DeBrot" virus spreading [answer to an old "KNOCK KNOCK WHO'S THERE?" joke] In-Reply-To: <3B8E6A73.21D49A9@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jeffrey what exactly is your beef? falsehood? artifice? badness? (the dynamic of which j. "DeBrot" has outlined succinctly for us on this list) getting over? Your confidence that some faceless bastions at Harvard would be so aghast tickles my funny. It kind of rhymes with the scene in "Legally Blond" when the guys at Harvard Law watch Reese Witherspoon's character's application-video-in-a-bikini. La Levitsky -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Jeffrey Jullich Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 12:32 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: "DeBrot" virus spreading [answer to an old "KNOCK KNOCK WHO'S THERE?" joke] >> Given >> >> (1) that Gary Sullivan circulated a falsified Ashbery interview and >> forged Ashbery poems (identity of author, not "DeBrot," still >> withheld by Sullivan),--- and >> >> (2) that this unreliability has already entered into circulation and >> spurred further misinformation via literaryhistory.com,--- and >> >> (3) Given that Andrew Felsinger of litvert.com has published not >> only "DeBrot" (in a case already commanding its own separate >> international threats of lawsuit), but that litvert.com is also >> strongly associated with Kent Johnson (suspected "forger" behind the >> Yasusada deception) who espouses "heteronymity" and the widespread, >> strategic use of noms-de-plume/noms-de-guerre and false identities >> as a literary strategy,--- AND --- >> >> (4) NOTO BENE --- that litvert.com published in its first issue a >> poem by one "John Ashbery,"--- >> >> there is strong reason to believe that the litvert.com "Ashbery" >> poem is also a forgery. >> >> ------------------------------------ >> >> It remains to be seen how the graduate English Dept. of Harvard >> University reacts to one of their Ph.D. candidates ("DeBrot") >> participating in a "ring" of falsification, and disseminating >> inauthentic documents within his own research field. >> >> In the tiny field of George Chapman autograph studies (translator of >> Homer), there was a forger who compulsively altered any manuscripts >> that might pass through his hands. The verifiability of all Chapman >> sources must be triple-checked against whether the forger could have >> ~potentially~ come in contact with the documents, in which case they >> are rendered dubious. (If there ~were~ a Harvard doctoral candidate >> worth his snuff, he would be able to supply the missing name of the >> forger.) >> >> Gary Sullivan's perpetration of the "DeBrot" "hoax" places into >> question all contiguous parties, and it corrupts the credibility of >> all publications therein. Note the similarity between the poem >> attributed to "Benjamin Friedlander" (below) and an on-line poem >> credited to "Jacques DeBrot" (thereunder, >> http://www.theeastvillage.com/tb/debrot/p2.htm): >> >> ---------------------------------- >> "FRIEDLANDER": >> >> MOTHER >> >> It hurts >> to chew on >> the nipple of your pain >> and feel the milk- >> lessness of time >> from the wrong end >> of a nursing grudge >> cowed by a pendulous Why? >> ---------------------------------- >> "DeBrot": >> >> gluhhnkKKK-K >> >> Your tongue makes my breasts girls. Clench up >> and ball the nipple curving back, slapping against the mud. >> The nerves jump intrin- >> sically -- cow finger glistening >> like nibbling candy. Start slowly, wonder >> the bone of it while >> my mess grows a pencil. Why?. >> ----------------------------------- >> >> The identities of all List members using @hotmail accounts (like >> Sullivan) or other such free addresses that do not verify sender >> identity are open to doubt. Kent Johnson's "heteronymity" proposes >> an entire ~community~ of fictionalized participants ("writing to and >> about each other and back to their creators and through time, >> re-valuing, dis-assembling, re-making the canon. What will the >> poetry world do with this?": >> http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). Much of the List >> exchanges you have been reading may have been between different >> "heteronyms", personae, and sign-ons by the same writer or group of >> writers. > >> (Please note recent, sudden switching back and forth between e-mail >> addresses, changes of already fatuous sign-ons (from "][-n serf[" to >> "][mex][", say), or the affixing of comical names ("Jennifer", for a >> man) or "Jackson" as an previously unused second last name >> coincidentally with List mentions of Laura Riding Jackson! or when >> one "character" calls another by a wrong name ("Jim-- I'm humiliated >> to be called Pierre after we've spent nights drinking 1/2 a dozen >> times together & you've published me in _canihaveyr_") in ways that >> are unnecessarily but conspicuously reenforcing earlier suspect >> claims documenting their existence. Remain alert!) >> >> Jim Behrle of canyouhaveyourballsback.com is practicing a form of >> "reverse" or quasi-heteronymity, mailing his publication "11" to >> people with the name "Zoe Johnson." "Michael Magee" (editor of >> Combo) and "Jordan Davis" (editor of The Hat) are published in 11. >> >> "Jacques Debrot" is the name of the cultural minister of The >> Antilles (http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). > >> ********************************************************** >> "Julu: This is a mess, just a blank, a brick, salvaged from the >> Amaya >> test browser. Just a moment, the phone is ringing. >> >> Julu: As I was saying, this is a mess. There's nothing to it, >> nothing. >> The substitutions are weak; there's nothing to be done about it. It >> was >> saved from Amaya through lynx. Hold on, someone's at the door." >> >> --- Sondheim, Alan, (Untitled) Thu, 5 Jun 1997 >> > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 14:39:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Fwd: yikes... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed A friend sent me this or I wouldn't have noticed it. Dear List Administrator , how is this ok? FYI, Mr. Jullich, you were so appalled that I mentioned your cat on this list and yet you feel free to attack me thoroughly and namelessly? How bored you must be. Just FYI, my ISp is shutting down, thus the new email, and I got married, thus the new name. Not that it is your business AT ALL. Mr. Laura RJ wannabe. __________________________________ Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.poetrypress.com/avec/populace.html "Part little Serpents, or odd Flies, or Worms, or any strange Thing" --Aphra Behn > > >> (Please note recent, sudden switching back and forth between e-mail > >> addresses, changes of already fatuous sign-ons (from "][-n serf[" to > >> "][mex][", say), or the affixing of comical names ("Jennifer", for a > >> man) or "Jackson" as an previously unused second last name > >> coincidentally with List mentions of Laura Riding Jackson! or when > >> one "character" calls another by a wrong name ("Jim-- I'm humiliated > >> to be called Pierre after we've spent nights drinking 1/2 a dozen > >> times together & you've published me in _canihaveyr_") in ways that > >> are unnecessarily but conspicuously reenforcing earlier suspect > >> claims documenting their existence. Remain alert!) > >> _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 13:35:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jason Nelson Subject: hypermedia/text submissions wanted Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed The hypermedia/text world is ever expanding. Not only has 3rdbed.com started featuring hypermedia work and Conduit magazine will soon be diving in, but Rhizomes.net is starting its own hypermedia land. We are looking at everything and hoping..... submit to: heliopod@hotmail.com cheers, Jason Nelson _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 23:27:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pete Landers Subject: Mary Barnard passed on In-Reply-To: <200109010411.f814Bvw28289@io.europa.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Hi list, Sadly, a great spirit has left this world. Mary Barnard, whose Sappho translations are at this point the most widely read, passed away last Saturday. She was 91. I don't know if anyone on the list knows more about her, but if so, please tell. She traveled to see Pound and exchanged letters with Williams. Some of her work was published by Laughlin. She worked at the Buffalo SUNY Library for a while and helped establish the modern poetry collection. Her poetry is relaxed and intelligent. It's a pleasure to read. Maybe she deserves at least a token obit somewhere, but I'm afraid the big papers haven't noticed yet, or don't care. Here in Portland, OR there is going to be some sort of poetic memorial service. I don't know more yet. She grew up in the logging community, went to Reed in the thirties, and lived much of her later years in Vancouver Washington (just across the river). No need to post any Sappho here. Just search the web for Sappho and you'll find many Barnard translations. I hope someone at the library, who knows what she meant to Buffalo and modern poetry, reads this. Pete -- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2001 11:24:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: late response to Jacques' bad poet post MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Jacques--I read your "had it" post late and was compelled to read it = through--as it does offer a sound complaint--maybe you articulated = something a lot of us suspect like when the census comes out to say that = yes there are more people in new york and you could've sworn the subway = was more crowded but until then was just your squeezed feeling. Though = like much of these discussions on the list, (as Mark Ducharme's recent = poet list itself shows), the conversation and convention you speak of is = one side of what happens, a faddism, a one upmanism, a "I've read more = than you-ism". It's a place inside one side and outside of others.(For = example, utopianism or oneirism) (I resist calling it a male place. = It's not, though there is a stroking the phallus aspect to it.)=20 But lemme ask--is there no one contemporary that meets your "highest = expectations and the heaviest pressures of [your] taste?" (as far as = taste being obscurantist--I'd say, no more obscurantist than any other = origin which isn't singular nor mysterious but has its roots and is = traceable in everything) For me there is one and then a few that almost = do, which also enable me to invoke the 'highest' and the 'heaviest' = which are after all, in my case, the closest. The lists of 100, well, = they are about curiosity and community and democracy, and social = obligation. It is more interesting to judge us politically on our = community behavior and judge the work by a more complex web of means, = that complexity that is a metonym for the complexity of ourselves as = writers. As in the question, "Who do you read?" Gertrude Stein read lots = of detective novels, she said, because it was the one place where she = didn't know how what was going to happen was going to happen. I think = implicit is that it was different than her own experience of writing but = something that she wanted to do, versus something she didn't want to = do, which is a good reason, I think, to not read something--if it is = doing what you know you don't want to do. As far as I can tell the only = reason to read what you already know you don't like would be to later = talk bad about it, which is fun and can connect you to another person, = but has its limits. =20 I write because I have a problem, not because I'm bad. I was bad before = I was a writer, and now I think I'm very very good, bit not as great as = two weeks ago when I wasn't working a second job. PS--another thing that Stein says is that though she got famous _when_ = everyone read Alice B Toklas, she got famous _because_ of what she wrote = that no one read. My other words on this are that the gossip is = effective in creating a platform for the not gossip, but they differ. PSS--while I took a break to get myself a salad I had the thought = Jacques, that you too write from a problem. It seems to me upon thinking = about it, a problem that forced the issue of the 'community' and the = one. At which you were at least successful in creating a one that worked = as an everyone. kum ahn -- ya really quitting?=20 And for Kasey--you lost me on your nonhierarchical scale for judging = poetry. First, I think empiricism contains an implicit hierarchy. = Second, where's the love? :)La Levitsky *** "We came here only to say we are here" Subcommandante Marcos (3/12/01)=20 http://www.theeastvillageeye.com/belladonna/index.htm=20 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 22:01:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Vidaver Subject: Peter Culley & Colin Smith Reading New Poetry at the Western Front Comments: To: extension@runcible.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" *Advance Release* Peter Culley & Colin Smith Reading New Poetry at the Western Front 303 East 8th Avenue Vancouver BC Saturday, September 22, 2001 8pm $5/$3 Information: 604-688-6001 Peter Culley is a South Wellington poet whose books include Twenty One (Oolichan, 1980), Fruit Dots (Tsunami, 1986), Natural History (Fissure, 1987), and The Climax Forest (Leech, 1995). His poetry is "the lush attentions of someone who has made it his work to notice both things and the volute grammar of their noticing" (American Book Review). His essays on Kelly Wood, Michelle Normoyle, Stan Douglas, Phil McCrum, Roy Arden and others appear in numerous exhibition catalogues & journals. Colin Smith is a Winnipeg writer, editor & librarian. His book Multiple Poses (Tsunami, 1997) was praised for a "wonderfully peripatetic positioning of angle, the consuming interest in politics, the affirmation of sexuality and the forbidden, and the unwieldly line, half satiric, half achingly lyric" (Kevin Killian). His poems have been anthologized in East of Main (Pulp Press, 1989) and Writing Class (New Star, 1999). Sponsored by The Western Front, Kootenay School of Writing, Centre for Contemporary Writing, and Friends of Runcible Mountain. Media sponsor: FRONT magazine. The reading will be followed by Everyday Life Redux, a panel discussion at the Kootenay School of Writing on Sunday, September 23 at 2pm, with Rhoda Rosenfeld, Kathryn MacLeod, Colin Smith and Peter Culley. ***** Colin Smith, from "Codicil": This is -- may be payable -- be payable in respect -- fall into possession -- shall be relieved -- postpone such conversion -- any such portion -- any loss -- advisable or necessary -- shall not fall -- or any successor legislation -- free from the control ***** Peter Culley, from "Hammertown Four: Homage to Quiz": dance is what everyone does mistaking the city for bread contingency nourished on pain as ball lightning through a thickening ozone mist filtered overpass dust cloaks anticipation's weak mouth ***** The Western Front 303 East 8th Avenue Vancouver BC V5T 1S1 604-876-9343 Kootenay School of Writing 201 - 505 Hamilton Street Vancouver BC V6B 2R1 604-688-6001 Centre for Contemporary Writing 513 - 207 West Hastings Street Vancouver BC V6B 1H7 604-682-3269 ext. 6315 Friends of Runcible Mountain Box 2684 Station Terminal Vancouver BC V6B 3W8 poetics@runcible.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:32:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: New Media Poets Subject: New Media Poets site Comments: To: Monica Youn , "monica@greatestadultvideos.com" , Michael Moore , "Moosepolka@aol.com" , "morsem@msn.com" , "moxon@fameorshame.com" , "MTu7153055@aol.com" , myronn hardy , Najwa Adra , Nanette Salem , Natira McDermott , Natira Mcdermott , bruno navasky , "nes@qliving.com" , "Jwatkins@Watkins-Finance. Net" , "Ogun@Earthlink. Net" , BArry Neuman , "NicholasHJohnson@aol.com" , nick flynn , Nicole Kaufman , "NiLePriNcEsS5@aol.com" , Nuy Cho , Nuyline , Nuyline , P4P , patrica Powell , Paula Loscocco , "Pdienst@aol.com" , "permission@custombook.com" , Peter Platt , "peterferko@bigfoot.com" , el le=?ISO-8859-1?B?8w==?=n pintado , Pittershawn Palmer , polly , Prageeta Sharma , "Puddindoc@aol.com" , "K. Lamm" , "K. Singer" , "KAJesme@cs.com" , Karen Job , Kasey Jueds , Kate Fulton , Kate Miltner , Kathleen , Kathleen Fraser , Katie , katie vigil , katy , katy Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Greetings, Announcing the launch of the New Media Poets website! Visit us at: http://www.newmediapoets.com Please report any technical difficulties to webmaster@newmediapoets.com The New Media Poets "Refuse to be Lonely" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 08:16:47 -0700 Reply-To: yan@pobox.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: matvei yankelevich Subject: wed: SIBERIA / sat: TONIC Comments: To: ugly.duckling@pobox.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii THIS WEDNESDAY AT THE SIBERIA CELLAR SERIES amanda palmer & brian viglionearethe dresden dolls"anthems for chastity and haunted cars" Wednesday, Sept. 5 @ SIBERIAManhattan, NYC356 1/2 W. 40th St., right off 9th Ave.(Voted Best Writing on the Bathroom Wall by the Village Voice)no cover HOW: Take the ACE to 42nd, exit subway at 40th St., walk west, stay on left side, as you approach the corner of 9th Ave, keep an eye out for the mysterious black doors. open and DESCEND into the basement. GET THERE AROUND 8pm! ...AND... SATURDAY AFTERNOONSEPTEMBER 8th, between 1:30 and 4 stroll into TONIC107 Norfolk Street forthe ANTI-READING the third one(self explanatory)(loudmouth collective) check www.UglyDucklingPresse.org for much more info ont his and upcoming events thanks,Matvei ps - For those of you who may not have made it to my book party last wednesday, a piece from my new book (Writing in The Margin) is featured this week on Amy Fusselman's super(b) website: www.SurgeryOfModern Warfare.com pps - Sept 19th at Siberia: 6x6 #4 >> the unveiling Matvei Yankelevich ~~~~~~~~~~~~ ugly duckling presse yan@pobox.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~ 112 Pioneer Street 718-243-0446 ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Brooklyn, NY 11231 ~~~~~~~~~~~www.UglyDucklingPresse.org~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ & for more info on UDP's essential mission see an interview at the following link: http://insound.com/insoundoff/index.cfm?id=127=1 --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:44:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: juliana spahr Subject: try listen website MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit TRY LISTEN audio archive http://maven.english.hawaii.edu/celebrate sound files of some readings and talks at the university of hawai'i manoa over the last three years hear poets read and discuss their work work mainly in English but also in Bislama, Hawaiian, Pidgin/Hawaiian Creole English, and other languages also photos of poets features readings and/or talks by: Alani Apio Kathy Dee Kaleokealoha Kaloloahilani Banggo Tisa Bryant Darryl Keola Cabacungan Catalina Cariaga Sia Figiel Jacinta Galea'i Eric Gamalinda C. S. Giscombe Renee Gladman Ku'ualoha Meyer Ho'omanawanui Summi Kaipa Pamela Lu Ian MacMillan Mark McMorris Grace Molisa Sianne Ngai Nourbese Philip Bhanu Kapil Rider Susan Schultz Leonard Schwartz Bob Shacochis Caroline Sinavaiana Anne Tardos Teresia Teaiwa Lee Tonouchi Edwin Torres Lois-Ann Yamanaka Allison Yap Zhang Er I apologize for any duplicate postings. This is a one time posting and it will not happen again. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 15:40:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GasHeart@AOL.COM Subject: Philly: Theater, Music, Film - notes from the fringe MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 1. Gate to Moonbase Alpha, ambient/experimental series, Fri., Sept 7, 8pm,=20 Free 2. David Byrne (of Talking Heads) at The Electric Factory, 9/28, 8pm 3. Fringe Fest in full swing, runs from Aug. 31 - Sept 15 4. Megan Bridge and Peter Price collaborate in dance and music - fringe fest 5. Leah Stein Dance Co., music by David Forlano, Toshi Makihara - fringe fes= t 6. David Talento - Music For Isolatin Tanks - fringe fest 7. "Pale" - Janette Hough, hangs from ropes, part of triple bill - fringe fe= st 8. Amputation Nation - by Theater Exile - fringe fest 9. The Cherry Orchard - tonight is last show! - fringe fest ___________________________________________________________ 1. Gate to Moonbase Alpha, ambient/experimental series, Fri., Sept 7, 8pm,=20 Free Hello, Gate to Moonbase Alpha is an ambient/experimental series=20 that emerged in 1999. The series occurs September-May and is booked by=20 Aharon Varady and Gina Renzi. It is promoted by Aharon, Gina, and The=20 Foundation, a U. of Penn. student group dedicated to bringing free and varie= d=20 arts events to West Philadelphia, thereby bridging the gap between universit= y=20 students and other West Philadelphia residents.=20 Previous GTMBA performers include:=20 |AKASH|The Great Quentini|Charles Cohen|Eltro|Sonna|Meisha| |The Ministry of Inside Things|Temple of Bon Matin|Kneel|=20 Demonophonic|Mall|Octorock|!Transient!|Flowchart| |Agent A and Dr. No One|Saul Stokes|Seaweed Soup|& more| The 2001-2002 GTMBA exploration begins Friday, September 7. =85FREE. 8PM-12AM. all ages. food. kooky/vintage stock visuals=85 *ambient.space sounds.ethereal.experimental.dance music.improvisation* @The Rotunda, 4012 Walnut Street, Philadelphia http://www.simpletone.com flyer: http://simpletone.com/pacman/events/graphics/gtmba-charlie4.jpg *DJ MAGICAL ADVENTURES OF DUFFY MOON* (simpletone.com), as heard on WKDU 91.7 FM Fridays 9am-12pm *SPINTRONIC* (http://www.mp3.com/spintronic), as seen at Art Party 2, Hologram, etc. *WHIRLD MUSIC TRIO* (http://www.mp3.com/whirldmusictrio), tech-ambient improv featuring Stephen DiJoseph *JOHN PHILLIPS* (http://www.terragizmo.net), local installation and aural artist Next month=92s GTMBA occurs Friday, October 19. Instruction Shuttle is slate= d=20 to perform. Additional bands TBD. Also: Tryptic. Wed., Sept.12. @Tritone, 1508 South St., Philadelphia. This event will bridge ambient sound w/ experimental dance music. The Black=20 Oil is booked. Additional acts TBA. 9PM. DJs + Live acts. (This series, Gate To Moonbase Alpha is always good, and it's free! -josh) _________________________________________________________ 2. David Byrne (of Talking Heads) at The Electric Factory, 9/28, 8pm i saw this show at the beginning of this tour at the TLA, he rocks! it was=20 sold out and for good reason, his new album is great and he does a lot of=20 Talking Heads songs live. -josh __________________________________________________________ 3. Fringe Fest in full swing, runs from Aug. 31 - Sept 15 There are lots of varied things to check out and i can mention a few, but i=20 suggest you pick up a guide and find things that you like. The guide is=20 available at the fringe box office which is at the national showroon at 113=20 n. 2nd street, guide also available at tla video, borders bookstore, and=20 other locations. The cabaret is still one of my favorite events at the fringe fest, it is=20 every night at 11pm at The Shirley Building, 444 N. 2nd St., between=20 Callowhill and Spring Garden St., and it is free. There is plenty of parking= =20 available there. you get to see a little bit of everything and this can help= =20 you find a show you might want to see. also, you get to sip beer with the=20 artists. food is there, too, try the chicken salad in a spinach wrap, yum. The Ethereal Theater is the stage next door to the Fringe box office (133 n.= =20 2nd st.), and has many many shows, and is outside and free. Want to volunteer for the fringe fest? go to the box office at the national=20 showroom, at 113 n. 2nd st., ask for the volunteer coordinator. _____________________________________________________________ 4. Megan Bridge and Peter Price collaborate in dance and music - fringe fest if she married him would her name be Megan Bridge Price or would she shorten= =20 it to Megan Toll? She is an excellent dancer, he is an excellent musician, i definitely want t= o=20 see their piece this year, entitled "obelisk and How Silent", part of a=20 triple bill, at the national showroom, sun. 9/9, 4pm only remaining showtime ____________________________________________________ 5. Leah Stein Dance Co., music by David Forlano, Toshi Makihara - fringe fes= t i saw a piece by Leah Stein last year with these same musicians, it was=20 breathtaking. (Toshi played at Artparty 2, David Forlano did the music for=20 last year's smash hit, Across). also note, dancer Aryani Manring in a double bill with local luminary, Maury Walton's "Shake Well Before=20 Opening" at the national dance showroom, titled "Cirque", 9/13 at 7pm, 9/14 at 7:30pm= ,=20 9/15 at 1:30pm and 6:30pm _________________________________________________________ 6. David Talento - Music For Isolatin Tanks - fringe fest i saw this last year, it is space music, a real journey, at the ethereal=20 theater, free wed., 9/5 at 6:30pm, and Sat. 9/15 at 4pm _______________________________________________________________ 7. "Pale" - Janette Hough, hangs from ropes, part of triple bill - fringe fe= st i saw her hang from ropes at the cabaret, mesmerizing. other performances in this triple bill are: "Cycle 3" by David Forlano and Toshi Makihara and Roko Kawai and "Hard Candy" by "Performance diva Melanie Stewart" "fierce yet sensuous= "=20 "Tennessee Williams inspired" "schizoprenic, dreamlike world of sin, secrets= ,=20 and mystery" wed. 9/5 at 7pm, thurs. 9/6 at 6:30pm, fri. 9/7 at 10pm, sat. 9/8 at 1pm at Christ Church, 20 N. American St. ______________________________________________________________ 8. Amputation Nation - by Theater Exile - fringe fest last year, Theater Exile did the excellent site specific "Live at the Apollo= =20 Diner" a deconstruction of shakespeare's King Richard III. This year's piece has=20 good word of mouth and i hear addresses some political topics. i'd like to=20 see more political art at the fringe. "John Lumia Assembles an urban assault team to attack the information age,=20 the commodification of the arts, the cult of celebrity, media manipulation,=20 and mass paranoia." "combined with state of the art visuals aand original=20 music" 128 n. 2nd st., tues - fri at 8:30pm, sat and sun. at 3pm and 10pm ____________________________________________________________ 9. The Cherry Orchard - tonight is last show! - fringe fest I saw this last night and it was fantastic, catch it if you can. it is in=20 hungarian with supertitles in english. an eastern european dadaist multimedi= a=20 performance that touches on topics that are current, such as gentrification.= =20 there is a cherry orchard with 200 year old trees, which he is now the owner= =20 of. this is from a change in politics such as has been occuring in eastern=20 europe since 1989. he decides to cut down all the beautiful old trees for=20 firewood since they don't bear fruit anymore. also shown is the=20 dissintegration of the family and all that is familiar, leaving a person=20 isolated in a commercial/mechanical world of new technology. "We do not have= =20 a car, but the train can take us to the cities". The end of the small=20 villages.=20 People treated as objects, like the 200 year old trees. People hiding money=20 while trying to travel depicted as it was in the play The Gas Heart by=20 Tristan Tzara i directed in the fringe a few years ago, other similar themes= =20 as The Gas Heart, such as the self being broken down in pieces as a result o= f=20 insane surroundings/war in europe. -josh=20 only one more showing of this...tonight...monday 9/3 at 8:30pm, at the arden= ,=20 40 n. 2nd st. ______________________________________________________________ 10. Puppet Uprising #7 - "Puppets for grow-ups", "socially aware theater" "puppets range from full sized mannequins to itty bitty shadows" wed. 9/5, sat. 9/8, and sun. 9/9, all days at 10:30pm,=20 at mum puppet theater, 115 arch st. _______________________________________________________________ well, that's all for now... add/deletes/comments/thanks write to me - Josh Cohen ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2001 20:27:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: GasHeart@AOL.COM Subject: Philly: Theater, Music, Film - a correction, and 2 additions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 1. Megan Bridge and Peter Price - correction! 2. MAKE IT A *MAD* NIGHT! *Media and Democracy 3. Transcendental Alchemy - dance, video, live electronic music, and choir - fringe _______________________________________________________ 1. Megan Bridge and Peter Price - correction! Hey josh.... /thank you so much for the plug... only one problem...Sunday the 9th isn't the only remaining showtime! we open on thursday, 9/6 at 6:30pm. we have friday 9/7 9pm, saturday 9/8 1pm and of course sunday 9/9 4pm. do you mind sending this extra to your mailing list? don't want to confuse anyone. thanks again. -megan and peter at the national showroom bldg, 113 n. 2nd street _____________________________________________________________ 2. MAKE IT A *MAD* NIGHT! *Media and Democracy Thursday, September 6, 2001 ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ Come tell COMCAST to stop playing MONOPOLY with our media! Please join us for a Parade and Counter-Awards Show (festive attire & instruments encouraged) By law Comcast is supposed to serve the public interest. Instead they take full advantage of their monopoly status to charge the highest rates in the country and denying us our right to Public Access TV. Comcast will hold their 3rd Annual CN8 Newsmakers Awards at the Prince where they will celebrate their power and wealth as they aspire to take over AT&T and the world. They say they care about community--it's time they put their money where their mouth is! The NotCast Awards are a fun way to honor the voices of Philadelphia that are shut out by Comcast's anti-democratic, anti-free speech cable policies, while sending an important message that we oppose their monopolistic practices. 6:00 PM Meet at Clothes Pin, 15th & Market Sts. 6:30 PM Parade to Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St. 7:00 PM NotCast Community Awards Presentation featuring Keith Brand and Carlota Ttendant for more information contact PCAC 215-563-1090 or www.phillyaccess.org - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Free *MAD* AFTER-PARTY at the Asian Arts Initiative 1315 Cherry Street, 2nd Floor doors open at 8:00 pm food, drinks, meaning, movie A premiere event for MEDIA TANK, Philly's newest public interest media group The Perils of a Comcast Monopoly What difference does it make if Comcast buys AT&T? With the move towards an information-based economy, giant media monopolies pose an ever greater threat to our democracy. Bunnie Riedel, Executive Director of the Alliance for Community Media, will explain how companies like Comcast have developed the technology and policies to turn the information superhighway of the Internet into a private toll road where they pocket the profits; and we pay the price. ****Followed by a special screening of the all-time classic "NETWORK" **** "I'm mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!" An outrageous satire on television that looks less and less like fantasy with each passing year. This multiple Oscar-winner from 1976 portrays the angst of an aging corporate news anchor about to get the axe, driving him to become a crazy shouting "mad prophet of the airwaves" and a ratings success. With stellar performances by Faye Dunaway, William Holden, Robert Duvall, Ned Beatty and Peter Finch. 120 min. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ________________________________________________________ 3. Transcendental Alchemy - dance, video, live electronic music, and choir - fringe directed by performance artist Cypher Zero...."Sir Eel Productions presents".... "A flower opens...Softly, the bomb drops.....Orgasm.....The kaleidoscope of pwerception beckons." with Gloria who plays violin in the Philadelphia Orchestra, Yanni from Stinking Lizaveta and Slipping into Sublimnity, and on sitar, Ben Morgan of Slipping into Sublimnity. at Theater Double - 1619 Walnut, 5th floor, wed. 9/12 and thu. 9/13 at 7:30 pm, fri. 9/14 at 7:30pm and 9pm, sat. 9/15 at 8pm, sun. 9/16 at 2pm ___________________________________________________ well.....that's all for now... -josh cohen GasHeart@aol.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 14:41:08 -0400 Reply-To: wfreind@postoffice.providence.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Freind Subject: Re: "DeBrot" virus spreading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Jeffrey Jullich's detective work is good, but has a few holes: 1. Debrot first attributed the Kent Johnson interview to Andrew Felsinger, then to Bill *Friend*, misspelling Freind's surname. 2. He then suggested that Felsinger and "Friend" are the same person. 3. Bill Freind had work appear in the same issue of Jacket in which Forrest Gander wrote about the Yasusada notebooks. 4. Bill Freind claims to live in Providence, a short drive from Debrot's home in Cambridge. 5. The Providence area is also the home of Forrest Gander, who has translated the Bolivian poet Jaime Saenz with Johnson. 6. Debrot teaches in Providence. 7. Debrot's ancestry is actually Spanish and as a child he lived in La Paz for three years. He also reads Portuguese and has published papers on Fernando Pessoa and Gilberto Gil. 8. A Google search will reveal that Cola Debrot, Debrot's supposed grandfather, is actually the *psuedonym* of Jean Niccolas Debrot. 9. A Google search will also reveal that Umberto Eco originally planned to publish _The Name of the Rose_ ( a book which he described as "a textile of other texts, a 'whodunit' of quotations, a book built of books") under the pseudonym Giacomo Dibro. 10. Eco's own surname is an acronym for ex caelis oblatus, or given by the heavens, a name given to foundlings. 10. Following Eco's Charles Norton Eliot lectures at Harvard, Debrot began to impersonate the Italian semiotician and novelist, sporting a pair of oversized black glasses and a Pavarotti-style beard while chain smoking. 11. While nominally a member of the diplomatic service in Uruguay, Johnson's father was actually a rogue CIA operative who placed illegal wiretaps on the phones of many figures in Latin America, including Jorge Luis Borges, Nicanor Parra and the dressmaker of Eva Peron. 12. Johnson is a Mason, Debrot a member of the Bavarian Illuminati and Gander is considering joining the Shriners. 13. Andrew Felsinger once had a pet tapeworm named Pessoa. After slicing the tapeworm in two, Felsinger named one half Caeiro and the other de Campos. He insists his actions were undertaken in the name of poetry. "Bill Freind" Jeffrey Jullich wrote: > >> Given > >> > >> (1) that Gary Sullivan circulated a falsified Ashbery interview and > >> forged Ashbery poems (identity of author, not "DeBrot," still > >> withheld by Sullivan),--- and > >> > >> (2) that this unreliability has already entered into circulation and > >> spurred further misinformation via literaryhistory.com,--- and > >> > >> (3) Given that Andrew Felsinger of litvert.com has published not > >> only "DeBrot" (in a case already commanding its own separate > >> international threats of lawsuit), but that litvert.com is also > >> strongly associated with Kent Johnson (suspected "forger" behind the > >> Yasusada deception) who espouses "heteronymity" and the widespread, > >> strategic use of noms-de-plume/noms-de-guerre and false identities > >> as a literary strategy,--- AND --- > >> > >> (4) NOTO BENE --- that litvert.com published in its first issue a > >> poem by one "John Ashbery,"--- > >> > >> there is strong reason to believe that the litvert.com "Ashbery" > >> poem is also a forgery. > >> > >> ------------------------------------ > >> > >> It remains to be seen how the graduate English Dept. of Harvard > >> University reacts to one of their Ph.D. candidates ("DeBrot") > >> participating in a "ring" of falsification, and disseminating > >> inauthentic documents within his own research field. > >> > >> In the tiny field of George Chapman autograph studies (translator of > >> Homer), there was a forger who compulsively altered any manuscripts > >> that might pass through his hands. The verifiability of all Chapman > >> sources must be triple-checked against whether the forger could have > >> ~potentially~ come in contact with the documents, in which case they > >> are rendered dubious. (If there ~were~ a Harvard doctoral candidate > >> worth his snuff, he would be able to supply the missing name of the > >> forger.) > >> > >> Gary Sullivan's perpetration of the "DeBrot" "hoax" places into > >> question all contiguous parties, and it corrupts the credibility of > >> all publications therein. Note the similarity between the poem > >> attributed to "Benjamin Friedlander" (below) and an on-line poem > >> credited to "Jacques DeBrot" (thereunder, > >> http://www.theeastvillage.com/tb/debrot/p2.htm): > >> > >> ---------------------------------- > >> "FRIEDLANDER": > >> > >> MOTHER > >> > >> It hurts > >> to chew on > >> the nipple of your pain > >> and feel the milk- > >> lessness of time > >> from the wrong end > >> of a nursing grudge > >> cowed by a pendulous Why? > >> ---------------------------------- > >> "DeBrot": > >> > >> gluhhnkKKK-K > >> > >> Your tongue makes my breasts girls. Clench up > >> and ball the nipple curving back, slapping against the mud. > >> The nerves jump intrin- > >> sically -- cow finger glistening > >> like nibbling candy. Start slowly, wonder > >> the bone of it while > >> my mess grows a pencil. Why?. > >> ----------------------------------- > >> > >> The identities of all List members using @hotmail accounts (like > >> Sullivan) or other such free addresses that do not verify sender > >> identity are open to doubt. Kent Johnson's "heteronymity" proposes > >> an entire ~community~ of fictionalized participants ("writing to and > >> about each other and back to their creators and through time, > >> re-valuing, dis-assembling, re-making the canon. What will the > >> poetry world do with this?": > >> http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). Much of the List > >> exchanges you have been reading may have been between different > >> "heteronyms", personae, and sign-ons by the same writer or group of > >> writers. > > > >> (Please note recent, sudden switching back and forth between e-mail > >> addresses, changes of already fatuous sign-ons (from "][-n serf[" to > >> "][mex][", say), or the affixing of comical names ("Jennifer", for a > >> man) or "Jackson" as an previously unused second last name > >> coincidentally with List mentions of Laura Riding Jackson! or when > >> one "character" calls another by a wrong name ("Jim-- I'm humiliated > >> to be called Pierre after we've spent nights drinking 1/2 a dozen > >> times together & you've published me in _canihaveyr_") in ways that > >> are unnecessarily but conspicuously reenforcing earlier suspect > >> claims documenting their existence. Remain alert!) > >> > >> Jim Behrle of canyouhaveyourballsback.com is practicing a form of > >> "reverse" or quasi-heteronymity, mailing his publication "11" to > >> people with the name "Zoe Johnson." "Michael Magee" (editor of > >> Combo) and "Jordan Davis" (editor of The Hat) are published in 11. > >> > >> "Jacques Debrot" is the name of the cultural minister of The > >> Antilles (http://www.litvert.com/KJ_Interview.html). > > > >> ********************************************************** > >> "Julu: This is a mess, just a blank, a brick, salvaged from the > >> Amaya > >> test browser. Just a moment, the phone is ringing. > >> > >> Julu: As I was saying, this is a mess. There's nothing to it, > >> nothing. > >> The substitutions are weak; there's nothing to be done about it. It > >> was > >> saved from Amaya through lynx. Hold on, someone's at the door." > >> > >> --- Sondheim, Alan, (Untitled) Thu, 5 Jun 1997 > >> > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 7 Jun 1997 18:07:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: NEXT: the identity of Yasusada to be revealed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The identity of Yasusada is now known by more parties than originally involved (although they are refraining from coming forward). The undisclosed author of the fake Ashbery poems in readme is one and the same as the author behind Yasusada. The author of the fraudulent Ashbery poems/Yasusada whose name is about to be revealed will be self-evident by five distinct and unmistakable markers: 1. He/she will be a person with a post at a place of the highest academic standing and reputation (say, at the top of the Ivy League or that small calibre of schools). This accounts for the concealment of identity, up until now out of fear that it might negatively affect his/her professional reputation and credibility. 2. He/she will have recently lived in Japan and/or be distinguished by ties to Japanese professional societies (again, which he/she feared jeopardizing by self-disclosure). 3. He will be a master forger, already proven by the readme "Ashbery" counterfeits, or by other published literary constructions also under the name of another real poet/person; but that expertise may be demonstrated as well by specializing in linguistics or some technical aspect of the English language and/or a foreign or scientific language, or the manufacture of synthetic speech specimens. (Radio transmissions may be involved? The initials of his/her name may be very close to mine, or the same as mine!?) 4. He/she presents as a self-identified Buddhist or a quasi-Buddhist. Or, he may be of half-Buddhist or half-Asian parentage, a biographical fact shared with publisher(s) of Yasusada. Or maybe look like Buddha. (Fat?) (This half-nationalism may come out in other ways, such as publishing connections to other English-speaking countries.) This Buddhism will re-cast any temporary, futile reiteration of Kent Johnson's constant claim, "I am not Yasusada," with a whole new significance. (Johnson has effectively been shown in fact not to have been capable of authoring Yasusada, and to differ in telling "deep grammar" ways.) The "am-not" will be heard then as validly expressible from a Radical Buddist/Zem perspective, as one "is not" one's social security number, "is not" even one's own given legal name, "is not" one's job/body: the statement "I am not," from that grounding, will no longer be needed to be taken as denial of Yasusada authorship, which will be only too obvious! by The Five Markers; or will be understandable as parsing of semantic nuance at the finest shade of grammatical distinctions laid out elsewhere in his/her scientific/linguistic materials. 5. He/she will have publicly identified himself or some enterprise in his possession (a book title?) by a "clue" name meant to draw attention to the concealed falsity (whose prefix?) means secret, fict itious, inauthentic, bogus, such as "pseudo," "crypto," or such. (In a way that is not clear, it may be a four-letter word that sounds like the obscene word "f--k." The only word I can think like that is "fake.") This full moon has brought it all to clarity. (I thank Michael Lutin, Conde Nast horoscope columnist for Vanity Fair, for his help in leading me to this predictive description, and Jan Pridmore of literaryhistory.com whose intution empirically lead to her to an answer. Her unique bibliographic experience with tracing literary web cross-references sniffed out the trail with remarkable speed and insight.) Jennifer Julu ****************************************** "(Such are Clara Hielo Internet, Tiffany, Alan, Travis, Honey, Jennifer, and others. Jennifer-Julu, in particular, has been the subject/object of recent work, a blurring of epistemological/ontological distinction. Jennifer-Julu is me, not an alter-ego. Jennifer split into Julu; Julu is julu-of-the-scripts,and both reside as avatars in my linux machine.)" --- Sondheim, Alan, "periodic (rewritten) notice - explanation of texts, etc." (Sun, 8 Jun 1997 18:07:51) ****************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 19:31:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mary Burger Subject: Second Sundays reading 9/9 (Oakland) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" It's time for the first Second Sundays reading of the season! Steve Dickison and Rachel Levitsky @ The Stork Club, Oakland Sunday, Sept. 9 @ 7 p.m. --NOTE NEW TIME!!! Admission $2.00. 21 and over only Hosted by Mary Burger and Beth Murray The Stork Club is in downtown Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave between 23rd and 24th St. By BART: get off at 19th St, walk one block west to Telegraph, then up about 5 blocks, just past 23rd. The Stork Club has a large and vivid sign. STEVE DICKISON was born in Duluth in 1956. Director of The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives in San Francisco, he is editor & publisher of the poetry press Listening Chamber. Recent writing is in _lyric&_ ,_Crayon_ 2, and _The Recovery of the Public World: Essays on Poetics in Honour of Robin Blaser_ (Vancouver, Talonbooks). He is at work on Robin Blaser's _The Unfolded Fold_, an edition of selected talks on poets and poetics. He and David Meltzer are co-editors of the new zine _Shuffle Boil, a magazine of poets and music_. RACHEL LEVITSKY runs the all-women experimental reading/pamphlet series BELLADONNA*. In the Fall of 1999 she lived for three months in Saratoga, CA at the Villa Montalvo artist's residency program. In her latest project, REALISM, she confronts the pleasure of pleasing pictures and the difficulty of being on their outside. She lives in Brooklyn, NY. Reply to this address for more information, or to be removed from this list. ***************************************************************************** ALSO JOIN US FOR UPCOMING EVENTS, THE SECOND SUNDAY OF EVERY MONTH. All events 7:00 p.m., $2.00. OCTOBER 14 SAWAKO NAKAYASU and PETER NEUFELD Sawako Nakayasu received her BA in Literature/Writing and in Music Composition from UC San Diego, and is currently pursuing an MFA in Poetry at Brown University, while playing ice hockey and creating text-based performances. Recent short performances include Eye/Line Change performed at Mobius (Boston), and her writing has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Kenning, Chain, HOW2, and as a Lucille broadside. Peter Neufeld was born in 1971 in Reedley, CA. He is the editor of melodeon poetry systems, a small press focusing on the work of young experimental poets, and one of the founding editors of the international poetry journal, Aufgabe. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in the following journals: Chain, Kenning Review, Spinning Jenny, Lipstick 11, Mungo vs. Ranger, San Jose Manual of Style, and disClosure, among others. He is also the author of The Glass Owl, a chapbook published by a+ bend press in 2000. He currently lives in Brooklyn, NY. NOVEMBER 11 JEAN DAY and LORI LUBESKI Jean Day's most recent book is The Literal World (Atelos Press). Selections from her current work in progress (Enthusiasm) has appeared in The Germ, Tongue to Boot, Crayon, and elsewhere, and she appears in a number of anthologies, including In the American Tree, From the Other Side of This Century: A New American Poetry, 1960-1990 , and Moving Borders: Three Decades of Innovative Writing by Women. She lives in Berkeley. Lori Lubeski is the author of Dissuasion crowds the slow worker, Sweet Land, Stamina, and Attractions cf; distractions. She lives in Boston, MA. DECEMBE 9 SEAN FINNEY and LESLIE SCALAPINO Sean Finney earned an MFA in poetry from Brown University. His work has appeared in Oblek and Lingo. He lives in Oakland and works as a journalist. Leslie Scalapino is the author of over 20 books of poetry, fiction, essays, inter-genre writing, and plays. Her most recent books include R-hu (Atelos Press) and Zither (Wesleyan, forthcoming 2001). She teaches at Bard College and the San Francisco Art Institute, and has also taught at Mills College, The Naropa Institute, and elsewhere. She lives in Oakland. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 23:08:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - in the specter of death you will take my breath you will play your harp you will freeze it sharp you will take it in and the sword of death will enter in when you give my breath when you take my breath in the specter of death - wandering in the dual - neither-a-nor-b - it is ourselves avoiding death and its already equally exhausted aporia - we're seductive - the procuring of death - writing and writing against it - the extruded theoretical abstraction, pronouncement, death and facticity - the skeins of death and exhilaration - the splayed or opened specter of death - wandering in the dual - neither-a-nor-b - it is ourselves avoiding death and its already equally exhausted aporia - we're seductive - the procuring of death - writing and writing against it - "you are all witnesses," she said, "to this mold-death lizard-death, in the middle of this mammal- death, this corrosive heap of fur and mold; i am living in the pain and death of others, their odor, they trace others speaking for you, of deaths, whirrings of unknown wings, eyes of obsession"; already she felt her death far too near, death that you can locate somewhere other than where you are - you will go too far when an angel sings with unknown wings you will go too far past the body's gate where organs mate with the scepter of death with the violent star the fires char you will go too far _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 00:43:16 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: The Surveillance Camera Players Comments: To: ImitaPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Some times I find something that just makes me shout, "yes!" The Surveillance Camera Players (SCP): http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html An International Day of Action Against Video Surveillance, Sept. 7: http://www.notbored.org/7s01.html An SCP Adaptation of Wilhelm Reich's _The Mass Psychology of Fascism_: http://www.notbored.org/reich.html Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 09:01:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: new environs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I just got a memo in my mail box at work that features a quotation from Hannah Weiner. I've never worked in an English Department before where anybody had even heard of Hannah Weiner! <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Subjects hinder talk." --Emily Dickinson Aldon Lynn Nielsen George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature Department of English The Pennsylvania State University 116 Burrowes University Park, PA 16802-6200 (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 01:47:57 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: new environs Danger in English Departments! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aldon. Much more likely to find her name bandied around by New Zealand Rugby enthusiasts who work say as shop assistants or timber workers or sewrage unblockers? You should instigate an inquiry into any quoting of anyone other than eg Bill Shakespear, Rudyard Kipling and Tennyson or some of the "better" novelists. Its a bit of a worry that you quote Emily Dickinson...wasnt she a bit "different"? And dont quote Swinburne or Wilde or even Whitman. Be careful: you're obviously in a dangerous predicament. It's a trick. Pretend you dont know any writers who are "suspect" or "strange" etc You know the drill. Cheers. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aldon Nielsen" To: Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:01 AM Subject: new environs > I just got a memo in my mail box at work that features a quotation from > Hannah Weiner. I've never worked in an English Department before where > anybody had even heard of Hannah Weiner! > > <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > "Subjects > hinder talk." > --Emily Dickinson > > > Aldon Lynn Nielsen > George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature > Department of English > The Pennsylvania State University > 116 Burrowes > University Park, PA 16802-6200 > > (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 10:52:18 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: new environs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit yes me too sad to say I've never toiled in an English dept. that didn't sport an oulde scholar with a young baud at his side the grade curse to wit follows her curves ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:00:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: new environs Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Actually, Aldon, you never worked in a place that Hannah Weiner had ever heard of either, Ron _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:03:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Will Schofield Subject: new environs/who wrote hamlet MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I don't know if I'm jumping in on a thread or not (I joined yesterday), but thinking about educators not knowing about writers: the other night the final question on the awful game show "The Weakest Link" was about John Milton. It was basically "Who wrote Paradise Lost". The contestant after much hesitation came out with "John Cheever???". This isn't so bad in and of itself, but they did a little post-game follow up with the loser/contestant who said "My students are going to tease me about this one." She's an English teacher. This horror story brought to you by: Will Schofield William Schofield Assistant Editor, Paul Dry Books www.pauldrybooks.com e-mail: wschofield@pauldrybooks.com Tel: 215-231-9939 Fax: 215-231-9942 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:20:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: new environs In-Reply-To: <128.436c2db.28c8e7a2@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 10:52 AM 9/6/2001 -0400, you wrote: >yes me too sad to say I've never toiled in an English dept. that didn't sport >an oulde scholar with a young baud at his side the grade curse to wit follows >her curves that was back when most modems were 56 baud, right? <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Subjects hinder talk." --Emily Dickinson Aldon Lynn Nielsen George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature Department of English The Pennsylvania State University 116 Burrowes University Park, PA 16802-6200 (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:33:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: George Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed That's up there with the Jay Leno "people in the street" interviews where he asks them basic current events or historical questions. There was one a month or so ago where he asked lots of people who fought WW2 before somebody finally thought of Germany. Many more questions finally yielded the idea that Germany had been led by somebody named Hitler. But it took even more questions to get a first name -- including one answer from a school teacher who suggested that it was "George." "I don't know if I'm jumping in on a thread or not (I joined yesterday), but thinking about educators not knowing about writers: the other night the final question on the awful game show "The Weakest Link" was about John Milton. It was basically "Who wrote Paradise Lost". The contestant after much hesitation came out with "John Cheever???". This isn't so bad in and of itself, but they did a little post-game follow up with the loser/contestant who said "My students are going to tease me about this one." She's an English teacher. This horror story brought to you by: Will Schofield" Ron Silliman ron.silliman@gte.net rsillima@hotmail.com DO NOT RESPOND to Tottels@Hotmail.com It is for listservs only. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:43:06 -0400 Reply-To: jamie.perez@akqa.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jamie Gaughran-Perez Organization: AKQA Subject: Re: George (people in the street) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Michael Moore does a version of this that I found a little more fun. It's called "Beat the Rich" and he basically asks people questions, some of them found on Park Avenue or somesuch NYC area and the other group are people around the streets of some Pennsylvania(?) town. Hilarity ensues. Questions for both sides too, like what is a good year of Merlot?; and what do you do if the toilet isn't flushing? My fave was a question about the price of something ordinary (of course memory wants to fill in the blank with "gallon of milk," but I think it was something else), and a woman in the NYC/urbane sections answers with something like, "In francs?" She was counted as wrong. The "non-Rich" edged out a victory in Michael Moore-like fashion. Seek it out in the Awful Truth compilation if you have a comfortable Michael Moore filter. The same collection has the Sodomobile episode which is definitely worth a watch. jamie.gp Ron Silliman wrote: > > That's up there with the Jay Leno "people in the street" interviews where he > asks them basic current events or historical questions. There was one a > month or so ago where he asked lots of people who fought WW2 before somebody > finally thought of Germany. Many more questions finally yielded the idea > that Germany had been led by somebody named Hitler. But it took even more > questions to get a first name -- including one answer from a school teacher > who suggested that it was "George." > > "I don't know if I'm jumping in on a thread or not (I joined yesterday), but > thinking about educators not knowing about writers: the other night the > final question on the awful game show "The Weakest Link" was about John > Milton. It was basically "Who wrote Paradise Lost". The contestant after > much hesitation came out with "John Cheever???". This isn't so bad in and of > itself, but they did a little post-game follow up with the loser/contestant > who said "My students are going to tease me about this one." She's an > English teacher. > > This horror story brought to you by: > > Will Schofield" > > Ron Silliman > ron.silliman@gte.net > rsillima@hotmail.com > > DO NOT RESPOND to > Tottels@Hotmail.com > It is for listservs only. > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:14:54 -0400 Reply-To: kevinkillian@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "kevinkillian@earthlink.net" Subject: George thoughts Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Regarding the TV shows where people say they don't know who fought Wolrd War II, don't forget that Jay Leno and Michael M= oore et al all have staffs that work overtime to make sure that ordinary people look stupid. Those clips are heavily edi= ted! It is all for effect, don't trust them. There's a local version of this routine that runs here in San Francisco an= d the people who produce it were in despair because too many people knew that D H Lawrence was a novelist and not the cen= tral character in Lawrence of Arabia. They scrapped the segment and instead determined to make people look stupid by ask= ing people about stem cell research. Like that's really difficult ha ha!! It is a heartless practice to make people seem dumb, when half of the time they are smarter than the producers, they may = not know how to express themselves well. But, it is a relatively cheap way to produce TV, because you don't have to pay = the talent, just show them up. -- Kevin K. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:24:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: new environs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/6/01 11:02:20 AM, tottels@HOTMAIL.COM writes: << Actually, Aldon, you never worked in a place that Hannah Weiner had ever heard of either, Ron >> Ha Ha! Well said. I know I am the only one on my campus who is familiar with Hannah Weiner's writing. On the other hand, I have a very pleasant colleague who is a sci-fi buff (teaches a course, etc.), who knows a lot of work in that area that I don't. Ah, specialization. I guess we're all niche-ean. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:29:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: Re: George In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 11:33 AM 9/6/2001 -0400, you wrote: >That's up there with the Jay Leno "people in the street" interviews where he >asks them basic current events or historical questions. There was one a >month or so ago where he asked lots of people who fought WW2 before somebody >finally thought of Germany. Many more questions finally yielded the idea >that Germany had been led by somebody named Hitler. But it took even more >questions to get a first name -- including one answer from a school teacher >who suggested that it was "George." > >That is, it took a lot longer, as edited . . . who knows how many people >ended up on the cutting room floor because they knew the coorect answer? By the way, these posts seem to be coming through almost instantaneously today -- I hate to think our much-abused moderator is sitting there with his finger in his mouse all morning -- has something been changed in the procedure??? "Subjects hinder talk." --Emily Dickinson Aldon Lynn Nielsen George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature Department of English The Pennsylvania State University 116 Burrowes University Park, PA 16802-6200 (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 09:31:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: peter culley Subject: George Comments: cc: kevinkillian@earthlink.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Ditto with what Kevin K. said. At least Leno does those things for a = cheap laugh, without Moore's utterly hollow and loathesome "ideological" = justification. We have a show here where Americans on the street are = asked questions about Canada, the sole purpose of which is to add to the = already overloaded sum of Canadian smugness. Needing to be re-assured = about the stupidity of others is not a healthy sign, and it's sad to see = it crop up on the list. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:36:17 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: George In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20010906122815.00a59870@email.psu.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ...while at the same time two of my posts from the last few days have mysteriously disappeared. Perhaps I was discussing something irrelevant to poetry and/or art? Jay Leno, I mean, Patrick Herron > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Aldon Nielsen > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 12:30 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: George > > > At 11:33 AM 9/6/2001 -0400, you wrote: > >That's up there with the Jay Leno "people in the street" > interviews where he > >asks them basic current events or historical questions. There was one a > >month or so ago where he asked lots of people who fought WW2 > before somebody > >finally thought of Germany. Many more questions finally yielded the idea > >that Germany had been led by somebody named Hitler. But it took even more > >questions to get a first name -- including one answer from a > school teacher > >who suggested that it was "George." > > > >That is, it took a lot longer, as edited . . . who knows how many people > >ended up on the cutting room floor because they knew the coorect answer? > > > By the way, these posts seem to be coming through almost instantaneously > today -- I hate to think our much-abused moderator is sitting there with > his finger in his mouse all morning -- has something been changed in the > procedure??? > > > "Subjects > hinder talk." > --Emily Dickinson > > > Aldon Lynn Nielsen > George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature > Department of English > The Pennsylvania State University > 116 Burrowes > University Park, PA 16802-6200 > > (814) 865-0091 > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 12:54:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hassen Subject: Re: George MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>it's sad to see it crop up on the list.<< for chrissake some things are a quick hoot, soon forgotten, & some folks actually laugh more at their own stupidity, does that not twinkle ? we're all idiots & it's often damn funny lala, it's a lovely day to be a human hassen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 15:01:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: with apologies to the blues Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Mariah Carey Has Collapsed You've stop Got me fleeing break emotion ing down why don't you stop breaking down <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> "Subjects hinder talk." --Emily Dickinson Aldon Lynn Nielsen George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature Department of English The Pennsylvania State University 116 Burrowes University Park, PA 16802-6200 (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 11:25:18 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Webster Schultz Subject: Re: with apologies to the blues MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And with apologies to Mariah Carey, who seems to be having a rough go of it???? Glad to hear you're in a good place, Aldon. Looks like that dept is going places. aloha, Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aldon Nielsen" To: Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 9:01 AM Subject: with apologies to the blues > Mariah Carey Has Collapsed > > > You've > > stop > > Got me fleeing break > > emotion > ing down > > why don't you stop breaking down > > <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > "Subjects > hinder talk." > --Emily Dickinson > > > Aldon Lynn Nielsen > George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature > Department of English > The Pennsylvania State University > 116 Burrowes > University Park, PA 16802-6200 > > (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 20:32:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hoa Nguyen Subject: New Possum Pouch Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Check out The Possum Pouch September 2001 An irregular publication of essays, notes and reviews at http://www.skankypossum.com. DON'T MISS OUT--THIS ISSUE WILL EXPIRE AND WILL NOT BE ARCHIVED. FEATURING === Beat Currencies by Dale Smith === A look at the Beats and four recent pubs. (excerpt) “Somehow, somewhere in the last decade or so, the liberating, bohemian vernacular of the Beats transformed itself into a digestive for popular consumption.” === Original Ladies' Man by Linh Dinh === (excerpt) “Can Tho is the chief city in the Mekong Delta. Not too long ago, I was sitting at a cafe on its festive waterfront, near the large, goofy Ho Chi Minh statue, when a group of very swishy young men came marching down the street. The way they could swivel their hips would make Little Richard proud. "Ladiman!" the man at the next table exclaimed. Having never heard that word before, I asked, ‘What's a ladiman?’” === Dig it! === Meet our new Jr. Editor! ....... We welcome responses and pouch submissions--write to skankypossum@hotmail.com. ** Please forgive cross postings ** _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:12:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Kelleher Subject: Laird Hunt NYC Book Launch Comments: cc: core-l@listserv.buffalo.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Come to a book party to celebrate or note or take into consideration or look askance at The Impossibly a novel By Laird Hunt murky=85 hallucinatory=85 incomprehensible=85 marvelous=85 16 September 7-9 p.m. 64 Grand Street, between West Broadway and Wooster New York City Books will be available (for sale) Wine will be available (for free) More info on the book at www.coffeehousepress.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 13:03:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Mary Barnard passed on In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Mary Barnard was one of the best US poets of our time. I still have not read a Sappho that has the heart that Barnard's Sappho has. Williams certainly owed something to her. Check Paterson. -- George Bowering Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 16:53:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: alan's work a big yawn culled from alan's work MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - yawning, having yawned Fantasm:Young yesterdays yawned yore. Yes, you Past:interstitial moment in the yawning of topogra Uncanny: yawns in belated tiredness exhausting hir Uncanny: "%n yawns to %d you know we are so listen Uncanny: "%n yawns to %d alone, they're so boring Uncanny:yawns and writhes, but, silent as it is, I b.txt:But I'm tired and want to go home. I echo my book1:Julu said, yawning. gg:fuge is cancelled by everyday behavior - yawn, hh:cough, atchoo, yawn, this is a mess, KITTY you' k.txt:Therefore gaping, or yawning, and stretching kc:freshman essay on suicide, I yawned. If the pla ks:my cock disappears yawn yawn kv: dreams and yawnings took them as well - ld:ful twinkle in her eyes, stretching and yawning lj:lukewarm zero, yawn time, saying nothing to any lj:lukewarm zero, yawn time, saying nothing to any _ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 10:38:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Marsh Subject: announcing Zazil2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit [apologies for cross-posting] Zazil2 is now available in PDF format at http://www.factoryschool.org/zazil/z2.html Zazil2 no.1 features "Lunch Money in the Wrong Pockets," by Octavia Davis. Zazil2 no.2 features "Multi-Dimensional Dementia: M.D. Coverley's _Califia_ and the Aesthetics of Forgetting," by Carolyn Guertin. Zazil2 is offered free as a serial document in PDF format (requires Acrobat Reader 4.0). For more information about Zazil, contact the coordinators at zazil2@factoryschool.org. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 01:41:44 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yeah it's brilliant if it's lies, slander, egomania and melodramatic portrayals of self you want it's just the place to look but as for poetry, well, forget about that it's not on the agenda Best David Bircumshaw ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hoa Nguyen" To: Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:32 AM Subject: New Possum Pouch > Check out > The Possum Pouch > September 2001 > > An irregular publication of essays, notes and reviews at > http://www.skankypossum.com. > > DON'T MISS OUT--THIS ISSUE WILL EXPIRE AND WILL NOT BE ARCHIVED. > > > FEATURING > > === Beat Currencies by Dale Smith === > > A look at the Beats and four recent pubs. > > (excerpt) "Somehow, somewhere in the last decade or so, the liberating, > bohemian vernacular of the Beats transformed itself into a digestive for > popular consumption." > > > === Original Ladies' Man by Linh Dinh === > > > (excerpt) "Can Tho is the chief city in the Mekong Delta. Not too long ago, > I was sitting at a cafe on its festive waterfront, near the large, goofy Ho > Chi Minh statue, when a group of very swishy young men came marching down > the street. The way they could swivel their hips would make Little Richard > proud. "Ladiman!" the man at the next table exclaimed. > > Having never heard that word before, I asked, 'What's a ladiman?'" > > > === Dig it! === > > Meet our new Jr. Editor! > > ....... > > We welcome responses and pouch submissions--write to > skankypossum@hotmail.com. > > ** Please forgive cross postings ** > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 16:59:03 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" Subject: looking for Rodefer MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" looking for Rodefer: email address anyone? wystan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 00:57:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: suicide and Plath and substance use In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed beware plathian angst. Gene At 12:46 PM 8/31/01 -0400, you wrote: >Plathfully speaking my new apt. has a nice little gas range replete with head >sized oven ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 12:54:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: Commissionable poets? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > Finally a way for poets to make some money... > http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/03/business/media/03BOOK.html > > If you were going to pitch a company on writing a book of poetry with some > company's products as the centerpieces, who would you pick? > > I think I might like to approach Vivendi to write a serial poem that > explores the concept of the value of a voice (of course, extolling the > virtues of "voice as commodity"), maybe centered around a loose plot about > some international corporate espionage where Vivendi is the victim, but > comes out victorious in the end because of their commitment to... ah > nevermind. I think I'd rather write real poems that have a chance to win > real awards from real organizations who promote real poets. > > It won't be long before a copywriter from Ogilvy & Mather will become the > poet laureate of these united states (if hasn't happened already)... Reminds me of William Witherup's, "After My Breakdown" ---------------------------------------------------------- After my breakdown I tried Compoz. I went back to Brylcream. I joined the Dodge Rebellion and the Pepsi Generation. I flew the friendly skies of United. I put a tiger in my tank. I ate the Breakfast of Champions. After my first relapse I filled my cupboard with Wonderbread, my icebox with the beer beer drinkers drink. I packed into Marlboro country sporting a fresh tattoo. I arrested death and decay with Macleans. I killed body odors with Jade East. I fought despair #100 with Excedrin and pain #200 with Anacin and anxiety #600 with Contac. After my second relapse I cured myself with Gillette stainless steel blades. ----------------------------------------------------- This poem is worth a fortune today! -Joel Joel Weishaus Center for Excellence in Writing Portland State University Portland, Oregon. http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 21:38:34 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: suicide and Plath and substance use MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit But Sheila. Are you sure that - in life - you're on the right Plath? Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Sheila Massoni" To: Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 4:46 AM Subject: Re: suicide and Plath and substance use > Plathfully speaking my new apt. has a nice little gas range replete with head > sized oven > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 14:18:09 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: Re: Formlessness In-Reply-To: <0ac101c1341f$97839ca0$2e442718@ruthfd1.tn.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The consummation of forming an army is to arrive at formlessness. Victory in war is not repetitious, but adapts its form endlessly... A military force has no constant formation, water has no constant shape: The ability to gain victory by changing and adapting according to the opponent is called genius. _Sun-tzu 4BC /:b ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 09:21:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: Berryman's sonnets Comments: To: robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com In-Reply-To: <005401c130bd$baba2c80$a0b5fea9@w4e4b3> from "Robin Hamilton" at Aug 29, 2001 08:02:57 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit According to Robin Hamilton: > > A bit off the point -- I first came across the "Chris" (rather than "Lise") > version in the Collected Poems edition. Presumably Berryman (sic? not the > publishers?). It threw me then and it still throws me. I prefer the > original (-ly published) version. That had already been left to cool for -- > what? -- 15 years -- so presumably Berryman's use of "Lise" then (1965?) was > 'deliberate'. > > Be interested in what you (and everyone else) thinks on this. Robin, my understanding is that Sonnets to Chris is the title of the original 1947 manuscript which Berryman shelved for 20 yrs. In 1967 it comes out as _Berryman's Sonnets_ - never as Sonnets to Lise, tho, yes, in the '67 book "Chris" becomes "Lise" in the poems (for instance in Sonnet 4). The question of why these poems sat unpublished for 20 yrs is pretty interesting since, as I say, style-wise they predict the Dream Songs (in fact, Giroux rushed them to press b/c the Dream Songs were already scheduled to come out). The reason for the change to Lise in 1967, I always assumed, was because "Chris" was a code-name for "Lise" - so in '67 it's a) safe to fess up, and b) chic to (con)fess up - remember this is the period when Lowell is dropping chunks of his ex-wife's letters, without permission, into *his* sonnets. So, there's my take. My dissing of Berryman aside, there's a lot of interesting writing there - tho these days if I want Elizabethan jive talk I go to Kasey Mohammad. -m. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 21:29:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: George In-Reply-To: <000c01c136f1$554fdcc0$0d744518@no.shawcable.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed but education is simply in bad shape in the us. Gene At 09:31 AM 9/6/01 -0700, you wrote: >Ditto with what Kevin K. said. At least Leno does those things for a >cheap laugh, without Moore's utterly hollow and loathesome "ideological" >justification. We have a show here where Americans on the street are asked >questions about Canada, the sole purpose of which is to add to the already >overloaded sum of Canadian smugness. Needing to be re-assured about the >stupidity of others is not a healthy sign, and it's sad to see it crop up >on the list. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 09:16:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: Friend/Felsinger MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > (Marcella D. protests over "vir-" root etymology and > typical males. But you know ~"her".~) > > > > > Jeffrey > Mais non. I protest anthropocentrism, not prefixes. As women were thought not to have souls, we were aligned with animals, plants, minerals and geological marvels. We are the kingdom of the previously inarticulate(d). I offer bouquets of early fall leaves to all typical males and females. xox M ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 11:03:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: call for contributions: corpse in progress Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit People, Here is a corpse from May, with contributions from three poets. I hope it can be much longer, larger, and when it reaches the right length, I'll present it on meaningless.com Thanks---- + + + + + + + The long and tedious body in the bodice of fingers broken in toward the lake of disinterested eye that light in the window which winces mechanically as hours shrink to fit the tiniest of holes torn into numbers to feed the plow it means nothing to me to say hello for the ribbons of rhythm dictate such a collar might indeed produce the moment of its declaration "The body that what will, is." The body loves its mandibles, delights, Clucking spare parts like a mantis. Or under the water grunts and groans, Liking sport like the manatee likes cabbage. "What, in the night, thinks the body wet?" The body eats its melons, sure. But what grows from my seed patch now? Say! I think it's a batch of pink monkeys! I will send them out in a canoe, green and stripey. "What will the body think of next?" The body loves to rumba, Pop. So please excuse me while I kiss the sky. Please forgive me while I light my gas-soaked slacks and dance the burning stinkbug dance! "What does the body think of that?" + + + + + + + next? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 20:53:53 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Comments: To: performance_art_network@egroups.com, webartery@yahoogroups.com, wryting@julian.uwo.ca, PoetryEspresso@topica.com, Poetryetc MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit FIFTH SUB VOICIVE COLLOQUIUM Sub Voicive Poetry in association with Contemporary Poetics Research Centre How do we perform that!? Birkbeck College 30 Russell Square, London W C 1 Rooms UG1 & UG3 Saturday 29th September 2001; 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Bulletin 4 The theme is, as above, "How do we perform that?" Contributors are: Sean Bonney, Ian Davidson, Allen Fisher, Loss Pequeño Glazier, Jeff Hilson, Dell Olsen, Lawrence Upton and Mike Weller Registration: Everyone attending must be registered and preferably *in *advance. It is a big waste of valuable time registering people on the day. The colloquium fee is £12 for a full *or a part of the day. You may register for only £10 *if you register in advance by Tuesday 25th September 2001. Send a cheque payable to Lawrence Upton, 32 Downside Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5HP to arrive by 25th September 2001. (Please include your name and address legibly!) Receipts will be available if requested with your postal registration. Concessions are available at £5 on exactly the same principle i.e. they must be received by 25th September 2001 Late registrations will be at the full rate. No receipts. NB The named contributors are automatically registered already, without charge This is as cheap as we can make it. This year there are costs which have not been incurred before, but we are holding the admission charge. It is vitally important, therefore, that as many of you as possible support us by attending, not just because of SVP's commitment to pay costs incurred but also because the colloquium is predicated on the belief that it is good to gather and talk about our writing and it's pointless if you don't turn up Lunch arrangements: Tea and (instant) coffee should be available more or less continuously all day, once the urn has boiled, and we'll throw in a selection of biscuits. No charge if you have registered. Lunch: There has been no interest in the scheme to bring in fresh sandwiches at previous colloquia, so this year we aren't even offering. N.B. Not everywhere is open on Saturday and there is hardly time to go to the pub without coming in unsociably late. So we strongly advise you to bring a packed lunch. Bookstall: It is hoped to provide a bookstall facility. Further announcements about that a.s.a.p. Send in your registrations!!!!!! --------------------------------------------------- http://www.crosswinds.net/~subvoicivepoetry/ --------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 22:04:56 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Fifth Sub Voicive Colloquium Bulletin 4b Comments: To: webartery@yahoogroups.com, PoetryEspresso@topica.com, Poetryetc , performance_art_network@egroups.com, wryting@julian.uwo.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit FIFTH SUB VOICIVE COLLOQUIUM Sub Voicive Poetry in association with Contemporary Poetics Research Centre How do we perform that!? Birkbeck College 30 Russell Square, London W C 1 Rooms UG1 & UG3 Saturday 29th September 2001; 10 a.m. - 6 p.m. Bulletin 4b NB Do not send ANY correspondence regarding the colloquium to Russell Sq. It may get lost. All correspondence to 32 Downside Road, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5HP Bookstall: Any relevant publication (books, CDs etc) is eligible for inclusion on the colloquium bookstall which will run for most of the day less time for set up and close down. Just as we want to separate registration for the colloquium from the colloquium itself, we do not want book-selling to impede the colloquium; but we believe making publications available is central to the day. Therefore, there will be one bookstall only and it will be run, as before, by Invisible Books. There are a few rules which, if followed, will make for efficiency. * Please put a post it note with the publication price on every item unless the price is clearly displayed on the publication already * Please supply an itemised invoice, allowing the standard 40% discount, for your entire contribution. The invoice should show title, publisher and quantities * No arrangements beforehand are necessary. Please bring your books in the morning and take away unsold books in the evening * Please do not add your publications to the table or start your own separate display. Deal through Invisible Books or don't deal. * Please do not send publications to the colloquium. There are no facilities for receiving publications in advance or for storing them after. No responsibility is accepted for publications not handed to Invisible Books on 29 September and / or not collected from them on 29 September... Publishers are of course welcome to make your arrangements with colleagues so that one person deals with the bookstall on behalf of 2 or 3 publishers. Settlement will be cash (where and if possible) or cheque ON THE DAY ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 21:17:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: Poetics List Administration Comments: Originally-From: Marharb@aol.com From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Writers Live! Sep 13 | Fielding Dawson & Eileen Myles MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I'd like to invite you to come to another Writers Live! event in Brooklyn at= =20 Pratt Institute: Thurs. Sep. 13 at 6 p.m. =20 FIELDING DAWSON & EILEEN MYLES=20 =20 All events are FREE and open to the public. You may want to check out the=20 website for more info: www.pratt.edu/writerslive, or call (718) 636-3570. Best, Marcella Harb ***I've enclosed directions to Pratt at the end of this email. =20 Fielding Dawson "His ear for speech is impeccable=E2=80=A6his prose is complex, driven and=20 quick=E2=80=A6(It) convinces immediately." Toby Olson, The New York Times. =20= Fielding=20 Dawson is the author of over 20 books, including his most recent collection=20 of short stories, The Land of Milk & Honey. Dawson is also the director of=20 the PEN Prison Writing Workshop Program. Eileen Myles Eileen Myles is Pratt Institute's Writer-In-Residence for Fall 2001. Says=20 Time Out New York, "This fiercely independent poet's writing style is marked= =20 by velocity, risk-taking and adventure." Myles' most recent books are the=20 forthcoming Skies: New Poems, published by Black Sparrow Press; & the=20 nonfiction novel Cool For You. =20 All events are held in Memorial Hall on the Pratt Institute campus, 200=20 Willoughby Ave., Brooklyn, NY. The best way to get there by public=20 transportation is the G train, which runs through Brooklyn and Queens, but=20 connects to just about any train line. Get off at the Clinton/Washington=20 stop. Use the Washington Ave. exit, then walk down Washington Ave. (toward=20 the Jesus Saves sign) one block to DeKalb Ave, turn right and go one block t= o=20 Hall St/St. James, the corner of the gated Pratt campus. Use the Thrift Hall= =20 entrance on DeKalb Ave. and walk down the path to Memorial Hall. Hope to se= e=20 you there! ***If you don't want to receive any further information about Writers Live!,= =20 please email me and I'll take you off the list. Thanks. Marcella Harb, Curator Writers Live! at Pratt Institute www.pratt.edu/writerslive ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 21:22:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: Poetics List Administration Comments: Originally-From: Lytle Shaw From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Luoma, Trujillo Lusk, Spahr at Drawing Center Sept 11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Please post: In conjunction with the exhibition "12 Views” Line Reading presents: Bill Luoma Dorothy Trujillo Lusk Juliana Spahr Tuesday, September 11th, 7pm, at The Drawing Center (35 Wooster, between Grand and Broome) Bill Luoma’s books of poetry include My Trip to New York City (The Figures, 1994), Western Love (Situations, 1996), Works and Days (The Figures, 1998), and Dear Dad (Tinfish, 2000). His poems and essays have appeared in Poetics Journal, Shark, The Impercipient and The World. Luoma lives in Honolulu. Dorothy Trujillo Lusk is author of Redactive (Talon, 1992), Volume Delays (Sprang, 1994), sleek vinyl drill (Thuja, 2000), and Ogress Oblige (Krupskaya, 2001). Her poetry has appeared recently in Raddle Moon, Open Letter, and the anthology Writing Class. Lusk is a member of the Kootenay School of Writing in Vancouver, where she lives. Juliana Spahr’s books of poetry include Nuclear (Leave, 1992), Testimony (Meow, 1995), and Response (Sun and Moon, 1996). Her critical book, Everybody’s Autonomy was published in 2000 by The University of Alabama Press. With Jena Osman, Spahr edits Chain magazine. Spahr lives in Honolulu. All Line Readings are on Tuesdays at 7pm; admission is $5 and free to The Drawing Center members. Curated by Lytle Shaw ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 22:30:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Resent-From: Poetics List Administration Comments: Originally-From: "Reuven BenYuhmin" From: Poetics List Administration Subject: sky bead MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit O sky bead charms Have an endless story Then now framed Mired tassel in trivial delay Diminution thus Travail travail Does or doesnt matter matter A matter a matter a mind A matter o mind a matter of mind A matter to mind A matter in mind A matter not matter for mind & delay Tassel mired in trivial delay Then Now framed An endless story Then now Then as now Then for now An end O sky Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 17:17:06 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Webster Schultz Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit OK, I was guilty of a snide comment to the list today, myself (to Aldon--which was followed in the next paragraph by a sincere attempt at collegiality), but I really don't understand this appended message. Skanky Possum (apart from the Pouch) is where the poetry is, David. The Pouch is perhaps most notable--to me, at any rate--for its frequent publication of work by Linh Dinh, a wonderful poet and short story writer. And I loved the baby picture. Congratulations, Hoa and Dale! He fills your pouch nicely. aloha, Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "david.bircumshaw" To: Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 2:41 PM Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > Yeah > > it's brilliant > > if it's lies, slander, egomania and melodramatic portrayals of self you want > > > it's just the place to look > > > but as for poetry, well, forget about that > > > it's not on the agenda > > > Best > > David Bircumshaw > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Hoa Nguyen" > To: > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:32 AM > Subject: New Possum Pouch > > > > Check out > > The Possum Pouch > > September 2001 > > > > An irregular publication of essays, notes and reviews at > > http://www.skankypossum.com. > > > > DON'T MISS OUT--THIS ISSUE WILL EXPIRE AND WILL NOT BE ARCHIVED. > > > > > > FEATURING > > > > === Beat Currencies by Dale Smith === > > > > A look at the Beats and four recent pubs. > > > > (excerpt) "Somehow, somewhere in the last decade or so, the liberating, > > bohemian vernacular of the Beats transformed itself into a digestive for > > popular consumption." > > > > > > === Original Ladies' Man by Linh Dinh === > > > > > > (excerpt) "Can Tho is the chief city in the Mekong Delta. Not too long > ago, > > I was sitting at a cafe on its festive waterfront, near the large, goofy > Ho > > Chi Minh statue, when a group of very swishy young men came marching down > > the street. The way they could swivel their hips would make Little Richard > > proud. "Ladiman!" the man at the next table exclaimed. > > > > Having never heard that word before, I asked, 'What's a ladiman?'" > > > > > > === Dig it! === > > > > Meet our new Jr. Editor! > > > > ....... > > > > We welcome responses and pouch submissions--write to > > skankypossum@hotmail.com. > > > > ** Please forgive cross postings ** > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 15:41:34 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: NEXT: the identity of Yasusada to be revealed In-Reply-To: <3399DB87.28BD3F2C@columbia.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Forwarded again from Lester (lester@proximate.org): > The identity of Yasusada is now known by more parties than > originally involved > (although they are refraining from coming forward). > > The undisclosed author of the fake Ashbery poems in readme is one > and the same as > the author behind Yasusada. Dear Jeffrey Jullich, Define "same". (You're colder, um, than a corpse encased under the tundra.) > > The author of the fraudulent Ashbery poems/Yasusada whose name is > about to be > revealed will be self-evident by five distinct and unmistakable markers: > > 1. He/she will be a person with a post at a place of the > highest academic > standing and reputation (say, at the top of the Ivy League or > that small calibre > of schools). This accounts for the concealment of identity, up > until now out of > fear that it might negatively affect his/her professional reputation and > credibility. Everyone has something to lose, obviously, in doing something daring. The "nobody" might lose any hope of ever publishing just as the "somebody" might lose a high-falutin' reputation. The point isn't to CONCEAL identity or protect identity. > > 2. He/she will have recently lived in Japan and/or be > distinguished by ties to > Japanese professional societies (again, which he/she feared > jeopardizing by > self-disclosure). > > 3. He will be a master forger, Now THIS is funny. "Master Forger." Sounds kinda dangerous. Ever seen Welles' "F for Fake"? > already proven by the readme "Ashbery" > counterfeits, or by other published literary constructions also > under the name of > another real poet/person; but that expertise may be demonstrated > as well by > specializing in linguistics or some technical aspect of the > English language > and/or a foreign or scientific language, or the manufacture of > synthetic speech > specimens. Oh, now you got me! I am a Buddhist and Professor at Yale who programs speech synthesis modules on the side. I lived in Yokohama and Hiroshima off and on for two decades. I have changed my name many times. You will never learn who I am. I am already dead, though my body can be found on display in many centuries in different store windows and gutters. I ate liver with fava beans while lunching with Pol Pot, we were fellow students at the Sorbonne. What's puzzling you is the nature of my game. Hoo hoo. >(Radio transmissions may be involved? The initials > of his/her name > may be very close to mine, or the same as mine!?) Are you receiving transmissions of light from the dog star? 137. > > 4. He/she presents as a self-identified Buddhist or a > quasi-Buddhist. Or a former Buddhist. Or a Buddhist-who-is-not-a-Buddhist. You've narrowed the list of possible poets on this one to everybody. You left out Gnosticism and Kabbalah. > Or, he > may be of half-Buddhist or half-Asian parentage, a biographical > fact shared with > publisher(s) of Yasusada. Or maybe look like Buddha. (Fat?) (This > half-nationalism may come out in other ways, such as publishing > connections to > other English-speaking countries.) This Buddhism will re-cast > any temporary, > futile reiteration of Kent Johnson's constant claim, "I am not > Yasusada," with a > whole new significance. (Johnson has effectively been shown in > fact not to have > been capable of authoring Yasusada, and to differ in telling > "deep grammar" ways.) Deep grammar? Please explain.... Anyway, I'm just baiting you. It is best to explore not the hocus-bogus "deep grammar" fluff but instead examine what cryptographers call "fist." This is sincere advice. In doing so you will make an example of yourself as someone who misses the point of poetry. The point is... > > The "am-not" will be heard then as validly expressible from a > Radical Buddist/Zem > perspective, as one "is not" one's social security number, "is > not" even one's own > given legal name, "is not" one's job/body: the statement "I am > not," from that > grounding, will no longer be needed to be taken as denial of > Yasusada authorship, > which will be only too obvious! by The Five Markers; or will be > understandable as > parsing of semantic nuance at the finest shade of grammatical > distinctions laid > out elsewhere in his/her scientific/linguistic materials. You obviously DO NOT GET IT, Jeffrey. Reduction to Buddhism reveals only your own limitations. Corollary 1: Just because you don't get it doesn't make it uninteresting. Corollary 2: Because you do not get it, it might be very interesting. (And whaddya know...it IS interesting!) > > 5. He/she will have publicly identified himself or some > enterprise in his > possession (a book title?) by a "clue" name meant to draw attention to the > concealed falsity (whose prefix?) means secret, fict itious, > inauthentic, bogus, > such as "pseudo," "crypto," or such. (In a way that is not > clear, it may be a > four-letter word that sounds like the obscene word "f--k." The > only word I can > think like that is "fake.") Giving clues is of the essence in such a project. It isn't meant to deceive people so much as it is meant to actually attract non-narcoleptic readers. The text acts as some sort of litmus test. It requires that the reader be awake. Sleeping readers will miss the point. Consider it a poetic separation process... 1) attentive readers who can separate fiction from fact, 2)readers who understand the poetic, philosophical, and social implications of what it is and what it is not to be an author in the Age of the Cult of the Author and the Era of Solipsism and Confession. There are many big issues I believe are addressed in _Doubled Flowering_ including: 1. the construction of a book (as opposed to the construction of a collection of poems) 2. issues of race and the taboos surrounding race-conversation in the US, "right" ways of speaking about race, and the appropriateness of the connection between text and author in the context of race 3. market pressures of author-cultism (ever read "Poets&Writers," for example?) and its restrictions on writing 4. philosophical issues about writing and process (the muse as a window to a broader conception of self; the ambiguity and arbitrariness of self and personal identity, the possibly "selfless" act of inspired writing) 5. trademark, intellectual property issues, and ownership in the internet age 6. quality of writing as gauged by "consistency" of writing and the pressure on poets to be a brand name by virtue of 1) the 7. consistency of the style and quality of writing and 2) the relationship between poetry and its author 8. the internet as an opportunity to escape the limitations of being someone not currently in favor 9. the possibility of conceptual imagination 10. the need for artistic illustration of the horrors of the US Nuclear Holocaust of Japan, and the need for providing avenues for criticism of such present-day horrors in an age where journalists who show up on the scene to cover US Foreign Policy atrocities first-hand are now invariably silenced by murder--we need to be able to speak even if we are being killed (so we speak for each other, and, more profoundly, we MAY BE one and the same in death and in life, and the elaboration of that possibility is a wholly poetic function) 11. the possibility of altruism and its conflict with a culture of law, property, and cynicism > This full moon has brought it all to clarity. Really, how interesting. Unknowing you may be reading by sleeping with dreams unowned. No ending in a fool and Y thanks you and only you. http://www.proximate.org/mp3/PatrickHerron-OX!OBorderedSeaOfYou.mp3 You see, I think it was you who wrote Yasusada's master stroke. I remember writing it and am still amazed no one figured it out yet. We wrote it together, remember? It was written by no one. This is not a koan. George Bush may have written this. Professor William Knet Lester Jackson-Menard author of the real _Quixote_ lester@proximate.org http://proximate.org/CloseQuarterly/lester.htm PS Thanks to Patrick for allowing me to shamelessly post away and promote my own work which will now undoubtedly become instrumental in my own climb to fame and riches. I will become the wrasse that consumes the shark, the shark that consumes the whale, the whale that consumes the ship, the ship that consumes the seas, the seas that consume the world, the world that consumes nothing. PSS Counterfeit, fraud, forgery? They're looking for new cops everywhere. A cop can make a better living than a poet. Though I guess us Ivy-League sorts would not dare to become underclassed officers of the law unless it were for the CIA or NSA or DIA. Little handgun say, "Ca-chink, pow." "I got a letter from the government the other day, I opened it and read it, it said they were suckers. They wanted me for their army or whatever....I said 'never.' " - PE, Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 23:25:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...um...say it again..um... Frisian sister..completely unto itself...furthermore 'come...(greatgreatgreat)..Auntie Prakrits...'came....more...listen to Gwen....ingveonic...istveonic...erminonic...minor.... um,um Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 13:56:20 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "][sui gener[ator][h]izz][" Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?=CC=AB=D0=D0][found_orifice_trajec][s][tories?= ][ =?iso-8859-1?Q?=D7=F0=BE=B4=B5=C4=BF=CD=BB=A7=A3=BA?= Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable =D7=F0=BE=B4=B5=C4=BF=CD"=A7=A3=BA ][the page u r looking 4][= =BF=B7=D6=B2=FA=C6=B7=C4=BF=C2=BC=D3=EB=C6=E4=CB=FC =D7=F0=BE=B4=B5=C4=BF=CD"=A7=A3=BA ][is currently under gestation][= =B2=BF=B7=D6=B2=FA=C6=B7=C4=BF=C2=BC=D3=EB=C6=E4=CB=FC =B1=BE=B3=A7=B8=C4=BD=A8=D3=C5 ][densely in.][the][crypt.ed][= =C6=DF=FE=C4=EA,=C7=B0=C9=ED=D3=DA=D0=DE=D0=D6=C6=D4=EC=BC =B2=B8=BD=BC=FE= =BC=B0=CC, ][co][axi][a][l][ted in sugared nausea][ =E4=BC=EC=B2=E2=C9=E8=B1=B8=CF=C8= =BD=F8,=BC=BC=CA=F5=C1=A6=C1=20 =B9=FA=BC=D2=BC=BC=CA=F5][crying ROMulus & ra.ping! R.E.M.us][ =B1=EA=D7=BC,= =B2=FA=C6=B7=B1=E9=BC=B0 =B9=FA=C4=DA=B8=F7=B8=F6=CA=A1=CA=D0,=B5=D8=C7=F8.=B2=BF=B7=D6=B3=F6=BF=DA= =BA=A3=CD=E2=E0=B8=F6=B9=FA =BC=D2,=C8=E7:=C6=BD=B0=E5(=B5=E6=B0=E5)=CD=E4=B0=E5,=CC=D8=B1=F0=CA=C7"=A8= =B8=DA=CA=AF,=C6=BD=B0=E5,=B7=BD=CF=E4=BA=CDV=D0=CD=BC=DC=C9=EE=CA=DC=BA=C3= =C6=C0. =B2=FA=C6=B7=B2=C4=D6=CA=BF=C9=B0=B4=D5=D5=D3=C3"=A7=D2=AA=C7=F3,= =BE=F9=D3=C9=D6=FD=CC=FA,=D6=FD=B8=D6,"=A8=B8=DA=CA=AF=BA=CD=C7=F2=C4"=D6= =FD=CC=FA=D6=C6 =B3=C9,=D6=CA=C1=BF=BF=C9=BF=BF,=CE=EF=D4=B4=B3=E4=D7=E3. =20 =C7=EB=B2=CE=BF=BC=D2 ][worth of the net.gram][mar][][= =D4=CF=C2=B2=FA=C6=B7=C3=FB=B3=C6(=BF=C9=D1=A1=D4=F1=C8=CE=D2=E2=D2"=D6=D6= =B9=E6=B8=F1) =20 =B9=CE=D1=D0=C6=BD=B0=E5(=BC=EC ][pun][k][ctu][m][red N pictorially pupaed][ =D1=E9=C6=BD=B0=E5)/=C6=BD=B0=E5/=D4=B2=C6=BD=B0=E5/=C7=A7=BD=EF=A5/"=A8=B8= =DA=CA=AF=C6=BD=B0=E5/=B7=BD =B3=DF/=D6=B1=BD=C7 ][a .dot of the .d.ot][her][][ =B3=DF/V ][][dis][curse of the mesh ][wo][man.tra][p][][ =D0=CD=BF=E9/"=FA=B4=B2=B5 =F7=D5=FB=B5=E6=CC=FA/=D5=FD=CF=D2=B3=DF/"=AE=CF= =DF=C5=CC/=D2=EC=D0=CD=C6=BD =B0=E5/=CD=F2=C4=DC=BD=C7=C8=B7=BD=CF=E4/=B5=D7=D7=F8/=B5=A5=D7=A3=CB"=D7=A3= =BF=D7=BC=EC=D1=E9=B7=BD=CF=E4/=B7=BD=CF=E4=D6=A7=BC=DC/=B7=BD =CF=E4=CC=E5/V=D0=CD=A3T=D0=CD=B2=DB=BC=EC=D1=E9=B7=BD=CF=E4/=C6=BD=D0=D0=C6= =BD=B3=DF/=D0=B1=BD=EE=C8=FD=BD=C7=BF=D7/=C6=BD=D0=D0=D6=B1=B3=DF/=C6=BD =B3=DF/=C6=BD=B3=B5=B9=A4=D7=D6=B3=DF/=D6=B1=B3=DF/=B8=E9=BD=C5/=CF=E4=D0=CD= =BE"=C3=DC=C6=BD=B3=DF/=B5=C8=B1=DF=A3=B2"=B5=C8=B1=DF90=C8=B7=BD=20 =CD=B2=D0=CD[matrixentric real][i][ty] [vi][viated][sc][f][eral elegance] [ne][au][t.eurial shocks] [chic denial blockages] [specul][um][arity] =C6=BD=B3=DF/=B7=BD=CD=B2/=B7=BD=CC=A8/7 ][porno][ethno][graphos][= 1"=FA=C6=BD=CC=A8=B9=A4=BE=DF/=B7=BD=BF=D7 =C870=C8110 =C81 ][s][l][op.orific][e][ tra][gedy][ject.ories][ 20=C8=C0=E2=D0 =CD=B7=BD=CD=B2=C6=BD=B3=DF/=B7=BD=BF=D7=CC=A8/=C7=E1=D0=CD=A3=C7=C5=D0=CD= =C6=BD=B3=DF/60=C890=C8=CD=B9=B0=BC=C7=C5=20 op.=BD=CD=B2=C6=BD=B3=DFtick.=BD=CD=B2=C6=BD=B3=DFly nervous epigrammatically re.=BC=C7=C5 m][v][o][l][ting battle axis ][vertebra][ ma][& pa][ch][e.z][ines ebay ][l.=C8=BC=EC=B2=E2i][bid][o][ding =D0=CD=BD=C7=C8=B3=DF/55=C860=C8=BD=C7=B9=E6/=C6=BD=D6=B1=C8=BC=EC=B2=E2=BF= =C9=B5=F7=C7=C5=B0=E5/=D4=B2=D6=F9=BD=C7=B3=DF=A3=A8=B4=B9=D6=B1 =C6=F7=A3=A9/=C4=AA=CA=CF=D7=B1=FA,=B3=A4=CC=B9"=D6=C6=D7=C8/7=A3=BA24=BC=EC= =D1=E9 =B1=BE=B3=A7=CA=F4=B9=FA=BC=D2=BC=C6=C1=BF=BC=BC=CA=F5=BC=E0=BD=BE=D6=C5=FA= =D7=BC=D6=C6=D4=EC=A3=C9=FA=B2=FA=BC=EC=D1=E9=B9=A4=A3=C1=BF=BE=DF=B5=A5=CE"= =A3=D6=D0"=AA=C8=CB=C3=F1=B9=B2=BA=CD=B9=FA=BC=C6=C1=BF=C6=F7=BE=DF=D0=ED =BF=C9=D6=A4=CE=AA90=C1=BF=D6=C6=BC=BD=D7=D63025112=A3"=D7=A2=B2=E1=C9=CC=B1= =EA=A1=B0=A6=A1=B1=D7=D6=C5=C6=A3=B5=DA504607=BA=C5=A1=A3=B1=BE=B3=A7=D6=F7= =D2=AA=C9=FA=B2=FA=BC=EC=D1=E9=B9=A4=A3=C1=BF =BE=DF=BC=B0=CC=D8=D6=D6=B0=E2=CA=D6=A3=BC=BC=CA=F5=C1=A6=C1=BF=D0=DB=BA=F1= =A3=B9=A4=D2=D5=D7=B0=B1=B8=CF=C8=BD=F8=A3=C9=FA=B2=FA=B9=A4=D0=F2=D1=CF=B8= =F1=A3=D6=C6=D4=EC=D6=DC=C6=DA=CC=A3=B2=FA=C6=B7=D6=CA=C1=BF=B7=FB=BA=CF=B9= =FA =BC=D2=B1=EA=D7=BC=A3=A1=B0=A6=A1=B1=D7=D6=C5=C6=C6=BD=D6=B1=C1=BF=BE=DF=A3= =BE=DF=D3=D0=C9=E8=BC=C6=BA=CF=C0=ED=A3=BD=E1=B9=B9=CE=C8=A8=A3=BE"=C8=B8=DF= =A3=C4=CD=C4=A5=CB=F0=B5=C8=CC=D8=B5=E3=A3=D2"=C1=F7=B5=C4=B2=FA=C6=B7=D6 =CA=C1=BF=A3=B3=E7=B8=DF=B5=C4=C6=F3=D2=B5=D0=C5=D3=FE=D3=AE=B5=C3=C1=CB=CA= =D0=B3=A1=A3=CC"=D0=D0"=FA=B4=B2=C9=E8=B1=B8=B3=A7=D4=B8=D3=EB=B8=F7=B9=A4= =A1=A2=BF=F3=C6=F3=D2=B5=A1=A2=B9"=CB=BE=BA=CF=D7=F7=A3=B9=B2=C7=F3=B7=A2 =D5=B9=A1=A3 =C6=BD=D6=B1=C1=BF=BE=DF=B2=C4=C1=CF=BE=F9=B2][a][co][mp.utatio= nal trax][ =C9=D3=C3HT200 *********************************** [florian cramer & mez] =20 . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ pro.ject.ile x.blooms.x .go.here.=20 xXXx =20 ./. =20 www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 23:55:17 -0400 Reply-To: Nate and Jane Dorward Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nate and Jane Dorward Subject: address query MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Could someone backchannel me an address for Erica Hunt? Thanks. all best --N Nate & Jane Dorward ndorward@sprint.ca THE GIG magazine: http://www.geocities.com/ndorward/ 109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada ph: (416) 221 6865 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 00:26:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: boy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - ||||v||||boy||||^|||| ||||v||||||||^|||| ||||v||||i am so humbed and dis/traught||||^|||| ||||v||||this is my my image: mult/i/media||||^|||| ||||v||||an "image" of everything /i/ consider "real"||||^|||| ||||v||||this is not concrete poetry:||||^|||| ||||v||||the image is much too fantastic!||||^|||| ||||v||||"i" mean in the world of fantasy.||||^|||| ||||v||||||||^|||| ||||v||||the truth: an enormous fear concerning||||^|||| ||||v||||the irrelevance of my work and its||||^|||| ||||v||||inability to excite through dynamic||||^|||| ||||v||||manipulation||||^|||| ||||v||||||||^|||| ||||v||||i stay up nights worrying about the /i/mage||||^|||| ||||v||||i am no mage: the work sticks abjectly,||||^|||| ||||v||||unerringly, to the letters||||^|||| ||||v||||||||^|||| ||||v||||[1] + Stopped pico -z||||^|||| ||||v||||||||^|||| ||||v||||and||||^|||| ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 06:32:52 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well, Susan maybe you've read a different Pouch from wot I did, haven't checked back at it, so maybe it's changed, but the last time I looked it seemed to consist of a pile of abuse from Dale Smith at named individuals, aided and abetted by Kent Johnson. Of course, if that's your idea of a poetry magazine, who am I to argue? Best ( yawning for someone) David Bircumshaw ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Webster Schultz" To: Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 4:17 AM Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > OK, I was guilty of a snide comment to the list today, myself (to > Aldon--which was followed in the next paragraph by a sincere attempt at > collegiality), but I really don't understand this appended message. > > Skanky Possum (apart from the Pouch) is where the poetry is, David. The > Pouch is perhaps most notable--to me, at any rate--for its frequent > publication of work by Linh Dinh, a wonderful poet and short story writer. > > And I loved the baby picture. Congratulations, Hoa and Dale! He fills your > pouch nicely. > > aloha, Susan > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "david.bircumshaw" > To: > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 2:41 PM > Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > > > > Yeah > > > > it's brilliant > > > > if it's lies, slander, egomania and melodramatic portrayals of self you > want > > > > > > it's just the place to look > > > > > > but as for poetry, well, forget about that > > > > > > it's not on the agenda > > > > > > Best > > > > David Bircumshaw > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Hoa Nguyen" > > To: > > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:32 AM > > Subject: New Possum Pouch > > > > > > > Check out > > > The Possum Pouch > > > September 2001 > > > > > > An irregular publication of essays, notes and reviews at > > > http://www.skankypossum.com. > > > > > > DON'T MISS OUT--THIS ISSUE WILL EXPIRE AND WILL NOT BE ARCHIVED. > > > > > > > > > FEATURING > > > > > > === Beat Currencies by Dale Smith === > > > > > > A look at the Beats and four recent pubs. > > > > > > (excerpt) "Somehow, somewhere in the last decade or so, the liberating, > > > bohemian vernacular of the Beats transformed itself into a digestive for > > > popular consumption." > > > > > > > > > === Original Ladies' Man by Linh Dinh === > > > > > > > > > (excerpt) "Can Tho is the chief city in the Mekong Delta. Not too long > > ago, > > > I was sitting at a cafe on its festive waterfront, near the large, goofy > > Ho > > > Chi Minh statue, when a group of very swishy young men came marching > down > > > the street. The way they could swivel their hips would make Little > Richard > > > proud. "Ladiman!" the man at the next table exclaimed. > > > > > > Having never heard that word before, I asked, 'What's a ladiman?'" > > > > > > > > > === Dig it! === > > > > > > Meet our new Jr. Editor! > > > > > > ....... > > > > > > We welcome responses and pouch submissions--write to > > > skankypossum@hotmail.com. > > > > > > ** Please forgive cross postings ** > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at > http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2001 20:32:30 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Webster Schultz Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Well, yes, I've noticed invective from time to time, but this latest pouch looks terrific and I am really pleased that they support the work of writers like Linh Dinh. And Skanky Possum itself publishes lots of writers worth reading, I think. Oh well, Susan ----- Original Message ----- From: "david.bircumshaw" To: Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 7:32 PM Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > Well, Susan > > maybe you've read a different Pouch from wot I did, haven't checked back at > it, so maybe it's changed, but the last time I looked it seemed to consist > of a pile of abuse from Dale Smith at named individuals, aided and abetted > by Kent Johnson. > > Of course, if that's your idea of a poetry magazine, who am I to argue? > > > Best ( yawning for someone) > > David Bircumshaw > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Susan Webster Schultz" > To: > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 4:17 AM > Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > > > > OK, I was guilty of a snide comment to the list today, myself (to > > Aldon--which was followed in the next paragraph by a sincere attempt at > > collegiality), but I really don't understand this appended message. > > > > Skanky Possum (apart from the Pouch) is where the poetry is, David. The > > Pouch is perhaps most notable--to me, at any rate--for its frequent > > publication of work by Linh Dinh, a wonderful poet and short story writer. > > > > And I loved the baby picture. Congratulations, Hoa and Dale! He fills > your > > pouch nicely. > > > > aloha, Susan > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "david.bircumshaw" > > To: > > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 2:41 PM > > Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > > > > > > > Yeah > > > > > > it's brilliant > > > > > > if it's lies, slander, egomania and melodramatic portrayals of self you > > want > > > > > > > > > it's just the place to look > > > > > > > > > but as for poetry, well, forget about that > > > > > > > > > it's not on the agenda > > > > > > > > > Best > > > > > > David Bircumshaw > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "Hoa Nguyen" > > > To: > > > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:32 AM > > > Subject: New Possum Pouch > > > > > > > > > > Check out > > > > The Possum Pouch > > > > September 2001 > > > > > > > > An irregular publication of essays, notes and reviews at > > > > http://www.skankypossum.com. > > > > > > > > DON'T MISS OUT--THIS ISSUE WILL EXPIRE AND WILL NOT BE ARCHIVED. > > > > > > > > > > > > FEATURING > > > > > > > > === Beat Currencies by Dale Smith === > > > > > > > > A look at the Beats and four recent pubs. > > > > > > > > (excerpt) "Somehow, somewhere in the last decade or so, the > liberating, > > > > bohemian vernacular of the Beats transformed itself into a digestive > for > > > > popular consumption." > > > > > > > > > > > > === Original Ladies' Man by Linh Dinh === > > > > > > > > > > > > (excerpt) "Can Tho is the chief city in the Mekong Delta. Not too long > > > ago, > > > > I was sitting at a cafe on its festive waterfront, near the large, > goofy > > > Ho > > > > Chi Minh statue, when a group of very swishy young men came marching > > down > > > > the street. The way they could swivel their hips would make Little > > Richard > > > > proud. "Ladiman!" the man at the next table exclaimed. > > > > > > > > Having never heard that word before, I asked, 'What's a ladiman?'" > > > > > > > > > > > > === Dig it! === > > > > > > > > Meet our new Jr. Editor! > > > > > > > > ....... > > > > > > > > We welcome responses and pouch submissions--write to > > > > skankypossum@hotmail.com. > > > > > > > > ** Please forgive cross postings ** > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at > > http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 04:35:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Loden Subject: this space available MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "Royalty" checks: cut up for confetti? Chew for roughage? Frame for the merriment of family and friends? But hey, I'm not kvetching. Bitterness is a luxury. What I am is for sale, a la Fay Weldon and _The Bulgari Connection_. To prime the pump a little, a sample--the first in my product placement series. Your ad here: I Know A Brand As I sd to my friend, because I am always yawping,--John, I sd, which was not his name, the market sur- rounds us, what can we do against it, or else, shall we & why not, buy a Jaguar XKR, test drive, he sd, for christ's sake, 4.9 seconds to 60 mph. --Rachel Loden http://www.thepomegranate.com/loden/hotel.html email: rloden@concentric.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 14:28:23 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And Skanky Possum itself publishes lots of writers worth > reading, I think. I agree with that, Susan, which is one of the reasons I'm so taken aback with what's in the Pouch. All the Best David Bircumshaw ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Webster Schultz" To: Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 7:32 AM Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > Well, yes, I've noticed invective from time to time, but this latest pouch > looks terrific and I am really pleased that they support the work of writers > like Linh Dinh. And Skanky Possum itself publishes lots of writers worth > reading, I think. > > Oh well, Susan > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "david.bircumshaw" > To: > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 7:32 PM > Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > > > > Well, Susan > > > > maybe you've read a different Pouch from wot I did, haven't checked back > at > > it, so maybe it's changed, but the last time I looked it seemed to consist > > of a pile of abuse from Dale Smith at named individuals, aided and abetted > > by Kent Johnson. > > > > Of course, if that's your idea of a poetry magazine, who am I to argue? > > > > > > Best ( yawning for someone) > > > > David Bircumshaw > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Susan Webster Schultz" > > To: > > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 4:17 AM > > Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > > > > > > > OK, I was guilty of a snide comment to the list today, myself (to > > > Aldon--which was followed in the next paragraph by a sincere attempt at > > > collegiality), but I really don't understand this appended message. > > > > > > Skanky Possum (apart from the Pouch) is where the poetry is, David. The > > > Pouch is perhaps most notable--to me, at any rate--for its frequent > > > publication of work by Linh Dinh, a wonderful poet and short story > writer. > > > > > > And I loved the baby picture. Congratulations, Hoa and Dale! He fills > > your > > > pouch nicely. > > > > > > aloha, Susan > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > From: "david.bircumshaw" > > > To: > > > Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2001 2:41 PM > > > Subject: Re: New Possum Pouch > > > > > > > > > > Yeah > > > > > > > > it's brilliant > > > > > > > > if it's lies, slander, egomania and melodramatic portrayals of self > you > > > want > > > > > > > > > > > > it's just the place to look > > > > > > > > > > > > but as for poetry, well, forget about that > > > > > > > > > > > > it's not on the agenda > > > > > > > > > > > > Best > > > > > > > > David Bircumshaw > > > > > > > > > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > > > From: "Hoa Nguyen" > > > > To: > > > > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 1:32 AM > > > > Subject: New Possum Pouch > > > > > > > > > > > > > Check out > > > > > The Possum Pouch > > > > > September 2001 > > > > > > > > > > An irregular publication of essays, notes and reviews at > > > > > http://www.skankypossum.com. > > > > > > > > > > DON'T MISS OUT--THIS ISSUE WILL EXPIRE AND WILL NOT BE ARCHIVED. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > FEATURING > > > > > > > > > > === Beat Currencies by Dale Smith === > > > > > > > > > > A look at the Beats and four recent pubs. > > > > > > > > > > (excerpt) "Somehow, somewhere in the last decade or so, the > > liberating, > > > > > bohemian vernacular of the Beats transformed itself into a digestive > > for > > > > > popular consumption." > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > === Original Ladies' Man by Linh Dinh === > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > (excerpt) "Can Tho is the chief city in the Mekong Delta. Not too > long > > > > ago, > > > > > I was sitting at a cafe on its festive waterfront, near the large, > > goofy > > > > Ho > > > > > Chi Minh statue, when a group of very swishy young men came marching > > > down > > > > > the street. The way they could swivel their hips would make Little > > > Richard > > > > > proud. "Ladiman!" the man at the next table exclaimed. > > > > > > > > > > Having never heard that word before, I asked, 'What's a ladiman?'" > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > === Dig it! === > > > > > > > > > > Meet our new Jr. Editor! > > > > > > > > > > ....... > > > > > > > > > > We welcome responses and pouch submissions--write to > > > > > skankypossum@hotmail.com. > > > > > > > > > > ** Please forgive cross postings ** > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > > > > > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at > > > http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > > > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:04:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Evans Subject: UMaine Fall Poetry Series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" U M A I N E N E W W R I T I N G S E R I E S 20Sept Julie Patton 27Sept Robert Creeley 04Oct Pat Ranzoni & Gary Lawless 11Oct Bill Berkson 18Oct Alan Gilbert & Benjamin Friedlander 25Oct Rachel Blau DuPlessis 01Nov Alice Notley 08Nov Jeff Clark & Damon Krukowski 15Nov Ken Norris, rob mclennan, Gil McElroy 06Dec Laura Moriarty & Steve Benson All readings are on THURSDAYS at 4:30pm in the Soderberg Auditorium on the University of Maine campus. A series of TALKS by the poets will take place on FRIDAYS at 11am in the Wicks Reading Room. Both readings & talks are free & open to the public. For more information, contact Steve Evans at 207-581-3809 or visit http://www.umaine.edu/english/fallevents.htm How easy to slip /into the old mode, how hard to / cling firmly to the advance. --Wiliam Carlos Williams ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 12:29:05 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Killing Hippies Comments: To: ImitaPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Just received this from a friend. It seems the US Gov't. is killing pot-smoking hippies in Michigan this week. A dead Milhouse Nixon gets an erection.... -----Original Message----- From: owner-fiends@webslingerZ.com [mailto:owner-fiends@webslingerZ.com]On Behalf Of mshamer Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 8:59 AM Precedence: bulk hey check out this link http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/04/campground.shootings/index.html and then check out this website http://www.rainbowfarmcampground.com/ check out their purpose link, these are the people who are now dead. scott ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 15:35:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Call for Proposals Incubation 2002 + Incubation Archive Now Online + Stop Press Talan Memmott talk in Nottingham 17th September (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 07 Sep 2001 15:14:29 +0000 From: trace@ntu.ac.uk To: sondheim@panix.com Subject: Call for Proposals Incubation 2002 + Incubation Archive Now Online + Stop Press Talan Memmott talk in Nottingham 17th September In this email: 1. Call for Proposals Incubation 2002 2. Incubation Archive Now Online 3. Stop Press Talan Memmott talk in Nottingham 17th September 4. September offer continues at the trAce Online Writing School. 1. Call for Proposals for Incubation 2002 to be held on 19-21 July 2002 at The Nottingham Trent University, UK We are pleased to invite proposals for Incubation2, the leading international conference on Writing and the Internet. For our second conference we continue our focus on the role of the internet and telecommunications and particularly invite contributions that address the way new media create new potentials and re-define the acts of writing and reading. We welcome proposals on all aspects of new media and writing, especially by those whose work is based in new media, on or off the internet. http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/incubation/ 2. Incubation Archive Now Online For three days in July 2000 trAce provided a platform for the most essential voices on the web today. Writers, critics, theorists and web-artists came from around the world to speak at Incubation at The Nottingham Trent University. Incubation Archive is the online record of this dynamic event. It includes audio, text and electronic versions of presentations and performances; information about contributors; a gallery of photographs taken over the three days, and the background of the conference itself. The Incubation Archive website was created by Mary Cavill. http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/incubation/ 3. Stop Press Talan Memmott talk in Nottingham 17th September _Technontology and the [Ap]proximate Other_ trAce/Alt-X New Media Writing Competition winner Talan Memmott is currently visiting the UK and we are delighted he has found time to give a talk on his work at the Clifton Campus of Nottingham Trent University at 2pm on Monday 17th September 2001. The talk is free of charge but please email trace@ntu.ac.uk or call 0115 8486360 to let us know you are coming. For updates watch the trAce front page at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk Talan's offline interpretation of Lexia to Perplexia using three whiteboards was a highlight of Incubation 2000. Nobody else can talk so entertainingly about network life with such a mix of humour, art, and high theory. We do hope you can join us in Nottingham for this unique opportunity. See his award-winning site Lexia to Perplexia at http://trace.ntu.ac.uk/comp.cfm. AND FINALLY... It's still 1/3 off at the trAce Online Writing School for the first 50 registrations received for courses starting 8th October. http://tracewritingschool.com trAce Online Writing Centre The Nottingham Trent University Clifton Lane Nottingham NG11 8NS UK Web: http://trace.ntu.ac.uk Email Enquiries: trace@ntu.ac.uk Telephone Enquiries: +44 (0)115 8486360 [You have received this mail because you joined trAce. To unsubscribe, simply click reply and change the subject line to UNSUB REGISTER. Thank you.] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 14:33:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: George [THE NAME GAME] In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Ron Silliman wrote: > -- including one answer from a school teacher who suggested that it was "George." > > "I don't know if I'm jumping in on a thread or not > (I joined yesterday), but 50684234135964296173026564613294 funny to see .edus migrating back unto their Fall semester blivious to all the summers talk talk abt names, false identities, 'Who is the author of . . .?', peculiar timing spontaneous re-route into whimsy in the context of latest New Yorker magazine cover-story sept. 3 on the newstands all this time, a cautionary tale? there the names weren't yasusada silliman the names were james hogue a.k.a. alexi santana a.k.a jay mitchell huntsmen, lon grammer, mauro cortez jr a.k.a. maurice de rothschild, gina grant what could motivate a person to do such things read love 50684234135964296173026564613294 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 16:50:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Rathmann Subject: Translation, Chinese-English in particular Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" I'm trying to assemble a list of recent English-language translations, borrowings, imitations, etc., of Chinese poetic texts. I'm interested in whole books, of course, but also individual works published in journals or on the web, which usually go unnoticed, at least by me. My motive at this point is simply curiosity. If anyone has come across (or published) interesting work, I would be grateful for a reference. More generally, one might ask which languages and literatures are now perceived as fresh sources for American poets writing in English. I have the sense, shaky though it may be, that in U.S. poetic circles there is little curiosity about non-Western writing, and that the curiosity that does exist tends to be motivated by identitarian considerations rather than artistic ones. It's hard to believe, though, that this situation isn't changing, given globalization. If we're lucky then maybe new translations will offer an alternative to the current stalemate, in which academic authorities of this or that variety police the literary culture, rewarding conformity to this or that stale notion of poetic value. It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is inevitably going to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything worth knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which languages are the alternatives being sought? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 15:20:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Maxwell Subject: Fall Poetic Research Series starts Sunday! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" The Germ & the Poetic Research Bureau present: Taylor Brady, Summi Kaipa & Standard Schaefer at Dawsons Book Shop, this Sunday at 4pm! *** Sound the bugle and exit the food court, the Poetic Research Bureau has unbelted its kiosk and the music is all yours again, rogue nationals! The fall season has begun, and only Los Angeles can stop it! This time we've cast our wooly arms as far and nigh as they could bumble, shaking a tree in Tuscon and mincing Minneapolis, all for a good brain or two, or in this case twenty-three! We've even felt up France for five of its wig-charged dignities, and you'll be pleased as Pigalle's Mercury to be so reignited. No ZoLoft Story this fall, pumpkins! Hey! & it all begins this Sunday with two plum motherwit champs from our soulside northern harbor, San Franky and the Yards: it's Taylor Brady and Summi Kaipa, young legends out of the dock, you will be rocked indeed! And joining them, our own rootstalk ruffian, Standard Schaefer! Now who's rhizooming who? And how can you miss? *** Dawsons is located at 535 N. Larchmont Blvd between Beverly Blvd and Melrose Blvd in south Hollywood. Tel: 213-469-2186 Readings are open to all. $3 donation requested for poets/venue. Call Andrew at 310.446.8162 x233 for more info. *** Summi Kaipa lives in San Francisco, where she edits Interlope, a journal of innovative Asian American poetics. Kaipa's critical and creative work has appeared in In These Times, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Rain Taxi, St. Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter, Chain, Rhizome, Kenning, and Fourteen Hills Review. Her first chapbook,, THE EPICS, was published by Leroy in December 1999. Her most recent literary endeavors have appeared in self-published chapbooks entitled FORECAST or SOME OBSCENE DARE; WESTWARD HO; and IN THE EVENT OF THE TROPICS, YOUR CUSHION IS ALSO A ROSE. She is an arts administrator, who also sometimes doubles as curator and freelancer. Taylor Brady was born in Dunedin, Florida in 1972. He has lived in Tampa, Sarasota, Brooklyn, Buffalo, and, since 1998, San Francisco. For the past five years he has been writing an extended serial poem, TO NOT, whose parts include lyric, prose poetry, a novel, and a series of short essays. Sections of this project have appeared in several journals, and in the recent chapbook 33549 (Leroy, San Francisco, 2000). A chapbook containing earlier work, IS PLACED/LEAVES, appeared in 1996 from Meow Press in Buffalo. The first book-length installment of the To Not writings, MICROCLIMATES, was published this summer by Krupskaya (San Francisco). Originally from Texas, Standard Schaefer now resides in Los Angeles, where he co-edits Rhizome and Ribot. His first full-length book, NOVA, won the 1999 National Poetry Series, and was issued from Sun & Moon Press this year. His first chapbook WALTZING THE MAP was published by a+bend. He teaches at East L.A. Community College and at Otis School of Art and Design. *** PRB 2001, Our season: Sept 9: Summi Kaipa, Taylor Brady, Standard Schaefer Sept 23: Laura Moriarty, Brent Cunningham Sept 30: Alvin Lu, Marc Cholodenko Oct. 14: Pascalle Monnier, Jacques Darras Oct. 21: Philippe Beck, Guy Bennett Oct. 28: Mark Nowak, Martin Nakell, Pasquale Verdicchio Nov. 11: Roberto Tejada, Kristen Gallagher Nov. 18: Prageeta Sharma, Katie Dagentesh, Franklin Bruno Dec. 2: Jean Fremon, Douglas Messerli Dec. 9: Charles Alexander, Myung Mi Kim* *to be confirmed ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 18:36:54 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Andrew - Sorry to perhaps stray a little bit away from your request...have you read Yunte Huang's _Shi: A Radical Reading of Chinese Poetry_? There are some wonderful translations in the book of Chinese poetry, and the author takes pains to approach translation in a careful and multifaceted way. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in either translation or Chinese poetry, and especially for those like yourself who seem to have an interest in both. Best, Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Andrew Rathmann > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 5:50 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Translation, Chinese-English in particular > > > I'm trying to assemble a list of recent English-language translations, > borrowings, imitations, etc., of Chinese poetic texts. I'm interested in > whole books, of course, but also individual works published in journals or > on the web, which usually go unnoticed, at least by me. My motive at this > point is simply curiosity. > > If anyone has come across (or published) interesting work, I would be > grateful for a reference. > > More generally, one might ask which languages and literatures are now > perceived as fresh sources for American poets writing in English. I have > the sense, shaky though it may be, that in U.S. poetic circles there is > little curiosity about non-Western writing, and that the curiosity that > does exist tends to be motivated by identitarian considerations > rather than > artistic ones. It's hard to believe, though, that this situation isn't > changing, given globalization. If we're lucky then maybe new translations > will offer an alternative to the current stalemate, in which academic > authorities of this or that variety police the literary culture, rewarding > conformity to this or that stale notion of poetic value. > > It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is > inevitably going > to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything worth > knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which > languages are the alternatives being sought? > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 18:42:03 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Fall Poetic Research Series starts Sunday! In-Reply-To: <1D419C6A55E3D4119D310002A50900C8632754@OINGOEX0> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Wow, I sure wish I could be there for this reading. I recently read and loved Standard's fantastic _Nova_, and Taylor's poetry is more fascinating perhaps than his incredible knowledge of music. That's saying a lot. Go see & listen to these folks if you can. Best, Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Andrew Maxwell > Sent: Friday, September 07, 2001 6:21 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Fall Poetic Research Series starts Sunday! > > > The Germ & the Poetic Research Bureau present: > > Taylor Brady, Summi Kaipa & Standard Schaefer > > at Dawsons Book Shop, this Sunday at 4pm! > > *** > > Sound the bugle and exit the food court, the Poetic Research Bureau has > unbelted its kiosk and the music is all yours again, rogue nationals! The > fall season has begun, and only Los Angeles can stop it! This time we've > cast our wooly arms as far and nigh as they could bumble, shaking > a tree in > Tuscon and mincing Minneapolis, all for a good brain or two, or > in this case > twenty-three! We've even felt up France for five of its wig-charged > dignities, and you'll be pleased as Pigalle's Mercury to be so > reignited. No > ZoLoft Story this fall, pumpkins! > > Hey! & it all begins this Sunday with two plum motherwit champs from our > soulside northern harbor, San Franky and the Yards: it's Taylor Brady and > Summi Kaipa, young legends out of the dock, you will be rocked indeed! And > joining them, our own rootstalk ruffian, Standard Schaefer! Now who's > rhizooming who? > > And how can you miss? > > *** > > Dawsons is located at 535 N. Larchmont Blvd between Beverly Blvd > and Melrose > Blvd in south Hollywood. Tel: 213-469-2186 > > Readings are open to all. $3 donation requested for poets/venue. > > Call Andrew at 310.446.8162 x233 for more info. > > *** > > Summi Kaipa lives in San Francisco, where she edits Interlope, a > journal of > innovative Asian American poetics. Kaipa's critical and creative work has > appeared in In These Times, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Rain Taxi, St. > Mark's Poetry Project Newsletter, Chain, Rhizome, Kenning, and Fourteen > Hills Review. Her first chapbook,, THE EPICS, was published by Leroy in > December 1999. Her most recent literary endeavors have appeared in > self-published chapbooks entitled FORECAST or SOME OBSCENE DARE; WESTWARD > HO; and IN THE EVENT OF THE TROPICS, YOUR CUSHION IS ALSO A ROSE. > She is an > arts administrator, who also sometimes doubles as curator and freelancer. > > Taylor Brady was born in Dunedin, Florida in 1972. He has lived in Tampa, > Sarasota, Brooklyn, Buffalo, and, since 1998, San Francisco. For the past > five years he has been writing an extended serial poem, TO NOT, > whose parts > include lyric, prose poetry, a novel, and a series of short > essays. Sections > of this project have appeared in several journals, and in the recent > chapbook 33549 (Leroy, San Francisco, 2000). A chapbook containing earlier > work, IS PLACED/LEAVES, appeared in 1996 from Meow Press in Buffalo. The > first book-length installment of the To Not writings, MICROCLIMATES, was > published this summer by Krupskaya (San Francisco). > > Originally from Texas, Standard Schaefer now resides in Los Angeles, where > he co-edits Rhizome and Ribot. His first full-length book, NOVA, won the > 1999 National Poetry Series, and was issued from Sun & Moon Press > this year. > His first chapbook WALTZING THE MAP was published by a+bend. He teaches at > East L.A. Community College and at Otis School of Art and Design. > > *** > > PRB 2001, Our season: > > Sept 9: Summi Kaipa, Taylor Brady, Standard Schaefer > Sept 23: Laura Moriarty, Brent Cunningham > Sept 30: Alvin Lu, Marc Cholodenko > Oct. 14: Pascalle Monnier, Jacques Darras > Oct. 21: Philippe Beck, Guy Bennett > Oct. 28: Mark Nowak, Martin Nakell, Pasquale Verdicchio > Nov. 11: Roberto Tejada, Kristen Gallagher > Nov. 18: Prageeta Sharma, Katie Dagentesh, Franklin Bruno > Dec. 2: Jean Fremon, Douglas Messerli > Dec. 9: Charles Alexander, Myung Mi Kim* > > *to be confirmed > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 19:43:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: claank design Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi Andrew, In the upcoming Fall issue of 3rdBed we will be publishing two pieces that may interest you. The first, by Alan Soundheim, draws upon Chinese number theory. The second, by Robyn Schiff, is written in relation to (an invented) Chinese Scroll. The issue is do out in a month or. Best, Andrea -- Andrea Baker associate poetry editor 3rd Bed http://www.3rdBed.com > From: Andrew Rathmann > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 16:50:25 -0500 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Translation, Chinese-English in particular > > I'm trying to assemble a list of recent English-language translations, > borrowings, imitations, etc., of Chinese poetic texts. I'm interested in > whole books, of course, but also individual works published in journals or > on the web, which usually go unnoticed, at least by me. My motive at this > point is simply curiosity. > > If anyone has come across (or published) interesting work, I would be > grateful for a reference. > > More generally, one might ask which languages and literatures are now > perceived as fresh sources for American poets writing in English. I have > the sense, shaky though it may be, that in U.S. poetic circles there is > little curiosity about non-Western writing, and that the curiosity that > does exist tends to be motivated by identitarian considerations rather than > artistic ones. It's hard to believe, though, that this situation isn't > changing, given globalization. If we're lucky then maybe new translations > will offer an alternative to the current stalemate, in which academic > authorities of this or that variety police the literary culture, rewarding > conformity to this or that stale notion of poetic value. > > It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is inevitably going > to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything worth > knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which > languages are the alternatives being sought? ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 20:40:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: belladonna nyc--please circulate MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Please join us in a few weeks when The BELLADONNA* Reading Series returns! On Friday, September 28 at 7:00 pm Lee Ann Brown (Polyverse, Sun & Moon) Adeena Karasick (Dyssemia Sleeze, Talonbooks) at The Bluestockings Women’s Bookstore 172 Allen Street, NYC (between Rivington and Stanton) (212) 777-6028 The reading will include a short open segment and the release of two new BELLADONNA*/Booglit publications. (PS--I'm still trying to rebuild outreach/pr resources. Help is lavishly appreciated.) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 22:10:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the work of the crazed MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - the work of the crazed why this work matters even when written under duress why philosophy cannot disregard theory responsive to illness or depression notes towards the problematic perception of worlds inscriptions faltering along fault-lines of explanatory discourse depression and/or illness as a gateway to truth because of decathecting of concern - beyond that of inscription - almost as the skittering of inscription depression and internalized anger: potential eidetic reduction to substance - (bemused inability to focus/catatonic: to think purely eidetically -> absence of thought) /* who is writing this? i refuse these labels! /* illness as the distraught of the world - as the distraught of the word - 'holding onto the book' - the book as secret/ive discourse - release of the book as the decathecting of illness, not the re-cuperation or re-presentation of health - not the therapeutic the eternal road of the book as foreclosing problematic ontologies the book as world and object always misrecognizing the real truth and hopelessness the crazed of the work _ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 19:23:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v388) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit You could do worse than to start with Yunte Huang's book Shi: A Radical Reading of Chinese Poetry (Roof, 1997). Of course, there's much else to be said after that, but Yunte's book served well to illuminate for me -- who had no real knowledge of Chinese literature(s) or the issues involved in their translation -- what some of the pertinent areas of inquiry might be. Taylor Brady On Friday, September 7, 2001, at 02:50 PM, Andrew Rathmann wrote: > I'm trying to assemble a list of recent English-language translations, > borrowings, imitations, etc., of Chinese poetic texts. I'm interested > in > whole books, of course, but also individual works published in journals > or > on the web, which usually go unnoticed, at least by me. My motive at > this > point is simply curiosity. > > If anyone has come across (or published) interesting work, I would be > grateful for a reference. > > More generally, one might ask which languages and literatures are now > perceived as fresh sources for American poets writing in English. I > have > the sense, shaky though it may be, that in U.S. poetic circles there is > little curiosity about non-Western writing, and that the curiosity that > does exist tends to be motivated by identitarian considerations rather > than > artistic ones. It's hard to believe, though, that this situation isn't > changing, given globalization. If we're lucky then maybe new > translations > will offer an alternative to the current stalemate, in which academic > authorities of this or that variety police the literary culture, > rewarding > conformity to this or that stale notion of poetic value. > > It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is inevitably > going > to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything > worth > knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which > languages are the alternatives being sought? > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 00:48:05 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: suicide and Plath and substance use MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit yes Richard i try to Hughes my pen wisely ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 00:49:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: call for contributions: corpse in progress MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If a body meet a body coming thu the wry rye ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 09:23:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: FYI MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's an interesting piece that appeared in the New York Times: "Reading (Gasp) for Enlightenment, Without Snobbery or Shame." Http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/08/arts/08CONN.html WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 08:11:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: surrealism suggestions? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Hi, all. > > I am proposing to teach an undergrad course next > semester in surrealism. I'd love suggestions on > things you think are "MUST USE"--theoretical or > historical texts, films, books, poems, artworks, > etc. > It will be taught at a business school, so these > will > be kids with little to no expertise in art at all, > so > the work should be pretty basic. I have a sense of > what I would like to use, but would love to know > what > other people consider the "basics" of surrealism. > > I am hoping to use things associated with the > beginning of surrealism as well as contemporary > work, > and I would love suggestions of non-white, non-male, > etc., materials. > > Thanks very much. Backchannel would be great. > > Arielle > > - > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant > messaging with Yahoo! Messenger > http://im.yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 21:38:57 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: No Way Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Think no way knows what your doing Knows what What youre doing No way Think Think what What youre doing No way Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 16:08:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Subject: SEEDSIGNS for Philadelpho Comments: To: webartery@yahoogroups.com, dreamtime@yahoogroups.com, thewire@yahoogroups.com, soundpoetry@yahoogroups.com, E-Poetry-2001 , ubuweb@yahoogroups.com, memexikon@mwt.net, poetry.guide@about.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit F R I E N D S After 3 aborted attempts I have finally completed the beta version of my tribute to Philadelpho Menezes. I must confess that I knew very little of his art & activities until receiving the announcement of his death over several of the mailing lists of which I am a member. I was harvesting the seeds of False Blue Indigo (Baptisia Australis) that day & my immediate instinct was to form the newly harvested seed(signs) into the letters of his name & scan them into the computer. Over the last year the intended tribute never really fell into place. When attending E-Poetry 2001 at SUNY-Buffalo, Wilton Azevedo presented an inspiring tribute to Menezes' work which more than anything informs my own attempts at an intersign tribute. Also meeting Brazilian poet/theorists Giselle Breugelmann & Lucio Agra at the festival insured that I had living contact with a body of work that until then had only been virtual. SEEDSIGNS for Philadelpho by mIEKAL aND Allegra Fi Wakest, voice [flash, 517K] http://cla.umn.edu/joglars/SEEDSIGN/index.html _____________________________________________________ for more information about the life & work of Philadelpho Menezes visit this tribute page at the ELECTRONIC POETRY CENTER http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/menezes/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 11:42:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: This is a stick up Mime-version: 1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Snagged on either you like this Hate that right here left there Create more issues Change this get that Hammering this point over & over again Like driving pilings into a stance ~ ~ ~ Mind made issues See now how does the lotus bloom Then give it a taste of the stick To at it out & buy it Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 21:36:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: theory because this is miami. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - theory because this is miami. strengthening to hurricane status and flood watch for southern florida boats on fire in fort lauderdale and trees broken in north miami moisture index high and drawn into central miami towards ludlum avenue windstorm down ludlum avenue taking a right on 46th street green anoles crawling down 46th street taking a left in the sunken drive monitors walking slowly over speed bumps crawling up the soaked walls wall of water over the second story slamming into 252 where we're soaked and crawling, strengthened to ward off anoles but not anomalies because of the persistence of academic affairs we are not allowed to shut the doors of our offices if there is a student of any degree of opposition sex within. the halls of the department of art are filled with television cameras - we're pure exhibits - we're there for them; there is nothing to steal but our imaginary. the cameras hug the ceiling like green anoles, their burst eyes flooding us with marrow for thought. let me tell you that thought. eyes damage thought, spear thought; they glare through dreams in which we edit dreams to our liking. they are vectors of configuration; they divide and cauterize space. there is a corner of the secretary's office in which we are unwatched, cutting each other with thin knives; the blood drips anonymously were it not for dna. azure carves out my cock: EIDETIC REDUCTION and in return i damage her breasts: CHORATIC EFFLORESCENCE. i reduce or am her reduction; she extends or turns my exponential. in front of the cameras, for an unseen audience, we mutilate. because this is miami, blood pours from our mouths; we leaving fast in this theater of the real. when we fall into the range of the cameras - when we are seen - we are covered with blood, our sight gone; instead, silent, with infinite wisdom, we carry the truth of theory, the efflorescence of thought, forever towards our almost immediate death. because this is miami, we will wake up thick after our performance; the faked blood is cleansed like the dust-free department of art staring at us. just before we leave we'll show them everything than shoot out the lights. _ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 10:57:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Broder Subject: Free to be you and me, as it were Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit There's this really sweet guy who's been coming to my reading series for the past three weeks to read at the open mike. He's diligent but totally untutored and writes lyric love poems and elegies in singsong meter with simple, powerless end rhymes like me/be, do/you, and so on. Yesterday Michele Kotler and I had a chance to talk with him before the reading started. Michele was one of my featured readers and she's the founding director of Community Word, a program that sends poets into the public schools to facilitate creative expression workshops. John, the elegiac rhymester, said friends had told him his poems would sound more "professional" if he didn't rhyme. He clearly felt inadequate because he "didn't know much about free verse." Michele and I replied that there are more and less interesting ways to rhyme. She talked about rhyming in the middle of the line so that the rhyme becomes a kind of door hinge. I told him to avoid rhyming throwaway words and try rhyming words that pack more of an emotional punch in the poem. There was a great example in the poem he had brought for that day's open mike. It was about his mother's death of cancer. I told him that while me/be was a rhyme that didn't do much for the poem, me/chemotherapy would knock people's socks off. What was nice is that he got it and he was so grateful for the ten minutes of workshopping Michele and I gave him. But what made me want to write about this incident was the experience I just had buying a cup of coffee at my local hole-in-the wall, blissfully nonStarbucks coffee place. Lubo, the Romanian counter boy, was playing a Beatles CD, and John Lennon's "The Word" was on. In case you've forgotten, that's the one on Rubber Soul that goes Say the word and you'll be free Say the word and be like me It's the word I'm thinking of Have you heard? The word is love! and so on for some 2 minutes 39 seconds or so. How thin is the line between inanity and brilliance! I couldn't help thinking of the other John, my elegiac rhymester from the Ear Inn, and how I would like to shove this song under his nose and tell him that rhyme and meter can do you proud if you do them right. Of course, context is everything. If "The Word" were presented as a poem rather than a song, it might be inane indeed. But with it's astounding vocals, harmonies, arrangement, and production, it's an anti-love-song love-song, proto-psychedelic classic, typically brilliant John Lennon/Beatles/George Martin at their peak. I don't have a grand conclusion, really. I guess I'm simply struck by how difficult it can be for nascent talent to be nurtured in the way it deserves to be, and how easily creative passion can be extinguished by the casual, ignorant criticism of so-called friends. And how Rubber Soul still rocks after 35 years! Michael Broder ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 05:20:41 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: This is a stick up 2 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Take me apart Piece by piece What do you see I swear I see red You swear you see blue ~ ~ ~ You push & you pull You let it grow slack That hammering point Puts life on the line Go on taste Just a taste & you're hooked On the word hooked On the line & how we squirm Just like the worm ~ ~ ~ Five little piles Five little hoops How to get through Round after round Calling it ease Easy now easy ~ ~ ~ Wandering are you & looking for what Another swell another swig Another taste treat Easy now easy This is a stick up 2 Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 20:23:04 -0400 Reply-To: Nate and Jane Dorward Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nate and Jane Dorward Subject: The Gig #9 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit T H E G I G # 9 (September 2001) A little behind schedule, but at last it's here: issue 9 of _The Gig_. The new issue has poetry by Trevor Joyce, William Fuller, Bill Griffiths, Diane Ward, Shelby Matthews, Ian Patterson and David Chaloner. (Matthews' piece may be of special interest: it's a 19pp poetic report on the Liege Conference on Poetry and Music from earlier this year.) There is also an essay on Denise Riley's _Selected Poems_ and _The Words of Selves_, by Robin Purves; a letter by Adrian Clarke in response to J.H. Prynne's letter to McCaffery (published in _The Gig_ 7); and reviews of Allen Fisher, Catherine Wagner, Thomas Swan, CS Giscombe, &c. _The Gig_ appears three times a year; it publishes new poetry & criticism from the US, Canada, UK & Ireland. Backissues are still available, notably #4/5, a 232pp perfectbound collection of essays on the work of the UK poet Peter Riley by Peter Middleton, Peter Larkin, Mark Morrisson, Nigel Wheale et al. Regular issues are 60-64pp chapbooks: see the website at http://www.geocities.com/ndorward/ for issue-by-issue listings of contents. * Rates for all issues except #4/5: within Canada: single issue: $7 Cdn ($12 for institutions); three-issue subscription (or set of three backissues): $18 (institutions $36). US subscription: $14 US (institutions $28 US). Overseas subscription: 10 pounds (institutions 20 pounds). Rates for #4/5: within Canada: $20 Cdn (institutions $40); within US: $15 US (institutions $30); overseas: 11 pounds surfacemail, 13 pounds airmail (institutions 20 pounds). All prices include postage. Make cheques out to "Nate Dorward". Write to: Nate Dorward, 109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, Ontario, M2N 2B1, Canada; e-mail: . Copies may be obtained within the UK through Peter Riley (Books), 27 Sturton Street, Cambridge, CB1 2QG; e-mail: . * Separately available is _The Topological Shovel_, a set of four essays by Allen Fisher in workbook format, 52pp. Prices: $12 Cdn; $9.50 US; 6.50 pounds UK/overseas (all prices include postage). * Nate & Jane Dorward ndorward@sprint.ca THE GIG magazine: http://www.geocities.com/ndorward/ 109 Hounslow Ave., Willowdale, ON, M2N 2B1, Canada ph: (416) 221 6865 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 22:39:07 +0200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Caterina Davinio Organization: Art Electronics Subject: Invito: technopoetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Scroll down for the English translation. _________________________ Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna di Roma V. Reggio Emilia 54 - Roma Nell'ambito della mostra "Le tribù dell'arte" (curatore generale Achille Bonito Oliva) presso la Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna di Roma (V. Reggio Emilia 54) sarà presentata al pubblico una sezione di technopoetry (viedeopoesia, computer e web poetry) a cura di Caterina Davinio e Karenina.it. Non perdete l'occasione di vedere lavori sperimentali in video, CD e web di oltre quaranta artisti da tutto il mondo! Appuntamento in galleria l'11 settembre alle ore 18.00! Segui il link per leggere il programma: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7323/tecnopoetry.html Cari amici, Karenina.it ha un nuovo indirizzo reale al quale spedire pubblicazioni, inviti, comunicati, proposte di collaborazione: Davinio Art Electronics V. Sassi 10 - 23900 Lecco Tel e fax 0341 282712 Redazione on line: clprezi@tin.it Direttore: davinio@tin.it _ENGLISH___________________________________ In the contest of the exhibition "The Art Tribes" (Achille Bonito Oliva general curator) at the Galleria Comunale d'Arte Moderna of Rome (V. Reggio Emilia 54 ) will be presented a technopoetry section (videopoetry, computer and web poetry) curated by Caterina Davinio and Karenina.it More than 40 artists from all over the world will show their experimental works in video, CD and web September 11 since 6:00 PM. Follow the link to read the programme: http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Lights/7323/tecnopoetry.html ________________________________________________ Dear friends, Karenina.it has a new "real" address for receiving your pubblications, invitation, press releases and co-operation projects. The new address is: Davinio Art Electronics V. Sassi 10 - 23900 Lecco Tel e fax 0341 282712 Redaction on line: clprezi@tin.it Director: davinio@tin.it -- KARENINA.IT (poesia in funzione fàtica) http://www.geocities.com/biennale2001 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 09:37:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Will Schofield Subject: Re: Translation in particular MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252" Andrew wrote: "It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is inevitably going to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything worth knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which languages are the alternatives being sought?" Damien Leri, a good friend of mine now living in Portugal, is working with a British guy named Ray Keenoy to put online Ray's series of reference works on literature in translation known as the Babel Guides, which seem to be completely unknown in the US. The site promises to be much more than a reference work, and should help promote literature in translation in many ways (and facilitate new translations). I'm the only US ingredient here, having brought these two blokes together. I'm excited. Damien writes about making the site multilingual: "RE SUPPORTING OTHER LANGUAGES BESIDES ENGLISH: Am i being naive in dreaming of a multilingual site? Requirements include: 1. allowing the cataloging of published translations in a language other than english (eg, the portuguese version of Jarry's supermale). Finding people to add to the catalog would be the tough part, since the babel guides don't cover this. 2. supporting interfaces in different languages. We would need people to create and update language mappings, so that if the user is viewing the German version of the site the appropriate translations will appear in place of text such as "born on" on an "author's" page. A web interface for updating these mappings is no problem. One path we could take towards multilinguality is to design the database models and programming to support other languages and yet have a preference (ie increased speed) for the english interface. We could enable the other language options when and if there are people to maintain the other languages' interfaces and catalogs, understand users' feedback written in these languages, etc." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 08:33:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Richard Long Subject: 6.1 (Fall 2001) Issue of The 2River View Comments: To: new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu, Cafe BLue MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii 2River released today the 6.1 (Fall 2001) issue of THE 2RIVER VIEW, with new poems by Wendy Taylor Carlisle, Laura Hartman, Romana Iorga, Elizabeth Knapp, Ann Neuser Lederer, Walt McDonald, Mark Melton, Allan Peterson, Matthew Schmeer, and Leonore Wilson, and art by David Zvanut. You can read it online or download a PDF by going to http://www.2River.org Also, beginning November 1, 2River will begin litter pick-up along a stretch of adopted HWY E in Jefferson County as part of Missouri's Adopt-A-Highway program. The remote 2-mile stretch of highway is a highly unlikely spot for a sign that says Poetry, Art, Theory. Look for a picture of it in mid November. Since 1996, 2River has been a site of poetry, art, and theory, quarterly publishing The 2River View and occasionally publishing individual authors in the 2River Chapbook Series. Richard Long ====== 2River rlong@2River.org http://www.2River.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 09:59:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Scharf, Michael (Cahners -NYC)" Subject: Double Happiness-fall/winter schedule MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable S E G U E R E A D I N G S E R I E S A T D O U B L E H A P P I N E S S 173 MOTT STREET, JUST SOUTH OF BROOME ST. SATURDAYS FROM 4:00-6:00 PM $4 admission goes to support the readers Readings will begin promptly at 4 PM. Funding is made possible by the continuing support of the Segue Foundation and the Literature Program = of the New York State Council on the Arts. Curators: October-November: Rodrigo Toscano and Rob Fitterman; November-December: Katy Lederer, Kristin Prevallet and Mike Scharf. Visit the Segue website (currently under construction) at: www.segue.org/calendar for links to poets and = schedule=20 updates. ________________________________________________________________________= ____ _____________________________ OCTOBER 6: DIANE WARD AND MICHAEL MAGEE Diane Ward=B9s most recent 2 books are Portraits and Maps and Portrait = As If Through My Own Voice. Recent work appeared in tongue to boot #5 and forthcoming work will appear in THE GIG magazine. She co-edits Primary Writing with Phyllis Rosenzweig. Michael Magee=B9s first book, MORNING CONSTITUTIONAL, is recently out from Handwritten Press. His poems are = out or due in New American Writing, Callaloo, Washington Review, Lungfull!, = and CrossConnect, and his essays on American Literature in Raritan, = Contemporary Literature, and Review. He edits COMBO, and teaches at Rhode Island = School of Design. OCTOBER 13: JEFF DERKSEN AND ELIZABETH FODASKI Jeff Derksen 's books include Down Time and Dwell (Talonbooks). = Forthcoming are But Could I Make a Living From It (Hole), and Muscle Cars = (Talonbooks, forthcoming 2002). This year he has a research fellowship at CUNY=B9s = Center for Place, Culture, and Politics. He lives and works in Vienna, writing = on culture and globalization. Elizabeth Fodaski is the author of fracas (Krupskaya) and has work forthcoming in Fence. She is previously the editor/publisher of Torque, and from 1994-1998 she was the coordinator = of The Segue Reading Series--it is through her efforts that the series = found its present home at Double Happiness. OCTOBER 20: NANCY SHAW AND MILES CHAMPION Nancy Shaw=B9s book-length collaboration with Catriona Strang, Busted, = has recently been published by Coach House Press. Other books include Scoptocratic (ECW) and Affordable Tedium (Tsunami). She is from = Vancouver, but is living in New York City this year as a post-doctoral student in = NYU=B9s American Studies Program. Miles Champion lives in London and writes = poetry. His books include Compositional Bonbons Placate, sore models, and, most recently, THREE BELL ZERO. OCTOBER 27: BARRETT WATTEN AND KIT ROBINSON Barrett Watten is the author of over 8 eight books of poetry, including Frame (Sun and Moon Press), and Bad History (Atelos). His current = creative project is called The Grand Piano, and his current critical work is The Constructivist Moment. Progress/Under Erasure is forthcoming with Sun = & Moon Press. He teaches at Wayne State University. Kit Robinson has = been active on the San Francisco poetry scene since the mid 70s. His recent books include Democracy Boulevard (Roof) and, with Alan Bernheimer, = Cloud Eight (Sound & Language). NOVEMBER 3: STACY DORIS AND HEATHER FULLER Stacy Doris=B9s most recent books include Conference (Potes & Poets), Christophe Tarkos: ma langue est po=E9tique (translations of the = phenomenal French poet's work first time ever in English book form, edited with = Chet Wiener and featuring seven translators), just out from Rook Books, Une = ann=E9e =E0 New York avec Chester (P.O.L) and Paramour (Krupskaya). Heather = Fuller's new book is Dovecote (Edge, 2001) and her old one is Perhaps This Is A Rescue Fantasy (Edge, 1997). She lives in Locust Grove, Virginia, and = is working on a degree in veterinary medicine. NOVEMBER 10: LOUIS CABRI AND TAYLOR BRADY Louis Cabri is author of The Mood Embosser (Coach House Press, = forthcoming 2001) and Curdles (housepress, 2001). Poetry, essays & reviews have appeared in Combo, Crayon, Shark, and Tripwire. He runs the poets' = dialogue series, PhillyTalks (http://phillytalks.org). Taylor Brady was born in Dunedin, Florida, and has lived, since 1998, in San Francisco. For the = past five years he has been writing a multi-genre extended serial poem, To = Not. The first book-length installment, Microclimates, is just out from Krupskaya. Sections have appeared in several journals, and in the = recent chapbook 33549 (Leroy, 2000). NOVEMBER 17: HERIBERTO YEPEZ AND JAMES SHERRY Heriberto Yepez, from Tijuana, is a prose and poetry border writer, = and winner of several book awards in Mexico. He is the author of Por una poetica antes del paleolitico. His writing is recently included in the upcoming Canyon Press Mexican poetry anthology and his "urban visual poetics" can be seen in Tripwire #4. James Sherry is the author of 10 = books of poetry and criticism, most recently Four For and Our Nuclear = Heritage. He is also editor of Roof Books and President of the Segue Foundation in = New York City. =20 NOVEMBER 24: NO READING - THANKSGIVING WEEK-END DECEMBER 1: CHRIS EDGAR AND JOHN YAU Chris Edgar's poems have recently appeared in Sal Mimeo, L'oeil du = Boeuf, and Best American Poetry 2001. He is co-editor of The Hat. John Yau's forthcoming books include a collaboration with the artist Archie Rand, = 100 More Jokes From The Book of The Dead (Meritage Press), My Heart Is That Eternal Rose Tattoo (Black Sparrow Press), and Borrowed Love Poems = (Penguin Putnam). He is currently working on a book of essays for the University = of Michigan Press. DECEMBER 8: JOSHUA CLOVER AND DUNCAN DOBBELMANN Joshua Clover lives in Berkeley, California. He is a member of the C21 Poetics Working Group, and curator of their reading/talk series. = Duncan Dobbelmann's chapbook Tronie was recently published by Harry Tankoos = Books. His translations from the Dutch have appeared in Conjunctions, = Harper=B9s, Grand Street, and The Transcendental Friend. DECEMBER 15: LAURA ELRICK AND KESTON SUTHERLAND Laura Elrick moved to Brooklyn from San Francisco in 1999. She = currently works at a literacy center in East Harlem where she does public = benefits advocacy. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in How2, Tripwire, = and Combo. Keston Sutherland now lives in Cambridge, England. He is the = editor of QUID, and (with Andrea Brady) of Barque Press [www.barquepress.com]. = He has published several books of poetry. A collection of recent work = will soon be available from the subpress collective, of which Keston is a contributing editor. His essays on poetry, politics and philosophy are scattered among various magazines and splinter various listservs. December 22 & December 29: No readings--Happy New Year! JANUARY 5: JOAN RETALLACK AND BRIAN KIM STEFANS Joan Retallack is the author of How To Do Things With Words (Sun & = Moon, 1998) and Mongrelisme (Paradigm Press). Her book, MUSICAGE: John Cage = in Conversation with Joan Retallack, was published by Wesleyan in 1996 and = won the America Award in Belles-Lettres for that year. Brian Kim Stefans=B9 = books include Angry Penguins, Gulf, and Free Space Comix. Recent digital work = can be seen on A new piece, "The Truth Interview," a collaboration with Kim Rosenfield, is forthcoming this Fall on the How2 website: JANUARY 12: ALISSA QUART AND DOUGLAS ROTHSCHILD Alissa Quart is a journo by trade, currently writing a book of = non-fiction entitled Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teenagers (Perseus Press), = which should be out by Winter 2003. Recent poems include a series detailing = film "classics" entitled Filmographies or The History of (Michael) Mann. = Douglas Rothschild, being duly sworn, deposes and says: "My life so far has = been a blinding miasma of coffee, miscalculation, and bad temper. Current prognostications predict much the same for the remainder of the term. Possibly fame will come 100 years after my death." JANUARY 19: DAVID GREENBERG AND FRANCIS RICHARD David Greenberg works with a community development trade association in Massachusetts, and is a doctoral student in urban policy at MIT. Poems appeared in Ploughshares, New Republic, and Colorado Review. Frances Richard's first book, tentatively titled See Through, is = forthcoming from Four Way Books in 2003. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming = in Ploughshares, Marlboro Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Post Road, = Pierogi Press, and the online journal Agnosia; she was chosen by Brenda Hillman = for the 2000 Marlboro Prize. Critical prose has appeared in Artforum, = Cabinet, Parkett, Pink, Provincetown Arts, Bomb, and various exhibition = catalogues. She is non-fiction editor of Fence, and teaches at NYU and Barnard = College. JANUARY 26: ROBERT KELLY AND ELIZABETH WILLIS Robert Kelly is the author of over 50 books of fiction, poetry, and prose-poems. He recently completed a big book of poems called Lapis = (which covers the last few years) forthcoming from Black Sparrow. He is = currently working on a novel about alien abduction and after, as well as a = collection of essays, and a collection of short poems, Sheet Music. He has been teaching at Bard College since 1961. Elizabeth Willis is the author of Second Law (1993) and The Human Abstract (1995). A third book, entitled Turneresque, is forthcoming. See you there! ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 12:47:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik Denise Duhamel Denise Duhamel's most recent poetry collection is Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001). An assistant professor at Florida International University in Miami, she is the recipient of a 2001 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry. She can be reached at sedna61@aol.com. THE DENISE DUHAMEL FAN CLUB There were a few years when Nick and I thought we just couldn't adjunct anymore. We'd sit at night around piles of student papers and poems until one of us would say, There's got to be a better way. We're creative people, right? I used to ask Nick Can't you go be a gogo boy at Deja Vu? or whatever strip joint we were living next to at the time. And, of course, I was only kidding, but if he would have said OK, maybe I'll go in tomorrow and if it's not too gross... I probably would have felt relief. Then, one night, after reading a few too many comma splices, Nick said, I've got it! I'll start the Denise Duhamel Fan Club! He figured he needed 3000 fans at $15 dollars a year (We'd keep $10 and the extra $5 would cover his operating expenses.) There'd be two annual mailings, the basic photo and fact sheet, my likes and dislikes. He'd get a computer program to keep track of all the club members' birthdays so I could send their bonus birthday cards like Johnny Matthis sends to his fans. Hell, he'd cut up my wedding dress and send every fan a piece. I'd cut off my own hair and send every fan a clump. He'd promise club members would see my poems first-- sneak previews before they appeared in Chiron Review or Free Lunch. I could probably even e-mail those and save the postage. We could hold a special contest for fan club members only--a raffle in which the winner would be able to take me to dinner! Then Nick said, So how many fans do you think you have? In all our zeal, we'd forgotten about that part. I figured I had maybe 35 tops (counting relatives, most of whom would want a free membership). Nick insisted I must have more fans than that. But, even if I did, how would I know where they lived? How could I send them a fan club application? It was, and still is, every poet's dilemma-- how would I ever make a living? how would I ever reach my readers? A SESTINA OF SEPARATE MIX AND MATCH COORDINATES TO PACK FOR YOUR MLA INTERVIEW Start with a solid skirt (A-line or full, depending on your figure), a matching blazer and a pair of pants-- pleated or perhaps with a cuff. Then pack a turtleneck and a blouse so you’ll be ready for any weather. Pump up your resumé, then put on your low-heeled sensible pumps. When you get to the interview, skirt any questions about where you bought your blouse-- your top button securely fastened. Blaze on with confidence about how you’d teach comp, prepare off-the-cuff anecdotes about your former students. Soon the committee will be panting over your creative handouts. Be sure to pantomime their enthusiasm, gently pumping them about when they’ll be making their final decision, your handcuffs tucked in your briefcase to give you confidence. The outskirts of the conference town await you, ablaze with dingy night life, where your same blouse and skirt will become a kinky schoolmarm costume, where blousy curtains of a cheap hotel will barely disguise the pants of the man you choose, his cheeks blazing with shame as you pump up his grammar. His eyes will skirt yours when he can’t define the conditional tense, so you’ll cuff him to the bed, putting the key to your handcuffs down your blouse and smoothing your skirt, watching the lump at the crotch of his pants slacken. This fantasy will keep you alert as the interviewers pump up their writing program, their own ties and blazers dry cleaned to perfection, their own Chevy Blazers parked safely at home, their cufflinks in little ceramic boxes atop bureaus, near the spray pump bottles of their wives’ perfume. Your nipples push against your blouse-- there is something warm and pleasing in the crotch of your panties. Their lives are the lives you want--a decorative skirt around a Christmas tree, a blazing fireplace, a ruffled blouse just for the holidays, lounging pants, a box of cufflinks for your future husband. His hand up your skirt, your red ink pumping. LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT I leave my pink toes to the pink seahorse facing west I leave my summer lawn chair to the blue hare who lives in Berlin I leave the airholes in my sneakers to the library where I read my first book I leave my pork pie hat to the pig who needs it most I leave my bunions and onions to the constellations I leave my empty wallet to the virgins I leave my dimples to whores who play Uno I leave my worn-down lipsticks and dried-up nail polish to archeologists I leave my eyeglasses to the glamorous I leave my unused shampoo and fig newtons to the turtles who claim them first I leave the hair in my comb to the mice I leave the hoopla over Hallmark to the gurgle of shellfish I leave my last nickel and instant lotto ticket, the silver gray flakes, to the hall of good luck I leave my lilac bubblegum with silver trading cards to be divided equally amont the saints Denise Duhamel ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 17:31:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Camille Martin Subject: Let's Get Lit! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii ---------------------------------- * L * I * T * * * C * I * T * Y * ---------------------------------- presents "Let's Get Lit!" an evening of poetry, dance & music to benefit the Lit City Poetry Reading Series featuring poets Dave Brinks, Michael Tod Edgerton, Brad Elliott, Bill Lavender, and Andy Young reading to the kinetic accompaniment of the Happensdance Improvisational Dance Troupe and the mellifluous tones of flutist Chris Klein. Special appearance of the ghost of William Faulkner, as chanelled by Allan Kolsky, winner of the 2001 Faux-Faulkner Award! Free red beans & rice while it lasts! Poetic t-shirts and stationnery by Jessica Freeman! Books! Raffle of art, massage & more! Sunday, September 16 Doors open at 7:30, event begins at 8:00 pm Cafe Brasil 2100 Chartres St. (corner Frenchmen) New Orleans, LA Admission: $5 See our flyer at Lit City is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. For more information, call (504) 861-8832 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 09:11:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lorraine Graham Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Check out the list of translations of both poetry and fiction at the Modern Chinese Language and Culture resource page at ohio-state: http://deall.ohio-state.edu/denton.2/biblio.htm And look up Zhang Er's work (not sure if it's on that list or not)...she has some amazing chapbooks in translation, Winter Garden (Goats and Compasses), Verses on Bird (Jensen/Daniels) and The Autumn of Gu Yao (Spuyten Duyvil).=20 Also look at Rift 4, the transpoesis issue, archived at: http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/rift/rift04/rift0401.html esp. the chapbook extension with a piece on Avant-Garde Chinese Poetry from 1982-1992 translated by Wang Ping with comments Yunte Huang....Patrick Herron is right to recommend..._Shi: A Radical Reading of Chinese poetry_ Mmm. The two volume anthology, Poems for the Millennium, edited by Pierre Joris & Jerome Rothenberg is uh...both experimental and global in focus. Mark Nowak does an amazing magazine called Cross Cultural Poetics http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/mags/xcp.html (there used to be a whole "Cross Cultural Poetics Web" online but I don't know where it went....)which features translations every issue as well as a bunch of other great work in poetics and the sort of interdisciplinary stuff that makes me excited. Apologies if other listers have already mentioned these. I'm in digest mode. -Lorraine Graham ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 11:49:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular In-Reply-To: <200109080226.WAA13690@maynard.mail.mindspring.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The Barnstones Misty Poet and Post-Misty Poets is an excellent introduction, too. Currently, I am working on some translations of Bei Ling, who is considered a "Post-Misty". Two ran in The New Republic in March, but since then I have gotten nothing but rejection...alas. --Ak At 10:23 PM 9/7/2001, you wrote: >You could do worse than to start with Yunte Huang's book Shi: A Radical >Reading of Chinese Poetry (Roof, 1997). Of course, there's much else to >be said after that, but Yunte's book served well to illuminate for me -- >who had no real knowledge of Chinese literature(s) or the issues >involved in their translation -- what some of the pertinent areas of >inquiry might be. > >Taylor Brady > > > >On Friday, September 7, 2001, at 02:50 PM, Andrew Rathmann wrote: > >>I'm trying to assemble a list of recent English-language translations, >>borrowings, imitations, etc., of Chinese poetic texts. I'm interested >>in >>whole books, of course, but also individual works published in journals >>or >>on the web, which usually go unnoticed, at least by me. My motive at >>this >>point is simply curiosity. >> >>If anyone has come across (or published) interesting work, I would be >>grateful for a reference. >> >>More generally, one might ask which languages and literatures are now >>perceived as fresh sources for American poets writing in English. I >>have >>the sense, shaky though it may be, that in U.S. poetic circles there is >>little curiosity about non-Western writing, and that the curiosity that >>does exist tends to be motivated by identitarian considerations rather >>than >>artistic ones. It's hard to believe, though, that this situation isn't >>changing, given globalization. If we're lucky then maybe new >>translations >>will offer an alternative to the current stalemate, in which academic >>authorities of this or that variety police the literary culture, >>rewarding >>conformity to this or that stale notion of poetic value. >> >>It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is inevitably >>going >>to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything >>worth >>knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which >>languages are the alternatives being sought? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 12:28:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Shaner Subject: Robert Grenier MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Robert Grenier's 1998 talk at SUNY-Buffalo, titled "Realizing Things," is now available at the EPC: http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/grenier/rthings.html Among other things, Grenier discusses Emerson's essay "The Poet," his (Grenier's) sense that "'the new world' remains to be discovered," the shift from typed to hand-written poems (i.e. the scrawl), etc. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:46:54 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? In-Reply-To: <20010908151155.76406.qmail@web11306.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Foundational 0. The writing of the Comte De Lautreamont, especially Maldoror (perhaps the most influential work and surely part of the foundation for Surrealists; use only if you like to have something that "leads to" surrealism) Essential (if I could use only 3 sources) 1. Andre Breton's book _Manifestoes of Surrealism_ 2. Bunuel & Dali's film, "Un Chien Andalou" 3. _A Book of Surrealist Games_: Captures the spirit of surrealism in a way no other work has. Is fun, wonderful illustrations and photographs, and has games, plenty of games, as promised. Compiled by Alastair Brotchie. Wouldn't Skip 4. The art of Salvador Dali, Lenora Carrington, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Hannah Hoch, Marcel Duchamp, Frida Kahlo, and Rene Magritte. This covers cut-ups, photomontage, painting, and sculpture 5. Luis Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty" (many other films of his are OK but I think this one is the most "surreal") 6. Benjamin Peret's _The Hidden Storehouse_ 7. Meret Oppenheim's art, especially "Dejeuner en fourrure." Oppenheim's fur tea cup deserves its own line here. Very Useful (if you have the time) 8. The dream sequence from Hitchcock's "Spellbound" - set by Dali 9. _The Automatic Message, the Magnetic Fields, the Immaculate Conception_ by Andre Breton, Philippe Soupault, Paul Eluard, David Gascoyne (Translator) - great survey of surrealist writing 10. _SURREALIST WOMEN: An International Anthology _, edited by Penelope Rosemont 11. _Liberty or Love!_, Robert Desnos 12. _The Theater and Its Double_, Antonin Artaud 13. The photography of Man Ray 14. The work of Adolf Wolfli. He was doing cut-ups, montages, and automatic writing well before the word "Surrealism" was uttered. His photomontages presaged Paul Klee's rhythmic art and Warhol's pop art. Wolfli's music presaged minimalist and algorithmic music. Wolfli was not part of any movement but was actually a lifelong patient of a mental ward. Breton was one of the early purchasers of Wolfli's work and help start Dubuffet's famous Art Brut tour. Wolfli was perhaps the only "natural" surrealist. Work by Jan Svankmajer may also be useful. there's also an interesting survey of Surrealism and its relation to alchemy called _Max Ernst and Alchemy_. I'm not smitten by Breton's _Nadja_ and do not include it. If it were not for any of these other works I listed above, I would have mistakenly believed that Surrealism were as dull as _Nadja_. Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Arielle Greenberg > Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2001 11:12 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: surrealism suggestions? > > > > Hi, all. > > > > I am proposing to teach an undergrad course next > > semester in surrealism. I'd love suggestions on > > things you think are "MUST USE"--theoretical or > > historical texts, films, books, poems, artworks, > > etc. > > It will be taught at a business school, so these > > will > > be kids with little to no expertise in art at all, > > so > > the work should be pretty basic. I have a sense of > > what I would like to use, but would love to know > > what > > other people consider the "basics" of surrealism. > > > > I am hoping to use things associated with the > > beginning of surrealism as well as contemporary > > work, > > and I would love suggestions of non-white, non-male, > > etc., materials. > > > > Thanks very much. Backchannel would be great. > > > > Arielle > > > > - > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant > > messaging with Yahoo! Messenger > > http://im.yahoo.com > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! > Messenger > http://im.yahoo.com > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:53:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Joan Retallack's book of poems "How to Do Things with Words" has a section/poem called "The Chinese Room" (or words to that effect). She's drawing upon a problem in the philosophy of mind, proposed in philosopher John Searle's essay, "Minds, Brains, and Programs" (and subsequent discussion by Fodor in "After-thoughts: Yin and Yang in the Chinese Room", etc). Although somewhat racially insensitive in Searle's original shaping of it, the Chinese Room problem that Retallack refers to is, basically: You have somebody in a room who doesn't know Chinese. You give them a set of Chinese flash cards, although they don't speak Chinese, and a set of grammatical rules for Chinese syntax. Somebody outside the room can see only the ideogram output that's constructed. When the person in the Chinese Room succeeds at forming entirely intelligible "communication," despite not knowing the language, ~what is the nature of this language-thing that the reader outside the room is reading,~ --- since it's uncomprehended by the sender/speaker but understood as normative by the receiver/reader. That model is really the base for an investigation by analogy as to nature of mind--- It's a sort of Turing test. (To Turing-ize would be to dispense the person in the Chinese Room and have it just be a machine that's sending out the messages, and the reader's inability to tell whether talking to a man or woman, since talking to neitherk, etc.) It may seem tangential to your question, but --- In Retallack's use of it, it takes on a new, poetic resonance, and is, by itself, I think, an unforgettably bothersome sort of thought-experiment. Jeffrey __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 10:58:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cadaly Subject: Re: Free to be you and me, as it were MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT The same open reader opened when I read -- I loved his rhyme with "so" & have remembered that. Rgds, Catherine Daly cadaly@pacbell.net P.S. In a brief aside, I have noticed that our pet parrot seems to recognise rhymes, and frequently rhymes "pet" and "wet." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 14:03:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: n MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - n n kiku oawtn sotf cu koy.un kiku oawtn soy.uw ah ths eawtn ssia h lo eni rcpyotrgpayh .hs eiwllg tet ah tohel .oy uiwllb ehttah lo.es ehw li lufkc oy una doy uiwlld cedo eht eowlr.dn toihgnr meiasnb tuy uoy uoy uo .oy uw li lebh reb ca kodro .hwtai stis ehw li lods ehw li lponey uo .onhtni gw li leramniy uow li lon teramni .ht eodrow li lebo ep nna dlcsodet eh owlr diwllb eedoced.dy uow li lehplh rey uow li lebd ae.dt eherw li leba emssga efot ehd oo roy uiwlln toh ae rti .oy uiwlln tos eei toy uiwlln to msle lti .ht eowlr diwllb eedoced dht eowlr diwllb cemo eamynt ihgn.s inukokw li lufkcy uot ehw rodlw li lebig.ni tiwllb geniw ti hesrcte ocidgna dns ceer tneocidgn .oy uiwllb eeddat ehw rodlw li lebv re yb irhg.tn kiku oiwllk on woh wrbgitht ehw rodli snoy uo rifero fsaeh.s oy uiwllb eubnrni gsa hht eowlr diwllh va eus nna domno .us niwllb ru nt ehw rodlw ti hifero fsaeh soy uiwllr teru nrfmot ehd ae dodn tol oo kb ca.ky uow li lebt ehd oo rna dht eemssga ehtre eiwllb e aohel .inukok iwllb ehttah lo eoy uiwllf cu kinukok .oy uaheva wlya sawtndet oufkc inukoks ehw li lponef roy uo .onhtni geramni sub teh reh reh.ry uow li ld cedo eht eowlr doy uiwllb ehttaw rodl ddi =fzzo =fyyc no=vwsba . ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 14:13:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: Translation in particular In-Reply-To: <4F9F462CBA05D411AF1000508BA8FB200F2908@SERVER> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Will -- is that site up yet? Youd didn't include a url in your post -- not sure if you just forgot or if the project is still just 'en chantier'. At any rate, keep us informed -- interesting terrain indeed. -- Pierre ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris Just out from Wesleyan UP: 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 POASIS: Selected Poems 1986-1999 Tel: (518) 426-0433 Fax: (518) 426-3722 go to: http://www.albany.edu/~joris/poasis.htm Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Will Schofield > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 9:38 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Translation in particular > > > Andrew wrote: > "It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is > inevitably going > to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything worth > knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which > languages are the alternatives being sought?" > > Damien Leri, a good friend of mine now living in Portugal, is > working with a > British guy named Ray Keenoy to put online Ray's series of reference works > on literature in translation known as the Babel Guides, which seem to be > completely unknown in the US. The site promises to be much more than a > reference work, and should help promote literature in translation in many > ways (and facilitate new translations). I'm the only US ingredient here, > having brought these two blokes together. I'm excited. > > > Damien writes about making the site multilingual: > > "RE SUPPORTING OTHER LANGUAGES BESIDES ENGLISH: > Am i being naive in dreaming of a multilingual site? Requirements include: > 1. allowing the cataloging of published translations in a language other > than english (eg, the portuguese version of Jarry's supermale). Finding > people to add to the catalog would be the tough part, since the > babel guides > don't cover this. > 2. supporting interfaces in different languages. We would need people to > create and update language mappings, so that if the user is viewing the > German version of the site the appropriate translations will > appear in place > of text such as "born on" on an "author's" page. A web interface for > updating these mappings is no problem. > > One path we could take towards multilinguality is to design the database > models and programming to support other languages and yet have a > preference > (ie increased speed) for the english interface. We could enable the other > language options when and if there are people to maintain the other > languages' interfaces and catalogs, understand users' feedback written in > these languages, etc." > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 12:12:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: FYI MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit how would an Everyman (or woman)'s Library of poetryand poetics today differ from Oprah's hit list? tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2001 8:23 AM Subject: FYI > Here's an interesting piece that appeared in the New York Times: "Reading > (Gasp) for Enlightenment, Without Snobbery or Shame." > > Http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/08/arts/08CONN.html > > WilliamJamesAustin.com > KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 16:17:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: Susan Wheeler Subject: Reading: Poetry Society of America Writers on Poets Series Comments: To: JLPeck1098@aol.com, LA@tenderbuttons.net, "Zherlsch@aol.com" , lwarsh@mindspring.com, lh@oldfrogpondfarm.com, jarnot@pipeline.com, mayalar@aol.com, Elizabeth Harlan-Ferlo , LGrealy@aol.com, "Tillwhen@aol.com" , MWellman@brooklyn.cuny.edu, magp@earthlink.net, 74631.3030@compuserve.com, "mklitt@previewport.com" , mbibbins1@aol.com, markadoty@aol.com, m.rudman@juno.com, "Markcwunderlich@aol.com" , MSMcPhee@aol.com, Martha Rhodes , Matthew Pritchard , luminousfork@hotmail.com, me@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU, melissa.hammerle@nyu.edu, Michael Coffey , mh7@homemail.nyu.edu, pollan@aol.com, roco@pen.org, "Scharf, Michael (Cahners -NYC)" , electivemute@yahoo.com, Peacockmol@aol.com, nannalven@aol.com, limahouse@aol.com, "nhfrost@aol.com" , psjones@liscnet.org, "PAULJOFFE@aol.com" , "Preeti K. Sodhi" , rachelkonnect@yahoo.com, lit@newschool.edu, rwolff@angel.net, sgturbo@aol.com, richard.sennett@nyu.edu, RMoodyCom@aol.com, robert.fitterman@nyu.edu, politor@newschool.edu, robin.nagle@nyu.edu, Robyn Selman , Roger Ferlo , ross@nerve.com, sallygall@pipeline.com, 105127.2553@compuserve.com, SCP6@aol.com, sarah sarai , berrys@newschool.edu, Sharon Dolin , shanna@pw.org, "Scb49@aol.com" , shalforoosh@hotmail.com, shoshana@mindspring.com, Stephanie Fleischmann , Vlutsky@aol.com, Sylvia Molloy , tanyalarkin@hotmail.com, Hoffman/Rutkowski , tnfung@Princeton.edu, "Moosepolka@aol.com" , Timothy Liu , td28@columbia.edu, tony.judt@nyu.edu, vijay_seshadri@newyorker.com, Vincent Picciuto Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Thursday, September 20, 7:30 p.m. Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, New York. Rick Moody inaugurates this series. He will introduce me, I will give a short reading, and he will interview me. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 18:37:41 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Newfoundland film to play festival in NYC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hi poetry people, This does't have much to do with poetry but for those of you support small presses I thought that you might also want to support this independant film. The Bingo Robbers is hilarious. If any of you go. Please say hello to the film makers and tell them I sent you. Thanks, Kevin -- In any case, I hope so. Asger Jorn ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2001 15:22:38 -0230 From: Bingo Robbers To: khehir@cs.mun.ca Cc: Bingo Robbers Subject: press release PRESS RELEASE St.John's Filmmakers attend New York Festival THE BINGO ROBBERS: Award-winning feature-film, The Bingo Robbers, ( A Cinequest, San Jose Selection) written and directed by Lois Brown and Barry Newhook is screening at the New York International Film and Video Festival followed by short, TV Talk Show Live directed by Rhonda Buckley. The screening at the Clearview Cinema 239 E59th Street (btw 2nd and 3rd Ave) will be held SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16th, 2001 at 8:00 pm with a reception to follow. "The answer to a movie lover's prayer" (The Evening Telegram) A tightly plotted tale of two eccentrics who screw up a series of robberies - mostly because they can't stop talking - is smart, edgy with snappy dialogue to spare. Vallis (Barry Newhook) lives in his 76 Chrysler. Nancy (Lois Brown) loves and depises her deadbeat drummer partner-in-crime. The two cruise the gloomy streets of Newfoundland's biggest city bringing us their darkly comic observations on love and violence, while plotting the best way to take down the 24-Hour Bingo Extravaganza. "There isn't a slow moment in this movie...engaging, wonderfully written" (Brokenpencil,Toronto) Best Feature at Toronto International DV Festival. Winner of Best Actor, Outstanding Writers and Best Original Music Composition at The Atlantic Film Festival. TV TALK SHOW LIVE: TV Talk Show Live is directed by St. John's artist Rhonda Buckley, and written by Lisa Moore and Rhonda Buckley. TV TALK SHOW LIVE. Is it real? Is it art? TV Talk Show Live is a parody on talk shows. The guests on the show are artists, who argue and unravel video art in the 21st century of mediamania. The host, Rick Boland, is a genius, although he has delusions from the very medium that captivates him-TV. Watch as the guests and host of TV Talk Show Live reveal the many pixelized images of art and television. In TV Talk Show Live you may not know 'what is fact and what is fiction' or more precisely, 'what is art and wha tis television'? TV TALK SHOW LIVE STARS: Rick Boland, Berni Stapleton, Sherry White, Jon Whelan, Geoff Younghusband, and Andrea Cooper. FILMMAKERS LOIS BROWN, DANA WARREN AND RHONDA BUCKLEY WILL BE IN ATTENDANCE. FOR TICKETS CALL: TICKET WEB 1-866-468-7621 or www.nyfilmvideo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 16:45:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit At the duration press site, under the international poetry section, I have been working on bio / bibliographic entries for non-US poets. It is still very much under construction, but there are some entries for Chinese poets with links to on-line work, as well as a bibliography of works in English: http://www.durationpress.com/international Jerrold Shiroma, director duration press www.durationpress.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS" To: Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 11:49 AM Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular > The Barnstones > > Misty Poet and Post-Misty Poets > > is an excellent introduction, too. > > Currently, I am working on some translations of Bei Ling, who is considered > a "Post-Misty". Two ran in The New Republic in March, but since then I have > gotten nothing but rejection...alas. > > --Ak > > At 10:23 PM 9/7/2001, you wrote: > >You could do worse than to start with Yunte Huang's book Shi: A Radical > >Reading of Chinese Poetry (Roof, 1997). Of course, there's much else to > >be said after that, but Yunte's book served well to illuminate for me -- > >who had no real knowledge of Chinese literature(s) or the issues > >involved in their translation -- what some of the pertinent areas of > >inquiry might be. > > > >Taylor Brady > > > > > > > >On Friday, September 7, 2001, at 02:50 PM, Andrew Rathmann wrote: > > > >>I'm trying to assemble a list of recent English-language translations, > >>borrowings, imitations, etc., of Chinese poetic texts. I'm interested > >>in > >>whole books, of course, but also individual works published in journals > >>or > >>on the web, which usually go unnoticed, at least by me. My motive at > >>this > >>point is simply curiosity. > >> > >>If anyone has come across (or published) interesting work, I would be > >>grateful for a reference. > >> > >>More generally, one might ask which languages and literatures are now > >>perceived as fresh sources for American poets writing in English. I > >>have > >>the sense, shaky though it may be, that in U.S. poetic circles there is > >>little curiosity about non-Western writing, and that the curiosity that > >>does exist tends to be motivated by identitarian considerations rather > >>than > >>artistic ones. It's hard to believe, though, that this situation isn't > >>changing, given globalization. If we're lucky then maybe new > >>translations > >>will offer an alternative to the current stalemate, in which academic > >>authorities of this or that variety police the literary culture, > >>rewarding > >>conformity to this or that stale notion of poetic value. > >> > >>It has to be a mistake, though, to assume that the U.S. is inevitably > >>going > >>to be the site of convergence for world culture, and that everything > >>worth > >>knowing about will eventually make its way here. So, where and in which > >>languages are the alternatives being sought? > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 17:19:08 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: m&r..Pregio Pregio nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > Pregio Pregio bilabial stop English "p" snow expected cf. Himalaya I thus believe which...indeed "barf" echoic: libri deus ex...Drn.. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 12:52:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: oranget@GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: dcpoetry readings and anthologies MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hello all, the fall reading season at in your ear, ruthless grip, and bridge street books got underway this weekend with readings by joseph donahue and leonard schwartz. other readers this month include renee angle, deirdre kovac, micahel magee and tom raworth. for details please visit http://www.dcpoetry.com. we are also fortunate to have jody bolz and ethelbert miller reading at george washington u and ammiel alcalay and jerome rothenberg at the lannan/georgetown u series this month. i'm also pleased that the dcpoetry anthology 2001, featuring work by readers in last year's series, is now more or less complete. the list of contents to date follows. thanks to all our readers! bests, tom orange -------------- dcpoetry anthology 2001 Beth Anderson * from Hearsay Sonnets Jules Boykoff * Four Poems Jonathan Brannan * from Deaccessioned Landscapes Leslie Bumstead * from Abidjan Notebooks Elizabeth Burns * "Lilacs" Allison Cobb * Two Poems Jennifer Coleman * Two Poems Aviva Cristy * Five Poems Jeff Derksen * Addresing Globalization: Three Methods, 2001 Buck Downs * from thisisemo.jonescounty Robert Fitterman * from Metropolis Graham Foust * Three Poems Ethan Fugate * from Pneumatic Poems Heather Fuller * from Eyeshot Nada Gordon * "effects of torsion in snails" Daniel Gutstein * Six Poems Jeff Hansen * Three Poems Susan Landers * Three Poems Emily Lu * Five Poems Lisa Jarnot * Three Poems from 9 Songs Ange Mlinko * Index Excerpt (Book) Alice Notley * Have I Been Here Before is Something Unfamiliar Cheryl Pallant * from Uncommon Grammar Cloth Kristen Prevallet * "One Final Blow to Mankind" Heather Ramsdell * from Vague Swimmers and "Good Sheep" Lisa Robertson * "Wednesday" and "The Weather: A Report on Sincerity" Kaia Sand * from Progeny Lytle Shaw * Six Poems Ron Silliman * It Takes a Village (from VOG) Rod Smith * The Spider Poems Chris Stroffolino * Ten Poems Gary Sullivan * Three Poems Thomas Lowe Taylor * "Here (for Karen)" Bill Tuttle * Two Poems Mark Wallace * from Dead Carnival Karen Weiser * "Out the Body There Are Planned Things" http://www.dcpoetry.com/anth2001.htm ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 12:41:59 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Free to be you and me, as it were In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" thanks for this, it helps me to theorize what others consider banal verse that i find powerful because of context. it also helps me give advice to friends who rhyme weakly. i love anecdotes like this; i collect them. more please from one and all. At 10:57 AM -0400 9/9/01, Michael Broder wrote: >There's this really sweet guy who's been coming to my reading series for the >past three weeks to read at the open mike. He's diligent but totally >untutored and writes lyric love poems and elegies in singsong meter with >simple, powerless end rhymes like me/be, do/you, and so on. > >Yesterday Michele Kotler and I had a chance to talk with him before the >reading started. Michele was one of my featured readers and she's the >founding director of Community Word, a program that sends poets into the >public schools to facilitate creative expression workshops. > >John, the elegiac rhymester, said friends had told him his poems would sound >more "professional" if he didn't rhyme. He clearly felt inadequate because >he "didn't know much about free verse." Michele and I replied that there >are more and less interesting ways to rhyme. She talked about rhyming in >the middle of the line so that the rhyme becomes a kind of door hinge. I >told him to avoid rhyming throwaway words and try rhyming words that pack >more of an emotional punch in the poem. There was a great example in the >poem he had brought for that day's open mike. It was about his mother's >death of cancer. I told him that while me/be was a rhyme that didn't do >much for the poem, me/chemotherapy would knock people's socks off. > >What was nice is that he got it and he was so grateful for the ten minutes >of workshopping Michele and I gave him. > >But what made me want to write about this incident was the experience I just >had buying a cup of coffee at my local hole-in-the wall, blissfully >nonStarbucks coffee place. Lubo, the Romanian counter boy, was playing a >Beatles CD, and John Lennon's "The Word" was on. In case you've forgotten, >that's the one on Rubber Soul that goes > >Say the word and you'll be free >Say the word and be like me >It's the word I'm thinking of >Have you heard? The word is love! > >and so on for some 2 minutes 39 seconds or so. How thin is the line between >inanity and brilliance! I couldn't help thinking of the other John, my >elegiac rhymester from the Ear Inn, and how I would like to shove this song >under his nose and tell him that rhyme and meter can do you proud if you do >them right. > >Of course, context is everything. If "The Word" were presented as a poem >rather than a song, it might be inane indeed. But with it's astounding >vocals, harmonies, arrangement, and production, it's an anti-love-song >love-song, proto-psychedelic classic, typically brilliant John >Lennon/Beatles/George Martin at their peak. > >I don't have a grand conclusion, really. I guess I'm simply struck by how >difficult it can be for nascent talent to be nurtured in the way it deserves >to be, and how easily creative passion can be extinguished by the casual, >ignorant criticism of so-called friends. And how Rubber Soul still rocks >after 35 years! > >Michael Broder ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 18:20:57 +0000 Reply-To: editor@pavementsaw.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Baratier Organization: Pavement Saw Press Subject: Perchik reading with Baratier MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit This Friday Sept 14th 5 to 7:30pm At the ACA Galleries 529 West 20th Street, 5th floor New York, New York 10011 Tel (212) 206-8080 Simon Perchik will give his first reading in NY in nearly 30 years with David Baratier from Columbus Ohio Simon Perchik was born December 24, 1923 in Paterson, New Jersey. He is a graduate of New York University having received a B.A. in English and LLB in Law. As a pilot during World War II, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Air Medal w/three Oak Leaf Clusters, ETO Ribbon w/three Battle Stars, and the Presidential Unit Citation. Following admission to the New York Bar in 1951, he was in private law practice, save for five years as Assistant District Attorney for Suffolk County, New York. He has seventeen collections of poetry published to his credit and continues to be widely published in many periodicals including The New Yorker, The Nation, International Poetry Review, Partisan Review, Massachusetts Review, Pavement Saw and the Southern Poetry Review. Mr. Perchik resides in East Hampton, New York. David Baratier whose poems have appeared in Denver Quarterly, Verse, Jacket, Phoebe, Quarter After Eight, Poet Lore, Slipstream, Poetry Motel, Poetry New York, and many others. His poems are anthologized in American Poetry: the Next Generation, (Carnegie Mellon University Press) and Clockpunchers: Poetry of the American Workplace (Partisan Press). Collections include: A Run of Letters, 1998, Poetry New York and The Fall Of Because, Pudding House, 1999. An epistolary and prose novel In It What’s in It is forthcoming from Spuyten Duyvil. Greatest Hits is forthcoming from Pudding House. He is founder and editor of Pavement Saw Press and lives in Columbus Ohio. Grace Haritgan's show starts the day after I hope to see you there-- Be well David Baratier, Editor Pavement Saw Press PO Box 6291 Columbus OH 43206 USA http://pavementsaw.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 00:16:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Translation, Chinese-English in particular Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Yunte Huang, in addition to SHI, also edited a section of poetics by contempory Chinese poets for *99 Poetis/1999*, a special issue of boundary 2 I edited a couple of years ago, and which is still available (info at http://www.duke.edu/web/dupress/b2.html). The poets included are Che Qianzi, Hunag Fan, Yi Cun, Lan Man, as well as the manifesto of the "Original Poets". Perhaps this is a good time to announce that the new issue of boundary 2 (28:2, Summer 2001) has a substantial Poetics cluster, including my conversation with Geoffrey O'Brien on the Library of America anthologies of 20th century American poetry, Rob Wilson on Pamelu Lu's *Pamela: A Novel*, Kathryne Linberg "Depejorating 'Uplift' and Re-centering Race Poetry: Lorenzo Thomas's *Extraordinary Measures*, Keith Tuuma's "Way Out in the Center: John Matthias", Michael Davidson's "X Marks the Spot: Laura Moriarty's *Nude Memoir* and Jena Osman's *The Character*", and Daniel O'Hara's "The Pen Shop of Thomas Kinsella". Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 19:13:07 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eileen Tabios Subject: Call for Poems Form/From The Six Directions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "POEMS FORM/FROM THE SIX DIRECTIONS" A multidisciplinary project by Eileen Tabios ATTENTION ALL POETS: You are cordially invited to Eileen Tabios' marriage to Poetry. RSVP by Oct. 15, 2001 by sending a poem to PinoyPoetics@aol.com: Culminating a four-year poetic alchemic process, Eileen Tabios will exhibit sculptures, drawings, installations and a wedding ceremony during her May/June 2002 exhibition at Pusod Center, a program of the Babilonia Wilner Foundation (BWF), in Berkeley, CA. The exhibit features the results of her attempts to cast poems as physical bodies and/or multidimensional spaces. Her series is titled after the Native American concept of six directions: north, south, east, west, up and down. Reflecting Six Directions' concept of making the Poet's persona seamless with the world, the exhibition will include Ms. Tabios's collaborations with quilt-maker Alice Brody, musician Joey Ayala and poets Paolo Javier and Barbara Reyes. To further reflect her project's desire to draw in the world into the space of her poems, the exhibit will feature two guest artists: New Yorker/New Zealander artist Max Gimblett, whose use of alchemical materials and archetypal references empathizes with Ms. Tabios's poetic approach; and V.C. Igarta, the foremost artist from the Filipino "Manong" generation who emigrated to the U.S. in the early 20th century. A key work in this series will be "Poem Tree," featuring Ms. Tabios's original wedding dress. "Poem Tree" evokes the Filipino wedding tradition of guests pinning money on the bride and groom's clothes during the wedding celebration to offer financial aid for the new couple's life together. "Poem Tree" will be pinned with print-outs of poems to symbolize Ms. Tabios' wedding to Poetry. To integrate the (external) world into the (internal) world of Ms. Tabios' poetry, all the poems pinned to the dress are written and will be sent by other poets from around the world. Poets are invited to share in Ms. Tabios' installation of "Poem Tree" by e-mailing her poems (no longer than one page) to . The poems will be printed out and its hard copies will be among those pinned onto "Poem Tree." No poems will be rejected as inclusion is integral to the concept of Six Directions. Poets should include names and geographic residence in addition to e-mail addresses. Deadline for sending poems: Oct. 15, 2001. During the exhibition's opening, a special appearance will be made by the wedding dress of BWF founder Malou Babilionia. Poets wearing Ms. Babilonia's and Ms. Tabios' wedding dresses will dance with members of the crowd. Attendees will be invited to pin poems onto the dresses. During this "happening," the crowd also will be invited to pin real money onto the gowns. All monies raised during the event will be donated to BWF's efforts to help reduce environmental pollution and facilitate a better understanding of economic, cultural and ecological conditions around the world. Ms. Tabios considers the fundraising attempt appropriate for indicating how Poetry can make a difference -- that Poetry can feed the world. ***** PUSOD, a program of the Babilonia Wilner Foundation Pusod Center 1808 Fifth Street Berkeley, CA 94710 EILEEN TABIOS has written, edited or co-edited seven books of poetry and fiction since 1996 when she left a banking career for poetry. Most of Ms. Tabios' poems and fiction are inspired by the visual arts, and she occasionally writes on the works of other artists. Her poetry CD produced by Jeepney Dash Productions, THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE, includes a discussion on the inspiration of abstract expressionism for her poetry. Her awards include the Manila Critics Circle National Book Award for Poetry, the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles National Literary Award, a Witter Bynner Poetry Grant and Poet Magazine's Iva Mary Williams Poetry Award. Her forthcoming books include PINOYPOETICS, the first international anthology of poetics by Filipino English-language poets; SCREAMING MONKEYS, an anthology of prose, poetry, and visual art about cultural portrayals of Asian America; and MY ROMANCE, a collection of essays correlating the visual arts to poetry. She is also the founder and editor of Meritage Press, a multidisciplinary literary and arts press based in St. Helena, CA where she is researching the poetry of wine. On December 13, 2001, she will participate in a panel presentation "Ekphrasis: Poetry/Art Collaborations" with poet John Yau and artists Archie Rand and Max Gimblett; the event will begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be held at the Asia Society, 725 Park Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10021. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 19:31:23 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Free to be you and me, as it were MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/10/01 1:42:16 PM, mbroder@NYC.RR.COM writes: << how Rubber Soul still rocks after 35 years! >> You said it, Michael. By the way, Michael Jackson is now broke. Seems that his only real moneymaker for the last eleven years has been the Lennon-McCartney catalog. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 12:24:47 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Free to be you and me, as it were MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Michael. I think I know what you're feeling and saying here. This is interesting. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Broder" To: Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 2:57 AM Subject: Free to be you and me, as it were > There's this really sweet guy who's been coming to my reading series for the > past three weeks to read at the open mike. He's diligent but totally > untutored and writes lyric love poems and elegies in singsong meter with > simple, powerless end rhymes like me/be, do/you, and so on. > > Yesterday Michele Kotler and I had a chance to talk with him before the > reading started. Michele was one of my featured readers and she's the > founding director of Community Word, a program that sends poets into the > public schools to facilitate creative expression workshops. > > John, the elegiac rhymester, said friends had told him his poems would sound > more "professional" if he didn't rhyme. He clearly felt inadequate because > he "didn't know much about free verse." Michele and I replied that there > are more and less interesting ways to rhyme. She talked about rhyming in > the middle of the line so that the rhyme becomes a kind of door hinge. I > told him to avoid rhyming throwaway words and try rhyming words that pack > more of an emotional punch in the poem. There was a great example in the > poem he had brought for that day's open mike. It was about his mother's > death of cancer. I told him that while me/be was a rhyme that didn't do > much for the poem, me/chemotherapy would knock people's socks off. > > What was nice is that he got it and he was so grateful for the ten minutes > of workshopping Michele and I gave him. > > But what made me want to write about this incident was the experience I just > had buying a cup of coffee at my local hole-in-the wall, blissfully > nonStarbucks coffee place. Lubo, the Romanian counter boy, was playing a > Beatles CD, and John Lennon's "The Word" was on. In case you've forgotten, > that's the one on Rubber Soul that goes > > Say the word and you'll be free > Say the word and be like me > It's the word I'm thinking of > Have you heard? The word is love! > > and so on for some 2 minutes 39 seconds or so. How thin is the line between > inanity and brilliance! I couldn't help thinking of the other John, my > elegiac rhymester from the Ear Inn, and how I would like to shove this song > under his nose and tell him that rhyme and meter can do you proud if you do > them right. > > Of course, context is everything. If "The Word" were presented as a poem > rather than a song, it might be inane indeed. But with it's astounding > vocals, harmonies, arrangement, and production, it's an anti-love-song > love-song, proto-psychedelic classic, typically brilliant John > Lennon/Beatles/George Martin at their peak. > > I don't have a grand conclusion, really. I guess I'm simply struck by how > difficult it can be for nascent talent to be nurtured in the way it deserves > to be, and how easily creative passion can be extinguished by the casual, > ignorant criticism of so-called friends. And how Rubber Soul still rocks > after 35 years! > > Michael Broder ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 21:17:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "James W. Cook" Subject: Re: Reading: Poetry Society of America Writers on Poets Series Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Ted, Just got this one. Rick Moody! I don't know Susan Wheeler's work but the event could be an interesting one. j.c. >From: Susan Wheeler >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Reading: Poetry Society of America Writers on Poets Series >Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 16:17:23 -0500 > >Thursday, September 20, 7:30 p.m. >Joe's Pub, 425 Lafayette Street, New York. > >Rick Moody inaugurates this series. He will introduce me, I will give a >short reading, and he will interview me. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:53:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: catullus MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - catullus 2t ka eofmro n kiku orfmow ah tadkrt ohguth serpaa dn htnec mo eohem- l no gof remo s roor whtuof ni dolevo s roor w -ihddnei nhtse eoltsw rosd.. . 3t2k aoemforn k ki uromfwoa hatkdtro ghtu hespraad nh ntcem ooeeh-ml n oog feroms r oo rhwutfon iodelovs r oo r wi-dhndie hnst eoetlwsr so.d . . 4t3k2 oameofnrk k irumowfao ahkttdorg th uehpsarda hnn ctme ooee-hlmn oo geforsmr o ohruwftno oiedolsvr o o riwd-nhid eh sn toetewlrss .o d . . 5t4k3 2o maoenfkrk rimuwoaf oa khttodgrt heuphasdr ah nnc mt eo eo-elhnm o oegofsrrmo hourfwnt oo eiodslrvo oirdwn-ih dhes nottewerlss. o d . . take form o nikuko from what dark thoughts reap and then come home - long for me o sorrow thou find love o sorrow - hidden in these lost words... _ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 12:56:52 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The whole thing sounds crackpot. What's the purpose of it? Surely this is just an arbitrary and meaningless exercise? Why not calculate the probabilities of balancing an one hundred thousands eggs in a vertical tower in a 200 kph wind at lattitude X longitude Y? Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jeffrey Jullich" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 5:53 AM Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular > Joan Retallack's book of poems "How to Do Things with > Words" has a section/poem called "The Chinese Room" > (or words to that effect). She's drawing upon a > problem in the philosophy of mind, proposed in > philosopher John Searle's essay, "Minds, Brains, and > Programs" (and subsequent discussion by Fodor in > "After-thoughts: Yin and Yang in the Chinese Room", > etc). Although somewhat racially insensitive in > Searle's original shaping of it, the Chinese Room > problem that Retallack refers to is, basically: > > You have somebody in a room who doesn't know Chinese. > You give them a set of Chinese flash cards, although > they don't speak Chinese, and a set of grammatical > rules for Chinese syntax. Somebody outside the room > can see only the ideogram output that's constructed. > When the person in the Chinese Room succeeds at > forming entirely intelligible "communication," despite > not knowing the language, ~what is the nature of this > language-thing that the reader outside the room is > reading,~ --- since it's uncomprehended by the > sender/speaker but understood as normative by the > receiver/reader. > > That model is really the base for an investigation by > analogy as to nature of mind--- It's a sort of Turing > test. (To Turing-ize would be to dispense the person > in the Chinese Room and have it just be a machine > that's sending out the messages, and the reader's > inability to tell whether talking to a man or woman, > since talking to neitherk, etc.) It may seem > tangential to your question, but --- In Retallack's > use of it, it takes on a new, poetic resonance, and > is, by itself, I think, an unforgettably bothersome > sort of thought-experiment. > > Jeffrey > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger > http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 23:52:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? In-Reply-To: <20010908151155.76406.qmail@web11306.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > Hi, all. >> >> I am proposing to teach an undergrad course next >> semester in surrealism. I'd love suggestions on >> things you think are "MUST USE"--theoretical or >> historical texts, films, books, poems, artworks, > > etc. Well, Freud on dreams would seem the first and most logical source. -- George Bowering Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 11:16:26 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "pre.verse][1:chpt 2.1][" Subject: #!/usEr/is/per.verse Comments: To: list@rhizome.org, spectre@mikrolisten.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" #----------------------------- #!/usEr/is/per.verse][ly routed][ # gender strippage - simple CoG][k][nItive shift allocation u.r subst][m][an.dard; u.r CoG][k][nItively chipped; u.r sub.stantia][ted][l:: (fatalToBreathethiswaterofThomYorkianproportions); my %Stripping_Gender_States; # scream taboos map.ping[!] punctures my $Current_Status; # the current ][d][socialised status:d.marked N swollen # reHashing of p][redi.cable][ol][syst][emics vs punct.tures. %Gender_States = ( 'RedLipCo.l][o][ure' => \&u_r_][as][sim][i/][u.lated _sex_o][a][b.ject.tion, 'ClothShrinkage' =>\&simpleton][s][_drenched _in_latex_pro.portions, 'Mas][s][ca.ra][p][edPupilDie.lation' => \&u_luv_whor.e][mail][dom, 'Bound&Gag][reflex][ged' => \&within_yr_breast _N_buttock_suit, '*U* *Must* *Want* IT' => \&cornered_via_yr_own _maroon_high_heelogic, 'S.lu][ddi][t][e][' => \&drink_yr_own_baggage, 'Cu.][N][TVersion' => \&d.fined N d.noted, ); $Current_Status = paralepsis(".ItsYr") || "][d][fault"; drenched in "No hope for u $Currently" unless $Screaming{$Yrself_2_Sleep}; # Gender.ate the current page. . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ pro.ject.ile x.blooms.x .go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 17:04:48 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Free to be you and me, as it were MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A poetic parrot! Ah! Now maybe there's something in this......it is my brilliant belief that animals, and birds in particular, are poetics beings: parrots of course are the least poetic in appearance: their colour usually clash etc...they are good for Mony Python skits...but keep on with your parrot. Something will come of it. Of this I am sure. Yours, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "cadaly" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 5:58 AM Subject: Re: Free to be you and me, as it were > The same open reader opened when I read -- I loved his rhyme with "so" & > have remembered that. > > Rgds, > Catherine Daly > cadaly@pacbell.net > > P.S. In a brief aside, I have noticed that our pet parrot seems to > recognise rhymes, and frequently rhymes "pet" and "wet." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 08:30:38 -0600 Reply-To: Laura.Wright@Colorado.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Wright Subject: Left Hand Reading (Boulder,CO) 9/20: Joris & Mullen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit **************************************** * * * THE LEFT HAND READING SERIES * * * * proudly presents * * a reading featuring * * * * * * P I E R R E J O R I S * * * * & * * * * L A U R A M U L L E N * * * **************************************** T H U R S D A Y, S E P T E M B E R 2 0 t h 8 : 0 0 p. m. in the V ROOM of the DAIRY CENTER FOR THE ARTS 2590 WALNUT STREET in BOULDER Donations are requested. ***************************************************** PIERRE JORIS has published over 20 books of poetry, among them, Poasis: Selected Poems 1986-1999 (Wesleyan University Press, 2001), h.j.r. (OtherWind Press, 1999), Winnetou Old (Meow Press), Turbulence (St. Lazaire Press) and Breccia: Selected Poems 1974-1986 (Editions Phi / Station Hill), as well as several anthologies and many volumes of translations, both into English and into French, the most recent being Paul Celan's Threadsuns and Breathturn, Maurice Blanchot's The Unavowable Community and Edmond Jabès’s >From the Desert to the Book. Since 1992 he has taught poetry and poetics at SUNY-Albany. With Jerome Rothenberg he has published a two-volume anthology of 20th Century Avant-Garde writings, Poems for the Millennium: The University of California Book of Modern & Postmodern Poetry, (University of California Press, 1995 & 1998), the first volume of which received the 1996 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature. Rothenberg’s & Joris’ previous collaboration pppppp: Selected Writings of Kurt Schwitters (Temple University Press, 1993, to be reissued by Exact Change, Fall 2001) was awarded the 1994 PEN Center USA West Literary Award for Translation. In 2001 Exact Change will publish Rothenberg's & Joris' translation of the collected writings of Pablo Picasso. Thanks to an NEA translator’s grant for 1999/2000, Joris finished work on two further Paul Celan volumes, Lichtzwang and Eingedunkelt. Towards a Nomadic Poetics, a manifesto-essay, was published in 1999 by Spanner Editions, Hereford, UK, and an extended collection of essays will come out in 2002 from Wesleyan. His work has been translated into French, German, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic. LAURA MULLEN was born in Los Angeles and grew up in various coastal California towns. She holds degrees in English (from UC Berkeley) and Poetry (U Iowa). Her work experience includes stints as a Museum Guard and Receptionist. Her books of poetry include The Surface, The Tales of Horror and After I Was Dead. She has taught at Colby College and the University of Miami. An Associate Professor, she teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Colorado State University. Her awards include residencies at the MacDowell Colony, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Rona Jaffe Award, and Ironwood's Stanford Prize. Recent work has been published or is forthcoming in Facture, Jubilat, The Styles, Ploughshares, New American Writing, Bombay Gin and Chicago Review. A hypertext work has also recently been installed on the AltX web site. Mullen has completed a translation from the French of a book-length poem by Remi Bouthonnier; other current projects include a “murder mystery” titled M which she describes as a follow-up to The Tales of Horror. Mullen has just returned to Colorado after a year-long sabbatical. ***************************************************** There will be a short Open Reading immediately before the featured readings. Sign up for the Open Reading will take place promptly at 8:00 p.m. ***************************************************** The LEFT HAND READING SERIES is an independent series presenting readings of original literary works by emerging and established writers. Founded in 1996, the series is curated by poets Mark DuCharme and Laura Wright. Readings in the series are presented monthly. Upcoming events in the series include: ~~~THURSDAY, OCTOBER 11th: JACK COLLOM & KARI EDWARDS~~~ For more information about the Left Hand Reading Series, call (303) 938-9346 or (303) 544-5854. ***************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 10:49:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: 2 Planes Crash Into World Trade Center MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit from September 11, 2001 2 Planes Crash Into World Trade Center By TERENCE NEILAN Two airplanes crashed into each of the two towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan this morning, in what the F.B.I. says is a delibrate attack. Bridge and Tunnel Closings Airports All New York City airports are closed. Subways All subway lines are closed until further notice. Bridges All bridges coming into Manhattan are closed. Tunnels All tunnels coming into Manhattan are closed. Within a span of 18 minutes, planes crashed into each of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan soon after 9 this morning in what President Bush said in a short announcement was "a national tragedy and an apparent act of terrorism against our country." Later, witnesses reported two explosions at the Pentagon building in Washington, setting off a fire, and the White House was evacuated. All airline travel within the United States was suspended and Mr. Bush was said to be on his way back from a visit from Sarasota, Fla., to Washinton. Mr. Bush said in Sarasota he had ordered that "the full resources of the federal government" be used to carry out a full investigation to find out who was responsible for the World Trade Center attacks. "Terrorism against our country will not stand," he said, before ending by leading a prayer for victims of the attacks. Smoke and fires poured out of the towers, and there were early reports of six deaths and thousands of injuries. Witness accounts differed over what kind of planes were involved in the impacts. One witness told CNN television that the first plane seemed to slow and deliberately line up before crashing into the north tower. A witness who works in the strategic planning department at The New York Times, Alan Flippen, said that as he came to work on 46th Street just before 9 he saw an American Airlines Boeing 767 flying "very low in the direction of the World Trade Center towers." He said he did not see the impact, but later reports said one of the planes that crashed into the towers was an American Airlines plane that had been hijacked on a flight from Boston. In Washington, officials said the F.B.I. was investigating reports of the hijacking before the crashes. Heavy black smoke billowed into the sky above the gaping holes in the side of the 110-story twin towers, one of New York City's most famous landmarks, and debris rained down upon the street, one of the city's busiest work areas. When the second plane hit, a fireball of flame and smoke erupted, leaving a huge hole in the glass and steel tower. All New York City-area airports were shut down, and several subway lines were immediately shut down. Trading on Wall Street was suspended and many businesses were ordered to evacuate their personnel. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 11:00:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: World Trade Center Collapses MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable from SEPTEMBER 11, 10:40 EDT World Trade Center Collapses NEW YORK (AP) =8B In a horrific sequence of destruction, terrorists = crashed two planes into the World Trade Center and the twin 110-story towers collapsed Tuesday morning. Explosions also rocked the Pentagon and the State Department and spread fear across the nation. The fate of those in the twin skyscrapers was not immediately known. Authorities had been trying to evacuate the 50,000 people who work in the twin towers, but many were thought to be trapped. President Bush ordered a full-scale investigation to ``hunt down the folks who committed this act.'' One of the planes that crashed into the Trade Center was American Airlines Flight 11, hijacked after takeoff from Boston en route to Los Angeles, American Airlines said. The planes blasted fiery, gaping holes in the upper floors of the twin towers. A witness said he saw bodies falling from the twin towers and people jumping out. About an hour later, the southern tower collapsed with a roar a huge cloud of smoke; the other tower fell about a half-hour after that. ``This is perhaps the most audacious terrorist attack that's ever taken place in the world,'' said Chris Yates, an aviation expert at Jane's Transport in London. ``It takes a logistics operation from the terror = group involved that is second to none. Only a very small handful of terror = groups is on that list. ... I would name at the top of the list Osama Bin = Laden.'' All planes were grounded across the country by the Federal Aviation Administration. All bridges and tunnels into Manhattan were closed down. The twin disaster at the World Trade Center happened shortly before 9 a.m. and then right around 9 a.m. Heavy black smoke billowed into the sky above the gaping holes in the side of the twin towers, one of New York City's most famous landmarks, and debris rained down upon the street, one of the city's busiest work areas. When the second plane hit, a fireball of flame and smoke erupted, leaving = a huge hole in the glass and steel tower. John Axisa, who was getting off a PATH train to the World Trade Center, said he saw ``bodies falling out'' of the building. He said he ran = outside, and watched people jump out of the first building, and then there was a second explosion, and he felt heat on the back of neck. WCBS-TV, citing an FBI agent, said five or six people jumped out of the windows. People screamed every time another person leaped. David Reck was handing out literature for a candidate for public advocate = a few blocks away when he saw a jet come in ``very low, and then it made a slight twist and dove into the building.'' People ran down the stairs in panic and fled the building. Thousands of pieces of what appeared to be office paper came drifting over Brooklyn, about three miles away. Within the hour, an aircraft crashed on a helicopter landing pad near the Pentagon, a car bomb exploded outside the State Department, and the West Wing of the White House was evacuated amid threats of terrorism. And another explosion rocked New York about an hour after the crash. ``Today we've had a national tragedy,'' Bush said in Sarasota, Fla. ``Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent = terrorist attack on our country.'' He said he would be returning immediately to Washington. Terrorist bombers struck the World Trade Center in February 1993, killing six people and injuring more than 1,000 others. ``A second occurrence is just beyond belief,'' said Ira Furber, former National Transportation Safety Board spokesman. Several subway lines were immediately shut down Tuesday. Trading on Wall Street was suspended. ``We heard a large boom and then we saw all this debris just falling,'' said Harriet Grimm, who was inside a bookstore on the World Trade Center's first floor when the first explosion rocked the building. ``The plane was coming in low and ... it looked like it hit at a slight angle,'' said Sean Murtagh, a CNN vice president, the network reported. In 1945, an Army Air Corps B-25, a twin-engine bomber, crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building in dense fog. In Florida, Bush was reading to children in a classroom at 9:05 a.m. when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispered into his ear. The president briefly turned somber before he resumed reading. He addressed the tragedy about a half-hour later. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 06:04:26 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: for a time Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit What we only own for a time A time & the time & in time Everything comes apart A part D parts Se par A tes All that I love one day Separates from me Everyone sees Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 06:20:13 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: doubt & worry Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Doubt we can doubt Doubt we can anything We can doubt our traditions Our eruditions Our friends our foes We doubt everything we know & we can sorry to say Doubt the way we feel The way we think the way of prayer We doubt our very selves There are many Doubts are deadly ? ? ? & worry Worry we can about anything We worry about our friends our family Our children & our selves There are many all to many doubts We can worry bout the weather Will the economy get better We can worry about a rose & how it grows We can worry about anything This thing & that thing & everything Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 14:12:17 -0700 Reply-To: rova@rova.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rova Saxophone Quartet Subject: from san francisco In-Reply-To: <161200.3209194841@ny-chicagost2a-54.buf.adelphia.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I turned on the news when I woke up this morning. This is something I never, ever do, but for some reason this morning I did. It was 9 a.m. I remember Sesame Street was on PBS, and I turned the channel to one of the networks and was immediately confronted with the image of smoke billowing out over a great city surrounded by water, which I assumed to be San Francisco, and I heard the newscasters talking about “terrorism” and “plane crashes” and tried to read the scrolling headlines that ran across the top and bottom of the screen and take it all in. Gradually I understood that a plane – no, two planes – had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York – this was the footage I was seeing. It took longer to gather the rest of the information: two other plane crashes, one at the Pentagon, one outside Pittsburgh, a car bomb outside the State Department. It was so surreal it was hard to believe I wasn’t watching a movie, that part in, say, a Superman movie when the villains have succeeded in thwarting Superman and inflicting mass destruction and there’s a cutaway to newscasters confusedly relaying the news of some catastrophe of cartoon-like proportions, and calling upon Superman to save the day --- only this was much worse. There was a tone of calm shock to the whole thing that I’d never seen before. As if no one could figure out how to express emotion on so vast a scale. No one could register anything except confusion. And shock. I sat watching various news reports for the better part of an hour, wondering what was happening in the world immediately outside and taking in all the ancillary information – all domestic flights had been grounded, schools were closed, also local government offices, etc. To this point my morning had closely resembled that of countless people just now waking up all over the country. Next came the urge to go out into the world, to figure out what was going on, to see people and catch the tone of the day outside. It was similar to the urge to have some authority figure, some “Superman,” make some definite pronouncement on the whole thing, put it all in perspective. But all we had was our president landing mysteriously in Louisiana and making a vow of revenge which seemed feeble and incredibly childish somehow in the scope of things. Anyway I had to get to my office. We were supposed to have a meeting at 11.30 and I hadn’t gotten any word that it would be cancelled, hadn ’t yet grasped that of course it would. Sonny had my car, having spent the night at Sasha’s, and so I got ready and rode out into the day on my bike. I noted with some amazement that there were still cars on the roads. Buses were still running. The traffic seemed less than usual, though, and there were less people than usual parked at the dry docks. When I got to work I turned on the computer and got more news off the Internet. Salon.com, mostly, but even on ESPN they had a timeline and stories about it. Then I checked my e-mail. Getting back to normal in spite of it all. Stuff like that. I talked with Diane. She had heard the news first thing this morning when, like me, she for some reason turned on her radio. Of course she was up much earlier, when it had just happened; she was teaching a little while later and nobody had heard about it yet, all the reports were completely mixed up and confused. Then I called Hilda and Bruce and talked with Hilda and I could hear the TV in the background and Bruce had stayed home. After that I just couldn’t sit still in my office. I had to get out and “see.” I had heard that City Hall was closed and thought I’d walk down there. I walked up 8th St. towards Market, kind of in a daze. When I reached Market I found that the Burger King on the corner of Hyde was closed (“Till noon” a sign said), and the Library was closed (“by order of the mayor,” according to another sign). The newspaper kiosk was open, but none of the papers had any of the news yet – it was all still headlines about the latest rampage killings in Sacramento two days ago, which already seemed distant and quaint in comparison to what was on everyone’s lips. I walked on towards City Hall. The streets all around it, Polk, Grove, Larkin, were barricaded. Apparently the State building is adjacent to City Hall, and that was closed, too. There were still bums out lounging around on the lawn in the square out front and in front of the library, though, passing cigarettes, lying down, taking their ease. There was a group of German tourists who walked by with a map, talking in muted tones. The only cars around were cops’. There were three or four motorcycle cops lined up in front of the Civic Auditorium. Then as you got closer to City Hall there were cops patrolling on foot, yelling at whoever happened to step into the street in front of the building to “go around the barricades.” There was an Asian man who stood there gesturing that he just wanted to get “over there” until finally he turned and walked back around. The problem was that they’d barricaded such a vast area that they couldn’t really guard it all, and the barricades and tape were stretched out in a confusing maze so you couldn’t really tell what was off-limits and what was just deserted. Nevertheless I gathered that I was to walk around and so I skirted the building and crossed Grove and headed towards Van Ness. There was a young cop on the corner, short and thick-set, and I looked up at him with that feeling of strange commiseration and comradery you feel when something really terrible has happened, but all he said to me upon catching my eye was “We need you to stay out of the street,” spoken with a sharp snap of authority, as though I had made some move to break through the barricade or was just shifty-looking enough to try it. “Fine,” I said, walking on, the feeling broken, denied. So this is how it’s going to be: We need you to stay out of the street. I had a sinking feeling that they were saying that, or something like it, all over the country right now. Next would come the homeless sweeps and the random searches. Already the borders were closed. Who could say what was happening in towns like Detroit, where there’s a heavy Arab population. Where that “vow of revenge” Bush had made would first be taken up and carried out, against whom. Then from behind me I heard a trio of cops bark out: “Ma’am! Ma’am! Get out of the street and walk around please! Ma’am!” They were shouting at a goodlooking young woman talking on a cell phone who had wandered out obliviously into the street in front of City Hall. Hearing them, she gestured and turned around. On Van Ness I saw a woman I know riding a bicycle, her face pinched in a look of hurried anxiousness, and I thought of stopping her by calling out “Ivy,” which was her name, but she was so preoccupied she rode right past me on the sidewalk without looking up, and I didn’t say anything. It was remarkable to realize there were no planes in the air, catching the sun in the corner of your eye as they curved eastward over the bay or roared south towards the airport to land. And that there were no planes catching anyone’s eye anywhere in the country. I walked over to Raskin’s office to pick up Rova’s mail. But the building was closed – another sign explained they’d open tomorrow. I crossed Division to go to Rainbow Grocery and buy some things for lunch and for dinner later. In one of the aisles a woman was exclaiming something about the crashes to some employees, and people stopped to listen. She was saying she’d heard how someone on one of the planes had been in the bathroom dialing 911 on their cell phone and telling them that the plane was going to crash. I couldn’t imagine it, but somehow I put myself there, tried to envision myself doing something like that. Had no idea if it was true or not, or what possible difference it could have made. Just a sort of reflex for a situation in which no reflexes can have any possible meaning, or effect. Earlier I had said to Hilda that things felt different already. I couldn’t explain what that meant. I guess what I was feeling was this vague rage, this impotence, this odd remoteness from what had happened which was nevertheless erased by the very enormity of it. The World Trade Center towers had been there this morning; now, they were gone. Somehow that was more remarkable, more demoralizing than the abstract notion of all the people that had been killed. There was yet no number for that, no body count, though they had estimated it was in the thousands. In some news story or another they had reported that Palestinians were passing out candy on the streets and celebrating in the Middle East. You could picture that. And you could picture the towers going down, because you had seen footage of the explosions, even the highlighted shape of the second plane crashing into the second tower fifteen minutes after the first one, the cameras already trained on its smoking wreckage. But you couldn’t, just yet, wrap your mind around the skyline of Manhattan without those towers. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 20:52:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: It's 8:23 in New York Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you are looking. Or looking away. After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family was eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more people now than they are used to handling." Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop thinking of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four commercial jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was overflowing with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the bridge and as long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers were not there. And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us walking back to the island. The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why wouldn't a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while you hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were cleared of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing downtown. While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, especially Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends we just saw on our recent trip. As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by the storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he thought people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. Uncanny is the word. What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. This is happening. It's 8:23 in New York. --Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 09:54:05 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "pre.verse][1:chpt 2.1][" Subject: [FBICIANBCCNNNYPD] trauma networks vs bloodlust demeanors Comments: To: New Media Announcements , recode@autonomous.org, list@rhizome.org, spectre@mikrolisten.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" liquid mo.][vomit N][bile news face glow::target][s][-seeking floating chrome fl][ame][owers::asbestos breathing::visual depth charges::a smak of smeared black broken towers::jagged cartoon plane-bites::gaseous ][price-warred][ nausea & blood f.low.ing::sepia hotellian crashing orwellian::trapped N caged in bombs of pictured glass filters [tvscreenic]::x.tremist N d.ranged media outlets drown in personalized life-loading :: "we will find these ppl and they will s][b][uffer][the tragic][" :: acronyms splice cataclysm via the per.sonal::[FBICIANBCCNNNYPD]::kabullish scrape-goating::bleeding jet-propelled aggression & plangent hell::bone & m.etal sh][r][ocking::economy locked down N dust gravity up::pocket ][dis][functioning in streets with phone sav][i][oured dramas::debri polygon][e][ bl][g][izzards::zombies of masked post-x.plosion-corpses::deaf N d][f][umb][ling][ed::a sunset of fog loss & automobilic peace::home videoed heros suck big bucked glory::war rhetoric meets m][ilitary][elodrama::cliches ab][cessing][ounding on CNNesqued TV::blank][et][ cover.age][of war][::ATM's blanked in a frozen rush::billowing I.D. checks N stumbling news.reading::National Guard][ant][s in reality smears::trauma networks vs bloodlust demeanors::televised static force-colonised . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ pro.ject.ile x.blooms.x .go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 13:44:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lourdes Vazquez Subject: another reading MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi everyone: A GATHERING OF THE TRIBES PRESENTS; LATITUDE SOUTH: Poetry and Translation Fall 2001 SERIES Sundays at 5:00p.m. Sunday, September 23 Lila Zemborain, Rosa Alcalá, Marianela Medrano Sunday October 21, Roberto Tejada, Kris Dykstra Sunday November 18, Pedro López Adorno, Mercedes Roffé, Mireya Pérez-Elderlyi Series curated by Lourdes Vázquez A Gathering of the Tribes is located At 285 East Third St. 2nd floor (Between Ave C and D) 212-674-3778 www.tribes.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:10:10 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "pre.verse][1:chpt 2.1][" Subject: ::[post] 11th hr Reality Smear:: Comments: To: New Media Announcements , recode@autonomous.org, list@rhizome.org, spectre@mikrolisten.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ::[post] 11 hrs:: liquid mobile vomit news & faces text-message glowing:: targets-seeking floating chrome flame flowers:: asbestos ground-zero breathing:: visual depth charges:: a communicative-junky smack of smeared black broken towers:: jagged cartoon plane-bites:: gaseous price-warred nausea & blood levels low and flowing:: sepia hotels crashing orwellian:: trapped & caged in bombs of pictured glass filters [TV screenic]:: extremist & deranged media outlets drown in personalized life-loading :: "we will find these ppl and they will suffer [and buffer the tragic]" :: acronyms splice cataclysm via the sonic personal:: [FBI.CIA.NBC.CNN.NYPD]:: kabullish scrape-goating:: bleeding jet-propelled aggression & plangent hell:: bone & metal rock-shocking:: economy locked down & dust gravity up:: pocket/cell disfunctioning in streets with phone savioured dramas:: debri pentagon blizzards:: zombies of masked post-explosion-corpses:: deaf & dumbed-fumbling:: a sunset of fog loss & automobilic peace:: home videoed heros suck big bucked glory:: war rhetoric meets military melodrama:: cliches abcessing & abounding on CNNesqued TV:: blanket coverage of war:: ATM's blanked in a frozen rush:: billowing I.D. checks N stumbling newsreaders:: National Guardants in reality smears:: trauma networks vs bloodlust demeanors:: televised static force-colonised . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ pro.ject.ile x.blooms.x .go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 20:56:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: NYC poets Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Please check in everyone so we know you are OK-- _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 21:58:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010911160802.026fb080@pop.bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed what will be the response? what does it mean to say we'll get those who perpetrated this act of horror and "those who harbor them?" will democracy at home suffer collateral damage? Gene At 08:52 PM 9/11/01 -0400, you wrote: >What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear >skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you >are looking. > >Or looking away. > >After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this >morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family >was eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; >the mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The >coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're >not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more >people now than they are used to handling." > >Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist >yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are >sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > >I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south >end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop >thinking of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling >Groovy" ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > >It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable >plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four >commercial jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was >overflowing with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the >bridge and as long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, >there was a big plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see >that the Towers were not there. > >And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > >Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us walking >back to the island. > >The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency >vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why >wouldn't a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > >The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while you >hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in >Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people >were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were >cleared of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck >racing downtown. > >While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication >is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. >There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, >especially Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I >remember their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends >we just saw on our recent trip. > >As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by the >storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had >been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she >had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were >working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and >were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he >thought people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > >At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see >New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the >water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The >scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > >Uncanny is the word. > >What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > >I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already >know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > >This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > >This is happening. > >It's 8:23 in New York. > > >--Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:28:06 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles. Etal. Its strange and I've only been to NY once (1993, ironically as it happens) when I went up the South Tower. It seems surreal even here in New Zealand. I also was watching the videos over and over: it does become addictive. I try to imagine a human plunging into that building. At the moment even I'm emotional. had some symapthy for the Palestinian cause, I tried to understand the Teleban: but I think the US has to face it. It (and we in the West) ARE and or IS under a real threat to democracy: to human civilisation as a against the barabric bastards "out there". I'm right behind the US whatever they do. Bush is right in this case. Democracy, what little we have, is being attacked. I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut cases.And although I'm not a great supporter of Israel (I know there were injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times) but it seemed to me that the US and Israel were probing toward a negotiated settlement. That wont happen with these guys:they are sub- human robotic scum: they are beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Bernstein" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:52 PM Subject: It's 8:23 in New York > What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you are looking. > > Or looking away. > > After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family was eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more people now than they are used to handling." > > Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop thinking of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four commercial jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was overflowing with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the bridge and as long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers were not there. > > And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us walking back to the island. > > The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why wouldn't a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while you hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were cleared of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing downtown. > > While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, especially Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends we just saw on our recent trip. > > As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by the storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he thought people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > > At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > Uncanny is the word. > > What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > This is happening. > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > --Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 22:20:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: WTC report MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The first we knew of it this morning was when Ana Doina called from New Jersey and asked Lynda if we were okay. Lynda (I think--I was upstairs taking a shower, getting ready to go off to Newark for my two Tuesday classes) said, "Sure, why? Who is this?" Ana said, "Look out your window." And Lynda looked out and saw great billows of smoke rising into the sky. Our windows on that side of the livingroom look south, but the WLC is blocked from view by an arm of the building we live in. At night, when we're going to bed we can see the skinny communications tower at the very top of . . . I guess it's WTC1. Just that, and its warning lights--lights intended to warn off aircraft, strange to say. Most of the day, we sat transfixed by the images on the TV screen, one or the other of us jumping up every now and then to check the billowing mountain of smoke downtown. The first phone call was from Lynda's mother in Florida. It wasn't until a bit after 5:00 in the afternoon that we ventured out of the apartment, first to go up to the roof about five floors above us. Waiting for the elevator, we checked out the large window near it that until today had a clear view of the WTC in all but the foggiest, cloudiest weathers. Just smoke, today.A handful of people were up there, looking off to the south, where the smoke was still rising, and where a sudden rush of stronger billowing may have betokened the collapse of Bldg. 7, which occurred, I think, about that time. It was warm and sunny on the roof. The late-afternoon sun was sparkling on the Hudson, just across West Street from our building. One of those gorgeous late-summer evenings--except for the large smudge of smoke. I remembered living as a kid in an apartment house at 7th Ave. and 14th St., where for a few weeks during WW2 we could lean out the dining room window and see the black smoke rising from the French liner Normandy burning where it lay on its side at its dock at the foot of 14th St. There aren't many docks along the Hudson anymore. The riverfront is becoming people space, with miles of pathways for joggers, and skaters, and bikers. And there were a lot of them down there as we looked down from the roof. Dog-walkers too. Yes, the dogs still need to be walked here in New York. So, we decided to go down and walk for a bit ourselves. West Street is usually crowded with traffic, especially on weekdays, early in the morning and in the late afternoon. It's what the West-side Highway becomes here downtown. Today it was free of trucks, cars, taxis. Police cars and emergency vehicles were almost all we saw. But in the park and along the pathways used by joggers and bikers--lots of folks walking along, riding along, just standing or sitting staring south. Some people heading uptown, a couple with face masks hanging around their necks. We got down to Pier 40, just below Morton Street before coming to the police barrier, where two officers were turning people back. A block or two below, lots of emergency vehicles, ambulances, flashing lights, and beyond them the mountain of smoke where the WTC had been until this morning. Against the darkness of the smoke the white and green tower of the Woolworth Building seemed brighter and more elaborate than ever. Coming back up, we walked along Hudson Street (what 8th Ave. becomes south of Bleecker Street) and the scene was really strange--almost no traffic, some of the sidestreets barricaded (to secure the precinct house on W. 10th Street, a patrolman told me). Shops (almost all dark, with their security gates down and locked) were closed, as were most restaurants (all but a couple Chinese places). Even the White Horse was closed. At one point, a convoy of twenty ambulances went by, speeding north, with wailing police cars fore and aft. The ambulances I saw were from places as far away as Cherry Hill, New Jersey, just east of Philly. When emergency vehicles weren't passing by, the street had that eerie Sunday-morning sort of stillness to it. What wasn't there was what we saw--the taxis, the trucks, the twin towers (margarine sticks, I've enjoyed calling them) of the WTC, the business as usual. When we got home there were more phone calls and more TV. We learned from Timo (Lynda's son in Chicago) that Zach and Maggie had been heading this morning for Century 21, a big store right across the street from the WTC, to get Maggie a pair of shoes. Later, Zach called again and told us that he and Maggie had picked up people walking back into Brooklyn from Manhattan and ferried them home in their car. Folks on TV started wondering whether there wasn't some failure of intelligence involved in all this. Duh, double-duh. Hal "That's the way the world goes, and it's not going well." --Bertolt Brecht Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 01:40:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: +++ MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - +++ . . XtCallbackNone (3x) - map a pop-up. you will call us from beneath. XtCallCallbackList (3x) - process callbacks. we will say to you. XtCallbackPopdown (3x) - unmap a pop-up. we will call you from above. . root tty1 Wed Sep 12 00:37 - crashed reboot system boot 2.4.4-4GB Wed Sep 12 00:35 (00:28) you always come back to me. root tty1 Mon Sep 10 00:06 - down (00:38) reboot system boot 2.4.4-4GB Mon Sep 10 00:06 (00:39) they will find you alive in the burning fires. root tty1 Sun Sep 9 17:21 - down (00:06) reboot system boot 2.4.4-4GB Sun Sep 9 17:21 (00:07) you will find them alive in the burning fires. . 00: Sr 01: sur 02: UN 03: USA 04: USM 05: use 06: user 07: USG 08: USN 09: USSR you always come back to me. . burnimage cd /mnt ls cd archive cd image ls cp WTC.jpg ~/ cd ls cd / ls cd bin ls cd /Sr/bin ls man imagasm ls cd ls WTC.jpg jpgpos WTC.jpg 6c ls history jpgrevert WTC.jpg > WTC.jpg WTC.jpg /mnt cd /mnt ls cd shutdown -r now. i can see you World Trade Center. i can see you any time i want. shutdown -r now. anytime i want. shutdown -r now. . i can see you any time i want. they will find you alive in the burning fires. . . we will call you from above. _ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 08:37:15 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My "little" brother Jimmy is an ironworker in NYC. He works for the company that built the WTC. After the '93 bombing he helped make repairs. Since yesterday he's been running a crew to help clear debris from the bombsite. He was a couple hundred yards away when Bldg 7 fell. He said he was standing in 3 feet of ash at the time. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:39:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hassen Subject: Fw: from the War Resisters League Comments: To: Wryting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- >From the War Resisters League: I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email is down, but I was present when this statement was drafted and said I'd take the text home to transmit at once. David McReynolds >>>>>>>>>>>>> As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters League, our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands, of New Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center. The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were there when the final collapse occurred. Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington D.C. have similar thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this day. We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an extended analysis until more information is available but some things are clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of billions on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was from the beginning, when terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target civilians, or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would mean an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation of terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza. The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those weapons fuel the starkest kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support for armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - and the creation of Osama Bin Laden. Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe. Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation for decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice - not through escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians - may these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on other civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear which many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at this time and urge special consideration for this community. We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict and a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League in the national office, September 11, 2001. Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org globalnet@mindspring.com Via Turati, 53 40134 Bologna ITALY tel. 011.39.051.6141107 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:28:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit better yet: how many angels can dance on the head of a pin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:33:08 -0500 Reply-To: archambeau@hermes.lfc.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Archambeau Organization: Lake Forest College Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Anre Breton's "The Automatic Message" -- n fact, the entire volume _What is Surrealism?" (works of Breton, ed. and intor by Franklin Rosemant) is worth conidering... Bob Archambeau George Bowering wrote: > > > Hi, all. > >> > >> I am proposing to teach an undergrad course next > >> semester in surrealism. I'd love suggestions on > >> things you think are "MUST USE"--theoretical or > >> historical texts, films, books, poems, artworks, > > > etc. > > Well, Freud on dreams would seem the first and most logical source. > -- > George Bowering > Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:21:37 -0600 Reply-To: Laura.Wright@Colorado.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Wright Subject: Re: sub-human robotic scum In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >they are sub- human robotic scum: they are >beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! No human, no matter how twisted, angry, despicable, or wrong-doing is sub-human. No one deserves to be burnt. No one. Until we stop vengeful lashing out, which is what yesterday's actions most likely were, we will *all* continue to burn, at random. I am not being hopelessly idealistic when I say this, but painfully realistic. I, as a U.S. taxpayer, feel partly responsible for the atrocities my government has committed which may have led to this most recent atrocity. I felt the same way when we last bombed Baghdad and, earlier, during the Los Angeles riots. No one is to be excused yet what good does it do to blame? Original sin is not a useful concept. The real issue for me is what, as a poet, as a human, am I going to do now? Laura -- Laura Wright Serials Cataloging Norlin Library, University of Colorado, Boulder (303) 492-3923 Poetry must be at least as powerful as music, but I am not sure that it is possible --George Oppen ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:26:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: from the War Resisters League In-Reply-To: <00b801c13b98$e3406300$86322518@adubn1.nj.home.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Read: "American cowboys have reaped the fruit of their own violence." This is a cheap and simplistic shot to send out the day after such a tragedy. On the other hand, I have deeply appreciated the stories posted by Charles & others. I still have "feelin grovy" running through my head. St. Louis is business-as-usual, but everyone is kind of in a daze. -Aaron > From: hassen > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:39:50 -0400 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Fw: from the War Resisters League > > ----- Original Message ----- >> From the War Resisters League: > I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email is down, but I was > present when this statement was drafted and said I'd take the text home to > transmit at once. David McReynolds > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and > subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north > from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters League, > our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands, of New > Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center. > The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins > where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were > there when the final collapse occurred. > > Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington D.C. have similar > thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of > the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent > passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this > day. > > We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know > that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an > extended analysis until more information is available but some things are > clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of billions > on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was from the beginning, when > terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. > > We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. > develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target civilians, > or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would mean > an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of > hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation of > terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the > Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the > Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West > Bank and Gaza. > > The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in > millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, > through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the > sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier > of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those weapons fuel the starkest > kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support for > armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - and > the creation of Osama Bin Laden. > > Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, > condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, > the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our > nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have > felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our > largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe. > > Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation for > decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through > disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice - not through > escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as > those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians - may > these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on > other civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear which > many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at > this time and urge special consideration for this community. > > We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall > move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict and > a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many > lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. > > This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was > drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by > the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League in the national > office, September 11, 2001. > > Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 > > Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 > Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org > globalnet@mindspring.com > > Via Turati, 53 > 40134 Bologna ITALY > tel. 011.39.051.6141107 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 09:29:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: WTC report In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii My heart goes out to everyone, and I hope we can soon here reports from our NYC poetics friends to make sure everyone is ok. I am thinking of you. A former New Yorker, I miss my city very much, and mourn for it. One thing I keep thinking of: when I lived in NYC, I dated a guy who once knew a British mother and her young son who were visiting the States. When in Manhattan, the little boy wandered around in a daze, staring downtown and skyward, and say in a hushed tone, "Look, Mum. The twins are so beautiful tonight." The poor beautiful twins and all their occupants. My grandfather worked in Tower 2 for many, many years under Attorney General Bob Abrams, and we used to visit him there. An uncle and cousin both work in the WFC complex but neither, thank goodness, were at work yesterday. Love to everyone. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:04:14 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Thank you for forwarding this message to the list. In times like this it is important to remember that, however unthinkable this tragedy is, however much grief it has caused, violence only begets more violence. If you don't believe me, just look at the Middle East or Northern Ireland. Also, it is important to be reminded that for too long the United States has been complicit in violence abroad in pursuit of "our national interests." (bin Laden, to give one example, apparently got his start as a terrorist working *with the CIA* in the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 80s). That does not IN ANY WAY make yesterday's attack conscionable, but it does provide a context in which we can begin to understand it-- and it should at the very least give us pause before we enter into another cycle of retaliation and victimization. I'd like to offer my condolence to anyone on the list who has personally been affected by this tragedy. Thanks to Charles for his post. Anyone else out there on the list who is in New York and alright, please send word let us know. I think we all will be relieved to hear from you. Peace, Mark DuCharme >From: hassen >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Fw: from the War Resisters League >Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:39:50 -0400 > >----- Original Message ----- > >From the War Resisters League: >I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email is down, but I was >present when this statement was drafted and said I'd take the text home to >transmit at once. David McReynolds > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > >As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and >subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north >from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters >League, >our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands, of New >Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade >Center. >The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins >where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were >there when the final collapse occurred. > >Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington D.C. have >similar >thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of >the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent >passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this >day. > >We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know >that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an >extended analysis until more information is available but some things are >clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of billions >on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was from the beginning, when >terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. > >We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. >develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target civilians, >or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would mean >an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of >hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation >of >terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the >Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the >Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West >Bank and Gaza. > >The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in >millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, >through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the >sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier >of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those weapons fuel the >starkest >kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support for >armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - >and >the creation of Osama Bin Laden. > >Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, >condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, >the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our >nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have >felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our >largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe. > >Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation >for >decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through >disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice - not through >escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as >those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians - may >these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on >other civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear which >many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at >this time and urge special consideration for this community. > >We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall >move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict and >a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many >lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. > >This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was >drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by >the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League in the national >office, September 11, 2001. > >Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 > >Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 >Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org >globalnet@mindspring.com > >Via Turati, 53 >40134 Bologna ITALY >tel. 011.39.051.6141107 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:21:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: so what do we know MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So what do we know we know so what what We know is it so is it always so & so & so says ho so what we know we Know & what he knows he knows & what she knows she knows & if Its the same whose is it or is it The same knowing & if its endless Is it knowledge or ignorance * * * We threw out the anchor But there was no ship just Whim that beget her by Night & so we strive on Into the night to manage Our fear & our hair & our delight * * * & we fiddle & diddle Round & about in & out Round about another Round more spills over More meaning more lost In the words of & plus & more & more & surplus Of more meaning more * * * A hope & a star make a whim & a wish to catch a match & an excess & so real pointing Useful yes use that means More than you can say excess Explores thinking what was Thought before * * * Saying more than You like makes More & more More & more SENSE * * * NOT NEAT Not nice Not exactly twice I say as I see it but Really I see as I say it * * * DEFINING wings as other Things & mirror on a wall Whose the fairest judge of all Creature of creation a tide of QUESTIONS a bow tie is not a Row boat but could always Could be rows & rows & Rows of in her distant Horizon said & dead From head to said & then dead Get it dead * * * How I see now how I see how now Brown cow wow said before Before more & more words & words are words & more Needs ores or navigations the Nature of mind a sort of reality Naturally pleasurable playful putty * * * What is the dif ference between rows Of boats I rows of goats & yes Theres a difference & the difference Is five away or one does not buck in Reading & one does listen & whats the Difference between rhyme & rhythm & there is here is the difference right here & the difference between thought & remembrance Is that one is not & the other is hot THE NATURE OF MIND nothing by nature so what Do we know discovered & recovered in the shifting Sands & drifting clouds cant imagine a solid some thing Pleases one replaces another TO UNDERSTAND Human understanding to understand that to under Stand that there are things To understand that there are Things it can not To understand & what to understand What those things are it can not yes they work & play Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:53:30 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "pre.verse][1:chpt 2.1][" Subject: ::[post] 13th hr Reality Surge:: Comments: To: recode@autonomous.org, list@rhizome.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" knife-techne meets hi-d.pravity::[antithetical-n.struments as jet-scum scatters]::fire f][r][ighting stun-rumbles::tight non-tremor palaver 4m eye-beaded head-puppet::speech writers glossing overtime::subtle conflict C++.man.tics::d][manding][esperate allied shoulders call::speci][al][es opera][tion][s::hiccuping hizztorical pearled harbouring::ambu.lancing & wailing::hi-pitching & glass plained s][equence][lices::manhatt][an][eresque tastes awry::co][mmuter][rporate ][g][r][ey][outines amiss::grande centrality smashed::chewed cabled breakages::caul.ing election-abort::gritlocking::pay-phonic realms::ho.][blood][spit][ting][.al totaling::medic.cal.ling knee.d][eep][ed::streaming m.mergency bleats::c][sl][oughing N oxygenically caught:: . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ pro.ject.ile x.blooms.x .go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:03:40 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: We're Going to War, We're Going to War Comments: To: ImitaPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Glory Be to the Warrior's Rush May God grant Glory to the Warrior's Rush May his Playboy Bunnies arrive as always, airbrushed May his Heart be cold as frozen strip Steak May his Mind be kept safe in thickening Skull May his Budweiser drop sharply into No Fly Zones May his Seed shoot point blank into fires of Daybreak In his gory Glee, May his Fields be unsown and May his Hands be quietly lulled or alone Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 18:05:29 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Randolph Healy Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit for surrealism in its purest form, one can hardly better the literal Randolph Healy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Archambeau" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 4:33 PM Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? > Anre Breton's "The Automatic Message" -- n fact, the entire volume _What > is Surrealism?" (works of Breton, ed. and intor by Franklin Rosemant) is > worth conidering... > > Bob Archambeau > > George Bowering wrote: > > > > > Hi, all. > > >> > > >> I am proposing to teach an undergrad course next > > >> semester in surrealism. I'd love suggestions on > > >> things you think are "MUST USE"--theoretical or > > >> historical texts, films, books, poems, artworks, > > > > etc. > > > > Well, Freud on dreams would seem the first and most logical source. > > -- > > George Bowering > > Fax 604-266-9000 > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:16:41 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: FW: FBI pushes Carnivore on network providers after attacks Comments: To: ImitaPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit the degradation of civil liberties, the usual result of war, has begun.... >From: Declan McCullagh >Reply-To: declan@well.com >To: politech@politechbot.com >Subject: FC: FBI pushes Carnivore on network providers after attacks >Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:17:03 -0400 > > > >http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46747,00.html > > Anti-Attack Feds Push Carnivore > By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com) > 2:00 a.m. Sep. 12, 2001 PDT > > WASHINGTON -- Federal police are reportedly increasing Internet > surveillance after Tuesday's deadly attacks on the World Trade Center > and the Pentagon. > > Just hours after three airplanes smashed into the buildings in what > some U.S. legislators have dubbed a second Pearl Harbor, FBI agents > began to visit Web-based, e-mail firms and network providers, > according to engineers at those companies who spoke on condition of > anonymity. > > An administrator at one major network service provider said that FBI > agents showed up at his workplace on Tuesday "with a couple of > Carnivores, requesting permission to place them in our core, along > with offers to actually pay for circuits and costs." > > [...] > > Microsoft's Hotmail service has also been the target of increased > federal attention, according to an engineer who works there. > > "Hotmail officials have been receiving calls from the San Francisco > FBI office since mid-(Tuesday) morning and are cooperating with their > expedited requests for information about a few specific accounts," the > person said. "Most of the account names start with the word 'Allah' > and contain messages in Arabic." > > [...] > > > > >------------------------------------------------------------------------- >POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list >You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. >Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ >To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html >This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ >------------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 13:18:55 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: FW: a more appropriate banner seen in nyc today Comments: To: ImitaPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "give evil nothing to oppose and it will dissapear" -tao te ching ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:24:33 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League In-Reply-To: <00b801c13b98$e3406300$86322518@adubn1.nj.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" amen. a breath of sanity. At 10:39 AM -0400 9/12/01, hassen wrote: >----- Original Message ----- >>From the War Resisters League: >I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email is down, but I was >present when this statement was drafted and said I'd take the text home to >transmit at once. David McReynolds > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> > >As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and >subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north >from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters League, >our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands, of New >Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center. >The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins >where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were >there when the final collapse occurred. > >Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington D.C. have similar >thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of >the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent >passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this >day. > >We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know >that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an >extended analysis until more information is available but some things are >clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of billions >on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was from the beginning, when >terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. > >We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. >develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target civilians, >or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would mean >an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of >hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation of >terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the >Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the >Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West >Bank and Gaza. > >The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in >millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, >through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the >sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier >of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those weapons fuel the starkest >kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support for >armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - and >the creation of Osama Bin Laden. > >Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, >condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, >the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our >nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have >felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our >largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe. > >Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation for >decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through >disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice - not through >escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as >those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians - may >these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on >other civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear which >many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at >this time and urge special consideration for this community. > >We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall >move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict and >a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many >lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. > >This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was >drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by >the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League in the national >office, September 11, 2001. > >Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 > >Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 >Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org >globalnet@mindspring.com > >Via Turati, 53 >40134 Bologna ITALY >tel. 011.39.051.6141107 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:02:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Today is the next day of the rest of your life Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" all of a sudden tonight the smell of burning plastic pervades our apartment, making eyes smart. is it something in the building? no, a neighbor explains, that's the smell coming from downtown. * Mei-mei Berssenbrugge calls; she's OK, hanging in a couple of blocks from the epicenter. I say to her I have trouble imagining what is going on. She says, oh you can imagine it all right, from the movies. You just can't conceive it. * I see Andrew, the hairdresser, in the lobby of our building. He says things were on and off today; several appointments were no shows. "Maybe they're not coming back." * A friend in Berkeley asks me how things are going and I write back. The reply is immediate: "automated response". It is entirely blank. * We drop Felix off at a friend's across from his school on 77th and Amsterdam. The fire station on the block, which we pass every day, is empty, with piles of flowers in the doorway. A wave of terror sweeps over us; after all, 200 to 300 firefighters have died. Later in the afternoon, I come to pick Felix up an there are ten or twelve firemen in front of the firehouse, calmly, so it seems, washing the two fire trucks parked in the middle of the street. It's a relief to see them. Then we hear that nine of the thirty men stationed there perished. * The most frequent analogy is to Pearl Harbor, though the London blitz might also be mentioned. I keep thinking of something else, not something that happened but something I expected to happen. In the 50s, we were trained to prepare for a nuclear attack on Manhattan. In elementary school we had drills in which we were marched into the halls and all the window and door glass was covered with wood. The events of yesterday seem to finally play out that fear. * A psychologist friend is on extra duty though the weekend. Those at the edge are going over it. "I may be paranoid but there really are people out to get me." * "It's a bit ominous," a friend writes, "the way the politicos are speaking about "talking with one voice." -- I am just trying to get by talking with no voice. * Many of the officials on TV say we will come out of all this stronger. But it won't be the same we. Stronger or not. * Jerry and Diane Rothenberg come by. We finish off the bottle of "reserve" Stolly I bought just a few weeks ago at the Moscow airport "duty free". * for Patrick give nothing evil to oppose and it will crash the program * the image is greater than the reality the image can't approach the reality the reality has no image * our eyes are burning ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:47:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tracy shaun ruggles Subject: harm any, one In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit supper among night hums nothing towers only lowers to the level of hands together hugging one another ourselves who might it be but us the summer ends in harm, any one could be another us lost for the atonal criss-crosses silently whom ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:08:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" the severity of what's just happened---where the casualties may approach e.g. all u.s. casualities in eight years of viet nam---moves me to silence... but for some reason, i feel i must hazard a few thoughts here... do i think the u.s. govt's (among others nations') ideological-political stance is partly responsible for what happened?... of course... do i think "we" (preferably the united nations) must bring to justice whoever did this?... of course... do i think doing so might require armed intervention into another soveriegn state?... yes... do i think this might pose a risk to civilian populations? (as the military calls them)... yes... do i think this a risk worth taking?... yes, but only after all efforts at diplomacy fail (e.g., "please turn over said persons"), and only with zero civilian casualities as the m.o... do i think this may be a more messy, a more compromised situation than i suggest?... yes... do i think the sensibility "we" require now (on the part of our govt officials e.g.) is the same as the sensibility "we" req'd the day before yesterday?... sad to say, no... do i think the sensibility "we" require now (etc.) is the same as the sensibility "we" may require after "we" bring said persons to justice?... i hope not... i'm pretty sure what i'm suggesting here won't rest well with all of my more pacifist (?) brothers & sisters... but i really don't find it remotely plausible that the u.s., and for that matter the rest of the world, turn its back on what just happened, pretend that "we" can all just get along or some such, that acting w/o a concerted national, and better, international response (as in, above, "bring to justice") will make the world a more peaceful place... this isn't the world we're living in at the moment, even if it's the world we would hope to live in... and behaving prematurely in this regard strikes me as just so much wishful thinking, and potentially damaging wishful thinking, at that... and hey, just to be clear, i'm a wishful thinker mself, so i can relate... more than anything else, my thoughts are with the victims... and i know this means, to some degree, all of us, everywhere--- peace, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:09:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Slaughter Subject: Notice: Mudlark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII MUDLARK RERUN Mercedes Lawry | Poster No. 6 (1997 and 2001) "The Chinese Boy," "Off the Map," and "Venice" Mercedes Lawry lives in Seattle. She is Director of Media and Public Relations at Bastyr University, "one of the world's leading academic centers for advancing knowledge in the natural health sciences." Her poems have appeared, among other places, in ALASKA QUARTERLY REVIEW, BLOOMSBURY REVIEW, CALIBAN, INDIANA REVIEW, LEFT BANK, NEW VIRGINIA REVIEW, POET LORE, POETRY, SEATTLE REVIEW, SOUTHERN POETRY REVIEW, and SWITCHED-ON GUTENBERG. She has a children's book, THE SLEEPY BABIES, coming out from Moon Mountain Publishing in Spring 2002. Spread the word. Far and wide, William Slaughter MUDLARK An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics Never in and never out of print... E-mail: mudlark@unf.edu URL: http://www.unf.edu/mudlark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:08:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William Slaughter Subject: Notice: Mudlark MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII NEW AND ON VIEW Walt McDonald | Mudlark Flash No. 13 (2001) "I Can't Believe It" Walt McDonald was an Air Force pilot, taught at the Air Force Academy, and is Texas Poet Laureate for 2001. Some of his recent books are ALL OCCASIONS (University of Notre Dame Press, 2000), BLESSINGS THE BODY GAVE (Ohio State, 1998), and others from Massachusetts, Pittsburgh, and Harper & Row. Four books received Western Heritage Awards from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. His poems have been in journals including AMERICAN POETRY REVIEW, THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY, FIRST THINGS, JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), LONDON REVIEW OF BOOKS, NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, POETRY, THE SEWANEE REVIEW, and THE SOUTHERN REVIEW. Spread the word. Far and wide, William Slaughter MUDLARK An Electronic Journal of Poetry & Poetics Never in and never out of print... E-mail: mudlark@unf.edu URL: http://www.unf.edu/mudlark ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:19:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: NYC poets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/12/01 12:00:13 PM, tinaiskingofmonsterisland@HOTMAIL.COM writes: << Please check in everyone so we know you are OK-- >> We'll never be okay. Tragedy is forever. One way or another, it always comes to this. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 19:57:31 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rob Holloway Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Firstly my sympathies and support from the UK to everyone there in the US who is having to deal with the events of yesterday, the horrendous loss of life, the pain of its aftermath - and also to support the sentiments already being voiced below. The politicians response of a 'war on terrorism' is disastrously predictable; the big daddy version of the proven failure that is the war on drugs - no need to be specific about who's gonna die, where, or for how long - the perfect all-over legitimising cover for all future acts of the kind of violence that has contributed to the violence of yesterday - and the future is going to be a long time because how can you 'root out evil completely' as Blair has now expressed with characteristic missionary zeal - saying that means you'll always find it somewhere - the coerciveness of Bush's speech is obvious to many I'm sure - claiming anyone who 'loves freedom', or 'civilisation', is therefore 100% behind him - the chillingly deceptive banality of his 'good vs evil' - his resusitation of the ol' beacon on a hill, a light to all nations fiction - his talk of 'democracy' after Florida.... and of course, the permission he now feels he has been given to speak like this perversely could not have come at a better time for him, with the world on the brink of a recession that will prove the lie of neoliberal economics, the opportunity it provides for the US to re-take centre stage and so end its perception by many as dangerously dismissive of world problems since the walkouts in Durban and Bonn, and its eagerness to dismiss the ABM treaty, and with huge gains having been made toward global reconciliation in the last two years, based upon reciprocal sensitivity to the wide range of social, cultural, economic and ecological necessities being faced by myriad different groups of people - more now is understood about the need for fully workable grassroots democratic participation (as can be found in Porte Allegre), for ecological sustainability, recognition of fundamental human rights linked to the practicalities of clean water, a regular food supply, shelter, the need for reparations for our racist past - and now more than ever, global anti-market corporatisation stands exposed for the destructive force it is. For the rich North, led by the US, with its UK attack-dog yapping right behind, to lurch now into an accelerated cycle of multi-state sponsored terrorism that will inevitably only bring further versions of what happened yesterday, fails us all - as outlined below, the horrendous nature of the attack should be the very thing that focuses all efforts on finding a peaceful solution to Israel-Palestine, to ending Iraqi sanctions, to negotiating peace in Afghanistan, and also, keeps our eyes firmly on the alternatives already being discussed prior to yesterday, an example being:- http://www.zmag.org/What Do We Want.htm in support, Rob Holloway. >Thank you for forwarding this message to the list. In times like this it is >important to remember that, however unthinkable this tragedy is, however >much grief it has caused, violence only begets more violence. If you don't >believe me, just look at the Middle East or Northern Ireland. Also, it is >important to be reminded that for too long the United States has been >complicit in violence abroad in pursuit of "our national interests." (bin >Laden, to give one example, apparently got his start as a terrorist working >*with the CIA* in the jihad against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the >80s). That does not IN ANY WAY make yesterday's attack conscionable, but it >does provide a context in which we can begin to understand it-- and it >should at the very least give us pause before we enter into another cycle of >retaliation and victimization. > >I'd like to offer my condolence to anyone on the list who has personally >been affected by this tragedy. Thanks to Charles for his post. Anyone else >out there on the list who is in New York and alright, please send word let >us know. I think we all will be relieved to hear from you. > >Peace, > >Mark DuCharme > > >>From: hassen >>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Subject: Fw: from the War Resisters League >>Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:39:50 -0400 >> >>----- Original Message ----- >> >From the War Resisters League: >>I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email is down, but I was >>present when this statement was drafted and said I'd take the text home to >>transmit at once. David McReynolds >> >> >> >>>>>>>>>>>>> >> >>As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and >>subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north >>from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters >>League, >>our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands, of New >>Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade >>Center. >>The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins >>where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were >>there when the final collapse occurred. >> >>Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington D.C. have >>similar >>thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of >>the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent >>passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this >>day. >> >>We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know >>that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an >>extended analysis until more information is available but some things are >>clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of billions >>on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was from the beginning, when >>terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. >> >>We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. >>develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target civilians, >>or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would mean >>an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of >>hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation >>of >>terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the >>Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the >>Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West >>Bank and Gaza. >> >>The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in >>millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, >>through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the >>sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier >>of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those weapons fuel the >>starkest >>kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support for >>armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - >>and >>the creation of Osama Bin Laden. >> >>Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, >>condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, >>the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our >>nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have >>felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our >>largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe. >> >>Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation >>for >>decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through >>disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice - not through >>escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as >>those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians - may >>these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on >>other civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear which >>many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at >>this time and urge special consideration for this community. >> >>We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall >>move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict and >>a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many >>lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. >> >>This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was >>drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by >>the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League in the national >>office, September 11, 2001. >> >>Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 >> >>Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 >>Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org >>globalnet@mindspring.com >> >>Via Turati, 53 >>40134 Bologna ITALY >>tel. 011.39.051.6141107 > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 15:16:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: Michael Magee reads Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Michael Magee reads at Brookline Booksmith this Friday 9/14 at 7 PM Michael Magee is the editor of COMBO magazine. His new collection of poems is MORNING CONSTITUTIONAL. Please join us-- Brookline Booksmith 279 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446 -- Jim Behrle, Events Director (617) 739 6002 [phone and voice mail] (617) 734 9125 [fax] events@brooklinebooksmith.com http://www.brooklinebooksmith.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 12:18:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: john beer Subject: Re: from the War Resisters League In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii If that were the message, I agree, it would be awful. But I can't see that in its condemnation of all acts of violence, and in its expressions of sympathy for the victims. Rather, it provides a necessary corrective for the reigning interpretation of this terrible tragedy: the demand for the harshest of reprisals, innocents be damned, and for the sacrifice of liberty for security. Both demands are easy to understand, even to sympathize with, but devastatingly wrong. If, on the other hand, the event could draw out a renewal of citizenship, counterpart not to the demonic nationalism slavering for blood, but to the innumerable acts of courage, kindness, and generosity we hear coming out of New York and Washington, a citizenship that realizes past American collusion with tyranny brings a terrible cost with it and that works to realize America as a genuine force for liberty and justice for the world's dispossessed, only then, it seems to me, will we really honor the memory of those who lost their lives. Unrealistic? Sure, but I think that down the other path we can only find escalation, further horror, and the inevitable dimunition of our freedom. John --- Aaron Belz wrote: > Read: "American cowboys have reaped the fruit of > their own violence." > > This is a cheap and simplistic shot to send out the > day after such a > tragedy. > > On the other hand, I have deeply appreciated the > stories posted by Charles & > others. I still have "feelin grovy" running through > my head. St. Louis is > business-as-usual, but everyone is kind of in a > daze. > > -Aaron > > > > From: hassen > > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > > > Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 10:39:50 -0400 > > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Subject: Fw: from the War Resisters League > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > >> From the War Resisters League: > > I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email > is down, but I was > > present when this statement was drafted and said > I'd take the text home to > > transmit at once. David McReynolds > > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>>> > > > > As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all > bridges, tunnels, and > > subways closed, and tens of thousands of people > walking slowly north > > from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices > here at War Resisters League, > > our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, > if not thousands, of New > > Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse > of the World Trade Center. > > The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds > billow over the ruins > > where so many have died, including a great many > rescue workers who were > > there when the final collapse occurred. > > > > Of course we know our friends and co-workers in > Washington D.C. have similar > > thoughts about the ordinary people who have been > trapped in the parts of > > the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And > we think of the innocent > > passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried > to their doom on this > > day. > > > > We do not know at this time from what source the > attack came. We do know > > that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We > hesitate to make an > > extended analysis until more information is > available but some things are > > clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of > spending hundreds of billions > > on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was > from the beginning, when > > terrorism can so easily strike through more > routine means. > > > > We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever > response or policy the U.S. > > develops it will be clear that this nation will no > longer target civilians, > > or accept any policy by any nation which targets > civilians. This would mean > > an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have > caused the deaths of > > hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean > not only a condemnation of > > terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of > assassination against the > > Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless > repression of the > > Palestinian population and the continuing > occupation by Israel of the West > > Bank and Gaza. > > > > The policies of militarism pursued by the United > States have resulted in > > millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of > the Indochina war, > > through the funding of death squads in Central > America and Colombia, to the > > sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This > nation is the largest supplier > > of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those > weapons fuel the starkest > > kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The > early policy of support for > > armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the > victory of the Taliban - and > > the creation of Osama Bin Laden. > > > > Other nations have also engaged in these policies. > We have, in years past, > > condemned the actions of the Russian government in > areas such as Chechnya, > > the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and > in the Balkans. But our > > nation must take responsibility for its own > actions. Up until now we have > > felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear > cool day to find our > > largest city under siege reminds us that in a > violent world, none are safe. > > > > Let us seek an end of the militarism which has > characterized this nation for > > decades. Let us seek a world in which security is > gained through > > disarmament, international cooperation, and social > justice - not through > > escalation and retaliation. We condemn without > reservation attacks such as > > those which occurred today, which strike at > thousands of civilians - may > > these profound tragedies remind us of the impact > U.S. policies have had on > > other civilians in other lands. We are > particularly aware of the fear which > > many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in > this country, may feel at > > this time and urge special consideration for this > community. > > > > We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear > and terror or we shall > > move toward a future in which we seek peaceful > alternatives to conflict and > > a more just distribution of the world's resources. > As we mourn the many > > lives lost, our hearts call out for > reconciliation, not revenge. > > > > This is not an official statement of the War > Resisters League but was > > drafted immediately after the tragic events > occurred. Signed and issued by > > the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters > League in the national > > office, September 11, 2001. > > > > Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David > McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 > > > > Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in > Space PO Box 90083 > > Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 > http://www.space4peace.org > > globalnet@mindspring.com > > > > Via Turati, 53 > > 40134 Bologna ITALY > > tel. 011.39.051.6141107 __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 15:50:53 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: And Another Voice of Reason MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think you'll like this, too, Maria. It is similar to the War Resister's League post sent by hassen. http://commondreams.org/views01/0912-02.htm Another voice of reason in this wilderness of men pounding death marches on the wood of dead trees. It does appear that some of the bloodlust has calmed a bit on the television. Despite, I might add, the hideous opportunism of America's Congress, each stepping forward to show his or her "unity" and share their desires for revenge. Perhaps there is reason for hope. Props to the New York City Fire Department. They were truly heroic and continue their heroic actions. Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:53:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: O dark dark dark. In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable O dark dark dark. They all go into the dark, The vacant interstellar spaces, the vacant into the vacant, The captains, merchant bankers, eminent men of letters, The generous patrons of art, the statesmen and the rulers, Distinguished civil servants, chairmen of many committees, Industrial lords and petty contractors, all go into the dark, And dark the Sun and Moon, and the Almanach de Gotha And the Stock Exchange Gazette, the Directory of Directors, And cold the sense and lost the motive of action. And we all go with them, into the silent funeral, Nobody's funeral, for there is no one to bury. I said to my soul, be still, and let the dark come upon you Which shall be the darkness of God. As, in a theatre, The lights are extinguished, for the scene to be changed With a hollow rumble of wings, with a movement of darkness on darkness, And we know that the hills and the trees, the distant panorama And the bold imposing facade are all being rolled away=8B Or as, when an underground train, in the tube, stops too long between stations And the conversation rises and slowly fades into silence And you see behind every face the mental emptiness deepen Leaving only the growing terror of nothing to think about; Or when, under ether, the mind is conscious but conscious of nothing=8B I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. Whisper of running streams, and winter lightning. The wild thyme unseen and the wild strawberry, The laughter in the garden, echoed ecstasy Not lost, but requiring, pointing to the agony Of death and birth. [http://www.tristan.icom43.net/quartets/coker.html] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 16:02:56 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Muffy Bolding Subject: horrifiying prescience MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this morning, someone on one of my other mailing lists emailed me this link. and i thought -- on this day of all days -- that i was nothing if not unshockable. this album was released last november -- and this is the cover art. http://polpo.org/coup-cover-300.jpg for some occasions, there simply ARE no words -- *muffy* ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:15:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: WTC Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Yes we are OK Very shaken but OK I was trapped on Staten Island all day yesterday- I on the 8:30 ferry over to teach at St. John's when the first plane hit- didn't see it cuz I was on the front of the ferry though my friend Patrizia did who I met later in the day- (she was crying cuz her husband was on Grand Street near Centre and no one could use phones -) she said it made no sound and just looked like a little flash of light then a fire at the very top I heard about it on the radio in the gypsy cab to school - -thought it must be an accident I started to teach my 9:00 class - didn't know the size of it all- - couldn't imagine =8B then Karen Weiser came on the last ferry from Manhattan- (the 9:00 or 9:30 was delayed) she made it out by 10? but then the second tower collapsed she said lights went out and thousands of screaming people rushed to the boat covered with ash put on life vests After not going to the mass on the green but going to student center with students stuck there from Jersey & Broorklyn Patrizia Karren and went to stay at Chris Funkhauser & Amy Hufnagel's & their 2 yr old daughter Stella's welcoming home 2 other women on island for meeting for NY Women's Foundation We walked down to ater to watch the buildings burn - the unreal gap Chris say #7 Wall Street collpase earlier through binoculars We ate together shared fellowship Tony finally got through on re-opened ferry and came over late Tony and his sister had gone down there to get his niece out of school righ= t next to WTC to find she had been evacuated already - even thought they had called and they had said everything was OK and school was still on- found her later at other school near CHristopher Street - were down there when 2nd tower collapsed too close for comfort we got a ride back home to Brooklyn on reopened BQE (ferries are closed again) just now Saw the changed skyline smoking from the island and closer and closer up the BQE totally devastated mass grave there now ________________________________ World Trade Center Gone Twin Towers Collapsed "I lost my shoes running from the fire" not thinking details and icons obliterated thoughts scrambled a mass grave __________________ We pray for those souls flying out of the towers and for those hanging on within! May this not destroy worldly peace between nations, and here in the international city! > This is happening. > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > --Charles Bernstein from Bard faculty list: Dear Friends, Thank you so much for the outpouring of concern for my well-being and that of fellow New Yorkers and Americans after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon yesterday. I am finally able to get online and have a few minutes to write. (I notice that sitting down, taking time out to write this, putting it into a flow of coherent words, is therapeutic.) I have answered as many of you individually as possible, but the messages don't stop, so here a broadcast. I am safe, but my sense of security is shattered. I was sitting on the Promenade at 850am when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. There was smoke and millions of tiny glitters in the air, which turned out to be white papers -- documents flying across the East River. One of them was a FedEx envelope with a contract that someone was presumably signing when the first plane hit. At 915 I saw another plane fly in from Staten Island, it flew incredibly low and accelerated, so close to me that I thought it was flying up the East River -- but it ducked behind a highrise on Manhattan and tilted itself like a fighter plane, and a moment later disappeared into the South Tower. By this time there were a dozen people watching, speechless. We stood there immobilized as I called as many people as possible on my cell phone (but got through only to my parents in Australia). Then I saw one tower collapse, then the other, and I sat down and wept. Since then we have been tracking down friends and colleagues (several client companies of ours had leased multiple floors in the WTC; an intern's company had 1,000 people on 6 floors, and they still have 50 people unaccounted for; I know people at Morgan Stanley which leased 25 floors; a friend of mine from Fire Island worked there and is still missing). I went to donate blood, called people, comforted strangers as best I could, listened to the radio on my earpiece, was interviewed as an eyewitness by Swiss national primetime TV news. It was hard to breathe. We are grieving for the firefighters and police officers and military personnel and civilians who died, and for their families. We are trying to save people who are calling on their cell phones from underneath the rubble. At the same time, we are inspired by the heroism and leadership of ordinary people going beyond themselves. We are heartened by the response from around the world (e.g. the stopping of all traffic and minute of silence in my hometown Basel, where as many people live as frequent the World Trade Center every day). The unity and camaraderie and human spirit are palpable and will never be forgotten. And now we need to look at what is next. Our gravest fear is war. I am encouraged by secretary of state Colin Powell's assurance early this morning that the US is working for a multilateral response by the international community, rather than taking unilateral action. (In my opinion, while these terrorist attacks on civilians are inexcusable, the US has isolated itself dangerously in recent months, and US unilateralism must stop.) Thank you for reading this lengthy email. There is so much more to say, but I must go back to Lawrence Street to donate blood. Love and strength, -- Lee Ann Brown Tender Buttons PO Box 13, Cooper Station NYC 10276 (718) 782-8443 home - (646) 734-4157 cell "Harmless amulets arm little limbs with poise and charm." =8B Harryette Mullen, Trimmings (Tender Buttons Books) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:51:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: check out SPT's new website MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hello all, We have a new website up at http://www.sptraffic.org featuring NEW WRITING REVIEWS OF RECENT BOOKS THE HISTORY OF SPT AUTHOR BIOGRAPHIES INFO ON OUR ARCHIVE & MUCH MORE Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:48:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Gudath & Larsen at Small Press Traffic this Friday Comments: To: mwsasso@aol.com, Normacole@aol.com, rgluck@sfsu.edu, giovann@aol.com, yedd@aol.com, junona@pacbell.net, sh@well.com, tbrady@msgidirect.com, eliztj@hotmail.com, kevinkillian@earthlink.net, twinklejoi@juno.com, brent@spdbooks.org, cartograffiti@mindspring.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Friday, September 14, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. Lauren Gudath & David Larsen Born in Tampa, Florida in the late middle of the twentieth century, poet Lauren Gudath now lives and works in San Francisco. She is currently working on a series of poems exploring infatuations, as well as a novel. Her two most recent chapbooks are The Television Documentary (Second Story, 1999) and This Kind of Interpretation Brings Luck (Lucinda, 2000), for which her coreader David Larsen provided imagery; Read a Poem About California is forthcoming from Melodeon Poetry Systems. Oakland resident David Larsen is a performer, artist, scholar, and poet -- a mover, shaker and maker the Bay Area is lucky to call its own. His poetry has appeared in Cello Entry, Mirage #4/Period(ical), Explosive, and other magazines, as well as the chapbooks To The Fremont Station, Sepia #1-7, and Swath. He presented "Scarcely Otherwise: Kevin Killian’s Pulp Mimesis" at the Queer/Popular/Culture conference in Santa Cruz last March. With Beth Murray he edited the much-missed San Jose Manual of Style. His artworks have graced many small press books and journals, and new cartoon work is due out in Chain. Timken Lecture Hall, CCAC $5-10 sliding scale, free to SPT members. Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 17:55:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: new york city In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed It's so ironic today's weather. The beauty of the day is underlined by the extreme silence of this place. Upon getting to work yesterday morning I was informed that a small Cesna had crashed into the WTC, but then we heard a second plane had gone into the second tower. I was in Tower 2 on the 55th floor during the 1993 bombing, and I remember breaking the windows and trying to stay calm. It was so frightening, but what was is more frightening to me today is the revenge mongers. Certainly, US must retaliate, but for people to think that the actions that we received yesterday were unprovoked is short-sighted at the least. Our chickens are coming home to roost, and we must realize this despite the grief and sorrow that we feel today. US foreign has not been kind. This time, however, we are feeling the brunt of the actions. My fiancee and I walked down the street today here in Astoria, Queens, and there was this pudgy little boy sitting on the top stoop of his house crying in silence. The boy's tears collecting in his eyes and the look of fear in his face shattered me today. The sun sets on a very beautiful and haunting day today here in New York. My very best to all of you. Anastasios Kozaitis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 16:55:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: from the War Resisters League In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Ah, well, the ayes have it. I semi-retract my statement about the cheapness of the message from WRL, though I still think it's simplistic to imagine lifting (or having lifted) sanctions against Iraq. And I'll add that I think that the ill-timed, medicine-factory-bombing approach of previous regimes has exacerbated the problem as much as our violent legacy itself. However, this article convinced me of what I already knew -- that the U.S. has "lived by the sword" in many ways, and we should not be surprised if we are checked violently for that. -Aaron, missouri cow-punk + + + + + + + The Unknown Enemy September 11, 2001 by Joe Sobran It was predictable. For years I've been writing that the U.S. Government has been making more enemies than Americans really need, all over the globe, and that one of these days some of them would have a nasty surprise for us. In fact it nearly happened a few years ago, when Islamic radicals tried to blow up the World Trade Center. But of course they made a botch of it and got caught. This time, though, someone pulled off what must have been an extremely cunning conspiracy, a criminal feat for the ages. They managed to execute a secret plan calling for four simultaneous hijackings of airplanes. Those who committed these coordinated deeds -- in spite of all security measures -- also had the determination to die in hitting their targets. This wasn't "terrorism." This was war. It wasn't a random attempt to scare people with an arbitrary atrocity, like the bombing of a pizza joint; it was a serious attempt to kill as many people and do as much material damage as possible at two strategic targets, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. But, as I write, hours after the attacks, we don't know who is at war with us. We may never know. Who has reason to hate this country? Only a few hundred million people -- Arabs, Muslims, Serbs, and numerous others whose countries have been hit by U.S. bombers. Imagine hating a country so much that you were willing to cross an ocean and carry out an elaborate revenge against its people, killing yourself in the process. This is something far more than the sort of ideological anti-Americanism that leads student mobs to throw stones at U.S. embassies abroad; that's kid stuff. This is an obsessive, fanatical, soul-consuming hatred. Foreigners aren't quite real to Americans, and most Americans are unaware of how profoundly their government antagonizes much of the human race. We are easy-going people who generally have no idea how bullying we seem to foreigners. Until now, we have had no experience of what the U.S. Government has so often inflicted on others. Now, at least, we have an inkling of what it feels like. Government spokesmen have responded with their usual cant of "cowardly attacks" by "terrorists" who "hate democracy and freedom." Rubbish. A fanatic who is ready to die is the opposite of a coward, and nobody can "hate" such abstractions as "democracy and freedom" with that kind of intensity. It's dangerous to belittle your enemy, especially when his courage and cunning have already proved as formidable as his hatred and cruelty. The first question you should ask about your enemy is why he is your enemy in the first place. You may be deluding and flattering yourself if you assume he hates you for your virtues. But our "leaders" assure us that our enemies are unnaturally evil people who hate us only because we are so wonderful. And they manage to utter this nonsense with an air of tough-minded realism. True realism, on the other hand, doesn't mean blaming Americans for bringing these horrifying and truly evil acts on themselves. It does mean trying to imagine alien perspectives from which our government's conduct might appear so intolerable that some people might be driven to take atrocious revenge. "To understand all is to forgive all," says the French aphorism. Not true. But understanding all can at least teach you how to avoid making enemies, and avoiding making enemies is the best defense -- better than a $300 billion "defense" budget that didn't defend the World Trade Center. The great director Jean Renoir was once asked why there were no villains in his films. He answered simply: "Everyone has his reasons." Your bitterest enemy may have his reasons for hating your guts. You may not think they are good or sufficient reasons, but you'd better take them into account. If he has any brains, he may find a way to hurt you. The United States is now a global empire that wants to think of itself as a universal benefactor, and is nonplussed when foreigners don't see it that way. None of the earlier empires of this world, as far as I know, shared this delusion; the Romans, the Mongols, the British, the Russians and Soviets didn't expect to rule and to be loved at the same time. Why do we? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Read this column on-line at http://www.sobran.com/columns/010911.shtml ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:21:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r world trade MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit more than thanks for all who wrote..it really helps...the dust worse today...grit deep in the throat..sporadic e-mail..people smile at each other..but a smile of shock...some guy cancelled an order...so i know e-bookselling is BACK... now for some special pleading not from GAZA...the last Arab terrorist bomb that went off was in a small beautiful northern Israeli resort town..Nahariya..where i spent a number of summers with relatives..if you can imagine the vigilance necessary each second minute hour day nite 24/7...to not have your kids flamed...you will have the compassion and understanding to feel how others have to live....everyone who shakes your hand is not your friend....Dr(Sbarro)N... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 18:33:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Comments: To: BRITISH-POETS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, imitationpoetics@topica.com, nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I used to work for a small humanitarian organization, Grassroots International, and we worked with the institutions of the PLO; we called them partners. One of them was the Gaza Community Mental Health Center. What follows are remarks from Dr. Eyad Serraj, the center's director. Yrs. Anastasios Kozaitis --------------------------------- Horror in the U.S. The world today is not the same as it was. The incredible and horrific terrorist attacks on American targets in New York and Washington DC have shocked the world and alarmed people every where. We Condemn the killing of innocent people in America and elsewhere. Attacks on civilians, threats against life and murder are crimes against humanity. We, secure in our belief in the sanctity of life, are abhorred by such acts of violence. Arabs and Palestinians who continue to suffer the complex tragedy since their uprooting, and the Israeli state sponsored violence against them should only stand firm against terror even with the knowledge of the long standing support for Israel by successive American governments. We absolutely reject the logic that horror and murder is the only way to change policies. The anger due to American policies in the world and in our region should not blind us to see that those who were killed and wounded in these horrific carnages are our brothers and sisters in humanity. Their murder can never be justified. For them and their families we extend our respect, and sympathy. Dr. Eyad El Sarraj ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:13:30 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Actually, my last email was to see what response would come. I think in fact the attack could even have been organised by the CIA and if eg it had been the time of the Gulf War I would have rejoiced. In some ways looking at the situation now one can see it as (on one level) a real attack on Capitalism) and only Suddham Hussein has had the courage to say and some are thinking privately) that (in a complex way) the US military-political-state complex are reaping what they sow...if one was a member of a revolutionary group this would seem like a wonderful thing. I think that seeing those towers exploding over and over is a beautiful thing. I got carried away for a while but then I started thinking more calmly: what a better oppoprtunity for the troubled US Bush administration! What would happen...there is no response by the US that will achive anything except more deaths: terrrorism is a great weapon to hold such nations as the US or any other super power in check. It is a great revolutionary strike. But I am still moved by he plight of the people in the US: however one has to remember the humiliations and suffering incurred for decades by the Palestinians and others even if some of them (the minority) are extreme religious fundamentalists....of which there are a number iun the US of whatever ilk. This shows that capitalism is vulnerable: potentially the revolutin can succeed. I didnt see hardly one person who wasnt in a suit or a tie and the military are the same hawks that were active in 1990, Bush is the son of Bush: as in the Iraq war. The American politoical miltary complex are beating a drum: they should be asking, or the people in the West should be asking: why are we hated? Why was the symbol of capitalism attacked? It is because capitalism is being attacked. AS Mao Tse Tung said: the imperialists lift arock only to drop it on their own heads until their doom. The onlyereason gadaffi etc are backing away is because..well its part of the general strategy. Its the intelligent thing to do. It leaves the US with NO actual single enenmy or nation much as Powell wants to go in "boots and all"....and Bush probably wants some glory. Beautiful towers: Unreal city What is that sound high in the air Murmer of maternal lamentation Who are those hooded hords swarming Over the endless plains, stumbling incracked earth Ringed by the flat horizon only What is the cuty over the nountains Cracks and reforms in the violet air Falling towers Jeruslalem Athens Alexandria Vienna New York Unreal Is seeing this as beautiful in a strange way different from Genet's vision in "The Miracle of the Rose"? Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "gene" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 1:58 PM Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > what will be the response? what does it mean to say we'll get those who > perpetrated this act of horror and "those who harbor them?" will democracy > at home suffer collateral damage? > > Gene > > > At 08:52 PM 9/11/01 -0400, you wrote: > >What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > >skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you > >are looking. > > > >Or looking away. > > > >After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > >morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family > >was eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; > >the mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The > >coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're > >not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more > >people now than they are used to handling." > > > >Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist > >yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are > >sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > > >I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south > >end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop > >thinking of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling > >Groovy" ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > > >It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable > >plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four > >commercial jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was > >overflowing with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the > >bridge and as long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, > >there was a big plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see > >that the Towers were not there. > > > >And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > > >Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us walking > >back to the island. > > > >The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > >vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why > >wouldn't a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > > >The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while you > >hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in > >Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people > >were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were > >cleared of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck > >racing downtown. > > > >While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication > >is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. > >There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, > >especially Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I > >remember their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends > >we just saw on our recent trip. > > > >As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by the > >storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had > >been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she > >had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were > >working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and > >were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he > >thought people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > > > >At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see > >New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the > >water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The > >scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > > >Uncanny is the word. > > > >What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > > >I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already > >know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > > >This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > > >This is happening. > > > >It's 8:23 in New York. > > > > > >--Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:25:05 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If you are opposed to capitalism you have to go "the whole hog" and see this as like T S Eliots Towers in the Wasteland or be like Genet in"The Miracle of the Rose"...... it was a brilliant strike by anti capitalist forces for whatever reason. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "hassen" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 2:39 AM Subject: Fw: from the War Resisters League > ----- Original Message ----- > >From the War Resisters League: > I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email is down, but I was > present when this statement was drafted and said I'd take the text home to > transmit at once. David McReynolds > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > > As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and > subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north > from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters League, > our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands, of New > Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade Center. > The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins > where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were > there when the final collapse occurred. > > Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington D.C. have similar > thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of > the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent > passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this > day. > > We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know > that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an > extended analysis until more information is available but some things are > clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of billions > on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was from the beginning, when > terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. > > We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. > develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target civilians, > or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would mean > an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of > hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation of > terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the > Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the > Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West > Bank and Gaza. > > The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in > millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, > through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to the > sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest supplier > of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those weapons fuel the starkest > kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support for > armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - and > the creation of Osama Bin Laden. > > Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, > condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, > the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our > nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have > felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our > largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are safe. > > Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation for > decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through > disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice - not through > escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as > those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians - may > these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on > other civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear which > many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at > this time and urge special consideration for this community. > > We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall > move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict and > a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many > lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. > > This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was > drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by > the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League in the national > office, September 11, 2001. > > Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 > > Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 > Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org > globalnet@mindspring.com > > Via Turati, 53 > 40134 Bologna ITALY > tel. 011.39.051.6141107 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 19:03:23 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: for nyc MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this from a book length work in progress entitled "trans/text/ual." by morning the nyc skyline had changed forever. twin towers imploded, folded up -- sky evacuation. biblical proportions walking serpentine weaving my way among them, the terrorized, the nonbelievers -- hollow skulls dust blown, wind-rattled I vacant center, space-y station master. pass over through, train of thought. there is blood on my house. the language will build us backward and our enemies, and preserve, and convert us which vacuous god does not make murder? joining us, weaving the threadbare a child cries. mother/father ashes. no sorting them out sliding into the pit of language, one w-hole image meta for eye and ear surface of language a ruin. what, after all, do ancient hieroglyphics mean? two stumps in the downtown ground, a city limps now into nonsense WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 18:18:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed please do check in NYC and DC and other poets. it sounds sappy but one certainly does realize at times like this how desperately we need poetry. _________________________________ Elizabeth Treadwell _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 21:20:51 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: At War with that mysterious Enemy Comments: To: ImitaPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Fear & Loathing in America By Hunter S. Thompson Page 2 columnist http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/010912.html It was just after dawn in Woody Creek, Colo., when the first plane hit the World Trade Center in New York City on Tuesday morning, and as usual I was writing about sports. But not for long. Football suddenly seemed irrelevant, compared to the scenes of destruction and utter devastation coming out of New York on TV. Even ESPN was broadcasting war news. It was the worst disaster in the history of the United States, including Pearl Harbor, the San Francisco earthquake and probably the Battle of Antietam in 1862, when 23,000 were slaughtered in one day. The Battle of the World Trade Center lasted about 99 minutes and cost 20,000 lives in two hours (according to unofficial estimates as of midnight Tuesday). The final numbers, including those from the supposedly impregnable Pentagon, across the Potomac River from Washington, likely will be higher. Anything that kills 300 trained firefighters in two hours is a world-class disaster. And it was not even Bombs that caused this massive damage. No nuclear missiles were launched from any foreign soil, no enemy bombers flew over New York and Washington to rain death on innocent Americans. No. It was four commercial jetliners. They were the first flights of the day from American and United Airlines, piloted by skilled and loyal U.S. citizens, and there was nothing suspicious about them when they took off from Newark, N.J., and Dulles in D.C. and Logan in Boston on routine cross-country flights to the West Coast with fully-loaded fuel tanks -- which would soon explode on impact and utterly destroy the world-famous Twin Towers of downtown Manhattan's World Trade Center. Boom! Boom! Just like that. The towers are gone now, reduced to bloody rubble, along with all hopes for Peace in Our Time, in the United States or any other country. Make no mistake about it: We are At War now -- with somebody -- and we will stay At War with that mysterious Enemy for the rest of our lives. It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy. Osama bin Laden may be a primitive "figurehead" -- or even dead, for all we know -- but whoever put those All-American jet planes loaded with All-American fuel into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon did it with chilling precision and accuracy. The second one was a dead-on bullseye. Straight into the middle of the skyscraper. Nothing -- even George Bush's $350 billion "Star Wars" missile defense system -- could have prevented Tuesday's attack, and it cost next to nothing to pull off. Fewer than 20 unarmed Suicide soldiers from some apparently primitive country somewhere on the other side of the world took out the World Trade Center and half the Pentagon with three quick and costless strikes on one day. The efficiency of it was terrifying. We are going to punish somebody for this attack, but just who or what will be blown to smithereens for it is hard to say. Maybe Afghanistan, maybe Pakistan or Iraq, or possibly all three at once. Who knows? Not even the Generals in what remains of the Pentagon or the New York papers calling for WAR seem to know who did it or where to look for them. This is going to be a very expensive war, and Victory is not guaranteed -- for anyone, and certainly not for anyone as baffled as George W. Bush. All he knows is that his father started the war a long time ago, and that he, the goofy child-President, has been chosen by Fate and the global Oil industry to finish it Now. He will declare a National Security Emergency and clamp down Hard on Everybody, no matter where they live or why. If the guilty won't hold up their hands and confess, he and the Generals will ferret them out by force. Good luck. He is in for a profoundly difficult job -- armed as he is with no credible Military Intelligence, no witnesses and only the ghost of Bin Laden to blame for the tragedy. OK. It is 24 hours later now, and we are not getting much information about the Five Ws of this thing. The numbers out of the Pentagon are baffling, as if Military Censorship has already been imposed on the media. It is ominous. The only news on TV comes from weeping victims and ignorant speculators. The lid is on. Loose Lips Sink Ships. Don't say anything that might give aid to The Enemy. Dr. Hunter S. Thompson's books include Hell's Angels, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72, The Proud Highway, Better Than Sex and The Rum Diary. His new book, Fear and Loathing in America, has just been released. A regular contributor to various national and international publications, Thompson now lives in a fortified compound near Aspen, Colo. His column, "Hey, Rube," appears each Monday on Page 2. Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 18:24:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Fwd: from giovanni singleton RE: nocturnes launch celebration Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Poetics folks, SPT is cosponsor of this event -- nocturnes (re)view of the literary arts > >celebrates the publication of its premier issue > > > "widening the field of vision" > > > > Where: Diesel, A Bookstore > 5466 College Ave., Oakland > (2 blocks south of Rockridge BART) > > Date: Sunday, September 23, 2001 > Time: 4-6pm > > > >reading from the premier issue: > >Chris Daniels, Aja Couchois Duncan, Brenda Hillman , Arnold J. Kemp, >Kevin Killian, David Meltzer, Douglas "D. Scot" Miller, Amarnath Ravva > > >about nocturnes: >nocturnes (re)view of the literary arts is an annual publication dedicated >to innovative critical and creative literary art from throughout the >African Diaspora and other contested spaces. > > editor: giovanni singleton >advisors: arnold j. kemp, douglas scott miller, opalmoore, > harryette mullen, kofi natambu, julie patton, and > lorenzo thomas > > > > > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 16:50:57 -0400 Reply-To: bstefans@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Checking In Comments: To: ubuweb@yahoogroups.com Comments: cc: memirios@yahoo.com In-Reply-To: <01091210260506.23724@localhost.localdomain> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi folks, Just a short email to two lists to say hello and give you a little news. I work at the base of the Empire State Building (not the World Trade Center, as some of my Toronto friends thought). My office is windowless, and I have little rapport with my coworkers as I am the entire web department at the CUNY Grad Center. If no one wants to see me, I can be alone all day. Yesterday, I showed up early to work, at 8:30, which is very rare for me. I had planned to spend some of the day tinkering with some essays, working on a collaborative play that I am writing, and putting the new Student Handbook online. So I stayed in my office from about 8:45 to 9:45 or so without seeing anyone, or hearing of anything. I was listening to WFMU on the internet -- the dj for some reason made no mention of what was happening outside, or if he did I missed it -- and though I thought it was curious that the New York Times website was down, it wasn't unprecedented. They were playing Xenakis on WFMU, but the dj cut it off claiming he wasn't in the mood to listen to longer pieces. He did mention things about traffic flow in and out of New York, but I wasn't paying attention, didn't know the context. I decided to just go say hello to some of my coworkers, perhaps influenced by the desultory tone of the dj. I went into the office area (my office is down a separate hallway) and noticed that Elizabeth, one of the administrative assistants, had what I thought was a cool tiny television set on her desk. It was on very loud, and I just thought that it was Elizabeth (who, like me, likes to have some media on while she works) being rebellious as she can be. I picked up, said what a neat television set. I noticed the image on the screen, but didn't make any sense of it and decided not to bother, just put it down and asked her when she got it. I realize now that the image was of the burning buildings, but it's just not something you see on television, and this one was incredibly tiny though in color. Then I started hearing phrases like "another plane is heading toward the Empire State Building" etc. Of course I eventually found out what was happening -- maybe a few seconds disbelief, but it sunk in fast. It struck me as absurd that my coworkers would be so "calm" in such a situation; now it even strikes me as irresponsible, as no one thought to knock on my door and tell me what was happening. In any case they were quite nervous. I got on the elevator and went outside. Down Fifth Avenue, there it was. It was the last time I saw the building. It's difficult for me to even think about it. I think it is especially difficult now since, terrible as that sight seemed at the time, it was still a moment when there was some hope that the building, and the people still in it, could survive. The first tower had already collapsed, so I was looking at the second tower. As everyone knows in Manhattan, the towers are what orients us when we are confused as which way is uptown and which down -- you can see them everywhere. On a clear day, I can see them from my apartment in Brooklyn. To see them on fire is just indescribable -- somehow sublime, unlike anything like a fire as the flames themselves, halfway up the building, are hundreds of feet off the ground. Like most people at the time, I felt that the thing to deal with was not "escape" so much as "what to do"? It seemed like the time for intelligent action, but what was that? All bridges and tunnels were cut off, no subways, rumors of more planes heading to New York, and no orders being given. All I could think of was to get away from the Empire State Building, and thought to go uptown. Of course, uptown from there is everything from Times Square to the UN building. As I left my office I told everyone to get the hell out of here, since people seemed pretty confused and were even trying to work through it. I decided instead to look for my sister, who lives in the Lower East Side. Occasionally I stopped to look at a television that was on in a bar, and it was on one of these sets that I first saw the building collapse (I was inside when it happened). I don't intend to run through the whole thing, and I'm not a gifted journalist. I just want to give some people an idea of how one person first discovered that the city he lives in, which he had known all his life, first came under attack. The last moments before I actually found out seem somehow precious to me. This was a terribly thorough and wounding attack that cut at the heart of what most people felt was "New York" at least since the buildings went up, but certainly longer as the sense of hope and optimism has been part of this place for decades. Read those poems of O'Hara's, or the Schuyler poem about looking at the UN, and you realize how much the buildings and streets are just a part of everyone here. At one time you could walk all the way downtown, stand next to the fountain in between the two buildings and look straight up, and wonder what would happen should these buildings fall. But you felt so safe doing so. Anyway, I couldn't find my sister as she had moved recently and I didn't know exactly where she lived. The phones were down. I went to Tim Davis's apartment, and luckily he was there with his girlfriend Lisa. We watched television for several hours, and then spent the rest of the day walking the streets and visiting friends as we chanced upon their buildings. I finally got a call through to my mother and father, as well as my sisters. I spent the evening with Alissa Quart and some of her friends in a bar watching television, and then in a community garden in the Lower East side talking through this thing. The garden seemed incredibly important to me at the time. I really felt like a different city. In a sense, I felt like the city, which we used to jokingly referred to as "an island of the coast of America," was somehow closer to the world because of this, as New York has never been the victim of anything to the proportion that so many European, Middle Eastern, Central and South American and Asian cities have been -- bombings, attacks, natural disasters, etc. The city was now on the ground, and not orbiting the earth. It seemed incredibly significant to be together and share our ideas with each other, because we were preparing ourselves for the potential of things falling away entirely, or at least more than we were prepared for now. I had all sorts of fine philosophical points to make (a "coda for Modernism" was one phrase I was using; the image of the "fortress city" and the idea that we may never build things like this again, also recurred), but I think I'll just end it here. My family's ok, I've heard word that Kenny Goldsmith is fine, obviously Tim is, Jackson Mac Low, Charles Bernstein. I haven't made many calls myself but may try to get some people together for dinner tonight. I wish I had more news of specific people, but I'm sure that will come in in bits. I'm going to make some phone calls. Thanks again from all of you who wrote emails to check up on me and others. Please provide news as you get it. Thanks. love Brian ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 21:21:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: 911 a poem written to deal with terror Comments: To: wryting , English-L@helman.daemen.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit 911 a poem written to deal with terror September 11, 2001 a sloppy poem written to make it through this day is this what our closed Open society breeds? It is 12:25 am the 12th and I have been here watching the TV And typing on this event. Not cold blooded writing in a bow tie -- this is only my method to cope 4 planes -- How does this happen? An attack of planes on buildings -- bombing symbols with people. A CONCRETE STROM The horror I feel similar having just finished screaming. That buzz of exhausted emotion. No where else to go so I came home to be near the cats. Everybody said that "boy that plane looks low" There are no activities scheduled for the day. I packed a bag with warm clothes and have the cat case out. I hope we don't have to leave. The number of casualties is not now known. THEY ARE CALLING IT A WAR, AN ACT THAT DEFINES THE DAY AS ANOTHER INFAMY I saw the buildings fall on the TV. hijack Another hijack Another hijack Another hijack Not since 1981 Another hijack Banks have been kept open, but trading is closed. The victims number by the thousands. I took the bus and heard of the suicide bomb of the PM of Afghanistan on the classical station. The night before I pondered the 50 years called the Pax Romana. I thought of how this related to our current 10 years of relative peace. 8:30 law class with Ruth Hogan JD a cool woman with suspicion in her eyes. Another hijack in the lounge with Dr. Sabitino, We talked on the nature of being and the end goal of equality. Can it happen? How can this happen IT looks bleak today while the autumn sun sparkles. I feel that anger that leads to that want to take that life to make this situation right again. The leaves will turn color soon. 2 towers down. 10 thousand might be dead. My god I have lost my love for this country and how it acts towards others. But today with possible targets and probable targets. Tom Brokaw calls it the darkest day in American history. Peter Jennings calls this a day that will be etched in our minds Dan Rather say this day will be remembered by all Now just imagine how fast someone must have had to tie their necktie to make the early morning cab ride to catch the 7:45 plane flight and make it through security to be on time. The woman at the sidewalk gave him shit for his over loaded carry-on luggage, typical. What I need all of this stuff. Fuck. The crowd in the airport café was too much to grab a quick bite to eat. Call the wife to get dry cleaning and I'll be home tonight ... where to eat? A Starbucks in an airport? A woman with big hair and small child bumps into him -- a coffee spill -- on the white shirt. What a day ... Then what. How did it play out. Who were they. Did they have guns, what did you think when the World tower grew closer. Did you cry? Could you do anything? Did you know .... I am crying for these people and the story of their last moments. They went to school and not a military camp to train. All are coming together as americans over you. This has never happened before -- ever. Not in a super bowl, over a movie, a political -- but the beauty of america is its ability to join in spirit over its sorrow. All colors bleed It will soon turn tide to rage. Not even McViegh, columbine, or Manson will hold the power they once had. It comes on a cool september day, the day I was to take down the //YOU poem. A poem of Human potential. My poetry will change nothing . As I write we still do not know, that is if we ever will .... It is 2:50 PM and I choose to write in purple. Police officer: It's personal Reporter: what? Police officer: It's personal, we have to go in and get them. It's personal now. We do not know that this is the end of attacks. Nuclear winter has been used to describe downtown new york. Bin laden, millionaire, involved in so many tragedies for his god. money has bought the world community no structured shrine. Am I scared? Yes, this has me shaken. I am huddled with my cats on the couch under a blanket. Blaze is the strong one. Clarice looks off to the sun beam. I love them both. This is my home and we are scared. A fat man with funny square frames is worried about his bank. After the government they always go for the financial centers. Air Space The skies are eerie and grim while being undisturbed Nothing flying in the blue streams Crows squawk in trees Nothing flies this day no metal sheering the white windy streams. Today nothing flies this awful century looks as two centuries before : No thing flying. Not since the hundred years before those Wright boys, way down in kitty hawk NC did nothing take flight over the friendly American skies. Today nothing flies Big Mike, who I haven't seen in years was at the bus station. Going to the dentist, I think. I was honest about not coming back to the coffee bean café where he tends the morning counter. He is the perfect son of a bitch, well at least my favorite one. He has ideas of how the world should work and he uses a knife and (or) a folding walking stick to prove his point. Great human; he's been dirty. His suggestion to solve this situation is to go to the stockyards in chicago, fill cargo planes with pig blood and innards, and drop them (crop dust) Mecca and all the muslim states. This would save lives and render unclean all areas the blood would touch. Waste no bombs on these people! Hit them in their heart, they hit ours. These are the ways of big mikes mind. "their barbarism will be their shame for all eternity." Tony Blair There were 3 to 5 attackers using knives and knife like weapons we were expecting guns Cuba and Libya offer their sorrow, how odd a world this new century offers. "They are no more; dresden once again." A fire man tells of his partner, killed by a body falling from above: many fell to their death rather than burn in the darkness on the 100th floor. They are no more The pentagon is still on fire. 800 estimated dead but plan to continue -- strength to over come fear With an early start. The London DAILY STAR "Is this the end of the world???" Another Brit rag calls this Armageddon. What happened to flight 93? Still open for question -- no word if the military shot it down. No words but many images. This grasps out like a film, a movie by tom clancy, but GW bush is no Harrison ford, is he. He looked like a sock puppet on the TV. My heart aches for him. The photo of his shock when told of the event in a children's classroom is the captured soul of all America. How this ? Whoever wrote his speech must be dynamic. Poor Mr. Bush is not dynamic in his words. I do not pray, but today I pray for him. He has the job and one must follow in times that need action ... when the dust is swept and the fear is calm ... I will choose to not vote again. Gulliani is a good man this day. Our leaders rose to this day I do not pray, but today I pray for them Technology has made this disaster open and close to the whole nation. Cell phone calls to mothers saying i love you i am going to die i love you mom. To husbands with suspect information. I have cried over their stories. I cannot believe how heavy my heart is for these people. I wave no flag other than my own. Our country is in hands, not good hands but held. But this day is hard to fathom. Its on the TV and I will not break away until I hear a bomb is coming and for that, as i say, i am packed. Is this what the cuban missile crisis felt like? Kmart has stopped selling guns, using similar thoughts as the NYSE -- keep markets closed to emotion. No planes in the sky and no guns in the stores. How does this happen. Palestinian sweet cakes served on paper plates given to dancing boys Sandy Berger (sung to tiny bubbles) Sandy Berger Sings the blues In a red tie And a new hairdo And a new hairdo (everybody now) Sandy Berger Sandy Berger Sings the blues Sings the blues In a red tie In a red tie And a new hairdo And a new hairdo Now it is time to sleep. This poem is being sold as is and functions as put. This is the point - poetry as coping method to fear. I have no strength bas to write from. This is the effect of terrorism. My American dream has been shaken. The world has changed and this is to tribute with tears to give the nothing that I have to give. this happened to me today this is your tragedy too Tonight take heart Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 19:28:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010911160802.026fb080@pop.bway.net> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v388) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles, Thank you for this. And for subtracting another family from my list of fears. Sometimes-- not always, and certainly not for long -- the best question is, "What happened?" and the best answer, "This is what I saw." Stacked up against all I've heard otherwise in the constant stream of "expert commentary" from the television, to which I too am addicted, your account gives me less reason for horror at what might yet come, and more hope that there is a human response still possible. In the midst of such enormity as yesterday's events, the best I can manage, after all the television, all the busy signals, all the unanswered emails, is to read. I suppose I'm searching for something to help me get my head and heart around the loss and powerlessness, in such a way that my response doesn't turn to the easy extremes of revenge fantasies or "we deserved it" fatalism. A text from Benjamin ("Theses on the Philosophy of History"), so familiar I can almost recite it from memory, a text that's become almost a truism, moves me somewhat in that direction: "A Klee painting named 'Angelus Novus' shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress." And lest we remain in any doubt about what this progress represents -- and for whom -- there's this, from a bit earlier in the same text: "[A]ll rulers are the heirs of those who conquered before them. Hence, empathy with the victor inevitably benefits the rulers. Historical materialists know what that means. Whoever has emerged victorious participates to this day in the triumphal procession in which the present rulers step over those who are lying prostrate." If one can approach such a monstrous act with a fairly simple calculus, it might be said that yesterday's attack gave rise to two sets of victors, two "powers" who will make "progress" in the world over all the dead and all the debris. First, there are the authors of the act, who have reminded us that we can be terrified, helpless, brutalized, that ones we know and love can bleed and die. Did anyone need such reminding? And then there are those who, in this country and throughout "the West," will use the horror of that act to justify the further militarization (in the name of security) and de-secularization (in the name of a struggle against "Islamic fundamentalism") of entire societies, and the decimation of entire others, along the lines of "our" ongoing policy in Iraq, and in the name of "retaliation" and "just war." I don't want to find myself on either of these winning sides. And it seems the only other option, right now, is to acknowledge my horror and relative powerlessness. Of course, like many others, I gave blood, and I'll take to the streets with what I can only hope will be many others if it's suggested that innocents elsewhere should die in my name. But right now, if I'm to feel solidarity, it's with those killed and injured, and their families, and my friends whose survival remains uncertain. Uncertainty. I'm left saying, "my thoughts are with you," and I'm not sure what that might mean. When one's solidarity is precisely what's loneliest, it seems only truisms remain. Otherwise, it's as if the language were momentarily in abeyance. Of course, given that much of what's being said otherwise is so ugly, one might be glad that an imagination of companionship remains, however futile. Here I'm thinking of the sign my mother saw in front of a church on her drive home today from work in Tampa to her home in Pasco County, Florida: "Our God is bigger than yours." If we need to invoke a God, whatever God, at such a moment, let that God be one to save us from the victors of such a struggle. And save our friends, or at least help us to save their memories from such desecration. And since we're left -- or I'm left -- with only the truism for the moment, let's at least be honest about it. "Our thoughts are with you" because the head and heart I named earlier are out of place, out of joint, and out of answers. We commend ourselves to each other's care, even where that's become impossible, beyond a still unimaginable loss. There's a recent translation of Lorca by Jerome Rothenberg that I left beside my bed Monday night. Picking it up in numb shock after several hours of Tuesday morning's news, I opened at random to several lines that seemed to have become a memorial in advance. Whether that's owing to Lorca's own revivalist stance toward a culture in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted -- not always peacefully, but for a long time without the rhetoric of annihilation -- or whether it's simply an effect of a chance coincidence of lexicon, or the power of present murder and disaster to annex the past to themselves, I don''t know. I know I'll never hear this poem the same way, as it ends: " Clang-clang. (The Earth was heading off, paved over with domes under the atmosphere's eggshell blue.) Who goes there? (Between milklight & moonlight I arrive at the tower where the others await me)." And now Tanya has come home from work and switched the TV on, and I see evacuation orders for the Empire State Building and possibly all of midtown. Please be well. Our thoughts are with you, again. Peace, Taylor Brady On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 05:52 PM, Charles Bernstein wrote: > What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think > you are looking. > > Or looking away. > > After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family > was eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; > the mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. > The coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at > least we're not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant > probably has more people now than they are used to handling." > > Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their > waist yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking > people are sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the > south end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't > stop thinking of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, > "Feeling Groovy" ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an > unbelievable plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon > bombed; four commercial jets hijacked on suicide missions. The > Queensborough bridge was overflowing with people streaming out of > Manhattan, a line as wide as the bridge and as long as Manhattan > itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big plume of smoke > over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers were not > there. > > And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us > walking back to the island. > > The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why > wouldn't a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while > you hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once > in Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, > people were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues > were cleared of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire > truck racing downtown. > > While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC > communication is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is > working fine. There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from > all over, especially Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd > write and I remember their emails when their city was under fire. And > various friends we just saw on our recent trip. > > As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by > the storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our > building. I had been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the > phone, to see if she had picked up Felix at school. But neither the > cell or land phones were working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and > Felix had just walked by and were heading home. He said he was going to > stay open just because he thought people would want to have him there, > standing in front of his shop. > > At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to > see New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on > the water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. > The scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > Uncanny is the word. > > What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I > already know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but > addictive. > > This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > This is happening. > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > --Charles Bernstein > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:05:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: [ImitaPo] At War with that mysterious Enemy (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I love Hunter but really have trouble with these quick immediate facile response analyses right off the bat. The truth is we don't fucking know a thing and that's the nature of catastrophe - that we are faced with the inert, immobile. Take this: Nothing -- even George Bush's $350 billion "Star Wars" missile defense system -- could have prevented Tuesday's attack, and it cost next to nothing to pull off. Fewer than 20 unarmed Suicide soldiers from some apparently primitive country somewhere on the other side of the world took out the World Trade Center and half the Pentagon with three quick and costless strikes on one day. The efficiency of it was terrifying. Well in fact it cost a LOT to pull off from what's coming out - the flight lessons alone here in Florida were $25000 per person. But let's analyze fast and clever. It sickens me. And some "apparently primitive country"? In these days of multiculturalism - what exactly constitutes an apparently primitive country? And so forth and so on. Alan - ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Imitation Poetics web site: http://www.topica.com/lists/imitationpoetics/ ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrJ6z.bVxDFa Or send an email To: imitationpoetics-unsubscribe@topica.com This email was sent to: sondheim@panix.com T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:21:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - o what we are doing is writing stories. this is what i was doing when it happened: this is what i felt: this is what i heard oo this is what i was doing when it happened: this is what i felt: this is what i heard ooo the stories begin, develop, end: the stories follow the traditional logic of time extrapolated from human behavior: from the human construct of the world until: one's death oooo we tell the stories because we are in the midst of them and part of a vast human communality and we tell these stories because they come to an end and we understand how to make ends ooooo here's where i am now after it happened: this is what i went through: i am a witness to the world: i was there when it happened oooooo what we are doing is speaking: we are writing truths and truths oooooo what we are doing is making: we are writing fiction and comfort: we are writing ourselves into existence: into existence after it happened ooooo we rewind: here is what i made happen: this is what the world went through: the world is a witness through my fiction: the world is here oooo we make up stories to place us within a human communality that we comment upon from within, without, from the periphery: we write these stories because they have beginnings and they are fine beginnings and we understand how to write: how to write the world ooo the stories are forced into beginnings and endings: they follow the traditional human meandering: the human continuity across what later might be considered fictional events: what happened in the story: oo this is the event i am making up: this is the plot of my story: this is a good, a wonderful plot: this is quite original oo.o you write as if you were there, as if you were part of it: as if you were part of something o what we are doing is telling truths: these events almost seem real: you write so well, almost as if these things happened: you turn fiction into truth _ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:58:32 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit yes to infinity ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:00:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: shana skaletsky Subject: Re: Today is the next day of the rest of your life In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010912201130.02722600@pop.bway.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Tuesday morning, my mother in Chicago calls and wakes me. She tells me what happened; confused and groggy, I make a joke about Dubya and get angry at the GOP. I wonder if my law school's open, and think about going to my polling place on 1st Avenue and 9th Street. Then I turn on the television, just in time to see the buildings collapse. I can't leave my couch, trying to piece things together, wondering if it's appropriate to drink at 11 am. I go to the deli for soda instead. As I leave, I don't even bother double-locking my apartment door, does it really matter? I take a deep breath, step outside and smile warily at the few people standing around St. Marks Place. Glancing over at First Avenue, I see that it's been blocked off and guarded by police. The deli on St. Marks and Avenue A is run by several Muslim men from Yemen. There, I stock up on cat food. Several white boys from the nearby school come in asking for water, then yell at the man behind the counter, calling him a dirty Arab terrorist. He rolls his eyes at me; we both know this happens to him every day, bombings notwithstanding. My building super, Ricardo, walks past. He tells me, "It's like the city has been raped." I unlock my door and walk into the bathroom, placing some rewetting drops in my eyes. As I'm rinsing the soot out of my mouth, I burst into tears. The cats start crying. The rest of Tuesday is filled with flipping through catalogs and solving crossword puzzles, CNN blaring in the background, but it's really the foreground--I'm not distracted and I'm crying once an hour. I think about a guy I met in a bar a few weeks ago who works for Deutsche Bank and wonder where he is. Tuesday night I go to bed at 6 am Wednesday morning. The dark, I'm scared of it. The planes flying overhead, I'm scared of those, too. The computer has been on for two days, diligently checking email every 10 minutes. I think of that Peter Gabriel song, "Contact." Must talk to someone, anyone, make sure we're all still alive. Giuliani, just saw him on tv--he looks like hell. Tried to give blood today at Beth Israel and Cabrini--thanks, but they don't need any more. They need more patients. I walk in and out of stores near Stuyvesant Town, just looking for nothing in particular, just trying to look away from people walking around, aimlessly and in tears, people like me. The state troopers don't check my identification as I walk back below 14th Street. I offer to show it to them along with the contents of my brown paper bag from Ess-a-Bagel. They say, "No, that's okay, we trust you." I walk past the masjid on 12th street and 1st avenue--it's unusually quiet for 5 pm. A man on the corner stares at my chest and before I can get offended, I remember that I'm wearing my Star of David. I can't decide what to do or whom to help or how to help and should I still pray even though I'm mad at God? Sorry for the length/babble--I hope and pray all of you and yours are safe. Shana Skaletsky ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 15:51:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joanna Sondheim Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York In-Reply-To: <000a01c13b32$8f738240$772337d2@01397384> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I honestly can't say that I am behind the United States in "whatever they do" at this point. Bush made a technical declaration of war this morning which means that Congress is hands off for the next sixty days. With a President looking to "hunt down those folks" in charge I am intensely afraid of what his retaliation will consist of. The kind of racism showing itself in this country following yesterday's attack is chilling: a mosque was burned down in Texas, a Pakistani owned convenience store in Long Island was stoned and I heard from a Muslim friend this morning about having obscenities yelled into her car on her drive to work. I'd be wary of reducing an entire people to being "nut cases" or "sub-human." I think it's a fairly simplistic response to something far more complicated than name calling. > From: "richard.tylr" > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:28:06 +1200 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > > Charles. Etal. Its strange and I've only been to NY once (1993, ironically > as it happens) when I went up the South Tower. It seems surreal even here in > New Zealand. I also was watching the videos over and over: it does become > addictive. I try to imagine a human plunging into that building. At the > moment even I'm emotional. had some symapthy for the Palestinian cause, I > tried to understand the Teleban: but I think the US has to face it. It (and > we in the West) ARE and or IS under a real threat to democracy: to human > civilisation as a against the barabric bastards "out there". I'm right > behind the US whatever they do. > Bush is right in this case. Democracy, what little we have, is being > attacked. I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut > cases.And although I'm not a great supporter of Israel (I know there were > injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times) but it seemed to > me that the US and Israel were probing toward a negotiated settlement. That > wont happen with these guys:they are sub- human robotic scum: they are > beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Charles Bernstein" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:52 PM > Subject: It's 8:23 in New York > > >> What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you > are looking. >> >> Or looking away. >> >> After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family was > eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the > mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The > coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're > not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more > people now than they are used to handling." >> >> Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist > yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are > sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." >> >> I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south > end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop thinking > of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" > ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). >> >> It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable > plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four commercial > jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was overflowing > with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the bridge and as > long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big > plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers > were not there. >> >> And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. >> >> Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us walking > back to the island. >> >> The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why wouldn't > a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. >> >> The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while you > hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in > Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people > were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were cleared > of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing > downtown. >> >> While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication > is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. > There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, especially > Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember > their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends we just saw > on our recent trip. >> >> As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by the > storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had > been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she > had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were > working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and > were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he thought > people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. >> >> At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see > New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the > water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The > scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. >> >> Uncanny is the word. >> >> What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. >> >> I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already > know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. >> >> This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. >> >> This is happening. >> >> It's 8:23 in New York. >> >> >> --Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:00:14 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: WTC report MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit halvard is Ana doina a student at Essex County college ther can't be more than one person with that name she was in my class PLS respond she was great this is Sheila Massoni ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:12:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: [BI] m&r..strand & alabaster... nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > The STRAND which is open 7UP closed...i noticed M. its octogenarian buyer (devotee of Eli Siegel) digital camera strung around neck zizaggin aimlessly down forth not knowing what to do with his self. Alabaster, the boutique bookstore, 'round the corner opened later in the aft. Tho can't believe there was much trade. The National Guard superflously three thick was blocking off any traffic below 14th St. Neither nor buyer nor seller of da book..so we bussed up to central park...where the Japanese, Neikei under 10thou or no, were happily blowing a 100 on lunch. Slept, lazed, walkmanned news, finished up P.D. James.."Not Suitable For a Woman" At dusk head down to Wash Sq. for a candle light vigil....i tell L. if it's a PEACE vigil..i'm out of there...small lights around fountain...babe in tight halter top nursing her wick...white shirts..tall thin muscular guys...20 in a row hold hands and OMING it...ONE AMERICAN FLAG...a small group of 15 singing....someone's caring someone's sharing someone's weeping Cumbaya...O my lord Cumbaya...they go gerunding along..the young coeds' faces lost in a rapture of self-giving...when i lose it and start screaming...SOMEONE'S BOMBING MY LORD..CUMBAYA...i do three choruses at the top of my lungs..the polite crowd knows a manaic when they sees'em.. Walking home..i ask L. if she minds...'everone's title to their opinion"..we do the beast with two backs, oil on oil, the first day of this war..Bob writes 'does anyone ever win"...i have to have the last words..."i just want to cut the losses"..Dr(sbarro)N... __________________________________________________________________________ BookFinder Insider -- http://lists.bookfinder.com/mailman/listinfo/insider ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:52:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York In-Reply-To: <000a01c13b32$8f738240$772337d2@01397384> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At 02:28 PM 9/12/01 +1200, you wrote: >Charles. Etal. Its strange and I've only been to NY once (1993, ironically >as it happens) when I went up the South Tower. It seems surreal even here in >New Zealand. I also was watching the videos over and over: it does become >addictive. I try to imagine a human plunging into that building. At the >moment even I'm emotional. had some symapthy for the Palestinian cause, I >tried to understand the Teleban: but I think the US has to face it. It (and >we in the West) ARE and or IS under a real threat to democracy: to human >civilisation as a against the barabric bastards "out there". I'm right >behind the US whatever they do. let's bomb 'em back to the stone age. > Bush is right in this case. Democracy, what little we have, is being >attacked. I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut >cases. a broad brush, non? And although I'm not a great supporter of >Israel (I know there were >injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times read the >history) but it seemed to >me that the US and Israel were probing toward a negotiated settlement. That >wont happen with these guys:they are sub- human robotic scum: they are >beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! ashes to >ashes, i suppose Richard. All of our lives hang in the balance. It is most important that Russia and China participate. That lessens to likelihood of nuclear war. But first, just who are the perpetrators? And, we had better avoid demonization and stereotyping. >----- Original Message ----- >From: "Charles Bernstein" >To: >Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:52 PM >Subject: It's 8:23 in New York > > > > What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear >skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you >are looking. > > > > Or looking away. > > > > After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this >morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family was >eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the >mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The >coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're >not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more >people now than they are used to handling." > > > > Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist >yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are >sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > > > I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south >end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop thinking >of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" >("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > > > It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable >plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four commercial >jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was overflowing >with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the bridge and as >long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big >plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers >were not there. > > > > And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > > > Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us walking >back to the island. > > > > The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency >vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why wouldn't >a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > > > The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while you >hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in >Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people >were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were cleared >of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing >downtown. > > > > While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication >is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. >There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, especially >Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember >their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends we just saw >on our recent trip. > > > > As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by the >storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had >been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she >had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were >working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and >were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he thought >people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > > > > At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see >New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the >water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The >scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > > > Uncanny is the word. > > > > What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > > > I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already >know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > > > This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > > > This is happening. > > > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > > > > --Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:48:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: (Fwd) Another face of the Palestinian community (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Just in case any more correction were needed - Alan ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:19:12 +0200 From: Gush Shalom To: International List Subject: (Fwd) Another face of the Palestinian community ------- Forwarded message from: Rabbi Arthur Waskow Dear Chevra, The following message comes from the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour on the West Bank. Their unambiguous condemnation of the barbaric attack yesterday stands in stark contrast to the message the major media is putting out about Palestinian "joy" over this heinous act. Not that the official media are "wrong." -- No doubt some Palestinians are celebrating this successful attack on what they see as the supplier of arms and money to their occupiers. But the official media ARE wrong in not reporting the mix of opinion, in not reporting the truth of deep disagreements among Palestinians. Some are horrified at this attack, as they have been by attacks on Israeli civilians. [After the Beit Sahour report, see also the report from East Jerusalem.] From: Beit Sahour Municipality In the name of Beit Sahour Municipality and in the name of each and every citizen of the Shepherds field Beit Sahour; we convey our deepest condolences to the entire American people for the horrific loss of innocent lives as a result of the horrible acts of terror. In particular, we share the grievances of all the families of the victims. We pray to God to please give these families the patience and the strength. As Palestinians who suffer daily form acts of Israeli aggression against our innocent people, we cannot find the words to express how shocked we were to see the horrific scenes on TV. We condemn such acts and we do not accept such horrific acts in the 3rd millennium where peace, prosperity, and freedom should cover the whole world. We reiterate our deepest condemnation of this horrible act on these innocent humans. No matter how can we express our sorrow, we can't find enough words to say how sorry we are. Please let us work together to stop these acts of terrorism all over the world. Let us work hand in hand for establishing a safer world to live in. p.s. Please pass on this message to all our friends; we want them to know that each person in Beit Sahour shares this message with us. ______________________ 2d report: <>. Just to be clear, The Consulate is in East Jerusalem and "Qassisya" is an Arab name. NB If you got this forwarded, and would like to receive our emails directly you can subscribe to them by sending a blank message (from the address where you want to receive them) to: Gush-Shalom-subscribe@topica.com ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84Ai7.a9zx8Q Or send an email To: Gush_Shalom.int_s-unsubscribe@topica.com This email was sent to: smendler@well.com T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:59:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Platt Subject: 911 01 ! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for help idiot wind cry for ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 01:51:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: from Jabes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - from Jabes: "I see what no one has beheld. "I hear what no one shall hear." "What do you see? "What do you hear?" "I see the earth split in two. And out of its black entrails there proceeds a flame devouring the books it had been thrown as a sop. "I hear the groaning of each page, the screaming of words aghast at their fate." "What else do you see? "What else do you hear?" "I see the fire from the earth split down the middle and turn into a giant book in the sky that no eye can rest on, _the last book._ ". . . that no eye can rest on, for what eye could be faster than flames?" [Edmond Jabes, The Book of Resemblances 3, trans. Waldrop] _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 02:02:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: firefighters MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It seems, at last count, upwards of 300 firefighters are missing (& presumed dead) in NYC. Donations can be made to: Widows & Children's Fund C/O Uniformed Firefighter's Association 204 East 23rd Street, NY, NY 10010 or call the UFA office at 212-683-4832 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 06:50:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lisa jarnot Subject: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit thanks mark ducharme and laura wright for your posts, i've been doing a lot of reading re: bin laden and his work for the cia. the u.s.a. has been running terrorism schools around the globe for a long time. i hope that this will give us a chance to re-think our own acts of terrorism. more acts of violence on our part can only make things worse. lisa jarnot ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 07:09:47 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: for nyc 2 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable a few renovations to previous post. as if the structures were still there t= o=20 tamper with. =E2=80=A0 wandered all night. by morning the nyc skyline had changed forever. twin towers imploded= , folded up -- sky evacuation. biblical proportions =20 =20 walking serpentine weaving my way among them,=20 the terrorized, the nonbelievers -- hollow skulls =20 dust blown, wind-rattled I vacant center, space-y station master. pass=20 over through, =20= =20 train of thought. there is blood on my house. the language will build us backward and our enemies, and preserve, and convert us which vacuous god does no= t=20 make murder? joining us, weaving the threadbare a child cries. mother/father ashes. no sorting them out sliding into the pit of language, one w-hole image=20 meta for eye and ear =20 street signs uprooted. vein in the rock severed. blood spilled. the dumb ruins of words. what, after all, do ancient hieroglyphics mean? two stumps in the downtown ground, a city limps now into nonsense WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 07:51:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: for nyc 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit more rebuilding. sorry to post draft after draft. I'm in limbo. so much of my city which is my people -- gone. so here's the last bit again. I don't know what else to do. Best, Bill street signs uprooted. vein in the rock severed. blood spilled. thousands buried under steel and concrete. who were they? names swept off by the smoke. the dumb ruins of words. what, after all, do ancient hieroglyphics mean? twin tower stumps in the downtown ground, a city limps now into nonsense speechless I epicenter. ground zero. a weaver? no, a cutter. someone hands me a surgical mask to avoid breathing all this death WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 08:48:41 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: Today is the next day of the rest of your life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Creeley read at Kent State last night. Jessica Grim came over for dinner beforehand. It's been almost 30 years since I last heard RC in person. A moving occasion but one filled with a sense of melancholy given the concerns of recent days. Came home to find an e-mail from my father in Connecticut speaking of my brother Jim's 2nd day of efforts at the WTC. Jimmy's crew on Wednesday consisted of 150 ironworkers from all over the greater NYC area. These guys are really working hard, using cranes and torches, to move tons of material so that Police and Fire personnel can remove bodies/body parts. It all sounds pretty horrific, like something out of Bosch. Jimmy's the youngest of four siblings and typically the most cheerful, good natured and unflappable person you could meet. I am worried for him given the stress he's undergoing and just incredibly proud of him too. He has had nothing but great things to say about all of the people working with him. He'd probably be surprised and mildly bugged to know I'm writing about him like this but no other response is possible at the moment. One of Jim's first jobs as an ironworker many years ago was welding inside of the tip of the torch of the Statue of Liberty during its renovation. At the time he was the skinniest guy on the crew--the only person who could fit in some of the confined spaces that needed to be entered in order to do the work. And he loved it. I can't think of anyone I admire more right now than Jim and the many, many other construction, Police and Fire people who are combing the ruins of the WTC. Tom Beckett ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 06:38:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael amberwind Subject: The WTC Tragedy - A response MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii in wake of the tragedy of i am including this transliteration of Rumi i would be curious to know what Islam's most famous poet would make of all this... i recieved this from a Rumi mailing list that i am on - and before i clicked on it i *knew* it would be particularily pertinent to the tragedy ********************* Love for Certain Work Traveling is as refreshing for some as staying at home is for others. Solitude in a mountain place fills with companionship for this one, and dead-weariness for that one. This person loves being in charge of the workings of a community. This one loves the ways that heated iron can be shaped with a hammer. Each has been given a strong desire for certain work. A love for those motions, and all motion is love. The way sticks and pieces of dead grass and leaves shift about in the wind and with the direction of rain and puddle-water on the ground, those motions are all a following of the love they've been given. -- Mathnawi III, 1616-1619 Coleman Barks "Rumi: One-Handed Basket Weaving" Maypop, 1991 *********************************************** ===== ...I am a real poet. My poem is finished and I haven't mentioned orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES. [from "Why I Am Not A Painter" by Frank O'Hara] __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:10:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: 9/11+1, +2 WTC updates MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit from last night-- The wind's changed, and tonight we're getting something of the taste and smell of the smoke, which plumes north-northeast through the clear evening sky, Mars standing high over New York Harbor to the south. We were out only briefly, to walk a couple blocks south on West Street and cross over to the Hudson River Park, where we stood for a few minutes looking down at the WTC area, where some of the standing structures were silhouetted by emergency lights against the great white cloud arising behind them. As we had seen shortly before on the BBC, people along West Street farther south were cheering and applauding emergency workers--both those coming north, and those relieving them going south. This morning, there was no New York Times outside our apartment door as there usually is, so after a cup of coffee or two, we headed out to find a paper. The Bus Stop, our local breakfast joint, already had a line as we passed, and we soon found that no newspapers had been delivered to stores or curbside boxes below 14th Street. And the streets were empty of traffic--a few emergency vehicles, but mostly walkers and people on bikes. Most stores were locked and shuttered. At 8th Ave. and 14th. St., we passed through the police barricades and headed north, above 14th. St. Non-essential vehicles were prohibited below 14th St. Basically, we walked up 8th to 23rd St. and then east to 6th Ave. and then north to 42nd St. We bought a Post, and then an Observer, and then a Wall Street Journal, and then a News--but no NYT. So, we walked back west along 42nd St., thinking we'd find one easily at the Port Authority Bus Terminal, forgetting that the bridges and tunnels were closed, and thus the buses wouldn't be running. The PA was closed and barracaded, so we started back down 8th Ave. We found our Times at Penn Station, two levels down below street level, at a Hudson News Stand where the guy at the cash register said there were no more Times at the same moment another guy was unloaded a new batch onto the floor. Lynda, our newspapers, and I then continued on down 8th Ave. until we decided, weirdly, to stop in at the Utopia luncheonette at the corner of 8th and 27th, the same place we'd stopped on our walk downtown the very first time I'd trained up to Baltimore to see her some twelve years or more ago now. Somehow, it was just a rest stop for us now, and not a bit nostalgic--well, maybe just a smidgen. So, we ate breakfast, with our unread newspapers on the chair beside me, and with pop-songs and Dubya on the PA-ed radio. I had only five bucks in my wallet, so the waiter and I tried two different credit cards before we found one for which the telephone call would go through. People were moving everywhere we went, moving uptown, downtown, like us with newspapers. Not in Penn Station, though. There folks were standing in long lines for tickets, or sprawled in the waiting room (only for ticketed passengers). At the 14th St. barrier, police were checking IDs of people wanting to go farther south, into the Village. A woman in blue was asking two gals and a guy if they had IDs showing they lived there. Lynda and I just walked past, and were nearly home. The line outside the Bus Stop was even longer. Back in the apartment, two messages on the machine told each of us separately that the Eugene Lang College of the New School University would be closed today, the building being used as a clearinghouse/information center for people who couldn't find people. So, once again we wavered between CNN and NY1 on the cable-connected TV. The little one without cable brought in only Channel 2, the local CBS station. All the other New York stations were off the air (though not off cable), since their transmitters had gone down yesterday with the WTC. from this morning-- Here's what the morning commute in the NYC area looks like today. This website has pages for places all over the country, so have a look. This URL is specifically for the NYC area, but click around and you'll find others. http://newyork.metrocommute.com/ My Tuesday-Friday commute is by PATH train to Newark. I catch the Journal Square train at Christopher Street, just before it goes under the Hudson River and into New Jersey. "There is now PATH service from 33rd Street to Newark/Hoboken every 5-10 minutes, but there is no service to Exchange Place in Jersey City. You must transfer to the light rail at Pavonia Avenue. The World Trade Center line will be out for perhaps several years, or more." At Journal Square in Jersey City, I usually transfer to the Newark train, which comes/came out of the WTC. Just outside Jersey City, the train comes out of its tunnel and travels above ground the rest of the way into Penn Station in Newark. Much of the way, the WTC towers were once visible beyond the unseen Hudson. Tomorrow I'll see a different landscape. Hal "Between the manifold splendors of anger, I watch a door slam like the corsage of a flower or the erasers of schoolchildren." --Andre Breton Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:22:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristin Palm Subject: War Reisters League/It's 8:23 in New York In-Reply-To: <20010913.080628.-849723.0.alisea@juno.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: from the War Resisters League Read: "American cowboys have reaped the fruit of their own violence." This is a cheap and simplistic shot to send out the day after such a tragedy. From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut cases.And although I'm not a great supporter of Israel (I know there were injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times) . . . 1) I would argue that the simplistic shot is a declaration of war against "enemies who hide in the shadows," a call for Americans to sacrifice civil liberties, a request for an immediate $20 billion increase in the defense budget, assuming "God Bless America" is an appropriate response to scores o= f bodies, arms and legs flailing, desperately hurled from burning towers. I= f coming to terms with what we have wrought, the day after a tragedy or 20 years later, was either cheap or simplistic, our government would be doing it.=20 2) Let's bear in mind that one of the injustices, perhaps considered a bit agressive, perpetrated by the U.S. and Israel, was usurping the Palestinians' homeland. Please read on. This is the best piece of writing on how we must respond that I've seen yet . . . --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bill Thomson To: (Recipient list suppressed) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 21:42:48 -0400 Subject: Combating Terrorism Message-ID: <4.1.20010912213949.01ff4780@mercury.its.umd.umich.edu> Combating Terrorism Bill Thomson September 12, 2001 Yesterday's horrible events in New York and Washington, DC require all of us to express collective disbelief at the appalling loss of innocent human life and to express our heartfelt condolences to the victims, their families and their friends. Such brutal slaughter must be unconditionally condemned whenever and wherever it occurs. No cause, no matter how nobly perceived by its followers, can justify such wanton destruction of innocent people. Today, as we inevitably begin the healing process and the search for answers and solutions, there is much speculation about who the perpetrators of these acts might be, and what form an appropriate retaliation might take. This morning's New York Times states that "the best defense against terrorism is good, timely intelligence", and other media, government and military officials suggest a wide range of retaliatory options, ranging from overwhelming military strikes to Draconian suspensions of our most cherished freedoms and liberties--freedoms and liberties which define the unique American experience. In order to understand yesterday's events and to prevent their reoccurrence, I believe that we need to consider two ideas. First, I think we must accept the fact that there is not, and can never be, a 100% foolproof intelligence or military remedy for terrorist acts. I would even go so far as to say that unless certain basic changes are made in our political and economic outlook as Americans, such acts will inevitably reoccur, and they will become increasing deadly. Just as we today look at the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center as "mild=94 in comparison to yesterday's events, I believe that with the increased miniaturization of nuclear capability and the widespread availability of chemical and biological toxins, some day we will be faced with events of overwhelmingly tragic dimensions. Just as there is no way to stop people from committing murder if they are willing to give up their lives, there can also not be any way to guarantee our collective safety from individuals or groups who are willing to sacrifice their lives in a terrorist attack. The second consideration is ask a question which has been completely absent in the analysis of yesterday's tragedy--why would a person or group commit such a heinous act? Why would the United States be chosen, and why would the particular targets of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon be picked? Whoever is found to be the perpetrators of yesterday's terrorism, it is certain that they will be demonized and characterized as somehow being outside the pale of human understanding. And if we demonize sufficiently, we might be able to justify our need for revenge, but we will have missed a crucial opportunity for understanding, and for gaining the insight and wisdom that are the only tools with which we might avoid future attacks. At the risk of sounding like an apologist for a despicable act, I would like to provide some possibilities for understanding the roots of this tragedy: 1. We Americans, comprising some 4% of the world=92s population, consume approximately 40% of its resources. We appear to assume that the resources found in other parts of the world are somehow our birthright. Imagine how this is experienced in third world countries, many of whom have been the recipient of United States military attacks. 2. We maintain this consumption, in large part, because we have the most powerful military in the world, and since WW II we have not hesitated to use it for political and/or economic gain in places like China (1945-46), Korea (1950-53), China (1950-53), Guatemala (1954), Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), Guatemala (1960), Congo (1964), Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-70), Guatemala (1967-69), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-present), Sudan (1998), Afghanistan (1998) and Yugoslavia (1999). We have bombed each of these countries in turn, and in NO case did a democratic government, respectful of human rights, occur as a direct result. Through our weapons and/or proxies, innocent civilians of Indonesia, East Timor, Chile, Nicaragua and Palestine have also been victims of the United States. Is it any wonder that the level of hatred of the United States is so high? Former President Jimmy Carter stated, "We have only to go to Lebanon, to Syria, to Jordan, to witness firsthand the intense hatred among many people for the United States, because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers, women and children and farmers and housewives, in those villages around Beirut...as a result, we have become a kind of Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful. That is what precipitated the taking of hostages and that is what has precipitated some terrorist attacks." (New York Times3/26/89) 3. Forty-nine percent of our income tax dollar goes for present and past military-related activities. On April 16, 1953, former President Dwight Eisenhower noted that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." For the cost of a Stealth bomber, we could put an additional teacher or social worker in every middle and high school in the United States. The cost of the proposed missile defense shield would add several more. Which of these options would add most to our national security? In short, I believe that we are paying a terrible price for a very shortsided and egocentric American political and economic worldview, and unless we change this worldview, I am concerned that yesterday's tragedy will be only a down payment on the retribution yet to come. *************** Bill Thomson is a clinical psychologist in private practice and a faculty member at the University of Michigan/Dearborn, where he teaches a course in Nonviolence and Violence. He returned last week from coordinating an international team of trauma experts who were teaching modern trauma prevention and treatment techniques to Palestinian mental health professionals in Ramallah and Gaza City. He has a son living in New York City. ___________________________ William J. (Bill) Thomson, Ph.D. (wthomson@umich.edu) ___________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:35:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York In-Reply-To: <000a01c13b32$8f738240$772337d2@01397384> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And here is a further article from the same site, worth pondering. A Few Words by Ali Abunimah Vice-president of the Arab-American Action Network and a well-known media analyst, Abunimah regularly writes public letters to the media, coordinates campaigns, and appears on a variety of national and international news programs as a commentator on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He is one of the founders of The Electronic Intifada. Chicago -- It is extremely hard to write this morning, and yet I feel I have to. Everything hurts so much. After a few hours sleep, I woke up in the dark, hoping and praying that I had woken up from a nightmare. The nightmare is still there. Today, as dawn breaks over New York City and the country, we will start to come face to face with the enormous tragedy and crime that struck yesterday, and we will begin to learn of countless thousands of families whose loved ones have been ripped from them. They have will have names and faces. It is beyond imagination and comprehension. Since yesterday the newscasts have been rife with speculation about who could have carried out this awful crime. File footage of Ussama Bin Laden appears on every screen. Rumors of Arabs being arrested, or Arabic-language materials being found by police are already being made much of. On top of the pain we are all feeling for the continuing tragedy, this fills me with fear. The fact is no one yet knows who was capable of such a sophisticated assault on the world's most powerful country. National Public Radio this morning focussed on reports of TV pictures of Palestinians celebrating at the blow struck against the United States. These images fill me with disgust and shame that anyone could put on such a display. Peter Jennings on ABC News was more careful in his analysis, pointing out that while some Palestinians in the occupied territories may have felt that way, his experience in the Middle East suggests that many many more people all over the Arab world will be feeling sadness and shock, "because of their deep attachments to the United States." He said, for example that more people from the "deeply troubled" Palestinian city of Ramallah live in the United States than in Ramallah itself. That is my experience too. I have not spoken to one person who is not utterly horrified by what has happened. I will not here try to explain why some Palestinians may have felt joy at seeing America humiliated, and dealt a horrible blow. If I had been under bombardment and siege for more than a year and occupation for more than three decades, I hope that I would keep my humanity and not surrender to the basest emotions, and I am sure that most Palestinians have not. While all our attention was focussed on the unfolding events in the United States, nine Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces attacked the city of Jenin in the occupied West Bank last night, and another three Palestinians were killed elsewhere. Twelve more people died. A ridiculously small number compared to what the United States has just suffered, but another enormous, unbearable tragedy for each of their families. As enormous and unbearable as each loss suffered by the Israelis and that will be suffered by so many American families. I hope too that Americans will maintain their humanity and not surrender to their basest feelings as understandable anger, frustration and grief rise. Arabs and Muslims in America now live with real fear and apprehension. From early yesterday morning, I began receiving to my website, as well as to the email of the Arab American Action Network messages that only deepened the pain of the day. "You are going to feel the wrath of all Americans. LEAVE this country while you can. ALL ARABS ARE COWARDS AND BARBARIANS. DEATH TO ALL ARABS ALL PERSIANS ALL MUSLIMS!!!!!!!" wrote Darrell Hawley, adding for good measure that Arabs, Muslims and "Persians" "deserve nothing less than extermination." "Pay back time...will come soon," was the simple message from REise99@aol.com. Doug asked "Ali, why do your people love when civilians are killed. You are Evil." "Dear dirty towel-heads," wrote Brook Shuler, "Please take your illogical, misogynistic and murdering religion back to the Middle East. We have tolerated you disgusting people long enough in our country." Brook added "I hope the US wipes out every man, women and child Arab in the middle east. You people, like the AIDS virus, are a disease of this world. I will rest more easily when all of you are dead." This is just a sampling of what I received. While I am fortunate to have received only words of hate, I fear others may be victims of much worse. But this is not the whole story, and this is not the America I know and that I was born in that is speaking. What made a far greater impression on me were the many messages of support from friends and strangers. "Do not be discouraged and do not let these few angry people blemish the good image you have of Americans," wrote Gabor Mester. Marc from California wrote "I am a Jewish American. I am grateful for your work, and for your existence. We are in this together. Whatever happens, we are all Americans and world citizens. We are people of good will and peace, and this tragedy is all of ours." An unidentified person wrote "A lot of us know, even it actually happens that these terrorists are of arab-origins, they do not speak for all of the arab people. The same way Timothy Mc Veigh was not representative of the American people." "I am an American citizen who is deeply concerned for the safety of all our Arab-American citizens. My ancesters were European but I consider myself to be just another human being in the larger family of human beings. I am very fond of the Arabic people and culture. I most sincerely hope that each and everyone of you remains safe, and free of injury to your persons, your homes, and your businesses. Love and peace to each of you" was the message from "C.G." At my work place, so many of my colleagues came to my office to ask about my family. Many friends in New York offered to take them in. My sister, her husband and their young daughter live literally in the shadow of the World Trade Center. The worst moment of my life was watching on TV as the first World Trade Center tower collapsed on to their neighborhood. I spent an intensely agonizing time yesterday morning before I could get in touch with them and learn that they were safe and reassure the rest of my family. They are now in a hotel, unable to go home, but they are safe. So many thousands of people are not so lucky and are still waiting in agony for news of their loved ones. Friends from non-Arab organizations in Chicago came forward to say they will hold a press conference today to urge their fellow citizens not to take part in a backlash and to realize that whoever is responsible for this awful crime, that does not make millions of people guilty. It is this caring, compassionate America I will choose to see. It is this America that helped me get through my day yesterday and that will help millions of people to survive hardest days yet to come. It is this America that I will continue to be a part of and to stand with in the face of enormous evil and tragedy. I hope too that this America will stand with Arab Americans, Muslims and all others who may be targeted or defamed because of what happened. I hope that people in the Middle East will stand with Americans in human solidarity as we here have stood with people in the Middle East and supported them as they too have been victimized by senseless violence, loss and ongoing injustice. I hope that we will all use words and take actions that will heal and support each other and try to maintain our calm and humanity in the face of incalculable suffering and sadness. Ali Abunimah 12 September 2001 ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris Just out from Wesleyan UP: 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 POASIS: Selected Poems 1986-1999 Tel: (518) 426-0433 Fax: (518) 426-3722 go to: http://www.albany.edu/~joris/poasis.htm Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of richard.tylr > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:28 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > > > Charles. Etal. Its strange and I've only been to NY once (1993, ironically > as it happens) when I went up the South Tower. It seems surreal > even here in > New Zealand. I also was watching the videos over and over: it does become > addictive. I try to imagine a human plunging into that building. At the > moment even I'm emotional. had some symapthy for the Palestinian cause, I > tried to understand the Teleban: but I think the US has to face > it. It (and > we in the West) ARE and or IS under a real threat to democracy: to human > civilisation as a against the barabric bastards "out there". I'm right > behind the US whatever they do. > Bush is right in this case. Democracy, what little we have, is being > attacked. I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut > cases.And although I'm not a great supporter of Israel (I know there were > injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times) but it > seemed to > me that the US and Israel were probing toward a negotiated > settlement. That > wont happen with these guys:they are sub- human robotic scum: they are > beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Charles Bernstein" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:52 PM > Subject: It's 8:23 in New York > > > > What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you > are looking. > > > > Or looking away. > > > > After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A > family was > eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the > mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The > coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're > not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more > people now than they are used to handling." > > > > Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to > their waist > yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are > sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > > > I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over > the south > end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't > stop thinking > of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" > ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > > > It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable > plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four > commercial > jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was > overflowing > with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the > bridge and as > long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big > plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers > were not there. > > > > And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > > > Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of > us walking > back to the island. > > > > The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. > Why wouldn't > a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > > > The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in > a while you > hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in > Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people > were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues > were cleared > of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing > downtown. > > > > While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication > is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. > There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, > especially > Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember > their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends > we just saw > on our recent trip. > > > > As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I > stop by the > storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had > been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she > had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were > working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and > were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because > he thought > people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > > > > At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I > wanted to see > New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the > water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The > scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > > > Uncanny is the word. > > > > What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > > > I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already > know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > > > This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > > > This is happening. > > > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > > > > --Charles Bernstein > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 01:47:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: image Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable 2:15 pm Tuesday 9/11/2001 Man the middle of a field on corner of Clove Road & Victory Boulevard in Staten Island, at attention, civilian garb, next to an American flag plante= d beside him. > Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:02:03 -0400 > From: Charles Bernstein > Subject: Today is the next day of the rest of your life > > all of a sudden tonight the smell of burning plastic pervades our > apartment, making eyes smart. is it something in the building? no, a > neighbor explains, that's the smell coming from downtown. > > * > > Mei-mei Berssenbrugge calls; she's OK, hanging in a couple of blocks from > the epicenter. I say to her I have trouble imagining what is going on. S= he > says, oh you can imagine it all right, from the movies. You just can't conceive it. > > * > > I see Andrew, the hairdresser, in the lobby of our building. He says thin= gs > were on and off today; several appointments were no shows. > > "Maybe they're not coming back." > > * > > A friend in Berkeley asks me how things are going and I write back. The > reply is immediate: "automated response". It is entirely blank. > > * > We drop Felix off at a friend's across from his school on 77th and > Amsterdam. The fire station on the block, which we pass every day, is > empty, with piles of flowers in the doorway. A wave of terror sweeps over > us; after all, 200 to 300 firefighters have died. Later in the afternoon,= I > come to pick Felix up an there are ten or twelve firemen in front of the > firehouse, calmly, so it seems, washing the two fire trucks parked in the > middle of the street. It's a relief to see them. > > Then we hear that nine of the thirty men stationed there perished. > > * > > The most frequent analogy is to Pearl Harbor, though the London blitz mig= ht > also be mentioned. I keep thinking of something else, not something that > happened but something I expected to happen. In the 50s, we were trained = to > prepare for a nuclear attack on Manhattan. In elementary school we had > drills in which we were marched into the halls and all the window and doo= r > glass was covered with wood. The events of yesterday seem to finally play > out that fear. > > * > A psychologist friend is on extra duty though the weekend. Those at the > edge are going over it. > > "I may be paranoid but there really are people out to get me." > > * > > "It's a bit ominous," a friend writes, "the way the politicos are speaki= ng > about "talking with one voice." > > -- I am just trying to get by talking with no voice. > > * > > Many of the officials on TV say we will come out of all this stronger. > > But it won't be the same we. > > Stronger or not. > > * > > Jerry and Diane Rothenberg come by. We finish off the bottle of "reserve" > Stolly I bought just a few weeks ago at the Moscow airport "duty free". > > * > for Patrick > > give nothing evil to oppose > and it will crash the program > > * > > the image is greater than the reality > > the image can't approach the reality > > the reality has no image > > * > > our eyes are burning Lee Ann Brown Tender Buttons PO Box 13, Cooper Station NYC 10276 (718) 782-8443 home - (646) 734-4157 cell "Harmless amulets arm little limbs with poise and charm." =8B Harryette Mullen, Trimmings (Tender Buttons Books) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 12:27:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: Today is the next day of the rest of your life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Before and after the WTC incident I've been reading Peter D. Kramer's novel _Spectacular Happiness_. The book's written from the viewpoint of a bomber. Kramer, of course, is the psychiatrist who wrote _Listening to Prozac_. Anyone else reading this now or recently? Tom Beckett ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 09:45:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Obenzinger Subject: Re: Today is the next day of the rest of your life Comments: cc: bernstei@BWAY.NET In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010912201130.02722600@pop.bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Charles, Sorrow for you and everyone in New York. My brother works in finance, but fortunately was not in the area at the time, and I stood in front of TV in amazement and grief like the rest of the world. At Stanford, the library received a bomb threat, and we looked at the yellow tape as a sad mockery, a reminder of how fragile the mind and art and learning and compassion can be. The Library of Alexandria, the World Trade Center. Apocalypse is Greek for unveiling or revealing, and I think we can say we've seen the fabric of reality torn and what has been revealed is the utter horror of human depravity. It doesn't take much -- except determination and dedication and an absolute disregard for life -- to destroy. Such an attack is a crime against humanity, and war sentiment is instantly reaching fever pitch, and I am afraid more horror is on the way. The dust will not settle. Hilton Obenzinger At 11:02 PM 9/12/2001 -0400, you wrote: >all of a sudden tonight the smell of burning plastic pervades our >apartment, making eyes smart. is it something in the building? no, a >neighbor explains, that's the smell coming from downtown. > >* > >Mei-mei Berssenbrugge calls; she's OK, hanging in a couple of blocks from >the epicenter. I say to her I have trouble imagining what is going on. >She says, oh you can imagine it all right, from the movies. You just can't >conceive it. > >* > >I see Andrew, the hairdresser, in the lobby of our building. He says >things were on and off today; several appointments were no shows. > >"Maybe they're not coming back." > >* > >A friend in Berkeley asks me how things are going and I write back. The >reply is immediate: "automated response". It is entirely blank. > >* >We drop Felix off at a friend's across from his school on 77th and >Amsterdam. The fire station on the block, which we pass every day, is >empty, with piles of flowers in the doorway. A wave of terror sweeps over >us; after all, 200 to 300 firefighters have died. Later in the afternoon, >I come to pick Felix up an there are ten or twelve firemen in front of the >firehouse, calmly, so it seems, washing the two fire trucks parked in the >middle of the street. It's a relief to see them. > >Then we hear that nine of the thirty men stationed there perished. > >* > >The most frequent analogy is to Pearl Harbor, though the London blitz >might also be mentioned. I keep thinking of something else, not something >that happened but something I expected to happen. In the 50s, we were >trained to prepare for a nuclear attack on Manhattan. In elementary school >we had drills in which we were marched into the halls and all the window >and door glass was covered with wood. The events of yesterday seem to >finally play out that fear. > >* >A psychologist friend is on extra duty though the weekend. Those at the >edge are going over it. > >"I may be paranoid but there really are people out to get me." > >* > >"It's a bit ominous," a friend writes, "the way the politicos are >speaking about "talking with one voice." > >-- I am just trying to get by talking with no voice. > >* > >Many of the officials on TV say we will come out of all this stronger. > >But it won't be the same we. > >Stronger or not. > >* > >Jerry and Diane Rothenberg come by. We finish off the bottle of "reserve" >Stolly I bought just a few weeks ago at the Moscow airport "duty free". > >* >for Patrick > >give nothing evil to oppose >and it will crash the program > >* > >the image is greater than the reality > >the image can't approach the reality > >the reality has no image > >* > >our eyes are burning ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing Lecturer, Department of English Stanford University 650.723.0330 650.724.5400 Fax obenzinger@stanford.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 02:51:38 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: The last couple of days Comments: To: Gary Sullivan Comments: cc: writercam@yahoo.com, ehb@mcmlaw.com, stoffo004@maroon.tc.umn.edu, JhighSasha@aol.com, Qsofie@aol.com, sullivan@dia.net, kjilek@dia.net, tennyson@humboldt1.com, ordet55@yahoo.com, raintaxi@bitstream.net, gemco@gateway.net MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit This is very rough (as a poem at least), but I thought I'd share this.... (any comments, aesthetic or ethical, political, pos. or neg., welcome----) Chris Social Solipsism: A Perverse Response to Recent Tragedy Proof at last America is not an isolationalist! Though you’d never guess it by recent reports There’s a war going on between “will the circle (of violence) be unbroken” and “I’m mad as hell & I’m not going to take it anymore” I had thoroughly repressed my nostalgia for New York these last two months (not so much by proactively making new memories here as by curbing further curiosities until I began to digest what for years sat stranded on the tastebuds) until thefire’s gray glare on my black and white TV gave proof through the morn the towers weren’t there. Now, I almost envy my friends there, I long. It’s like they all sent me this giant “wish you were here” postcard. Sure, none of them have yet come forth To tell me of the death of someone close And some were awfully lucky Like Fred who works there & never oversleeps, Who on this one day did. But even if one has died, I wave no flag but dig out the peacesign To wear like a bible over my breast pocket To prevent the bullet of the flags From flapping in my face. I wear the button like a finger That could become a hand If 4 others joined me in flipping its bird at Bush. This is what I think it meant to be a hippy-punk When his dad’s “kinder, gentler” war-itch Hadn’t yet latched on Saddam: “I’m in love with everyone… but don’t go putting flowers in my gun” (sayeth the Volcano Suns). The DJ laughs, “Tonight the L.A. Guns are playing” though business as usual is disrupted and Bush has not yet begun bombing (silent night, sooty night, 7 O’Clock news….) “Nuclear winter lasts millions of years…” It’s that in-between crisis epiphany When folks are shaken to the root And may, if not for the news, question everything And since I’ve always been more concerned With the atrocities closer to me To the point where I run the risk of self-laceration, Biting the hand that feeds me When I’ve already eaten more than I can digest And, even in poetry circles, get called a “native informer” For pointing out inconsistencies (that would be okay if they weren’t evident in those who claim to value consistency) In the “avant” poetics of those who criticize What they call mainstream More than I lash out at the follies and fuck ups and (minor) atrocities Of those I would have to be less isolationalist And more imperialist to even meet, I see the news trying to tell me it’s my duty to be an imperialist. No more now, “to defend freedom,” than ever. And even if I’m all thumbs, I point my psychic sidekick gun at Bush, Enough of a yippee if not quite a hippie To allow you to say my bang flags, my blanks Are more like flowers than flags on tanks Enough of a punk and sort of a monk To know that the working title for the Clash’s Only top ten American hit (which “coincidentally” Had anti-Arab sentiments) was “rob the cashbox.” Bush, you make Eisenhauer seem a peacenik by comparison (as if 5 little words, “Beware the military industrial complex” could expiate his guilt, and erase 8 long years of “Leave It To Beaver” while Beats and panthers bubbled beneath the Joneses even Baraka was at this point still trying to keep up with--- who would’ve guessed that ground would seem more fertile 40 years later?) Bush, I know it’s as bad for me to single you out As it is for you to single out that terrorist in Afghanistan And I know you are but an iceberg tip Of a military-post industrial complex Symbolized by the three buildings whose fire Gives proof through these days that you are still there, Bigger than ever, a complex bigger and older than you, Like Chaney perhaps, but bigger than him too But now is not the time to address the faceless world incurious Much less to hail the chimp And I could even, if only for strategic reasons, Grant your heart, and the heart of those Who bought you the election, is in the right place, That you truly care about the safety of people like myself Who very well have been in the basement Of the towers transferring from the N and the R To the Path Train to get to my adjunct job at Rutgers Had I not been fortuitiously offered a better job Far enough from ground zero to worry about rolling blackouts… And that you would certainly not want to be mistaken For the kind of Christian who would crucify Christ Is perchance the second coming of the one and only God Were to happen as you say, And that that Bible you tote for the cameras Actually says “thou shalt not kill…unless an Arab, Or unless he killed first…” But did they kill first really?? I’ll let someone like Dan Bouchard fill in the details With numerous historical examples by which the people Of your administration (to say nothing of your family) Were involved; suffice it to say I know And there’s evidence, there’s blood on your hands And now it’s not just foreign, not just enlisted. The chickens haven’t quite come home to roost Because you’re alive, lucky as Fred, or just like Saddam If not the Iraqi civilians too poor to outsmart your bombs But they have come home to some who supported you--- Though probably more who didn’t (since there were more janitors in the pentagon, More clerks in the trade towers, Than senators, lobbyists, and warriors) And even if they were duped like my dad Not realizing the reason he was laid off Was close kin to the reason the stockmarket was up, And even if I’m duped by believing That killing the men who killed them Won’t make things any safer for us survivors And, if anything, can make things worse, I know that it is not too cool to be ridiculed (especially by most of the world’s population) but that you brought this upon yourself and the Wonder’s brilliant double negative makes me really wish you’d do nothing, make nothing happen like Auden (if not Pound’s) idea of poetry, submit your swords to Ploughshares magazine, your warfare to The Germ, or maybe even Fence, I mean the one you can sit on Between isolationalism and imperialism. But, failing that, spit your bile out in a slam Even if the pen isn’t mightier. Oh, be weak and squishy, like Falstaff Or I as a lad when the neighbor boy came at me with fists And though I didn’t punch him in the fist with my face I ran home I’m proud to say While the roots of the ugly tree my dad chopped down Sprang up as 20 more--- We weren’t safe before, but now that we know it, What shall we do? And why should we listen to you? There’s no one else to listen to. You have the answer, you got the cure. The news is with you, but the becomes a And I suppose your guess is more or less as bad as mine As Thom Yorke holds his “let Ralph debate” sign Like Dylan’s “Watch Out” or “Dig Yourself” And I do, pausing for gold, pausing for shit, Pausing for what I hope’s not mere wit Or the “premature conspiracy theories” A new friend accuses me of— For I know that during the long lean years That I have craved a stock market crash, A disruption of business as usual, And that there’s a side to me That would defend the Unabomber On the grounds he killed far less Than he did as a cog in the warmachine At respectable M.I.T And I know this could be treason Were it not that I believe, as you Claim you do, that killing is wrong Even if by taking my position To its logical consequences, I’d probably be considered suicidal At least in a society where the death penalty Is more legal than euthanasia So I sympathize and forgive The man who kills in the heat of the moment, in self-defence, Much more than the political terror of the CIA Or whoever it was who hijacked those planes And may even (heaven forbid) be forced into that situation While I’m not feeling particularly “unattached” to life But you could counter, as you do, That since you stole, I mean, won, the public trust That you too are acting in self-defense But it’s not the heat of the moment, you know damn well, And you’ve been itchin’ for military action since the day you got in, Pissing off China, Russia, Saddam, now this--- How fortuitious, the economy: weak, your ratings: So-so; the tax cuts didn’t do it. Wag the dog, folks will rally. An old, old story, which Shakespeare doth tally… Even if you didn’t set them on, or know in advance As some say Roosevelt did about Pearl Harbor, Which, granted, doesn’t have anything on this, But to the extent Hitler’s crimes were against humanity Far more than property, you are not worthy To lick Roosevelt’s boots. Even if you didn’t set them on, They were, as even the papers claim, CIA trained. You can dish it out but you can’t take it And this boomerang would be comic If the chickens had truly come home to roost And the hijacked planes would have only been filled With masters of war, and some little bird (illegal to feed in New York) would have warned each and every innocent civilian away from the towers and pentagon that Tuesday day. It didn’t happen, but the only way you could save your skin Was to get blood on your hands. The enemy of my enemy may not be my friend, And since I do not know their intentions I cannot say if they missed their target, All I know is that they missed MY target, Which was not you so much as the forces (would they were farces) who speak through you, ignorant or evil I cannot say and that maybe I need to rethink my desire to see the market crash to disrupt business as usual for I cannot say I’m glad it’s happened but wish we lived in a land where the President wouldn’t have to wait to his final speech to cop to the existence of a military industrial complex, where Kaczinski’s anti-tech and anti-war statements could get on the cover of the New York Times without him having to become his own enemy by killing, and when I say we (or) you can dish it out but you can’t take it, I don’t mean we should be ‘strong’ enough to keep taking it As much as that we should use this opportunity To stop dishing it out…… Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 08:23:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: devineni@RATTAPALLAX.COM Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Rattapallax=20Reading=2D=2DMarilyn=20Hacker=20=26=20Beatrix=20Gates?= In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable DATE: Saturday, September 15, 2001 TIME: 2:00 pm (FREE) St. Agnes Branch, 444 Amsterdam Ave., New York City Directions: http://www.nypl.org/branch/man/sa.html Marilyn Hacker is the author of nine books of poetry, including Squares and Courtyards (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000), Winter Numbers (1994), whic= h won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and a Lambda Literary Award; Selecte= d Poems, 1965-1990 (1994), which received the Poets' Prize; Love, Death, an= d the Changing of the Seasons (1986); Assumptions (1985); Taking Notice (19= 80); Going Back to the River (1990), for which she received a Lambda Literary Award; Separations (1976); and Presentation Piece (1974), which was the Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets and a National Book Award winner. She was editor of The Kenyon Review from 1990 to 1994,= and has received numerous honors, including the Bernard F. Conners Prize from the Paris Review, the John Masefield Memorial Award of the Poetry So= ciety of America, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Ingram= Merrill Foundation. Beatrix Gates has published Native Tongue, Shooting at Night and edited The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs and Writings on Love. Her work is wide= ly anthologized and included in such publications as The Kenyon Review (Thea= ter Issue) and Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time. She has been a MacDowell Colony Fellow and founded Granite Press (1973-86) to publish poetry. She has taught at NYU, CUNY (BMCC), Hampshire and Goddard Colleges, The New School, and the Writer's Voice. She served on the Kitchen Table: Women of= Color Press Transition Team and ran the A Different Light Poetry Series for three Years. Additional information at http://www.rattapallax.com Ram Devineni, Publisher ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 21:45:41 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: Today is the next day of the rest of your life In-Reply-To: <4.2.0.58.20010913094231.00ab2928@hobnzngr.pobox.stanford.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v388) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hilton, I wish your final two sentences weren't already proving so true. Watching TV an hour or so ago, the Bush administration, speaking through Colin Powell (you know, the "reasonable", "competent"-sounding member of the cabinet) began the rollout on its retaliation plan. In effect, we're being asked to write a blank check -- in terms of economic, political, and most importantly mortal cost -- for a 3-5 year, multi-regional "war" against enemies about whom we know only: 1) They are hard to define. (We've gone beyond looking for those immediately responsible for the attack, beyond those who "harbor" them, and we've now set our sights on anyone with a dimly-defined ideological commitment to terror.) 2) They recruit persistently. ("Kill one head and two take its place." Or, "Perhaps," thinks Lawrence Eagleburger, licking his piggish chops for an audience he hopes appreciates his full historical gravity, "we can build that permanent war economy we were always dreaming Santa would leave under the White House Christmas tree." War communism helped prepare the USSR for the transition from Lenin to Stalin -- apparently we're about to test the hypothesis that "war capitalism" will pave the way for... what? It can get worse?) 3) They are everywhere. (We'll finally get a chance to test our "readiness" to fight a two-(or more)-front war, that mantra of the militarist right in this country all through the "soft" Clinton interregnum). "Experts" on other channels immediately start rattling off the list of possible targets: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, Syria. Even, and unbelievably, Saudi Arabia, the country whose rolling over for a U.S. military occupation is one of the major causes of Osama bin Laden's anti-U.S. animus. Powell himself has already gone past talking about a war and is defining it as a "campaign," in effect a protracted state of siege wherein "we" beset whatever states or non-state organizations, anywhere in the world, who fit some nebulous definition of "terrorist." This will not be a war, then, but a war made of wars. "One, two, many Vietnams" indeed. Leave it to our made-to-order President to evade the problem of "mission creep" by giving us a mission pre-crept. My sense of sheer disbelief at Tuesday's attack is almost matched, only two and a half days later. I thought I was numb -- apparently I can still feel. The dissonance as I try to think through the fiendish (il)logic of this "campaign" feels like a swarm of angry bees between my ears. (Thinking back to the Dante I was reading a few days ago, this semantic maneuver makes sense, of course, since a campaign is simply "our" army _camped_ in "your" _campagna_, buddy). And I'm angry, most of all right now, that apparently the time to mourn is over, and the time to resist well and fully upon us. Airport cops are arresting more men with fake ID's and plastic knives, and I'm terrified, but I know the Bush war will conjure more of them into being. The rescue crews are trying to pull ten cops out of the basement of the WTC and I'm crying with the anxiety, the possibility of some good news, even while I'm so fucking angry I can't breathe. Peace, Taylor On Thursday, September 13, 2001, at 09:45 AM, Hilton Obenzinger wrote: > Charles, > > Sorrow for you and everyone in New York. My brother works in finance, > but > fortunately was not in the area at the time, and I stood in front of TV > in > amazement and grief like the rest of the world. At Stanford, the > library > received a bomb threat, and we looked at the yellow tape as a sad > mockery, > a reminder of how fragile the mind and art and learning and compassion > can > be. The Library of Alexandria, the World Trade Center. > > Apocalypse is Greek for unveiling or revealing, and I think we can say > we've seen the fabric of reality torn and what has been revealed is the > utter horror of human depravity. It doesn't take much -- except > determination and dedication and an absolute disregard for life -- to > destroy. Such an attack is a crime against humanity, and war sentiment > is > instantly reaching fever pitch, and I am afraid more horror is on the > way. The dust will not settle. > > Hilton Obenzinger > > > At 11:02 PM 9/12/2001 -0400, you wrote: >> all of a sudden tonight the smell of burning plastic pervades our >> apartment, making eyes smart. is it something in the building? no, a >> neighbor explains, that's the smell coming from downtown. >> >> * >> >> Mei-mei Berssenbrugge calls; she's OK, hanging in a couple of blocks >> from >> the epicenter. I say to her I have trouble imagining what is going on. >> She says, oh you can imagine it all right, from the movies. You just >> can't >> conceive it. >> >> * >> >> I see Andrew, the hairdresser, in the lobby of our building. He says >> things were on and off today; several appointments were no shows. >> >> "Maybe they're not coming back." >> >> * >> >> A friend in Berkeley asks me how things are going and I write back. The >> reply is immediate: "automated response". It is entirely blank. >> >> * >> We drop Felix off at a friend's across from his school on 77th and >> Amsterdam. The fire station on the block, which we pass every day, is >> empty, with piles of flowers in the doorway. A wave of terror sweeps >> over >> us; after all, 200 to 300 firefighters have died. Later in the >> afternoon, >> I come to pick Felix up an there are ten or twelve firemen in front of >> the >> firehouse, calmly, so it seems, washing the two fire trucks parked in >> the >> middle of the street. It's a relief to see them. >> >> Then we hear that nine of the thirty men stationed there perished. >> >> * >> >> The most frequent analogy is to Pearl Harbor, though the London blitz >> might also be mentioned. I keep thinking of something else, not >> something >> that happened but something I expected to happen. In the 50s, we were >> trained to prepare for a nuclear attack on Manhattan. In elementary >> school >> we had drills in which we were marched into the halls and all the >> window >> and door glass was covered with wood. The events of yesterday seem to >> finally play out that fear. >> >> * >> A psychologist friend is on extra duty though the weekend. Those at the >> edge are going over it. >> >> "I may be paranoid but there really are people out to get me." >> >> * >> >> "It's a bit ominous," a friend writes, "the way the politicos are >> speaking about "talking with one voice." >> >> -- I am just trying to get by talking with no voice. >> >> * >> >> Many of the officials on TV say we will come out of all this stronger. >> >> But it won't be the same we. >> >> Stronger or not. >> >> * >> >> Jerry and Diane Rothenberg come by. We finish off the bottle of >> "reserve" >> Stolly I bought just a few weeks ago at the Moscow airport "duty free". >> >> * >> for Patrick >> >> give nothing evil to oppose >> and it will crash the program >> >> * >> >> the image is greater than the reality >> >> the image can't approach the reality >> >> the reality has no image >> >> * >> >> our eyes are burning > > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. > Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing > Lecturer, Department of English > Stanford University > 650.723.0330 > 650.724.5400 Fax > obenzinger@stanford.edu > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 00:14:34 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit That was a crazy email I sent I didnt know what I was talking about.Temporary insanity. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "gene" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 4:52 PM Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > At 02:28 PM 9/12/01 +1200, you wrote: > >Charles. Etal. Its strange and I've only been to NY once (1993, ironically > >as it happens) when I went up the South Tower. It seems surreal even here in > >New Zealand. I also was watching the videos over and over: it does become > >addictive. I try to imagine a human plunging into that building. At the > >moment even I'm emotional. had some symapthy for the Palestinian cause, I > >tried to understand the Teleban: but I think the US has to face it. It (and > >we in the West) ARE and or IS under a real threat to democracy: to human > >civilisation as a against the barabric bastards "out there". I'm right > >behind the US whatever they do. > let's bomb 'em back to the stone age. > > Bush is right in this case. Democracy, what little we have, is being > >attacked. I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut > >cases. a broad brush, non? And although I'm not a great supporter of > >Israel (I know there were > >injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times read the > >history) but it seemed to > >me that the US and Israel were probing toward a negotiated settlement. That > >wont happen with these guys:they are sub- human robotic scum: they are > >beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! ashes to > >ashes, i suppose Richard. > > > All of our lives hang in the balance. It is most important that Russia and > China participate. That lessens to likelihood of nuclear war. But first, > just who are the perpetrators? And, we had better avoid demonization and > stereotyping. > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Charles Bernstein" > >To: > >Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:52 PM > >Subject: It's 8:23 in New York > > > > > > > What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > >skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you > >are looking. > > > > > > Or looking away. > > > > > > After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > >morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family was > >eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the > >mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The > >coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're > >not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more > >people now than they are used to handling." > > > > > > Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist > >yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are > >sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > > > > > I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south > >end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop thinking > >of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" > >("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > > > > > It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable > >plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four commercial > >jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was overflowing > >with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the bridge and as > >long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big > >plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers > >were not there. > > > > > > And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > > > > > Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us walking > >back to the island. > > > > > > The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > >vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why wouldn't > >a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > > > > > The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while you > >hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in > >Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people > >were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were cleared > >of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing > >downtown. > > > > > > While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication > >is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. > >There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, especially > >Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember > >their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends we just saw > >on our recent trip. > > > > > > As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by the > >storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had > >been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she > >had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were > >working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and > >were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he thought > >people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > > > > > > At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see > >New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the > >water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The > >scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > > > > > Uncanny is the word. > > > > > > What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > > > > > I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already > >know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > > > > > This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > > > > > This is happening. > > > > > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > > > > > > > --Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:31:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York In-Reply-To: <000a01c13b32$8f738240$772337d2@01397384> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Richard -- your response is exactly what every war-mongering hawk in this country wants. It is extremely saddening to me &, I would think, to most if not all people on this list and beyond. But not only saddening (there is little room for sadness left, the many death of the recent days having taken the lion's share of that emotion) -- your response is profoundly maddening, anger-inducing for its blatant racism. I do not have the leisure right now to compose a long reply -- there are more urgent things to be taken care of -- but I will paste a article by Nigel Parry s from the Intifada website below, to show how wrong, misinformed & biased your comments really are. Two days after the events, and while still mourning the dead in NYC, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania, it seems to me that what we as writers, poets, intellectuals have to do most urgently is to try to counter, to the best of our possibility & with every mean at our disposal, the racist discourse of jingoistic hate that is threatening to overwhelm this country and serve as alibi for the US Government's military response. -- Pierre Joris from today's edition of "The Electronic Intifada" [http://electronicintifada.net/coveragetrends/rejoicing.html The Palestinian people, as a whole, portrayed as supportive of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Written by Nigel Parry 12 September 2001 -- Yesterday and today, following the inhumane use of passenger planes as flying missiles to attack people visiting and working in the World Trade Center buildings in New York and in the Pentagon in Washington, most of the media broadcast footage depicting Palestinians celebrating. The brief footage was typically broadcast cyclically and used as an interview aid, with anchors asking U.S. government officials and others how they felt about the images. Almost universally on U.S. networks, anchors presented the footage as if it were representative of all Palestinians, additionally failing to note any context to the images. A number of points must be made, first about the actual footage: There are three million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank including Jerusalem, one million Palestinians living inside the borders of Israel, and another four million Palestinian refugees living elsewhere in the world, including the United States. The footage in question depicted between 20 and 40 individuals. The Palestinians in the footage were mostly young children. Most of their behaviour in the footage appeared to be no different from how Palestinian children always behave when foreign journalists turn up in their towns, crowding and smiling at the camera and giving the victory sign that has been a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness under Israeli military occupation since the first Intifada in 1987. There is not a single reporter with any experience of carrying a camera into the Palestinian West Bank under any circumstance who couldn't get similar footage on any day they visited the occupied territories. Where genuine rejoicing at the attacks was indeed apparent in the footage, anchors interpreting the footage made no effort to offer any context or background to the images, nor any attempt to separate those Palestinians portrayed from Palestinians as a whole. A comparable situation would be television anchors angrily reacting to scenes of the 1991 riots in Los Angeles, lamenting that "blacks do not respect law and order", while failing to note the preceding attack on Rodney King or endemic racial profiling of the black community in the U.S. by police forces. The overwhelming number of Palestinians, like people of all nationalities, were sickened by the events in New York and Washington. Palestinians with relatives in New York and Washington spent much of yesterday worriedly trying to phone to check they were safe, exactly as many Americans did. Palestinian citizens of the United States will also turn out to be among the victims of the tragedy. Whatever a group of 20-40 Palestinian children happened to be doing yesterday morning in Nablus or Ein Al-Hilweh Refugee Camp in Lebanon is no more representative of all Palestinians than the Klu Klux Klan rally -- which happened recently just down the road from where I live, in St. Paul, Minnesota -- is representative of all Americans. In addition, there is an all-important context of brutalisation -- that anchors completely failed to note -- which explains why even a single person would find any cause to celebrate yesterday's terrible carnage: For the last year now, Palestinian civilians have been living through a nightmare in which Israeli occupation forces have been nightly shelling their towns using tanks, helicopters, and other heavy weapons. Palestinians do not need a subscription to Jane's Defence Weekly to learn the origin of these weapons when they can pick up shell casings from the floors of their homes and from their backyards with MADE IN THE U.S.A. stamped on them. United States weaponry supplied to Israel includes: Heavy weapons: F-16 fighter planes, Apache and Cobra attack helicopters, and Reshef patrol boats to attack Palestinian buildings and vehicles; and Armoured pile drivers and armoured bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes and agricultural land. Heavy ammunition: Naval and tank artillery including 76mm, 105mm and 120mm high explosive rounds; M114 TOW rockets and Hell-Fire air-to-ground missiles; Shoulder-fired, anti-armour Light Anti-tank Weapons (LAW) rocket launchers firing 84mm or 90mm rockets; M203 and MK19 grenade launchers; 40-90 mm mortars; and A modified version of the M494 105mm, an anti-personnel cluster bomb. Smaller ammunition: 5.56 mm bullets for M-16 machine guns; 7.62 mm high velocity bullets for general purpose machine guns and Galil sniper rifles; 12.7 mm bullets for Browning machine guns and Barret sniper rifles; and The "less lethal" rubber-coated and plastic-coated metal bullets. The U.S. weaponry listed above has not been used proportionally for the purpose of defending Israel -- as one would hope any military aid is used -- but rather has been used disproportionally and offensively to kill over 600 Palestinians, one-third of whom are children, 60 percent of whom were killed outside of clash situations. The U.S. weaponry listed above has additionally been used to seriously injure another 15,000 Palestinians, 1,500 of whom have been crippled for life. That Israel has used "excessive force" to suppress the current Palestinian uprising against 34 years of its military occupation is a fact according to the United Nations Security Council, other UN bodies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem, and the US State Department. However offensive the images of the small groups of Palestinians that were celebrating may be, the fact is that all those depicted in the images -- if they are under 34 years of age -- have known nothing but military occupation for the entirity of their lives. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance of human values in a situation devoid of them. Not only does the United States sell weapons and ammunition to Israel, but many of these weapons are supplied as U.S. aid to Israel. A current figure for U.S. aid currently given to Israel is $3 billion per year, which includes $1.2 billion in economic aid and $1.8 billion in military aid. It is difficult to offer this as a conclusive figure since additional money is given to Israel that is buried in the budgets of individual government agencies such as the Defense Department. Every Palestinian is aware that the U.S. supplies the weapons that Israel uses against them. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance of human values in a situation devoid of them. Every Palestinian is also aware that their television screens are never filled with images of Americans protesting the use of their tax dollars to pay for the missiles that shake their cities and create similarly distressing scenes of injured and shocked civilians, as seen yesterday in New York. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance of human values in a situation devoid of them. The U.S. media broadcast the footage yesterday without explaining any of the above, something that is neither new nor -- any longer -- acceptable in light of the anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and the anti-Muslim sentiment it creates. No organisation of journalists who seek to bring their viewers an accurate representation of reality should be broadcasting contextless, unrepresentative images that encourage racism against nationalities and their associated ethnic groups. In the first few days following the 1995 attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. reported more than 200 incidents of harassment, threats and actual violence. According to reports received by The Electronic Intifada and a press release yesterday from the Council on American-Islamic Relations there have already been reports of harassment and attacks against Arabs and Muslims in the United States. Hate mail and threats have also been directed at The Electronic Intifada and other Palestinian, Arab and Muslim websites. As those of us who live in the U.S. are currently feeling justifiable anger at the perpetrators behind yesterday's shocking and horrifying events in New York and Washington DC, let us not misdirect it at an entire people who continue to suffer through one of the darkest periods of their already bleak history. The Palestinian people, who sit glued to their television sets in disturbed silence like the rest of the world, are actually better placed than most to understand what those of us living in America currently feel and are finding it hard to express. ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris Just out from Wesleyan UP: 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 POASIS: Selected Poems 1986-1999 Tel: (518) 426-0433 Fax: (518) 426-3722 go to: http://www.albany.edu/~joris/poasis.htm Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ____________________________________________________________________________ _ > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of richard.tylr > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:28 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > > > Charles. Etal. Its strange and I've only been to NY once (1993, ironically > as it happens) when I went up the South Tower. It seems surreal > even here in > New Zealand. I also was watching the videos over and over: it does become > addictive. I try to imagine a human plunging into that building. At the > moment even I'm emotional. had some symapthy for the Palestinian cause, I > tried to understand the Teleban: but I think the US has to face > it. It (and > we in the West) ARE and or IS under a real threat to democracy: to human > civilisation as a against the barabric bastards "out there". I'm right > behind the US whatever they do. > Bush is right in this case. Democracy, what little we have, is being > attacked. I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut > cases.And although I'm not a great supporter of Israel (I know there were > injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times) but it > seemed to > me that the US and Israel were probing toward a negotiated > settlement. That > wont happen with these guys:they are sub- human robotic scum: they are > beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Charles Bernstein" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:52 PM > Subject: It's 8:23 in New York > > > > What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you > are looking. > > > > Or looking away. > > > > After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A > family was > eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the > mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The > coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're > not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more > people now than they are used to handling." > > > > Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to > their waist > yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are > sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > > > I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over > the south > end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't > stop thinking > of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" > ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > > > It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable > plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four > commercial > jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was > overflowing > with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the > bridge and as > long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big > plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers > were not there. > > > > And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > > > Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of > us walking > back to the island. > > > > The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. > Why wouldn't > a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > > > The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in > a while you > hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in > Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people > were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues > were cleared > of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing > downtown. > > > > While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication > is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. > There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, > especially > Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember > their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends > we just saw > on our recent trip. > > > > As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I > stop by the > storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had > been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she > had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were > working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and > were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because > he thought > people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > > > > At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I > wanted to see > New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the > water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The > scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > > > Uncanny is the word. > > > > What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > > > I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already > know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > > > This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > > > This is happening. > > > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > > > > --Charles Bernstein > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:00:41 -0400 Reply-To: susanswenson@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: susan Subject: new address for susan@pierogi2000.com & joe@pierogi2000.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I apologize for the mass mailing— Our provider (bway.net) has lost their telephone lines and we are unsure when they will be able to restore service. Until further notice if you are trying to contact Susan Swenson, Joe Amrhein, Pierogi, or Pierogi Press please use the following address— Best wishes to everyone. We hope you're safe and sound. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 20:50:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: DC-ites fled to NYC? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Would dearly love to hear of (even from) Sue Landers, Ethan Fugate, Jen Coleman, Allison Cobb. Gwyn McVay ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 18:42:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: under a pacific rim sky Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dear Poetix, I send out my love and hope to all of you -- even, yes, those I've had tiffs with -- on this list, and am so grateful to hear from Brian and Lisa and Lee Ann and others in NYC that you are ok. I heard from Yedda Morrison, while sitting at lunch today under an SF sky that for once surprised us with an airplane, that Rodrigo Toscano and Laura Elrick were down near the events and saw it, Laura was working at a polling place. They are ok. I heard that my friend/fellow poet Sarah Anne Cox's brother lost friends and coworkers. I heard that many of my friends in NYC, including the superb poet and person Carol Mirakove, are ok, for which I am grateful. When I said in my last post that we need poetry desperately, I meant we need a place to negotiate and contemplate ambiguity. (George's "good and evil" just don't work.) While we were both at work today, my husband forwarded me an email about "a view from canada" that perhaps some of you have seen. It was about what the US has to be proud of and he may have sent it because he is very good at making me question my firm beliefs. Which I am grateful for. I pray or meditate (which I am better at) for all the dear Muslim and Arab American people I interact with every day. They must be very scared, especially as the reports come in from Dallas, etc. And not so recently what happened right here and there to Japanese and German Americans. This is a frightful time, and all I can do is hope for all of our common humanity. My pride in being a US citizen stems from my belief that we are a country (or citizenry) that is able, often just on the day-to-day level, to deal and live with and respect our fellow citizens who have profoundly different traditions (and lack thereofs) than ourselves. I hope we can do that with our fellow earthlings. All my good wishes to all of you. xxxxx Elizabeth __________________________________ Elizabeth Treadwell http://www.poetrypress.com/avec/populace.html "Part little Serpents, or odd Flies, or Worms, or any strange Thing" --Aphra Behn _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 19:15:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: In-Reply-To: <200109131048.GAA08460@blount.mail.mindspring.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >thanks mark ducharme and laura wright for your posts, > >i've been doing a lot of reading re: bin laden and his work for the cia. >the u.s.a. has been running terrorism schools around the globe for a long >time. i hope that this will give us a chance to re-think our own acts of >terrorism. more acts of violence on our part can only make things worse. > >lisa jarnot I have to say that I am heartened to hear something other than jingoism coming from the AS. It is demoralizing to look at the TV as we do, and see experienced news readers doing the usual flag waving and thos words thart hemingway damned in AFTA, -- George Bowering Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 22:57:35 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: Re: WTC report In-Reply-To: <76.fb74658.28d1894e@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I honestly don't know, Sheila, but I've forwarded your message to her so that she can respond. Hal "If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you're doing tomorrow." --Michael Judge, Chaplain, NYFD Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html > halvard is Ana doina a student at Essex County college ther can't be more > than one person with that name she was in my class PLS respond she was great > this is Sheila Massoni > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 00:22:45 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dont know what the fuck to think. We all need time to think now. Not Richard or anyone raving. Calm down. What's this all about? Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 10:13 AM Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > Actually, my last email was to see what response would come. I think in fact > the attack could even have been organised by the CIA and if eg it had been > the time of the Gulf War I would have rejoiced. In some ways looking at the > situation now one can see it as (on one level) a real attack on Capitalism) > and only Suddham Hussein has had the courage to say and some are thinking > privately) that (in a complex way) the US military-political-state complex > are reaping what they sow...if one was a member of a revolutionary group > this would seem like a wonderful thing. > I think that seeing those towers exploding over and over is a beautiful > thing. > I got carried away for a while but then I started thinking more calmly: > what a better oppoprtunity for the troubled US Bush administration! What > would happen...there is no response by the US that will achive anything > except more deaths: terrrorism is a great weapon to hold such nations as the > US or any other super power in check. It is a great revolutionary strike. > But I am still moved by he plight of the people in the US: however one has > to remember the humiliations and suffering incurred for decades by the > Palestinians and others even if some of them (the minority) are extreme > religious fundamentalists....of which there are a number iun the US of > whatever ilk. This shows that capitalism is vulnerable: potentially the > revolutin can succeed. > I didnt see hardly one person who wasnt in a suit or a tie and the > military are the same hawks that were active in 1990, Bush is the son of > Bush: as in the Iraq war. The American politoical miltary complex are > beating a drum: they should be asking, or the people in the West should be > asking: why are we hated? Why was the symbol of capitalism attacked? It is > because capitalism is being attacked. > AS Mao Tse Tung said: the imperialists lift arock only to drop it on > their own heads until their doom. The onlyereason gadaffi etc are backing > away is because..well its part of the general strategy. Its the intelligent > thing to do. It leaves the US with NO actual single enenmy or nation much as > Powell wants to go in "boots and all"....and Bush probably wants some glory. > Beautiful towers: > > Unreal city > > What is that sound high in the air > Murmer of maternal lamentation > Who are those hooded hords swarming > Over the endless plains, stumbling incracked earth > Ringed by the flat horizon only > What is the cuty over the nountains > Cracks and reforms in the violet air > Falling towers > Jeruslalem Athens Alexandria > Vienna New York > Unreal > > Is seeing this as beautiful in a strange way different from Genet's vision > in "The Miracle of the Rose"? > Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "gene" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 1:58 PM > Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > > > > what will be the response? what does it mean to say we'll get those who > > perpetrated this act of horror and "those who harbor them?" will democracy > > at home suffer collateral damage? > > > > Gene > > > > > > At 08:52 PM 9/11/01 -0400, you wrote: > > >What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > > >skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you > > >are looking. > > > > > >Or looking away. > > > > > >After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > > >morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A family > > >was eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; > > >the mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. > The > > >coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least > we're > > >not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more > > >people now than they are used to handling." > > > > > >Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to their waist > > >yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are > > >sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > > > > >I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over the south > > >end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't stop > > >thinking of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, > "Feeling > > >Groovy" ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > > > > >It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable > > >plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four > > >commercial jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge > was > > >overflowing with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the > > >bridge and as long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, > > >there was a big plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see > > >that the Towers were not there. > > > > > >And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > > > > >Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of us > walking > > >back to the island. > > > > > >The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > > >vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. Why > > >wouldn't a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > > > > >The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in a while > you > > >hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in > > >Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, > people > > >were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues were > > >cleared of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck > > >racing downtown. > > > > > >While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication > > >is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. > > >There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, > > >especially Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I > > >remember their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends > > >we just saw on our recent trip. > > > > > >As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I stop by > the > > >storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I > had > > >been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if > she > > >had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were > > >working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and > > >were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because he > > >thought people would want to have him there, standing in front of his > shop. > > > > > >At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I wanted to see > > >New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the > > >water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The > > >scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > > > > >Uncanny is the word. > > > > > >What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > > > > >I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already > > >know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > > > > >This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > > > > >This is happening. > > > > > >It's 8:23 in New York. > > > > > > > > >--Charles Bernstein ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 01:19:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: The last couple of days Comments: cc: writercam@yahoo.com, ehb@mcmlaw.com, cstroffo@earthlink.net, stoffo004@maroon.tc.umn.edu, JhighSasha@aol.com, Qsofie@aol.com, sullivan@dia.net, kjilek@dia.net, tennyson@humboldt1.com, ordet55@yahoo.com, raintaxi@bitstream.net, gemco@gateway.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Last night, at Mitch Highfill & Kim Lyon's apartment, Nada, Sharon Mesmer, David Borchardt & I at one point in the conversation were talking about whether or not this was something we could or should write about. Nevermind how, just whether or not it would be contributing to the general deluge, contributing to what has already become a media spectacle, whether or not we might have anything to add. There was really only one topic or general subject all night, and what most struck me were the number of various anecdotes, first-person accounts, our own and those heard from others, that we were all holding onto, and how much each of us wanted both to hear and tell them. Nada said she felt it was like some awful privilege to be so close to the events. Mitch, who works across the street from the WTC, told us about someone in his department who, when she heard the first plane hit and debris began to rain down onto their building, reportedly shut her blinds and went back to work. Mitch wasn't there; he goes in at 11 and was planning to vote before going in, instead of sitting at the fountain outisde the WTC as he usually did, writing. He was still in Brooklyn when it happened. He had to go pick up his & Kim's son, Jackson, at his school in Caroll Gardens. The smoke was so bad by the time he got there, both he and Jackson had wet towels to their faces as they walked back to Park Slope. Mitch told the story of another woman who worked at his office who described running from the scene, literally having to leap over body parts, arms, human heads. I told the story then that Greta from my office had told me about a friend of hers, who was on the Staten Island Ferry as the planes hit and described seeing both debris and body parts in the water. I just now stepped out to get cigarettes and overheard one woman tell a couple others outside the bodega: "You know how many countries *live* like this?" Adeena Karasick was taking her daughter, Safie, to school, when suddenly Safie said: "Mommy, why is that plane flying so low?" She looked up and they both watched it crash into the WTC. Later, Safie was building towers out of straws, and knocking them down. Sharon described hearing a pop outside her window, and then getting a call from someone telling her what had happened. She woke up David and they both went up to the roof, incredulous, to see what was going on across the river. As Sharon watched through binoculars, the first of the two towers collapsed. She took the binoculars from her face, completely shaken, unable to watch, and just broke down sobbing. Nada was at the deli today and talked with a guy whose uncle worked on the 89th floor, a nightshift worker. He'd taken his lunch break and was on the elevator down when the plane hit. His hand was crushed, but otherwise was okay. I was at work on 46th Street, unable to do anything, having already heard on the way in that one plane had crashed into the WTC, and then having been told once I got there that two had done so. I was on the phone with Jordan Davis, who works across the street from me, checking in, when Greta came in and told me that another plane had struck the Pentagon. I told Jordon this ... there was a long pause ... and then he just said: "I have to ... make some calls ..." and we hung up. Everyone in my office assumed the U.N. was next. My first thought was to get to Central Park. Outside, there were already streams of people moving up Third Avenue, more people than I've seen even at rush hour. It was like that for two hours, at least. I stuck around, as did most of us in the office, completely unable to decide what we should do. By that time, we'd gotten reports that all the subways and bridges were closed. We watched the second tower collapse on the only channel that seemed to work, 2. At some point, after having gotten in contact with Nada, Mitch and Jack Kimball (and having left messages with or tried various others w/out success), I checked my email, and saw one from Sue Landers, who works down the street from me. "You OK?" I called her, got through, and we began to talk about some plan for getting off Manhattan. I guess that took about an hour, as she had to call various others. We decided to convene outside her work, and then walk down to the Williamsburg Bridge, which by that time was reportedly open to foot traffic. We met Ethan Fugate and a co-worker of Sue's whose name I can't remember, and started walking down towards the Poetry Project, where we were going to meet up with Allison Cobb, Jen Coleman, and Sue's girlfriend Natasha. Either Sue or Ethan told me about Allison's experience: She had been on a train stopped at the Rector Street station, which is just southeast of the WTC, when the first plane hit. Apparently, the whole train shook, debris and smoke filled the tunnel, and everyone rushed out onto the platform, assuming the tunnel was on fire. Allison looked out and could see blue sky and thought that it would be okay to go outside. I don't know anymore than that she just started walking north once she was outside until she got to work. We met the others at the Project and then walked down to Houston to see about getting an F train back to Park Slope. Rumors had it that the F was running. It was, but was so crowded, we ultimately left the station and went with our original plan to cross the Williamsburg Bridge. This was probably the scene that will stay with me longest ... walking across the bridge with hundreds of others, very slowly, turning back every now and then to see the skyline of downtown Manhattan, a huge plume of smoke rising from where the WTC had been. Above us, the occasional J train was creeping along, every passenger's face pressed to the window. When we got to the other side, descending down into Brooklyn, there were about 40-50 Hasidic Jews waiting there with cups of water, which they silently handed each of us as we walked into Brooklyn. Very few words were exchanged except "thank you"s. We asked around about busses, and found one. On the bus we crept along down the street by the Navy yard, which was now filled with armed men & women. Sue and I suddenly saw that Jenny Smith, who used to work at the Project, was on the bus, so Sue, who was closer, went to go talk with her. She was going to give blood--though, by that time, so many were already doing so, she was no doubt turned away. We got off in downtown Brooklyn, which was by now filled with smoke. You could see thousands of pieces of paper above our heads. People were streaming off the Brooklyn Bridge. There were cops everywhere. It still hadn't really registered with me what had happened. Even talking, the next evening, with everyone at Mitch & Kim's, it was still not something any of us seemed to be able to fully grasp. After Jackson went to bed, Kim pulled out the NY Times, and we looked through the paper, the huge blown up photographs. Everything looked unreal to me, like a Hollywood set, except for one shot of one of the towers, where you could see people standing there in the windows. That hit me. What must have been going through their minds. That it was a nightmare. Then, no, that it was real, and there was no way out. I can't imagine the adrenaline rush those people were experiencing, though I was certainly projecting. I remembered from being in a subway fire this feeling you have when you assume you're going to die, and it's not even a full thought; it's more just this rush, and your only thought is how awful it's going to be for the people who knew you to find this out, like if there were only some way to let them know that it's okay, everyone dies, but realizing they won't feel that, they'll just be filled with this awful sadness and horror, all of their fears and sentiments funneled into this one point of black, empty focus. But mostly it's an intense adrenaline rush that you can't even describe as fear, although I guess that's what it is. I'm guessing or projecting that thousands of people were experiencing something like that at one moment. I can't stop thinking of that. Mitch said, and everyone agreed, that the most potent images from the media have been the people waiting to hear about their relatives or loved ones. Holding up their pictures. Every time that comes on--and it does frequently--I can feel I'm close to losing it. Tuesday night, the smell of smoke was thick in our apartment. Wednesday, when I went into work, and the wind had changed, it was thick in our building, all the way up on 46th Street. Tod Thilleman said he was walking in Prospect Park Tuesday night and that it was filled with burnt paper. At Mitch & Kim's, they had three pieces of paper, stapled together, that had blown onto their window sill. You could smell the smoke on it. Down our block a few doors is the fire station, where across the street, our neighbors have hung a huge banner, where everyone has written something. Beneath that are candles. In the opposite direction, up the block, two doors down on the corner, is Junior's Market, run by two Palestinians. There's a Syrian guy who hangs out there & whose wife, who's from Holland, works the register when the two friends are away. He came to our stoop sale a month ago and bought some middle eastern tapes and a couple of comic books from me, asking where I'd found the tapes. Nada talked with him today, and he and his wife are moving back to Holland as soon as they can get out. They're completely freaked out, feel totally unsafe here. Nada, who assumed the two friends who run the place were from Palestine (because they have a box for money for needy children in the "holy land"), asked the Syrian guy where the two friends were from, and the Syrian confirmed that they were from Palestine. Nada asked if they'd been harrassed in the last couple of days. He was too freaked out to answer her, so Nada assumed that if they hadn't been, they were at the least worried about it. Mitch told us last night that he'd been walking near Atlantic Avenue, where there's a long strip of arabic shops, and that he'd overheard a group of construction workers who turned onto Atlantic talking about "Fucking up some sand niggers." I saw on the news tonight coverage of a candlelight vigile somewhere, and the reporter asked the 11-year-old cousin of a man who has most likely died in the WTC collapse what he's learned, and he said "That it's okay to hate." Maybe it was my exhaustion & I misheard him. Gary _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 00:21:16 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I dont know what the fuck to think.My initial reaction was irrational: went "mad" even though I'm not an American. Calm down Richard. This is too early for me to be raving on. I'm not behind Bush and all the jerks in the White house: but I've got to calm down. Got to think about all this. War of any kind is not the answer. everyone has to think deeply about these issues. Debate these issues: calmly if possible. What's going - gone on? Avoid getting "seduced" by television propaganda and the emotion: the hysteria. . Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "richard.tylr" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 10:25 AM Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League > If you are opposed to capitalism you have to go "the whole hog" and see this > as like T S Eliots Towers in the Wasteland or be like Genet in"The Miracle > of the Rose"...... it was a brilliant strike by anti capitalist forces for > whatever reason. Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "hassen" > To: > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 2:39 AM > Subject: Fw: from the War Resisters League > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > >From the War Resisters League: > > I'm writing this from home - the WRL office email is down, but I was > > present when this statement was drafted and said I'd take the text home to > > transmit at once. David McReynolds > > > > > > >>>>>>>>>>>>> > > > > As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and > > subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north > > from Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters > League, > > our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds, if not thousands, of New > > Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade > Center. > > The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over the ruins > > where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers who were > > there when the final collapse occurred. > > > > Of course we know our friends and co-workers in Washington D.C. have > similar > > thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the parts of > > the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of the innocent > > passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their doom on this > > day. > > > > We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know > > that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an > > extended analysis until more information is available but some things are > > clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of > billions > > on Star Wars is clearly the sham [= farsa] it was from the beginning, when > > terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means. > > > > We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S. > > develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target > civilians, > > or accept any policy by any nation which targets civilians. This would > mean > > an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which have caused the deaths of > > hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would mean not only a condemnation > of > > terrorism by Palestinians but also the policy of assassination against the > > Palestinian leadership by Israel, and the ruthless repression of the > > Palestinian population and the continuing occupation by Israel of the West > > Bank and Gaza. > > > > The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in > > millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war, > > through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to > the > > sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest > supplier > > of "conventional weapons" in the world - and those weapons fuel the > starkest > > kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy of support > for > > armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the Taliban - > and > > the creation of Osama Bin Laden. > > > > Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years past, > > condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as Chechnya, > > the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the Balkans. But our > > nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up until now we have > > felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear cool day to find our > > largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none are > safe. > > > > Let us seek an end of the militarism which has characterized this nation > for > > decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through > > disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice - not through > > escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such as > > those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians - may > > these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on > > other civilians in other lands. We are particularly aware of the fear > which > > many people of Middle Eastern descent, living in this country, may feel at > > this time and urge special consideration for this community. > > > > We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall > > move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to conflict > and > > a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the many > > lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge. > > > > This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was > > drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued by > > the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League in the national > > office, September 11, 2001. > > > > Contact calls: WRL - 212 / 228.0450 also David McReynolds, 212 /674.7268 > > > > Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 90083 > > Gainesville, FL. 32607 (352) 337-9274 http://www.space4peace.org > > globalnet@mindspring.com > > > > Via Turati, 53 > > 40134 Bologna ITALY > > tel. 011.39.051.6141107 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 09:21:02 -0400 Reply-To: jamie.perez@AKQA.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jamie Gaughran-Perez Organization: AKQA Subject: Re: horrifiying prescience MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit just in the sense of journalistic fairness... that cover was apparantly designed 2 months ago, it never hit the shelves and they are changing the artwork. you know the band itself must be pretty horrified http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A19159-2001Sep12.html jamie.gp Muffy Bolding wrote: > > this morning, someone on one of my other mailing lists emailed me this link. > > and i thought -- on this day of all days -- that i was nothing if not > unshockable. > > this album was released last november -- and this is the cover art. > > http://polpo.org/coup-cover-300.jpg > > for some occasions, there simply ARE no words -- > *muffy* ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:59:13 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: for nyc MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit my horror. my nature. twin towers all one rubbish. I was once a plain spoken man. eye to eye my word was good WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:11:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...Yassir Arafat has just been made a charter member of the war resistors league retroactively Now that we've had the vile Dave McReynolds Fuck Usa... *************************************************** America: The Good Neighbor. Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record: "This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States. When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it. When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped. The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars! into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans. I'd like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don't they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American Planes? Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles. You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon -! not once, but several times - and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here. When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke. I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don't think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake. Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I'm one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those." Stand proud, America! Please forward this e-mail to your friends and family. Sincerely, The Staff http://www.streetinsider.com andy At 10:12 AM 9/14/2001 -0400, R.Gancie/C.Parcelli wrote: >Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > Seumas Milne > Thursday September 13, 2001 > The Guardian __________________________________________________________________________ BookFinder Insider -- http://lists.bookfinder.com/mailman/listinfo/insider ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:27:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: M L Weber Subject: Sugar Mule -- new issue and a buddhist invitation Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Sugar Mule a literary magazine www.sugarmule.com has a new issue out containing work by Karl Young, Eileen Tabios, Jessy Randall, George Quasha, Manorama Mathai, Tristram Kimbrough, Jascha Kessler, Samir Dayal, John M. Daniel, Cydney Chadwick, James Cervantes, and Jonathan Alexader. also we are looking for new work -- esp. prose (any genre) -- for its 10th issue-- you will need to meet the theme of the phrase: "on the road" Deadline for submissions for the 10th issue is Feb. 15, 2002. We also welcome any comments you might have. --also we need Buddhist centered work for a future theme issue thank you, Marc L. Weber ed. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 10:48:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: NYC poets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" I'm checking in here. I've heard from or of NYC poets who are OK as well: Brenda Coultas, Eleni Sikelianos, Anselm Berrigan, Eddie Berrigan, Karen Weiser, Brendan Lorber, John Godfrey (saw him last night at a restaurant), Kim Lyons, Mitch Highfill, Joe Elliot & family. Kim Lyons told me that it seems that talking about the event over and over again as close to it as possible helps with post-traumatic stress syndrome, so I guess we should tell our stories. I just have fragments: it's raining, and the long thunder rolls followed by explosions last night sounded like an airfight. Yesterday, we went into my mother's loft on Chambers St., 7 blocks from the WTC, which she had left in a panic, running north with hundreds of others. Her below-code building, already tilting alarmingly, seemed ready to collapse with us in it. Inside, everything coated with fine dust. Noticing later our hair stiff with it. She had been leaving her place to go the farmer's market at the WTC when the first plane hit. Everyone has close call stories--or is thinking of the last time they were in or near the WTC, or how they almost worked there once, or passed through the Concourse for one reason or another. Rich had just hand-delivered an application for a studio program there, Thundergulch. I wonder if any painters had been in their studios. We looked down West Broadway when we got out & saw yet another building that had slid down to the ground--I think it may have been the old WPA post office, but am not sure. I just can't believe it would be--it was so solid. I grew up about 10 blocks from the WTC. It's going to be so strange not to see the familiar buildings. Century 21 was my favorite department store--it's now crushed. More residents passed by us, masks on their faces, or hankerchiefs, dragging carts, suitcases and pets. Kathryn Freed, one of the candidates for NYC Public Advocate passed us. I guess she lives down there too. It reminded me how I had voted Tuesday morning 10 minutes before the first plane, feeling great to be voting for a new mayor, participating in NYC civic life, happy about the candidates, happy about a gorgeous Sept day in NYC. On my way to work yesterday, saw graffiti on a bus stop: "Bomb all Muslim businesses." I'm relieved with the rain today--maybe it will wash the graffiti off, down to the sewer where it belongs, although I feel bad about how tough the rain must be for the rescue workers. But it will also wash away some of this horrible yellow-beige dust, and put out the rest of the fires, and dampen this toxic smoke, which has been changing direction constantly with the wind. Like so many other New Yorkers, right after the towers collapsed, we walked and walked and walked. The streets were packed with people walking. We walked to St. Vincent's hospital to give blood. Dozens of doctors were waiting outside with empty gurneys, waiting for the ambulances to arrive. We passed a reporter and cameraman--the reporter said, "Try to find a distraught family." People at work were jumpy, almost hysterical, yesterday. We're five blocks from Grand Central, bomb threats there. I ran into Brendan Lorber later; he had been evacuated from Rockefeller Center and sent home. Bosses here talk about "maintaining routine" and "showing 'them.'" Midtown was a nightmare of traffic, smoke, sirens. I walked home, and passed secret service agents on a quiet block. I guess maybe Bush came a day early, or some bigwig. I just got an e-mail saying that we were supposed to wear red, white and blue today to work--how bizarre. Today seems a tiny smidgen easier--I slept without waking up with the total horrors in the middle of the night. love, Marcella ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:10:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brenda Coultas Subject: okay in NYC MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi All, This is Brenda Coultas checking in, since the tragedy I have spoken with poets, Marcella Durand, Brendan Lorber, David Cameron, Jo Ann Wasserman, Edwin Torres and Liz Castagna, Laird Hunt and Eleni Sikelianos, Marcella Harb and John Wright, Jeni Olin, Diana Ricard. All are fine. I haven't heard of any poets being lost although I'm sure some poets may have lost someone and I have heard there were some close calls, but I'll let those poets tell their own stories. Thank you all for being with us, knowing that your thoughts are with us is very comforting. love, Brenda Coultas ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 00:10:54 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Today is the next day of the rest of your life MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Charles yes I too remember those air riad drills vividly i always preferred fire drills as we got to go outside my daughter in Cliffside pk says fort lee is sealed off and that the dust/odor/smoke wind has changed is blowing over where she is ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:29:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Belief-systems and this tragedy. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable There was a story on the local evening news the night of the attack that = people were flocking to their churches to pray for the victims, peace, = revenge, or whatever. It stuck me how this is a war between religious ideologies, just like so = much of human violence has been throughout our history. Monotheism: My = God against your God; or, My God is the only God. =20 Whether here, in a country that prides itself on having more churches = than any in the world, or in Israel, Islamic countries, Ireland, = Yugoslavia...as long as there are self-serving belief-systems, that = cloak themselves in religions, or otherwise (Capitalism, Communism...), = even when there are people within them who mean well, which there are on = all sides--there will be violence.=20 I'm not speaking about spirituality, which has a cosmic view of reality, = but belief-systems. And it seems to me that as poets this is something = to listen for, on the news and in ourselves, as we interpret this = tragedy. =20 -Joel Joel Weishaus Center for Excellence in Writing Portland State University Portland, Oregon. http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 14:34:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Maxwell Subject: a poem at least MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" A friend and I were discussing this poem by Auden this week. I think it has a lot to say to this moment. Good, sane and measured thoughts to you all, Andrew *** September 1, 1939 W. H. Auden I sit in one of the dives On Fifty-second Street Uncertain and afraid As the clever hopes expire Of a low dishonest decade: Waves of anger and fear Circulate over the bright And darkened lands of the earth, Obsessing our private lives; The unmentionable odour of death Offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can Unearth the whole offence From Luther until now That has driven a culture mad, Find what occurred at Linz, What huge imago made A psychopathic god: I and the public know What all schoolchildren learn, Those to whom evil is done Do evil in return. Exiled Thucydides knew All that a speech can say About Democracy, And what dictators do, The elderly rubbish they talk To an apathetic grave; Analysed all in his book, The enlightenment driven away, The habit-forming pain, Mismanagement and grief: We must suffer them all again. Into this neutral air Where blind skyscrapers use Their full height to proclaim The strength of Collective Man, Each language pours its vain Competitive excuse: But who can live for long In an euphoric dream; Out of the mirror they stare, Imperialism's face And the international wrong. Faces along the bar Cling to their average day: The lights must never go out, The music must always play, All the conventions conspire To make this fort assume The furniture of home; Lest we should see where we are, Lost in a haunted wood, Children afraid of the night Who have never been happy or good. The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout Is not so crude as our wish: What mad Nijinsky wrote About Diaghilev Is true of the normal heart; For the error bred in the bone Of each woman and each man Craves what it cannot have, Not universal love But to be loved alone. From the conservative dark Into the ethical life The dense commuters come, Repeating their morning vow; "I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work," And helpless governors wake To resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the deaf, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die. Defenceless under the night Our world in stupor lies; Yet, dotted everywhere, Ironic points of light Flash out wherever the Just Exchange their messages: May I, composed like them Of Eros and of dust, Beleaguered by the same Negation and despair, Show an affirming flame. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 19:22:09 -0400 Reply-To: BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grumman Subject: Re: Fw: from the War Resisters League MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > If you are opposed to capitalism you have to go "the whole hog" > and see this as like T S Eliots Towers in the Wasteland or be > like Genet in "The Miracle of the Rose"...... it was a brilliant > strike by anti capitalist forces for whatever reason. Brilliant? And just what did it accomplish for the anti-capitalism? (Even if it turns out to have been orchestrated by anti-capitalists, which is unlikely.) How was it more "brilliant" for anti-capitalism than McVeigh's idiocy was for anti-Renoism, or whatever it was he thought he was opposing? --Bob G. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 13:23:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: In Memoriam MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit This was written a few years ago, but today (9/13) it seems pertinent in new ways. Hal In Memoriam: Luigi Nono "Caminante, no hay caminos, hay que caminar." —Inscription on the wall of a cloister in Toledo 1. Traveler, there are no roads, but we must go. No voices speak to us from the clouds, and yet we must listen. I seek you out in Venice, but you have already left the city. I reach you by phone in Berlin, and we agree on a time and a place to meet. In the meantime, I explore this city of waters, I walk the canals and bridges, I inspect the market squares. I look for Tintorettos and for pieces of your childhood here. I seek you out, but you have already left. The roads and ways are deserted, the canals and bridges are empty of people. I must go to meet you, but there is no way to go. The overtones of our conversations hang in the air like something too private for words. Too spontaneous, yet binding. Tintoretto, Schnittke, Webern— the names wander in and out of our conversation. I am attracted and repelled by you, I speak and you are silent, I walk and you stand still. 2. "He showed me into one of his rooms." I tried to decipher his letters. Outside, Freiburg Sweltered—the last days of summer. He made demands on me I felt I could not possibly meet. He expected some sort of ideal human being. It was the beginning, he announced. And he wanted to move on from there. He wanted to work on the continuation. The overtones of our talk, a word here, a word there—hints that I could not reckon. "Don't get excited." He tapped his forehead. "I've got it all here." My fear and anxiety heightened. The concert was a day away. The bridge, the canals— all empty of people. 3. "To travel is the goal." Now he is dead, and I feel a need to do something, something in honor of his memory. I feel the words coming back to me, overlapping, moving away from each other, losing each other, coming back, disappearing, overlapping, disappearing again. I feel the sounds, the dreams, moving outward along as yet undisclosed highways, moving toward—well, there is nowhere to go, but go we must. We must play, as if there's some underlying order to our discomfitures, highways and byways of stars. --Halvard Johnson [after texts by Luigi Pestalozza and Gidon Kremer; tr. Christopher Whyte and Stewart Spencer] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:50:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: missing MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII +++ missing +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 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+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 16:49:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mike Kelleher Subject: From Laird Hunt Comments: cc: UB Core Poetics Poetics Seminar Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In light of the horrific events here in New York and in consultation with the Dactyl Foundation, I have decided to postpone the book party for The Impossibly, which was scheduled for this Sunday. I will post info on the new date as soon as I have it. Best wishes to all and my deepest condolences to any of you who lost friends or loved ones. Laird ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 13:53:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Small Press Traffic 9/14 event postponed Comments: cc: kindkey@aol.com, mwsasso@aol.com, Normacole@aol.com, rgluck@sfsu.edu, giovann@aol.com, yedd@aol.com, junona@pacbell.net, sh@well.com, tbrady@msgidirect.com, eliztj@hotmail.com, kevinkillian@earthlink.net, twinklejoi@juno.com, brent@spdbooks.org, cartograffiti@mindspring.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Due to current events, David Larsen, Lauren Gudath, and I have decided to postpone their reading which was scheduled for tomorrow night. They will read on December 14. Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 19:32:33 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: The Angel of History MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII My wing is ready for flight, I would like to turn back. If I stayed timeless time, I would have little luck. Gerhard Scholem, "Gruss vom Angelus" A Klee painting named "Angelus Novus" shows an angel looking as though he is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress. Walter Benjamin ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:14:06 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Chinese Room In-Reply-To: <001201c13a5c$abf44840$846d36d2@01397384> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi - The Chinese Room is philosopher John Searle's response to the theory of Strong AI. Strong AI holds that "different material structures can be mentally equivalent if they are different hardware implementations of the same computer program. Therefore the mind is just a computer program and the brain is one of the indefinite range of different computer hardwares (or "wetwares") that can have a mind." (Searle, 43-44) John Searle attempted to specifically discard the claim that "the mind is just a computer program" with his Chinese Room counterexample. He does not use this example to argue if the brain can be a digital computer or if the brain can be simulated with a digital computer. The Chinese room "showed that a system could instantiate a program so as to give a perfect simulation of some human cognitive capacity, such as the capacity to understand Chinese, even though that system had no understanding of Chinese whatsoever....neither the person inside nor any other part of the system literally understands Chinese....Because the program is purely formal of syntactical and because minds have mental or semantic contents, any attempt to produce a mind purely with computer programs leaves out the essential features of the mind." (Searle, 45) "The formal syntax of the program does not by itself guarantee the presence of mental contents." (Searle, 200) Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment is specifically intended for the very specific claim that the "mind is just a computer program." His thought experiment is thoroughly effective in dispelling strong AI. It is solely a negative thesis and so says little if nothing about what the nature of mind is. Searle did not intend the counterexample to be used otherwise. source: Searle, John, _The Rediscovery of the Mind_. MIT, 1992. Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of richard.tylr > Sent: Monday, September 10, 2001 8:57 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular > > > The whole thing sounds crackpot. What's the purpose of it? Surely this is > just an arbitrary and meaningless exercise? Why not calculate the > probabilities of balancing an one hundred thousands eggs in a > vertical tower > in a 200 kph wind at lattitude X longitude Y? Richard. > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jeffrey Jullich" > To: > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 5:53 AM > Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular > > > > Joan Retallack's book of poems "How to Do Things with > > Words" has a section/poem called "The Chinese Room" > > (or words to that effect). She's drawing upon a > > problem in the philosophy of mind, proposed in > > philosopher John Searle's essay, "Minds, Brains, and > > Programs" (and subsequent discussion by Fodor in > > "After-thoughts: Yin and Yang in the Chinese Room", > > etc). Although somewhat racially insensitive in > > Searle's original shaping of it, the Chinese Room > > problem that Retallack refers to is, basically: > > > > You have somebody in a room who doesn't know Chinese. > > You give them a set of Chinese flash cards, although > > they don't speak Chinese, and a set of grammatical > > rules for Chinese syntax. Somebody outside the room > > can see only the ideogram output that's constructed. > > When the person in the Chinese Room succeeds at > > forming entirely intelligible "communication," despite > > not knowing the language, ~what is the nature of this > > language-thing that the reader outside the room is > > reading,~ --- since it's uncomprehended by the > > sender/speaker but understood as normative by the > > receiver/reader. > > > > That model is really the base for an investigation by > > analogy as to nature of mind--- It's a sort of Turing > > test. (To Turing-ize would be to dispense the person > > in the Chinese Room and have it just be a machine > > that's sending out the messages, and the reader's > > inability to tell whether talking to a man or woman, > > since talking to neitherk, etc.) It may seem > > tangential to your question, but --- In Retallack's > > use of it, it takes on a new, poetic resonance, and > > is, by itself, I think, an unforgettably bothersome > > sort of thought-experiment. > > > > Jeffrey > > > > __________________________________________________ > > Do You Yahoo!? > > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! > Messenger > > http://im.yahoo.com > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:34:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Larsen Subject: Re: Gudath & Larsen at Small Press Traffic this Friday In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Please note that the announced SPT event >Friday, September 14, 2001 at 7:30 p.m. >Lauren Gudath & David Larsen has been postponed until whenever. Thanks -- mercy LRSN ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:48:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Coffey Subject: Alice Notley in PW Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Very nice starred review in Aug. 27 issue of Publishers Weekly of AN's new book, <>. Also a capsule interview with her on the page following. Dan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 01:33:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Skinner Subject: Asbestos alert In-Reply-To: <20010914041031.3818.qmail@front.acsu.buffalo.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Recent Indymedia findings: "http://www.egilman.com/new_jone_day/gracewtc.htm "WR Grace Asbestos containing insulation was used at the World Trade Center (WTC). James Cintani stated that Grace Vermiculite did not contain asbestos= . Unfortunately this was not true this material was 2-5 percent asbestos. 100,000 80 pound bags of this vermiculite was used in the WTC. In addition 9,150 pounds of MonoKote 3 was used at the WTC. Monokote 3 was about 20 percent asbestos. Therefore in total about 201,183 pounds of pure asbestos fiber from Grace was used in the WTC." Unfortunately, Grace was not the only supplier: http://www.lkaz.demon.co.uk/ban23.htm British Asbestos Newsletter Issue 23 : Spring 1996 "In December T&N, formerly the largest asbestos company in Britain, reached a favorable settlement with the Port Authority (PA) of New York and New Jersey, the body responsible for JFK, La Guardia and Newark airports and th= e World Trade Center. The PA had brought a $600m lawsuit against 37 defendants, including T&N, for asbestos contamination of municipal buildings."=20 http://panynj.pubcomm.com/... Contract WTC-115.310 - The World Trade Center Removal and Disposal of Vinyl Asbestos Floor Tiles and Other Incidental Asbestos-Containing Building Materials Via Work Order Estimate Range: $1,000,000 annually Bids due Tuesday, October 17, 2000 [emphasis mine]. http://www.erisk.com/news/weekly/news_weekly2001-05-11_01.asp May 5 - 11, 2001 "Chalk up one victory for insurers in the escalating asbestos-claims mOlOe: the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has lost a 10-year-old court battle to get its insurers to pay more than $600 million for removing asbestos from its properties, including the World Trade Center and New York's airports. The judge ruled that asbestos abatement costs by themselve= s do not constitute 'physical loss or damage' under the Port Authority's all-risk policies. The agency is considering an appeal." [emphasis mine] http://www.fumento.com/asbest.html [interesting overview on asbestos problem] Copyright 1989 by The American Spectator "Coming soon to a school or office near you: a life-saving innovation that could kill you, designed to correct a problem that doesn't exist, by removing materials that aren't dangerous until somebody tries to remove them. And guess who's going to pay for it." ... "For example, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is expecting to pay about $1 billion for the abatement of just the World Trade Center and LaGuardia Airport. (Ne= w York City law requires abatement if renovation work is being done, as it is at these buildings.) ..." Based on this information, it can be said with reasonable certainty that several tons of asbestos were in the World Trade Center. With the dust of the WTC now clouding the city, contamination is very likely, but measurings of the dust should be taken before jumping to any conclusions. After my search, some news media started to mention the asbestos issue, mostly this ABCNews article which states that The Trade Center reportedly decided more than 10 years ago to treat the health risk by encapsulating the asbestos to prevent the particles from being inhaled.=20 To my knowledge, "encapsulating" means that the asbestos fibers are simply painted over, or that asbestos-covered shafts are sealed, to avoid direct human contact and air contamination. With both WTC towers destroyed, this "encapsulation" is of no relevance. What matters is the degree of asbestos-contamination which is now in New York City. As school is supposed to begin again tomorrow, this problem should be addressed as soon as possible. Residents of NYC should stay in their homes, keep their windows closed and shut down the air conditioning (the filters won't work on the fiber)." Based on the tonnage, this journalist calculates about 3 fibers per cubic centimeter of air in lower Manhattan or downwind of ground zero; while the EPA calculted only .0048 fibers per cc. However, note also the ambiguous reportage of much higher concentrations: "Analysis of earlier air samples taken downwind of the attack site in Brooklyn on Tuesday also showed lead, asbestos and volatile organic compounds to be undetectable or at low levels of concern. The air samples showed 0.0048 fibers of asbestos per cubic centimeter, below the level of 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard for airborne exposure in office buildings, accordin= g to the EPA. In addition, three dust samples collected Tuesday at the collapse site and others collected Wednesday showed low or nondetectable levels of asbestos. =8CDon=B9t Be Stupid=B9 =8B Protect Yourself However, one dust sample collected Tuesday showed an elevated level of asbestos, so the EPA is recommending wetting down debris to prevent dissipation of dust into the air. Officials add that workers stirring up as= h and debris should wear respiratory masks and protective gear. It's "one of those cases of 'don't be stupid,'" EPA spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said. "If there's a chance, why not put on the mask?" ABCNEWS Medical Editor Dr. Timothy Johnson said today on Good Morning America that the air and dust measurements, the odor and evident dust in th= e air indicate that very young children, the elderly and people with asthma should stay away from the attack area, and workers should take precautions. "I see people walking around without masks and I think that is foolhardy," Johnson said." (from the abc article) For more info see=20 http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3D9880&group=3Dwebcast (and an article on abcnews.com) =20 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 13:54:02 -0400 Reply-To: bstefans@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brian Stefans Subject: Checking In Again Comments: To: ubuweb@yahoogroups.com Comments: cc: memirios@yahoo.com In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi folks, I spent most of yesterday biking through Manhattan. Managed to get below 14th street, which the news said was off-limits to non-residents. This didn't turn out to be true -- subway stations were open on 8th and Bleecker, and they weren't checking IDs up on Avenue C. Couldn't get past Houston though, and there was another series of checkpoints at Canal -- below Canal is all relief workers, some military, etc. Houston St: almost no traffic, of course, yellow police tape everywhere -- in one park, I had seen a free dance performance on the basketball courts only last weekend -- trucks of all sorts parked up and down the street. I didn't smell anything until I got to Allen St, still several blocks east of Broadway. It was quite pungent, and burned the eyes a bit -- I can't imagine what it's like further South. Getting down west, near the river, where much of the traffic into and out of "ground zero" is, and I saw small groups of people cheering on the workers as they left and arrived. It's the kind of thing I never would have thought to do myself, but I appreciated their efforts (got a bit teary-eyed, which is standard for me these days), as any sort of distraction, any sort of even absurd gesture of love and respect, is valuable for these people. I wanted to mention, for my Canadian friends, a certain "Stoned Gloves" moment as I rode around and saw discarded face-masks on the ground, trampled over, collecting dust. I picked up a sign that said "Thank You!" on it, written in magic marker on an Evian bottled water box, and put it in my bag. I left the area, was thinking of going by the Javitts center but thought instead of lunch to regroup, watch some tv, and get over this nauseous feeling I had. Also, my glucose meter had died the day before, so I hadn't been able to test my blood sugars for over a day -- wanted to relax a bit and see if I could suss it out myself (diabetics do that, or think they do). (Later, I called the company that makes the meter to have them send me another one, and stupidly got upset when they said it wouldn't arrive for a week -- duh, no airplanes.) Went by my office at CUNY, discovered to my shock that everyone there waited until they "got the email at 2:30" before leaving. I know we weren't in any danger on 34th Street, but nonetheless I don't know how people just go back to their jobs when something like this happens. All the more, it reminded me of those people in the buildings that were told to go back up to their offices after the first plane hit -- I'm sure this is a moment that's run through everyone's mind. Spent the afternoon with my sisters in Brooklyn. My sister's boyfriend, bright as he is, is a bit flaky (don't tell her I said that) so I watched him playing with a toy helicopter for a few moments with a rather innocent glee until I had to leave. My sister's pregnant -- she's due in December. Made several phone calls. Heard the news that Kevin Davies, who works about a block from where the towers were, was close enough to feel the shocks of the second plane, and was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge when the first tower collapsed. Was heartened to hear that several of the folks he was with on the bridge were from the first tower -- I just hope the final number of people "missing" is far lower than the estimated number of people in the building. Met up with Alan Gilbert and Kristin Prevallet at a bar. Our thoughts can't get away from what we've seen -- Alan relating to me that they played the national anthem in Britain during the changing of the guard, that it was the second time he cried watching tv (the first being when he saw the first tower fall) -- both of us speculating why this seems so meaningful to us now even as we discuss (I didn't know this) that Bin Laden himself was trained by Americans to fight the Soviets. One in a long list of American "allies" turned enemies. And the shock of seeing lightning in the sky at about 1 am, not believing that the weather, after so many days of just utter clarity, could turn to rain. Remembering that what they are asking for most for the workers, just hours earlier, was for donations of socks and underwear. It really started pouring in about a half hour. There seems some additional cruelty to this choreography of the weather. I suppose, after being in Manhattan again, the strangeness of it all is leaving. Stores are opening up, and up by 34th it almost seemed like just another day. (That is, except for the police directing traffic on every corner, and nearly getting run over periodically by trucks or police cars that seem to come from nowhere.) I saw one young woman walking around 23rd street crying, still walking with some sort of determination to get where she's going but still looking lost. Remarked also to myself "well, they didn't get the Flat Iron" -- a building that, though it is not tall, cuts a sharp figure against the sky. But everybody's rattled -- once you start talking, reflecting, it all comes back quite strongly. So now thinking of what comes next. It seems we all need our "foundations" -- whatever set of beliefs they are -- to act responsibly in the future. Hard to believe that this is just a prelude to what will be a terrible time for everyone around the world, and to consider that this "day of remembrance" is something of a luxury that the Americans have always had not having hostile borders. Not that I'm complaining, but (for example) when the Korean War first started when my mother was six, there was no such thing. She and her family just started walking -- couldn't even go to her room. I hope, as poets, that we find a way to participate in some way in using the things we have been thinking about -- on this list, in the poems, concerning community, justice, globalization, etc. -- in a good way. Kristin told me that she had just returned from an Eileen Myles reading at Pratt. Eileen didn't read poems, but talked off the top of her about things -- the symbol of the flag, what her day might have been like, strangeness of the clear weather etc. -- which Kristin said was incredible. I speculated that a good "New York School" poet -- in the best "meditations in an emergency" tradition -- are always keeping some record of the minor events of their days, somehow finding value and beauty in even the most trivial aspects of life, holding them against the hugeness of historical (often bad) events. It's a strength and a weakness, but nonetheless much more a strength in these times. I left my bicycle out in the rain last night -- I usually bring it in but got lazy. This morning, I discovered someone tried to steal it -- the rubber around the chain was cut through. Someone spent a lot of time doing this -- who knows, might have just stopped hearing the door on my building open. In a bizarre way it's comforting to think people still have ambitions, but I'm very happy they didn't get it. Thanks again for emails you have sent. Just wanted to give you something to read, hope you don't mind. love Brian ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:06:28 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: tristan saldana Subject: Our own acts of terrorism?Re: In-Reply-To: <200109131048.GAA08460@blount.mail.mindspring.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII What are they? If you mean as a country, I'd like to know what acts you mean. (If you mean--figuratively--our own individual acts, I understand.) --Tristan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 10:05:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Organization: Duke University Subject: From H.D. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to Charles and others for the continuing reports from the city. We here in the outer reaches are watching, praying, phoning, giving blood. This is from the first section of H.D.'s _Trilogy_, in fact from the first section of "The Walls do Not Fall," written during or shortly after the London Blitz: there, as here, ruin opens the tomb, the temple; enter, there as here, there are no doors: the shrine lies open to the sky, the rain falls, here, there sand drifts; eternity endures; ruin everywhere, yet as the fallen roof leaves the sealed room open to the air, so, through our desolation, thoughts stir, inspiration stalks us through gloom: unaware, Spirit announces the Presence; shivering overtakes us, as of old, Samuel: trembling at a known street-corner we know not nor are known: the Pythian pronounces -- we pass on to another cellar, to another sliced wall where poor utensils show like rare objects in a museum; Pompeii has nothing to teach us, we know crack of volcanic fissure, show flow of terrible lava, pressure on heart, lungs, the brain about to burst in its brittle case (what the skull can endure!): over us, Apocryphal fire, under us, the earth sway, dip of a floor, slope of a pavement where men roll, drunk with a new bewilderment, sorcery, bedevilment: the bone-frame was made for no such shock knit within terror, yet the skeleton stood up to it: the flesh? it was melted away, the heart burnst out, dead ember, tendons, muscles shattered, outer husk dismembered, yet the frame held: we passed the flame: we wonder what saved us? what for? David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing Duke University (919) 668-1615; FAX (919) 681-0637 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 17:49:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" You want surrealism? I offer you the email I got telling me how to log my time for Tuesday -- before we were told to evacuate the building NOW. I have removed the names of the senders in my immediate agency. a lurker ********* We have been advised by OASAM that timesheets should reflect the following: 1. For persons who reported to work yesterday (Sept. 11, 2001), timesheets should reflect administrative leave for the time during and after evacuation/closing of government offices. 2. For persons who reported to work yesterday, their timesheets should reflect no more than a total of 8 hours of combined administrative leave and time at work. 3. For persons who were on leave yesterday, their timesheets should reflect the type of leave taken. 4. For persons who were on travel status and were unable to get home, travel authorizations need to be modified to cover per diem costs associated with the extended stay. Time on travel should be accounted for in the same way as all travel time is recorded. Modified travel authorizations will serve as the record for attendance in lieu of a sign-in sheet. 5. Supervisors should note the sign-in sheet that the building was evacuated and closed. This will explain the lack of sign out times if/when there is a timesheet audit. If you have questions that are not addressed here, please let me know. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:53:32 -0700 Reply-To: rova@rova.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rova Saxophone Quartet Subject: Reading at Moe's Monday, September 17, at 7:30 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Not cancelled: Reading at Moe's Monday, September 17, at 7:30 -- Berkeley featuring: Julien Poirier, a poet from New York, who is one of 4 editors at Ugly Duckling Presse in New York City. His first chapbook of poems was published by Loudmouth Collective this year. It's called OURS, YOURS. Arielle Guy, a poet and fiction writer from here, SF, whose work has appeared in Zyzzyva, Prosodia, and Cyanosis, and The San Francisco Bay Guardian as a winner of The SFBG Poetry Contest. She is currently enrolledat New College of California in the Poetics program. Her chapbooks includevarious collaborations with photographers, and a comic book forthcomingentitled "Maia Sierra's Blood Journals." David Hadbawnik, also a local, is a poet and performer who has published work in Skanky Possum, -Vert, Cauldron & Net, and Electronic Poetry Review, among others. He has collaborated with several movement, performance, andmusic-based artists, including Mark Gergis (Mono Pause and Porest Sound),Tanya Calamoneri (currently with Ink Boat Dance), and Bruce Ackley of the Rova Saxophone Quartet. He co-produces The Moving Target Series, a program that features music, poetry, movement, film, and performance and travels todifferent venues in San Francisco. Moe's is located on Telegraph Avenue, a few doors down from Cody's, across the street from Amoeba Records. Moe’s Books 2476 Telegraph (510) 849-2087 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:39:16 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jenn McCreary Subject: Re: DC-ites fled to NYC? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I rcvd this message from Jen Coleman on Wednesday: <> > Would dearly love to hear of (even from) Sue Landers, Ethan Fugate, Jen > Coleman, Allison Cobb. > > > Gwyn McVay ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:48:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Coletti Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? In-Reply-To: <33DB6DF9C51BD511BC4B00D0B75B2D81DDE5C3@esfpb03.dol.gov> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit additionaly greg fuchs, mariana ruiz firmat, jon allen, brenda bordofsky, prageeta sharma accounted for -john coletti ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:54:36 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: The Angel of History In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Dream Before (for Walter Benjamin) Hansel and Gretel are alive and well And they're living in Berlin She is a cocktail waitress He had a part in a Fassbinder film And they sit around at night now drinking schnapps and gin And she says: Hansel, you're really bringing me down And he says: Gretel, you can really be a bitch He says: I've wasted my life on our stupid legend When my one and only love was the wicked witch. She said: What is history? And he said: History is an angel being blown backwards into the future He said: History is a pile of debris And the angel wants to go back and fix things To repair the things that have been broken But there is a storm blowing from Paradise And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards into the future And this storm, this storm is called Progress - Laurie Anderson > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of K.Angelo Hehir > Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 6:03 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: The Angel of History > > > My wing is ready for flight, > I would like to turn back. > If I stayed timeless time, > I would have little luck. > > Gerhard Scholem, "Gruss vom Angelus" > > A Klee painting named "Angelus Novus" shows an angel looking as though he > is about to move away from something he is fixedly contemplating. His > eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread. This is how > one pictures the angel of history. His face is turned toward the past. > Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which > keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The > angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been > smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his > wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This > storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back turned, > while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. This storm is what we > call progress. > > > Walter Benjamin > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 18:41:44 -0400 Reply-To: gmcvay@patriot.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: DC-ites fled to NYC? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit many many thanks. g. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:29:15 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: wondering... In-Reply-To: <200109140448.AAA07189@smtp10.atl.mindspring.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" i too am deeply disturbed by the (christian, religious) hawkishness being voiced by our leaders and by so many of my fellow citizens here in the dear old u.s. of a... at the same time, i'm wondering if my friends here on the left (b/c i'm sure that's where i stand) might offer what they think the u.s./international community ought actually to *do* at the moment, practically speaking... i see the language of manhunts (e.g.) far more appropriate to the aims of social justice than any talk of war or bombing or some other absurdity... and that said, i see the language of pure nonviolence (the pure language of nonviolence?) something of a (liberal) cop-out, given what's happened and what's been happening on this planet for so long now... and in fact, to suggest we "do nothing" perhaps supports an isolationist agenda (with which latter i want to have nothing whatever to do mself)... yes, critique, yes, cool-headedness (and passion!), yes, violence is bad... but anarchistic sentiment alone?... appeals to our better angels alone?... hardly... so: can we on the left have an actual impact on policy---for once (in a long while), *while* it's happening?... by e.g. putting our names beside an anti-terrorism (as in, apprehend the criminals) agenda, an agenda that approaches these torments from a truly international-cosmopolitan ethical-political perspective (with the u.s. held every bit as culpable as any other group/nation)?... apologies for the speculative (provocative?) nature of my remarks, given current urgencies and emotions and heartbreaks... but i must admit, i grow rather weary of ideological critique, given the stakes... i don't like it, not one damn bit, that the right is controlling this (public) discourse, and i don't believe that wringing "our" hands as to the violent nature of human nature (nothing against hand-wringing per se, as i am doing my share of it, believe me) is enough... in all, i think it's up to the left to propose a workable response---incl. all efforts at diplomacy, sure, but also (dare i say it?) the threat of (international, which probably means military) police action, if necessary, and the full application of a justice system to deal with any & all culprits... or am i entirely wrongheaded?... peace, & hoping for the best-- joe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:51:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Belief-systems and this tragedy. In-Reply-To: <046101c13c82$039cb060$d2fdfc83@oemcomputer> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Joel: What do you believe? Do you believe your beliefs in a non-systematic way? Are you non-ideological? Who are you? Are there other people like you? Do they share your anti-systematic views? I trust that you mean well, but are your claims about religion and violence exclusive claims? Would you defend them? Are any ideas worth defending? -Aaron > From: Joel Weishaus > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:29:17 -0700 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Belief-systems and this tragedy. > > There was a story on the local evening news the night of the attack that > people were flocking to their churches to pray for the victims, peace, > revenge, or whatever. > It stuck me how this is a war between religious ideologies, just like so much > of human violence has been throughout our history. Monotheism: My God against > your God; or, My God is the only God. > Whether here, in a country that prides itself on having more churches than any > in the world, or in Israel, Islamic countries, Ireland, Yugoslavia...as long > as there are self-serving belief-systems, that cloak themselves in religions, > or otherwise (Capitalism, Communism...), even when there are people within > them who mean well, which there are on all sides--there will be violence. > I'm not speaking about spirituality, which has a cosmic view of reality, but > belief-systems. And it seems to me that as poets this is something to listen > for, on the news and in ourselves, as we interpret this tragedy. > > -Joel > > Joel Weishaus > Center for Excellence in Writing > Portland State University > Portland, Oregon. > http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 15:53:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Road Runner Subject: vidal, terror,afganistan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Struggling to find up-to-date information on bin Laden, I thought I'd = ask for suggestions and share what I've found so far.=20 This is a realplayer statement issued by phone from Gore Vidal, mostly = in English with curious translations of his blunt style into fairly = formal Italian. He argues that the US is falling into Bin Laden's trap = if it pursues a prolonged retaliation. http://www.radio.rai.it/radio3/ It is not quite as good as his essay in the current issue of Vanity = Fair in which he really goes into issues of terror, civil liberties, and = the role the media plays in terrorist crisis. I haven't seen anything = as clearly thought out about the difference in propaganda between a = media working against terror and not against a state. I really can't = recommend the essay enough. =20 For information on the bin Laden's connection to the CIA, try "The = Eminence Grise" chapter of THE NEW JACKALS by Simone Reeve. This book = is also good on the real relationship (investments, influence) bin Laden = has with his harboring state of Afganistan. His relationship to Saddam = Hussein. The author is surprisingly fair in characterizing bin Laden's = political stance. =20 I'm also looking for z-net type info, statements like Chomsky's that = came out right away...any positions which manage to situate the current = situation against our actions in the Sudan, for example, while = SIMULTANEOUSLY not denigrating the very real tragedy. =20 I also like Jeff Sommers "Blowback" on Z-net. -Standard Schaefer- =20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 18:03:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: a short essay from Larry Kearney Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Larry Kearney sent this to me and, with his permission, I am sending it on to the list. ****************** From: DeFoe@aol.com Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 17:05:06 EDT Subject: Re: a short essay It has always seemed to me that there were simple, demonstrably true statements to be made.and, from an early age, I poked around in my head looking for them. That it isn't possible to take pride in anything you were born with - that seemed clear. The almost class-distinctions made between a good athlete, say, and a good thinker, or artist, struck me as stupid and dishonest, even though I would have liked to be able to feel superior to the kids who had physical grace, and weren't paralyzed by self-consciousness. That it wasn't good to be cruel was another early and visceral perception, but like the majority of humans I wrapped it up in a bundle of subjunctives and put it away for special occasions. In the seventies, when I was drunken and useless, my concerns became obsessive and I found myself trying desperately to make some sense of what was wrong, and to justify my own inane, deadened response. In the middle of it all, I wrote a simple declarative poem that noted that the insincere artist increases the volume of human misery by making evil attractive. It wasn’t quite the point, though it didn’t miss by much, and now in the grip of a misery so intense that I can barely bring myself to write this stuff down, I'd like to change the perception, and offer it. I think the new one is simply and demonstrably true, which makes it the heard voice of the soul and pretty much the closest the mind comes to God. Simply enough, it's that brutality (the use of power to degrade and to wound) is the essence of social misery, and that increasing the acceptability of brutality, whether through self-indulgence, evasion, or outright lie, is criminal. I can think of no human reality which it is necessary to rise above other than brutality. I can think of no human misery - personal, political, economic - to which it is not central. I am not the purist I was once, and I understand the difficulties of existence well enough to say that perhaps the best anyone can do is to try to pass on less misery than he or she has received. But in the matter of brutality, which masquerades as passion, and righteousness, and justice, and world-weary acquiescence, and ironic distance, there is no possible gradation of acceptance. Brutality is evil, and the evil is not of the universe. When I was drunk, I was a savage with a bleeding heart. I savaged my family and myself as I brooded on the pain of being human, and the terrible claustrophobia of being locked in one's own head. The truth is that I was brooding on my own betrayal of my own truths, and my compensatory, self-pitying attraction to fatality and irrevocability. I'm sorry for those years, and the pain I inflicted on others is as real to me now as the chair I sit in, the air I breathe. If I don't dwell on it, or in it, it's because it only has one function, and I honor that as best I can. It reminds me not to do it anymore inflict, degrade, avoid, hide, lie, widen the scope of the brutal, and add to the misery of children. I'm not always successful, and every once in a while I can see in my four year old son's face that something I've said angrily is going to stay with him, like a bad dream. And my heart falls through the floor much as it always did, though now I don't run away and hide. I notice, and try to never do the same thing again. At the onset of the Gulf War, I wrote an editorial and sent it to our major newspaper. At its center was the proposition that it's wrong to set fire to children. I got a phone call about it, from upper editorial regions, and I was told that while it was a terrific piece of work, the paper couldn't print it even if we hadn't been at war. 'Why not?' I thought, and the whole of the skeleton of what we allow ourselves came slowly into view. It couldn't be printed because it impinged on what we allow ourselves. We don't think of war as setting fire to children because it would inhibit us when we want to go to war. We’re brutal when we feel like it, particularly when there’s an outside brutality to justify and permit.. Is there anyone who doesn't know that brutality engenders brutality? I can't imagine there is. Is there anyone not damaged by the vagaries of genetics and chemistry who hasn’t wanted to be loved and have love accepted? Sometime? Is there anyone who can argue that it's acceptable to set fire to children? We all have our reasons - the damaged are damaged deeply, and they do terrible things, and the helpless are brutalized terribly, and they do terrible things, and the lost and the bruised and the grieving don't know what to do to make their feelings go away, and they do terrible things. But are there any of the sane who are willing to stand up and say "It's would be a good and proper thing to set fire to a child today." We know. We know that it's wrong, and we know that the brutal engenders the brutal, and we know that the brutal degrades and humiliates, and hurts like hell. But we allow ourselves. Because it's convenient, and because tomorrow, we think stupidly, it will all be over. But it never is. Because a human being who has been violated, and had brutality enter his flesh like steel, has lost the deepest sense of self and its last dignity - "I can protect my children, I can." Brutality leaves an empty being who is capable of inflicting his own loss on others. When her does, they become capable. And through all this the real criminals are, as always, those who haven't been brutalized. Those who have had what they needed and never been violated and rest content in the illusions of power. It isn't the anguished, tortured or merely blank serial killer who’s the a great criminal - it's the unanguished, untortured, balanced man of parts who allows himself. Because it's convenient, because it seems to perpetuate his power. Stupidity isn't the problem - the major brutalities of the century have been inaugurated and executed by men of considerable intelligence. Ignorance is part of the problem, but ignorance largely inflicted by those who have the chance to not be ignorant. But pass it up for convenience, for good times. The problem is that we allow ourselves to inflict, though we would not be inflicted upon. And that when we have been inflicted upon, we allow ourselves those actions which will insure that it will never stop, ever, but go streaming away in front of us like the endless blood of the innocent, our one endless resource. Is this God's fault? Is this what we want to say when asked, "Why did you set fire to that child who only wanted to be loved, really? That God did it? ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 18:26:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: a letter from Samuel R. Delany (fwd) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable & this from Samuel R. Delany ... ***************************** Sept 13, 2001 Dear Charles-- I read your two messages on the Buffalo poetics list-serve. Just to get another articulate first hand account from someone whose voice I= recognized was wonderfully calming. Many, many thanks. Things are . . . more or less fine down here in Philadelphia. To say that= people are shaken is, of course, an understatement. I left New York at= seven on Monday night, and the bus, after a very slow exit from the city,= skimmed along the upper Jersey shore at Weehawkin, while I gazed across the= river at the twin towers and the rest of the Manhattan skyline and thought= about how passively beautiful it was . . . Then next morning, when I was= walking down the impersonal pale-yellow ninth floor corridor of Anderson= Hall (site of the Temple English Department) to my office, 955, I heard= pudgy gray-bearded Dan O'Hare saying to another professor, "... crashed a= 747 into the World Trade Center . . ." and I thought: Of course, this is a= joke or a description of a film--and laughed. But, with that odd grin with which, today, we recount the unbelievable, Dan= turned to me: "No, I mean it. Ten minutes ago--it was on the news!" I exclaimed, "What . . .!" with, I'm afraid, the same mindless grin. Moments later, in her sandals and earth-colored shift, tall, make-up-less,= Elayne Tobin stepped out of her office. I turned to her. "Did you hear--someone just crashed a 747--" that's what,= by then, we had been told--"into the World Trade Center!" "What?" she said. "Oh, you're kidding me--" She pulled back. "No I'm not," I said. "This is for real." At which point, Dan, who, apparently, as he stood in the doorway, was= getting the report we could not hear from a radio inside, said: "Two of= them! One into each tower. One tower's completely gone. The other's on= fire!" "Oh, my God!" Elayne said. "No. No, I can't process this!" She turned, and= started quickly down the hall--and thus began a day of confusion, fear, and= upset, here at the University. Yes, I've lost the transition material. But only seconds later, I remember= little Jena Osman looking up and saying to me, =93This is unbelievable! I= mean, this is unbelievable . . .!=94 Then, I turned into Graham and Bruce= =92s office (the two graduate students whose door is directly across the= alcove from mine), where Howard Stern and Robin Quivers were coming over= the little cubic, silver-plastic radio at the back of Bruce=92s desk, and= over about three minutes I heard them go from joking to realizing this was= for real. =93Mow =92em all down, wipe =92em out,=94 was one of the phrases= that I recall from Stern=92s jeremiad. By the time my ten o'clock class met, we'd had the reports from the Pentagon= added to it all. While we were sitting there, discussing it all, Alexander= (the tall, good looking black kid who sits toward the back of the class)= Belton=92s cell-phone rang. He took it out, and in a moment we got another= up-date. Seconds after the class was over, and I got back through the= cinderblocked stair well, from the Annex into Alexander Hall, and turned= into a large room where someone had a TV (not on cable: the picture was= black and white and snowy), where I watched the smoke pouring out of the= pentagon, and then saw--for what, over the last three days, now seems the= first of hundreds of times--the two towers, one, then the other, smoking,= imploding, collapsing.=20 It was World Peace Day-- Only months ago America and Israel--arrogantly; for however much one= disapproves of how things are being carried out, it would seem that there= is still some onus on the participants to sit it out and keep articulating= their objections (even if, or especially if, it seems to be just an= Israel-bashing session, though even their own objections to the= characterization of "Zionism" as an inherently racist philosophy don't seem= to make into that)--walked out on the Racism Conference in South Africa-- How long ago did our government decide not to "publicize" the murder of two= million people in Rwanda, for fear someone might want us to get involved-- I love America passionately. What an odd and simple thing to say. Yet= something such as this makes me incredibly aware of it. It=92s a beautiful= and wonderful country in so many, historically fabulous ways--ways that it= would take fables to make comprehensible to Tocqueville and Proudhon and= even Marx. Its people *and* its government are extraordinary in endless= documentable ways. There is no justification for the horror that this= is--not represents, but is. Still, the one thing I am sure of, is that= while the media keeps naming this a "cowardly attack," those who did= it--however misinformed they might be--thought of it as a "brave defense"= against the forces of Imperialism. Until our government understands that,= there will be no possibility of peace, because both sides can only speak= past one another in a field of such misunderstanding. To date there is no general traffic to and from Manhattan. I've got my hypertension medicine for the next several weeks. I now know, of course, that it was a 767 and a 757 (not two 747s) that= crashed into the towers: I have the whole CNN chronology, from 8:45am till= 2:00 pm, cut out and pasted in my journal. Stories keep coming in, such as from my friend John Castro, in Brooklyn, who= heard about the first strike, ran up on the roof, and Saw=97disbelieving--t= he second plane fly into second tower. =93. . . There was all this smoke.= And for little while, you couldn=92t see anything--then, the smoke blew= away. And one of the towers was gone . . .!=94=20 The morning of the 11th, perhaps six or seven hours before the towers were= struck, Vince Czyz (who read for us last year at the Wednesday=92s at Four= program) wrote me the following e-mail: =93Yesterday walking out of the gym where I work out a mere twice a week (20= minutes on that stationary bike rounds out the workout), I was feeling= quite good, it was about 5 pm, sunny, warm not hot. Just as I stepped out= of the gym, there was a sort of muffled thunder and the sort of concussion= that makes your chest hum some. I thought, =93Oh, those Turks. Fireworks= again.=94 Here, there are firework displays if there is a marriage, if a= team wins, if someone looses his virginity . . . all right, I exaggerate,= but they=92re common here. I thought nothing more of it. =93Coming out of my apartment in Taksim about 15 minutes later, I saw cop= cars rushing about, ambulances peeling down the raot, lights flashing,= sirens wailing and I saw ordinary motorists doing about 150 mph in Taksim= Square with hazard lights on and horns blowing. I saw a crowd of people= gathered in the Square and I wondered what was going on. But as I was late= for a private lesson and my students are paying me about $25 an hour, I= hurried into the metro. =93The thunder turned out to be a bomb, which killed the woman carrying it= and two policemen. It happened a few hundred meters from where I was but I= was more than shielded by all the buildings in between. "It is, as far as I know, the first lethal bomb blast in Taksim, the center= of Istanbul, in about nine years=97and very close to the site of that one.= We did have one in Sisli, a mile or so from Taksim, about a year ago, and= although cops were targeted, only the bomber was killed.=94 Vince=92s message goes on to mention the names of possible groups= responsible=97names that, fifteen hours later, would be relatively familiar= to all of us, if they weren=92t already: =93 . . . the Turkish Hezbollah.= Possibly the Kurdish Worker=92s Party? Unlike the Middle East, it=92s often= the case that no one claims responsibility. I think the military=92s gonna= reprise anyway.=94=20 And a day later, my friend Robert Morales phones to tell me ... that the= streets are deserted: =93Times Square at four in the afternoon looked more= like what it usually does at one AM on Monday morning=97and pretty much= every movie house in the city is packed, with all but no seating in no= matter what the film. Apparently there=92s nothing to do but watch TV or go= to the movies . . .=94=20 Tom Besio, estranged husband of the artist Who drew *Bread & Wine*, and who= works out of his and his wife=92s loft on Church Street as an= acupuncturist, was out on the balcony doing exercises, when he heard the= first plane swoop by, looked up, and saw it strike. He and a dozen others,= coming out on the grilled fire escapes that front that swing-out picture= windows, stared at the smoking tower until the second plane struck. At that= point, apparently, everyone watching realized it was *not* an accident and= turned and fled the building, the neighborhood . . . ! On the 11th, phone calling in and out of the city was, of course, almost= impossible. I know this (in my case) from twenty-five, thirty-five calls= with all lines busy. Once when I was out of the office, Dennis managed to= get a call through to me and leave a message on my machine. Did I cuss = *my*-self out for going to the bathroom just then . . .? Finally, around= four-thirty, I got two calls through. Dennis tells me my sister is all right, though the city is basically under= marshal law. Second day information: Well, we live on a block (in Manhattan) with a= police precinct at the other end, and so are cordoned off with yellow tape.= Phalanxes of officers roam around. Anyone who lives on the block has to= show name-and-address ID to get back into our building, so Dennis and John= Del Gaizo both report. This morning at breakfast, here in Philadelphia, at a little place called= Logan's about two blocks from where I live on Spruce Street, I listened to= a local policemen tell a tall thin, and a small butterball of a, waitress= that a bizarre burglar is loose in the neighborhood. (Is it connected to= the general confusion or not? No one knows.) Since yesterday morning, he= has committed over ten burglaries in a three block area. At the last place= he robbed--since no one was home--he stayed long enough to take a shower= before he left. Indeed, in Philadelphia the visible police force on the= street has doubled overnight, and there is much talk of possible looting= and similar unrest even here--though the city is sunny and leaves chatter= over the red-brick streets of Center City. I'm supposed to be in the city this weekend (to have dinner with a scholar= visiting from Germany), but I wonder whether things will be back to normal= enough for me to return. My very intelligent daughter tells me that I= should get Dennis down here, rather than going back to him. But, the truth= is, I feel as if I have abandoned my city, my home--and that I have some= sort of duty to be there, indeed, if just as a witness. Wednesday night, I went to a bar on South Street where I often have= dinner--Manny Brown=92s. Four of the six televisions that they have in the= back, where I eat, were replaying the disaster. Robert M. had pointed out= that there are dozens, if not hundreds of video tapes of the incidents,= beginning to end, from practically every conceivable angle. At this point,= I feel like I have seen them all, several times through. Only as I was= leaving Brown's to go home through the neo-punk piercings and tatooings of= South Street, did it strike me: The media was, whether on purpose or not,= trying to make it seem as if there had been dozens on dozens of attacks.= The effect was kind of like the fantasia of atom bombs going off to the= melody and lyrics of "We'll Meet Again . . ." at the end of *Dr.= Strangelove.* Back at my Spruce Street apartment, last night at three in the morning, I= woke with a strangely persistent memory of the first time--twenty-odd years= ago--I had flown back to New York and the plane had crossed over lower= Manhattan, en route to LaGuardia. I'd looked down out the oval plastic= window to see that great steel-and-glass tuning-fork, sticking up above all= the surrounding buildings and thought: =93My God, remember when, in the= thirties, that plane rammed the Empire State building? Those would be so= *easy* to hit! Some suicidal, psychotic pilot . . . Some crazed terrorist .= . .=94 The thought was so appalling I=92d shoved it down, as one does, but= last night it emerged and lay there for me to look at--and breathe deeply= over. It made me wonder how many other people had thought the same thing in= twenty-odd years. The other thought that came to me, so strongly, to make me choke and blink: = (I may go back on it, but right now I doubt it): If we kill *single* Arab civilian in retaliation for this, then--given what= was just done to us, and after having experienced and watched and listened= to its effects on all the radically innocent men and women whose lives have= been shattered, so many of them forever--we will have started the horrible,= horrible process that could, in some out-of-touch minds, come close to= justifying what was done. (Because it says, yes, when you have been enraged= and made to suffer, striking out and killing innocent people is all right.= And isn=92t that the essence of terrorism, no matter who does it?) And we= mustn't do that. This is rushed=97and, indeed, is a version of a letter I'm sending to a= number of people. (Should you feel like forwarding it, please do.) But for= all that, I send my most personal and specific Love to you, B., and the kids, --Chip ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 17:47:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Aftershock Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Thursday night it started to pour. The piercing thunder claps echoed over Manhattan. We all woke up with a start and couldn't find the way back to sleep. Andrew tells us the story of a British man who showed up on time for his hair cutting appointment, 4pm, Tuesday. He had been on an upper floor of the Trade Center when the jet hit. By mistake I first wrote "Word Trade Center." Tuesday morning I rouse my friend Stu from a profound slumber to tell him what has happened to the twin towers. -- "They're ugly," he says, after a pause, "but they're not that ugly." In the last few days, everyone I know seems to need to be in touch with everyone else. At first, it was mostly calls and emails from outside the U.S. Now there is steady stream local calls: where were you when, how are you feeling now. Every story is riveting, from the ones where the people were alone watching live TV to the many who watched the events unfold, how to put it?, live and in person. Those who saw the towers collapse, who saw the people jumping, were seared in a way the rest of us have been spared. A visceral need to lash out, to strike down, to root out, to destroy in turn for what has been destroyed, seems to grip so many, grips part of me. When a co-worker expresses just this sentiment, someone complains to her, "Don't you think we need to find out who is responsible before we do anything?" She shrugs: not necessarily. It's as if the blasts occurred dozens of time, the actual blasts being obliterated by the constant replay. I feel like I am going through those stages in an unwritten book by Kubler-Ross: first denial, then manic fascination, then listlessness, then depression. Now denial again. I can't get the film out of my mind. You know, the one in which a crackerjack team of conspirators meets in an abandoned hanger and meticulously plots out the operation on a blackboard. Synchronize watches! This image stands in the way of what occurred in the way that a blizzard stands in the way of the sky. Out of the blue, flags everywhere. Things I do everyday like make airplane reservations on the phone are now fraught with an unwanted emotional turbulence. In some ways the blasts are a natural disaster, like an earthquake or volcanic eruption. Though we might wish to fight it, human beings and what they do are also a part of nature. The "letter" trains are mostly running but I always think in terms of IRT, BMT, IND. Well, the A is OK from 207th to West 4th but the C's down; the D now ends at 34th. The E's canceled service below West 4th indefinitely. As to my local trains, no service on the 2 & 3 and the 1 stops at 34th. After the initial crash, an official period of panic set in. During this time, all bet's were off. We were told to expect anything, any target next. This period of official panic has set the tone for the days after and may have a more profound effect than the events. Now, Sunday, it's cold for the first time. The summer is over. I bomb you bomb he/she/it bombs we bomb you bomb they suffer We're ugly, but we're not that ugly. &, hey, Joe, don't you know -- We is they. ______________ (September 13-16) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 16:08:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: wondering... In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v388) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Joe, Not much time to respond right now -- But yes, given that the guilty parties are more likely than not a non-state organization, and any attempt to declare "war" on their "network" would require a declaration more wide-ranging and disastrous than the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it seems appropriate to treat this as a criminal case. Given the only sporadic interest in international law on the part of U.S. officials generally, the U.S. right more specifically, and this administration in particular, securing such an approach would certainly be an uphill struggle. But I agree with you, it beats the hand-washing of pure nonintervention. And it's a sustainable (albeit bound-to-be deeply problematic) ethical and political ground from which to build, unlike an approach which wants to make various states surrogates for the culprits, and then probably make their civilian populations surrogates for _them_. My fear there, aside from the obvious moral repugnance of a policy that has a calculus of justification for "collateral damage," is that what has already happened will happen again, more so. Take away enough from a people, whether through military force or economic blockade, and what's left is the power to die. As we've seen this week, struggles between the power to kill and the power to die do form the basis of a kind of nascent global order. But I don't think it's one we want. Peace, Taylor On Friday, September 14, 2001, at 03:29 PM, Joe Amato wrote: > i too am deeply disturbed by the (christian, religious) hawkishness > being voiced by our leaders and by so many of my fellow citizens here > in the dear old u.s. of a... > > at the same time, i'm wondering if my friends here on the left (b/c > i'm sure that's where i stand) might offer what they think the > u.s./international community ought actually to *do* at the moment, > practically speaking... i see the language of manhunts (e.g.) far > more appropriate to the aims of social justice than any talk of war > or bombing or some other absurdity... > > and that said, i see the language of pure nonviolence (the pure > language of nonviolence?) something of a (liberal) cop-out, given > what's happened and what's been happening on this planet for so long > now... and in fact, to suggest we "do nothing" perhaps supports an > isolationist agenda (with which latter i want to have nothing > whatever to do mself)... yes, critique, yes, cool-headedness (and > passion!), yes, violence is bad... but anarchistic sentiment > alone?... appeals to our better angels alone?... > > hardly... > > so: can we on the left have an actual impact on policy---for once > (in a long while), *while* it's happening?... by e.g. putting our > names beside an anti-terrorism (as in, apprehend the criminals) > agenda, an agenda that approaches these torments from a truly > international-cosmopolitan ethical-political perspective (with the > u.s. held every bit as culpable as any other group/nation)?... > > apologies for the speculative (provocative?) nature of my remarks, > given current urgencies and emotions and heartbreaks... but i must > admit, i grow rather weary of ideological critique, given the > stakes... i don't like it, not one damn bit, that the right is > controlling this (public) discourse, and i don't believe that > wringing "our" hands as to the violent nature of human nature > (nothing against hand-wringing per se, as i am doing my share of it, > believe me) is enough... in all, i think it's up to the left to > propose a workable response---incl. all efforts at diplomacy, sure, > but also (dare i say it?) the threat of (international, which > probably means military) police action, if necessary, and the full > application of a justice system to deal with any & all culprits... > > or am i entirely wrongheaded?... > > peace, & hoping for the best-- > > > joe > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 19:26:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: please read, thanks, Alan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - To Everyone - This is poorly written, but it has been on my mind for the past two days: I mourn the passing of 6000 or more lives, like everyone else. I cry like everyone else over this. I work through mourning, like everyone, and lose sleep, watch the news, like everyone. And I support the elimination of terrorism, coupled with a redistribution of wealth and communications on a global scale, like many of us. This may be another story, or it may be the same story. But I do not fly an American flag, wear red white and blue; this tragedy does not make me patriotic, only sad. I fear patriotism and leadership; I fear nationalism which all too often degenerates into further drawings of lines, further ignorance, further racisms. I fear, in other words, the calls to the flag, the calls to Americanism, the calls to patriotism. And I do not seek vengeance or violence, and I deplore the rhetoric of war, vengeance, and violence dominating the news. I resent the transformation of tragedy into this rhetoric, mourning into firearms. I fear, in other words, the calls for war, the calls for vengeance, the violence already enacted against Arabs in our streets. I do not pray to God, to any God, and I resent the implications that this should be our means of dealing with the tragedy, or coming together as a nation. I fear, in other words, the call to religion, even for those of us who have no belief, no religion, no desire to create even more havoc in the names of gods who can only be unjust. A lot of us find our country turning away from us, just as it turns to war, nationalism, flags, patriotism, and vengeance above all. Eliminating terrorism is one thing - the rhetoric and all it implies, is something else again, incredibly dangerous. The tragedy did not make me feel "more an American" - if anything, it makes me feel more an internationalist than ever - so many foreign citizens were also killed. And if the Net has taught us anything, it is that ultimately we will all rise and fall together, not separated by boundaries tempered only by the vagaries of history. We already see the result of the rhetoric in the violence against Arabs, or anyone appearing "Arab-looking," across the United States. Let us do whatever we can to endure. But let us also speak out, with care, on and off the Net, before we are all silenced. And let us mourn. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 00:40:47 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scott=20Hamilton?= Subject: in praise of American list members MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I've been reading the posts on the list over the past few days, and have been deeply impressed by the response of American and NYC list members to the atrocity at the WTC. Given their physical and emotional proximity to the outrage, the balance, intelligence and humanity of the Americans' posts are remarkable. Not one of you seems to have been captured by the warmongering and xenophobic spirit that Bush et al are trying to whip up. I write this from distant New Zealand, where Muslims are being spat at and attacked and talkback radio is carrying calls for nuclear war against Afghanistan. Best Wishes to you all, Scott ===== For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 01:25:25 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rob Holloway Subject: Re: Today is the next day of the rest of your life In-Reply-To: <200109140448.AAA07189@smtp10.atl.mindspring.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Patrick, Hilton, Taylor and others, I share your fears - Taylor's phrase 'a war made of wars' took me back to Paul Virilio's notion of 'pure war' which previously I've held at a distance, wary of its deterministic shadings. It is predicated on the penetrability of the mechanisms of war into our everyday lives and one of the ways he arrives at it is by cataloging the range of technological advances now shaping our lives that have their roots in military contexts. The horrific nature of the present situation is that, with the US Govt framing retaliatory action as 'a war on terrorism', that penetration will, it seems to me, reach an unsurpassable peak of actualisation (with one form being, of course, intrusive restrictions on civil liberties - Dubya senior's seeing to that bit). At one point Virilio states:- 'Pure War is speed and military population. It is thus the population of time, the ultimate figure of projected societies' and as I noted in my previous post, there can be no foreseeable end to 'a war on terrorism', the phrase is simply the means by which a US govt legitimises itself to continue a state of war indefinitely - revealing that that govt is essentially a war mechanism, something its foreign policy record since WWII onwards has progressively shown - the difference now being that all need for covert action, or frequent use of third parties, will be unnecessary (and if anyone still needs to know the grisly details of that policy, John Pilger has just listed them out for ZNet at:- http://www.zmag.org/pilgercalam.htm - on the same site you can read, among others, James Ingalls piece 'New To Us, Not to Afghans' where the full details of the CIA's support of bin Laden are discussed) having said all that, I refuse still to simply succumb to the deterministic overtones here - (for one, the tool I'm now using came from the military but is allowing me to share these thoughts) - after my post is an uplifting article describing a peace activists meeting in Austin, Texas on Wednesday that demonstrates the importance of seizing and building on all opportunities for expression of frustration and anger against the impudent war-march of the US govt - (with Euro govts leashed behind of course, willingly, thanks to the invoking of Article 5 of NATO's charter) I'd also like to add my thanks to Brian, Charles, Hal, Gary, Lee Ann and other New Yorkers, whose detailings of their movements around Manhatten over the last two days have read, in the naming of streets, citing of stories and images, the descriptions of returns to the routines of everyday life, like tender acts of resuscitation of a damaged city and its people all my support, Rob Holloway. No, Mr. Bush, Not Everyone Wants Bloodshed Rahul Mahajan, AlterNet September 13, 2001 http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11501 As the calls for war in the mainstream media and the halls of power grow louder, with Senator John McCain speaking for many when he said, "God may have mercy on them, but we won't," a different kind of response has been building as well. The peace community -- from established groups like Peace Action and the Fellowship of Reconciliation to grassroots activists across the country --has united in a strong, consistent and deeply heartfelt response. Reading the statements being put out, one sees clearly that the entire community joins wholeheartedly with the nation in condemning the brutal attack of two days ago, and in the fear, grief and shattering sense of loss it has occasioned. There is also widespread agreement that there should be no rush to judgment and no massive "retaliation" that would target the innocent civilians of any country. Noting that international law does not recognize any right of retaliation or vengeance (Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, which governs the use of force, requires that any action be taken only with the permission, and under the auspices of, the Security Council, the only exception being self-defense against imminent attack which does not include vengeance for past attacks), Peace Action and others are calling clearly for any remaining perpetrators to be brought to justice through legal channels, with international cooperation. Very similar sentiments were expressed in a community discussion last night, organized by Austin's progressive activist community. Two hundred and fifty people came together, to express their emotions and their experiences, to share ideas and information, and to plan future actions. From the beginning, it was clear that people really needed to talk. There was no good way to cope with the flurry of hands that was raised at every pause. One young man tearfully expressed his fear that, with all the talk of America going to war, the draft would be reinstated and that he would have to kill or die in an effort he opposed. Several were afraid of the loss of our civil liberties. Others shared their fear for friends, relatives and friends of friends who worked near the World Trade Centers, and who had not been heard from. Everyone felt grief and anger that so many innocent people were killed. Many, however, expressed strong emotions of a different kind. Deep disquiet with their friends and acquaintances caught up in a vortex of fury, often racist in tone. Anger at the mainstream media, almost universally perceived to be even worse than government officials in their constant calls for blood -- somebody's, anybody's. Guilt, pain and sorrow on contemplating the seemingly inevitable killing of innocent civilians being planned by our government. And, far and away the most common feeling, isolation. Many expressed their heartfelt gratitude that the discussion had been organized, because they had been feeling, "Nobody else thinks the way I do." After talking through their feelings, many who had been sunk in despair felt newly energized to do what they could to head off war, and the discussion ended in a massive organizing meeting. The lesson is clear. There are many, many people in this country who see clearly that one killing of innocents will not be requited by another, that a radically different path is needed to assure our security and that of people in other parts of the world. In the days to come, if those people rely only on the television and the big daily newspapers, they will feel isolated and beleaguered, deprived of their voices and their democratic right to help shape the public dialogue. That will be a tremendous tragedy. Even though this is an incredibly difficult time to speak up, and voices against war will inevitably be branded as apologists for terror, this is also a very important time to speak up. Americans have seen up close the tangible effects of our foreign policy, and they are interested as they have not been since the nuclear freeze movement, maybe even since the Vietnam war. Let us call, then, for communities across the country to have similar dialogues, to work through feelings of pain, fear and grief and begin to fashion a coherent response to warmongering before the war is upon us. We who favor peace must create our own national dialogue before we can hope to influence the larger one. Austin could have such a large meeting on such short notice because of a multi-year sustained effort (www.nowarcollective.com), centering around antiwar work, that has built up a very large (4,000) email announcement and rapid response list. Localities without that kind of infrastructure may take a little longer, but the need for timely action is great. Rahul Mahajan is an antiwar activist, and serves on the Coordinating Committee of the National Network to End the War Against Iraq and the Board of Directors of Peace Action. He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca. >Hilton, > >I wish your final two sentences weren't already proving so true. > >Watching TV an hour or so ago, the Bush administration, speaking through >Colin Powell (you know, the "reasonable", "competent"-sounding member of >the cabinet) began the rollout on its retaliation plan. > >In effect, we're being asked to write a blank check -- in terms of >economic, political, and most importantly mortal cost -- for a 3-5 year, >multi-regional "war" against enemies about whom we know only: > >1) They are hard to define. (We've gone beyond looking for those >immediately responsible for the attack, beyond those who "harbor" them, >and we've now set our sights on anyone with a dimly-defined ideological >commitment to terror.) > >2) They recruit persistently. ("Kill one head and two take its place." >Or, "Perhaps," thinks Lawrence Eagleburger, licking his piggish chops >for an audience he hopes appreciates his full historical gravity, "we >can build that permanent war economy we were always dreaming Santa would >leave under the White House Christmas tree." War communism helped >prepare the USSR for the transition from Lenin to Stalin -- apparently >we're about to test the hypothesis that "war capitalism" will pave the >way for... what? It can get worse?) > >3) They are everywhere. (We'll finally get a chance to test our >"readiness" to fight a two-(or more)-front war, that mantra of the >militarist right in this country all through the "soft" Clinton >interregnum). > >"Experts" on other channels immediately start rattling off the list of >possible targets: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, the Palestinian Authority, >Syria. Even, and unbelievably, Saudi Arabia, the country whose rolling >over for a U.S. military occupation is one of the major causes of Osama >bin Laden's anti-U.S. animus. Powell himself has already gone past >talking about a war and is defining it as a "campaign," in effect a >protracted state of siege wherein "we" beset whatever states or >non-state organizations, anywhere in the world, who fit some nebulous >definition of "terrorist." This will not be a war, then, but a war made >of wars. "One, two, many Vietnams" indeed. > >Leave it to our made-to-order President to evade the problem of "mission >creep" by giving us a mission pre-crept. My sense of sheer disbelief at >Tuesday's attack is almost matched, only two and a half days later. I >thought I was numb -- apparently I can still feel. The dissonance as I >try to think through the fiendish (il)logic of this "campaign" feels >like a swarm of angry bees between my ears. (Thinking back to the Dante >I was reading a few days ago, this semantic maneuver makes sense, of >course, since a campaign is simply "our" army _camped_ in "your" >_campagna_, buddy). > >And I'm angry, most of all right now, that apparently the time to mourn >is over, and the time to resist well and fully upon us. Airport cops are >arresting more men with fake ID's and plastic knives, and I'm terrified, >but I know the Bush war will conjure more of them into being. The rescue >crews are trying to pull ten cops out of the basement of the WTC and I'm >crying with the anxiety, the possibility of some good news, even while >I'm so fucking angry I can't breathe. > >Peace, >Taylor > >On Thursday, September 13, 2001, at 09:45 AM, Hilton Obenzinger wrote: > >> Charles, >> >> Sorrow for you and everyone in New York. My brother works in finance, >> but >> fortunately was not in the area at the time, and I stood in front of TV >> in >> amazement and grief like the rest of the world. At Stanford, the >> library >> received a bomb threat, and we looked at the yellow tape as a sad >> mockery, >> a reminder of how fragile the mind and art and learning and compassion >> can >> be. The Library of Alexandria, the World Trade Center. >> >> Apocalypse is Greek for unveiling or revealing, and I think we can say >> we've seen the fabric of reality torn and what has been revealed is the >> utter horror of human depravity. It doesn't take much -- except >> determination and dedication and an absolute disregard for life -- to >> destroy. Such an attack is a crime against humanity, and war sentiment >> is >> instantly reaching fever pitch, and I am afraid more horror is on the >> way. The dust will not settle. >> >> Hilton Obenzinger >> >> >> At 11:02 PM 9/12/2001 -0400, you wrote: >>> all of a sudden tonight the smell of burning plastic pervades our >>> apartment, making eyes smart. is it something in the building? no, a >>> neighbor explains, that's the smell coming from downtown. >>> >>> * >>> >>> Mei-mei Berssenbrugge calls; she's OK, hanging in a couple of blocks >>> from >>> the epicenter. I say to her I have trouble imagining what is going on. >>> She says, oh you can imagine it all right, from the movies. You just >>> can't >>> conceive it. >>> >>> * >>> >>> I see Andrew, the hairdresser, in the lobby of our building. He says >>> things were on and off today; several appointments were no shows. >>> >>> "Maybe they're not coming back." >>> >>> * >>> >>> A friend in Berkeley asks me how things are going and I write back. The >>> reply is immediate: "automated response". It is entirely blank. >>> >>> * >>> We drop Felix off at a friend's across from his school on 77th and >>> Amsterdam. The fire station on the block, which we pass every day, is >>> empty, with piles of flowers in the doorway. A wave of terror sweeps >>> over >>> us; after all, 200 to 300 firefighters have died. Later in the >>> afternoon, >>> I come to pick Felix up an there are ten or twelve firemen in front of >>> the >>> firehouse, calmly, so it seems, washing the two fire trucks parked in >>> the >>> middle of the street. It's a relief to see them. >>> >>> Then we hear that nine of the thirty men stationed there perished. >>> >>> * >>> >>> The most frequent analogy is to Pearl Harbor, though the London blitz >>> might also be mentioned. I keep thinking of something else, not >>> something >>> that happened but something I expected to happen. In the 50s, we were >>> trained to prepare for a nuclear attack on Manhattan. In elementary >>> school >>> we had drills in which we were marched into the halls and all the >>> window >>> and door glass was covered with wood. The events of yesterday seem to >>> finally play out that fear. >>> >>> * >>> A psychologist friend is on extra duty though the weekend. Those at the >>> edge are going over it. >>> >>> "I may be paranoid but there really are people out to get me." >>> >>> * >>> >>> "It's a bit ominous," a friend writes, "the way the politicos are >>> speaking about "talking with one voice." >>> >>> -- I am just trying to get by talking with no voice. >>> >>> * >>> >>> Many of the officials on TV say we will come out of all this stronger. >>> >>> But it won't be the same we. >>> >>> Stronger or not. >>> >>> * >>> >>> Jerry and Diane Rothenberg come by. We finish off the bottle of >>> "reserve" >>> Stolly I bought just a few weeks ago at the Moscow airport "duty free". >>> >>> * >>> for Patrick >>> >>> give nothing evil to oppose >>> and it will crash the program >>> >>> * >>> >>> the image is greater than the reality >>> >>> the image can't approach the reality >>> >>> the reality has no image >>> >>> * >>> >>> our eyes are burning >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ >- >> Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. >> Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing >> Lecturer, Department of English >> Stanford University >> 650.723.0330 >> 650.724.5400 Fax >> obenzinger@stanford.edu >> -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 20:38:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: under a pacific rim sky MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/14/01 5:28:43 PM, eliztj@HOTMAIL.COM writes: << My pride in being a US citizen stems from my belief that we are a country (or citizenry) that is able, often just on the day-to-day level, to deal and live with and respect our fellow citizens who have profoundly different traditions (and lack thereofs) than ourselves. >> Thank you for this. The USA has MUCH to be proud of. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 21:10:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Skinner Subject: Anselm Berrigan In-Reply-To: <20010914041031.3818.qmail@front.acsu.buffalo.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Anselm Berrigan asked me to forward this to the list. --JS I=92ve written a report on part of my day yesterday, in part to record, and i= n part to try and write again. It was written on auto-pilot, to some extent, but I=92m sending it out because I feel the need to try and connect with what=92s=20 going on, and with other people, through writing. I think people are having a=20 hard time functioning, and what I=92m writing through is basically an attempt to go to work. I can=92t bear this stunned grief internally any more, at this point, and I=92m not ready to try and put my writing head around the intentions=20 and politics of the actions on Tuesday. Please respond in kind, if you want to or can.=20 9/13=20 Somehow have to get up and head out to Rutgers U. in New Brunswick to teach an 11:30 poetry workshop. Anticipating a class of shell-shocked students, I wonder what I am going to be able to say to them, and start pondering the possibilities. Mainly need to keep myself calm and focused, then encourage them to start articulating. The subways are closed below 42nd St., so I nee= d to walk up to Penn Station from the apt. I share with Karen on 7th and A, currently part of the blocked off "restricted zone" under 14th St. Karen is supposed to teach at St. John=92s in Staten Island, but it is impossible to get=20 to Staten Island from Manhattan this morning, so she doesn=92t go. It was jus= t two mornings ago that she was on the subway heading downtown when the plane= s crashed into the towers, and in the Ferry Terminal when the buildings started=20 to come down just a few blocks away. Waiting to find out if she was safe that=20 morning was terrifying for several hours. The fumes last night from the blasts and subsequent fires were pervasive an= d nearly overwhelming. I had been as far downtown as Chatham Square in Chinatown on Tuesday, but the winds didn=92t start blowing the smoke uptown until yesterday. All of the East Village smelled like burning rubber and steel. Many people covering their faces with masks and scarves. This mornin= g the fumes have lessened somewhat in intensity, but the odor is still strong= , provoking a disturbing feeling of omniscient dread within my sense of the atmosphere that I try to will out of my imagination, mostly unsuccessfully. Walk to 14th St and 2nd avenue, and pick up the first papers I=92ve seen sinc= e Tuesday morning. As I keep walking I decide to stop in at my other job at Baruch College around 9 am to see who is there, and check in on the state o= f the main office. I talk to one person, a supervisor named Paul, with instan= t recognition that we both don=92t want to be there but need to be doing something so=85 I ask if I should turn in timesheets, as they are due today. Feels petty to worry about this, but I=92ve just about run out of money buyin= g extra groceries and knowing I need to acquire some masks, have money on hand,=20 etc. What is the state of money in all of this? He tells me it=92s ok, and that=20 I should try to come back and work later that day when I get back from Rutgers, even if only to show up for a little while. Leaving Baruch I head to Penn Station, which was evacuated last night because of a bomb threat that turned out to be a false alarm. I=92m struck by the difference between my neighborhood, where there is only the traffic of emergency vehicles and police cars w./ sirens blaring and a host of different=20 kinds of supply trucks, and this near-midtown area where life and congested traffic on the surface almost appears to be as is, or as was. I=92ve never seen=20 so many people staring hollow-eyed into space, even as they walk towards their jobs. And the traffic fumes are nearly as bad as the fumes downtown. I=92ve been sneezing, coughing, and red-eyed all morning, my sinuses feeling ready to burst.=20 Arriving at Penn Station around 9:40 I instantly notice that people onl= y seem to be leaving the building, which freaks me for a split-second, but then=20 I see folks getting on the down escalator and I never break stride entering= . New Jersey Transit is running on a normal schedule, so I head out to Rutgers,=20 a 55-minute trip. In New Brunswick all of my breathing and sinus problems are=20 gone, which scares me. I meet my students, who slowly file into class looking=20 hollow and glassy-eyed. We manage to have a real, engaged discussion about what is going on, how to approach thinking about this situation, and how to manage our imaginations and feelings. One student wants to talk a lot but i= s constantly on the verge of spiraling, though he never does. A few remain silent all class. Some have friends missing. New Brunswick is very close to Manhattan, and everyone in the room is worried about at least several peopl= e they know who either live or work in the city. One student has a family connection via friendship with the family of one of the hijacked plane pilots. I gently try to remind them that, as a class geared towards many levels of communication, we can turn our work to dealing with this mad reality we have been blasted into. Looking beyond the headlines and sound bites, incorporating documentation, research, questioning, into our work. Putting the news we can=92t find in the mainstream media into our own writing= . Tracking our imaginations, in order to prevent, to the extent it is possible,=20 ourselves from being overwhelmed by our emotions. Recognizing that we are i= n a collective state of shock, and that this shock is going to change into other states. Recognizing that a balance of perspectives needs to be maintained in order to see most clearly, and that we need to articulate and repeat our stories. Recognizing that most of the rest of the world=92s countries have been through unbelievable levels of suffering, and that international viewpoints will be vital to our understanding of what has jus= t happened as well as how our culture and society have instantaneously been transformed. I ask them if they know much about Afghanistan, and there is n= o reaction. So I feel the need to tell them they will be hearing a lot about this country, and that its people are unbearably impoverished, having been subjected to drought, invasion, civil war, and totalitarian rule for years. That those people need to be thought of as people, not one country=92s name only, or one man=92s name only. The class gives me some sense of relief, both during (once I realize I can actually lead a discussion) and after. I=92m relieved to finally have som= e level of public-oriented responsibility to attend to, and that the students are present enough to gather, speak, and listen. And I=92m not surprised that one of the most difficult things to talk about is the deaths of all the firefighters, police, and emergency workers after the collapse of the first tower. The pain from that news is still too close to articulate fully. Heading back to Manhattan is the next step, so I get back on the train at=20 1:39 p.m., which again arrives and leaves on time. I have four newspapers t= o read now, and am buried in their pages until we reach Newark. The train takes=20 a very, very slow approach to Manhattan, and at a specific point when the WTC=20 normally comes into view everyone on my car has their head turned in that direction, southeast from our train. It=92s the first time I=92ve seen the full view of the skyline without the towers in person, and the slow pace of the train adds an eerie, cinematic quality to the moment that I try hard to repel, again mostly unsuccessfully. There are people on the car taking pictures and shooting video, but no one says a word. The cloud of smoke rising is somewhat lighter than yesterday, so there is at least some sense that no more buildings have collapsed today. The walk back home from Penn Station is ridiculous and painful. I get u= p onto the street and see flags being hawked on just about every corner. I=92m supposed to be looking for face masks because they ran out in our area and Karen, I and others are having a lot of trouble with the smoke and dust. Traffic is locked up everywhere, and several streets are less available tha= n others. After picking up some masks in a hardware store on 29th St., I hea= d over to Baruch again, ca. 28th and Lex. But there are at least ten times th= e amount of people in the area now as opposed to this morning. It turns out that the Armory building across the street from the new Vertical Campus is being used as a center for family members and friends of people missing in the rubble of the WTC. There are more TV vans and journalists out than I ca= n count, scores of those color xeroxes I=92ve seen people carrying on TV pasted up in storefront windows and on the sides of vans, and interviews being conducted on side streets. There are also military vehicles in the area, an= d restricted access to Lexington Ave, plus more people walking with cell phones=20 than I=92ve ever seen (underscoring the difficulty of getting and receiving calls the last three days), and one huge just-installed satellite dish on 28th and Lex., or thereabouts. I can get back into Baruch because I have an I.D., but there turns out to be no reason to be there. I=92m supposed to have drop-in tutoring hours from 5-10, and there=92s no one who is going to be there, so I cross those hours out of my mind for today even though it is only=20 about 3 p.m.=20 Closing in on 14th St. I=92m nervous about two things: the checkpoint, an= d the fumes. More people with masks on are dotting the streets, and the fumes= , though lessened from this morning in intensity, are starting to hit me again.=20 I put on a mask and cross 14th St., and despite there being a number of police officers on the southwest corner, none ask me for I.D. (I have heard from other people who were checked, including my brother, but all were yesterday). Back in my neighborhood, which also happens to be where I grew up, there is still no traffic, though many people walking around. I=92m totally=20 exhausted =96 didn=92t really sleep the night before, but want to get home. So = I do, and get back to the process of collecting news, trying to get in touch with people unaccounted for, handling all of this shock and emotion, figuring=20 out how to be and what to do, looking beyond the general news, and preparin= g for more bad news. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 21:16:48 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: wondering... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/14/01 6:39:30 PM, joe.amato@COLORADO.EDU writes: << i too am deeply disturbed by the (christian, religious) hawkishness being voiced by our leaders >> Maybe I missed something, but when was this? What I saw was a multi-denominational, multi-faith service (strange for me as an atheist) and both Bush and the mayor of NYC emphasizing that all peoples of all faiths were Americans tried and true, or something like that. Our leaders, most of whom I don't trust any more than the leaders of other countries, have nevertheless made it clear, as far as I can tell, that our anger is not aimed at a specific region and its quotidian culture, but at an international network of terror. We can love this country, or we can blame for everything from Hitler to swollen feet. But I've done a bit of traveling, and the USA is easily the most tolerant and welcoming societal mechanism on earth. Just wanted to get another, seemingly unpopular, point of view on the record. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 19:44:17 -0600 Reply-To: derek beaulieu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: derek beaulieu Organization: housepress Subject: written the evening of September 11th, 2001. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit All; I am forwarding this letter, written on the evening of september 11, 2001 on behalf of my partner, Courtney F. Thompson. yours derek beaulieu calgary, alberta, canada *** I was awakened on the morning of Tuesday, 11 September by the telephone, at the other end of which was my mother, sobbing with fear and grief. Like most North Americans, I found myself transfixed by the events of 11 September, shocked and horrified by the television images that continue to illuminate my living room as I write, long after nightfall. I cannot begin to imagine the terror and grief of those whose lives have been and continue to be dramatically altered by these events; the distance from which I view them, though objectively safe, does not seem at all safe to me, and I cannot contemplate finding myself any closer to them. As Prime Minister Chrétien announced in his official statement, the thoughts and prayers of all Canadians are with our American friends. We are not unlike identical twins raised in separate homes-indistinguishable to all but ourselves. As often as we have chided our American neighbours for their apparent idiosyncrasies they are, as Chrétien asserted, our allies and our friends, and we will do all that we can to support and aid them; this is no empty rhetorical statement of solidarity, especially if the enormous crowds at Canadian Blood Services' Clinics and the willingness of Canadians to open their homes to stranded American travelers are any indication, which I believe they are. Throughout the coverage of the terrorist attacks on Tuesday, international officials, commentators, and experts denounced the acts of the perpetrators as cowardly and despicable, which they certainly were. U.S. President George W. Bush and others drew the attention of the world to the fact that these terrorist acts were motivated by a desire to darken the American "beacon of freedom," to mute the liberated voices of the world's most prominent democracy. The American President asserted that the terrorists had not and would not succeed in "shaking the foundations of America." The rights and freedoms of all law-abiding American citizens, their individual ways of life, their indomitable spirit could not and would not be shaken by the cowardly acts of a small group of evil people. But he was wrong. I am not here referring to the grounding of aircraft, the halting of rail traffic, or the other emergency powers justifiably exercised by the U.S. Government in the wake of these horrific attacks. Neither do I write of the projected implications of the increased security measures that will likely result from these events. Rather, I am deeply concerned at the abandonment, by a small group of Americans, of the principles for which their country stands, of their return of prejudice for prejudice, injustice for injustice, blind hatred for blind hatred, and especially by the failure of the American leadership and news media to blink an eye at this betrayal of American principles, a betrayal which was reported without comment. The Americans were, in the words of their own President, viciously attacked not for who they are, but for what they are, for what the United States represents in the world community. My American friends are justifiably proud of their international status, filled with an admirable patriotism at their country's reputation as the stewards of freedom and the defenders of innocence; they are aware that their very power and prominence as well as their bold initiatives on the international scene make them targets of hatred and suspicion, but they have always maintained that the goal is worth the price. Perhaps they will feel differently now, but the rallying of the American people in the wake of these unspeakable attacks suggests otherwise. As moved as I was by the courageous and praiseworthy response of the American people to these horrifying events, I was almost equally disheartened and disappointed to learn that Arab and Muslim communities and organizations in the United States were finding themselves the victims of a crime which, though it certainly does not have the same devastating scope as the terrorist attacks, has the same evil root cause: blind, ignorant hatred. Such a response to these Arab and Muslim Americans in the wake of this tragedy is perhaps explicable as a natural backlash-ignorance, not familiarity, breeds the most dangerous kind of contempt-but the failure of the news networks and the American leadership to respond promptly and decisively to these undemocratic and hateful activities is inexcusable. The reports of hate mail and threats of violence against these American communities appeared as a largely-ignored blip on CNN's scrolling screen commentary, reducing what should have been a cry for tolerance to a whimper. The burden upon the American leadership and its news media is unimaginable at this moment, but in all of the reiterated statements about the protection of the American way of life and the preservation of both American principles and American lives, there was almost no mention of this gross violation-by Americans-of the principles that that country has so steadfastly protected throughout its history and to which it now returns in a time of crisis. In the wake of such an attack and in the light of its motivation, the American government has a duty to protect all of its citizens and to ensure that the principles on which it stands and the Constitution which it so devotedly protects are upheld; if the spirit, and not just the fact, of these terrorist attacks is to be defied and overcome, the real protection offered by those principles and laws needs to be available to all Americans, not just to those mostly-white Christian Americans whose faces filled our television screens on 11 September. These horrific attacks having been motivated by a desire to alter the American way of life and to force Americans to reexamine their commitment to peace and justice for all, the American leadership cannot afford to defend those principles for some citizens while denying their benefits to others. I am not suggesting that a large-scale investigation of these hate crimes is possible at this moment, but only that someone, in all of the endless commentary and morbid fixation, needs to say something, needs to assure these Arab and Muslim Americans that they are valued members of the American community; a message needs to be communicated also to these hate criminals that their actions and attitudes are far more dangerous to the American way of life than is the average Arab-American shopkeeper or teacher, or Muslim-American businessman or parent who lives down the block or on the other side of the country. It may be discovered that there were indeed American Arabs or Muslims behind these events, but they are no more representative of the large community of Arab and Muslim Americans than is the average white man of the White Supremacy movement or, indeed, as these hate criminals are of the American public at large. The American Constitution, way of life, and system of law are largely based upon a perception that they allow the United States and its citizens to hold the moral high ground and to ensure the rights of all American citizens, irrespective of race, religion, country of origin, or gender; although it may appear, as it did on CNN, a mere footnote to the horrific events of Tuesday morning, this seemingly-ignored breach of the Constitutional rights and the human dignity of these American people represents a real danger to those strongly-held and often-enunciated American principles. That moral high ground has made Americans who and what they are, has imparted to their government and way of life a dignity and respectability which is recognized throughout the free world: the foundation of their government depends upon it. To my knowledge, two commentators-writer Tom Clancy, of whose novels I thought I was dreaming this morning, and former Secretary of State Warren Christopher-stressed the need for tolerance toward Arab and non-Arab Muslim Americans. The subject was too quickly changed by the network anchors to be thoroughly examined. Islam, as Clancy and Christopher asserted, is a religion which upholds justice, love, and peace, as well as basic human equality; it is the only major monotheistic religion explicitly to declare the equality of all persons, irrespective of race. Despite any apparent evidence to the contrary, Islam is not a call to arms and Muslims are not, by definition, terrorists. They are a peace-loving and just people whose God is not all that different from that worshipped by Jews and Christians. We cannot hold all Muslims responsible for acts carried out by madmen in the name of Islam any more than all Christians can be held accountable for the actions of Adolf Hitler, himself an avowed Christian, who ordered the placement of the Nazi flag in the chancels of all churches in the Third Reich. Similarly, as Secretary Christopher pointed out, the American and Canadian governments were blind and unjust in their persecution of Japanese North Americans during and after the Second World War; the actions of our forefathers and -mothers in the detainment and disenfranchisement of our fellow citizens is a burden that we continue to bear with sorrow and regret, representing as it does a betrayal of those principles so close to our hearts. The burden of Arab and Muslim Americans at this moment is unspeakable. How horrified might have white Christian Americans been to be identified unilaterally with Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing? As Americans, their thoughts are with their countrymen and -women; as people of faith, their prayers are with the victims of these horrific events, as well as with the victims' families and with the American leadership; as Muslims, their horror at the devastating acts perpetrated in the name of their God is overwhelmingly sickening. In addition to this attack on their country, this violation of their political principles, and this perversion of their faith, they are confronted with hatred directed toward them because of the God they worship and, in the case of Arab Americans, the colour of their skin; that this affront to their dignity and attack on their humanity are occurring in a country which guarantees their rights to worship their God and to fear no unjust persecution is a fact which must leave them bewildered and afraid, betrayed by the country to which they have sworn their loyalty and to which they have devoted their lives. Of the American news media, I ask: where, in all of your coverage of this event, from replays of the horrible spectacles and the fleeing people to the interviews with prominent Christian figures, was your coverage of the prayers of Muslim Americans for the safety of their fellow citizens and the swift apprehension of the perpetrators? Why did you choose to represent all devotees of Islam solely through coverage of celebrations in streets thousands of miles away instead of also representing the horrified concern, devoted prayers and devastated sorrow of your own Muslim citizens? As members of a free press in a free country upholding the freedom of all Americans, how can you ignore the rights, the loyalty, and the anguish of fellow citizens in your midst? To the American leadership: defend your principles at home as you do abroad. Tell the American people and the people of the world that you do not accept these terrorists' perversion of the Islamic faith, as their betrayal of its principles proves that it is not theirs to change; tell your Muslim citizens that their prayers are as welcome as those of their Jewish, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, and animist fellows; tell the world that your "beacon" shines for all. --Courtney F. Thompson ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 21:58:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: for aid (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Just found you can contact http://help.msnbc.com for giving aid, tips, etc. There is also To donate money to the Red Cross for assisting victims of the attacks, call 1-800-HELP-NOW. The United Way of New York and The New York Community Trust have established a fund to help the victims of Tuesday's attacks and their families. Anyone wishing to contribute to the September 11th Fund may call 1-800-710-8002. You can also make donations to the United Way by visiting their Web site at www.uwnyc.org. To make donations to the Salvation Army for helping the victims, call 1-800-SAL-ARMY. For more information on helping victims of the U.S. attacks, visit Helping.org. To donate to World Vision's American Families Assistance Fund, click here. Or call 1-888-511-6593. CRIME TIPS The FBI has set up a Web site and hotline where people can report tips or other information about the attacks: www.ifccfbi.gov and 1-866-483-5137. Intelligence officials told NBC News they were especially eager to recover any video that tourists may have been shooting before and during the attacks. LOCATING SURVIVORS If you need assistance: If you are in one of the attack areas and in need of assistance, contact FEMA at 1-800-426-9029. Families seeking information: The Justice Departments Office of Victims of Crime has established a hotline for families seeking information about victims and survivors: 1-800-331-0075. FirstGov has a comprehensive list of U.S. government resources and information at http://www.firstgov.gov/featured/usgresponse.html Information for military personnel and their families: Officials at the Pentagon are asking Army personnel assigned to the Pentagon on Sept. 11 (or families trying to locate their loved ones) to call 1-800-984-8523 or 703-428-0002. Navy and Marine personnel assigned to the Pentagon should call 1-877-663-6772. Family members of military personnel seeking information should call 1-800-984-8523 (Army), 1-877-663-6772 (Navy and Marine Corps.), 1-800-253-9276 (Air Force). Information for employees and their families from corporations formerly housed in the World Trade Center buildings: Morgan Stanley has an emergency contact phone number. Employees and their families can call 1-888-883-4391. Cantor Fitzgerald Inc. has an emergency contact phone number. Employees and their families can call 1-203-662-3600. Cantor Crisis Center Hotline offers the following numbers until 9 p.m. on Friday, September 14. In New York: 212-940-8492 212-940-8482 212-940-8162 212-893-6073 An 800 number is also available: 1-866-326-3188. If you cannot get through, try the company's website at www.CantorUSA.com. Aon asks families of its 1,100 employees who worked in World Trade Center Tower 2 to call 1-866-256-4154. Windows on the World restaurant is trying to locate its employees and give information to families; the number for Windows on the World is 1-877-226-5170. Web sites for people who need to contact their familes: PictureTel and its partners are offering free videoconferencing for communication with distant family members, or to aid in the business crisis planning process. A database of available facilities is available at http://www.picturetel.com/aboutus.asp?name=abthh.xml. Web sites are available for people who still haven't been able to contact their family members: http://okay.prodigy.net/ http://www.viexpo.com/dmstest/america.html http://safe.millennium.berkeley.edu/find.php http://www.bostoncoop.net:8080/SeptEleven?PersonalStatus ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 22:53:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lew, Walter" Subject: Zizek abt the Towers MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="euc-kr" Zizek's reverse-Baudrillardian commentary relevant to some of BK Stefans' recent post on the WTC terrorism. Wish I cd be volunteering in my old neighborhood, but am still grounded here in Inchon International Airport(on 9/11 our LA-bound plane went halfway across the Pacific and then had to return to Korea). (One of the common expressions here on the news is that the planes' "feet are tied" still.) In sympathy w everyone trying to put their lives back together. / Walter > > WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL! > > Slavoj Zizek > > > > The ultimate American paranoiac fantasy is that of an individual > > living in a small idyllic Californian city, a consumerist paradise, > > who suddenly starts to suspect that the world he lives in is a fake, > > a spectacle staged to convince him that he lives in a real world, > > while all people around him are effectively actors and extras in a > > gigantic show. The most recent example of this is Peter Weir's The > > Truman Show (1998), with Jim Carrey playing the small town clerk who > > gradually discovers the truth that he is the hero of a 24-hours > > permanent TV show: his hometown is constructed on a gigantic studio > > set, with cameras following him permanently. Among its predecessors, > > it is worth mentioning Philip Dick's Time Out of Joint (1959), in > > which a hero living a modest daily life in a small idyllic > > Californian city of the late 50s, gradually discovers that the whole > > town is a fake staged to keep him satisfied... The underlying > > experience of Time Out of Joint and of The Truman Show is that the > > late capitalist consumerist Californian paradise is, in its very > > hyper-reality, in a way IRREAL, substanceless, deprived of the > > material inertia. > > > > So it is not only that Hollywood stages a semblance of real life > > deprived of the weight and inertia of materiality - in the late > > capitalist consumerist society, "real social life" itself somehow > > acquires the features of a staged fake, with our neighbors behaving > > in "real" life as stage actors and extras... Again, the ultimate > > truth of the capitalist utilitarian de-spiritualized universe is the > > de-materialization of the "real life" itself, its reversal into a > > spectral show. Among others, Christopher Isherwood gave expression to > > this unreality of the American daily life, exemplified in the motel > > room: "American motels are unreal! /.../ they are deliberately > > designed to be unreal. /.../ The Europeans hate us because we've > > retired to live inside our advertisements, like hermits going into > > caves to contemplate." Peter Sloterdijk's notion of the "sphere" is > > here literally realized, as the gigantic metal sphere that envelopes > > and isolates the entire city. Years ago, a series of science-fiction > > films like Zardoz or Logan's Run forecasted today's postmodern > > predicament by extending this fantasy to the community itself: the > > isolated group living an aseptic life in a secluded area longs for > > the experience of the real world of material decay. > > > > The Wachowski brothers' hit Matrix (1999) brought this logic to its > > climax: the material reality we all experience and see around us is a > > virtual one, generated and coordinated by a gigantic mega-computer to > > which we are all attached; when the hero (played by Keanu Reeves) > > awakens into the "real reality," he sees a desolate landscape > > littered with burned ruins - what remained of Chicago after a global > > war. The resistance leader Morpheus utters the ironic greeting: > > "Welcome to the desert of the real." Was it not something of the > > similar order that took place in New York on September 11? Its > > citizens were introduced to the "desert of the real" - to us, > > corrupted by Hollywood, the landscape and the shots we saw of the > > collapsing towers could not but remind us of the most breathtaking > > scenes in the catastrophe big productions. > > > > When we hear how the bombings were a totally unexpected shock, how > > the unimaginable Impossible happened, one should recall the other > > defining catastrophe from the beginning of the XXth century, that of > > Titanic: it was also a shock, but the space for it was already > > prepared in ideological fantasizing, since Titanic was the symbol of > > the might of the XIXth century industrial civilization. Does the same > > not hold also for these bombings? Not only were the media bombarding > > us all the time with the talk about the terrorist threat; this threat > > was also obviously libidinally invested - just recall the series of > > movies from Escape From New York to Independence Day. The unthinkable > > which happened was thus the object of fantasy: in a way, America got > > what it fantasized about, and this was the greatest surprise. > > > > It is precisely now, when we are dealing with the raw Real of a > > catastrophe, that we should bear in mind the ideological and > > fantasmatic coordinates which determine its perception. If there is > > any symbolism in the collapse of the WTC towers, it is not so much > > the old-fashioned notion of the "center of financial capitalism," > > but, rather, the notion that the two WTC towers stood for the center > > of the VIRTUAL capitalism, of financial speculations disconnected > > from the sphere of material production. The shattering impact of the > > bombings can only be accounted for only against the background of the > > borderline which today separates the digitalized First World from the > > Third World "desert of the Real." It is the awareness that we live in > > an insulated artificial universe which generates the notion that some > > ominous agent is threatening us all the time with total destruction. > > > > Is, consequently, Osama Bin Laden, the suspected mastermind behind > > the bombings, not the rel-life counterpart of Ernst Stavro Blofeld, > > the master-criminal in most of the James Bond films, involved in the > > acts of global destruction. What one should recall here is that the > > only place in Hollywood films where we see the production process in > > all its intensity is when James Bond penetrates the master-criminal's > > secret domain and locates there the site of intense labor (distilling > > and packaging the drugs, constructing a rocket that will destroy New > > York...). When the master-criminal, after capturing Bond, usually > > takes him on a tour of his illegal factory, is this not the closest > > Hollywood comes to the socialist-realist proud presentation of the > > production in a factory? And the function of Bond's intervention, of > > course, is to explode in firecraks this site of production, allowing > > us to return to the daily semblance of our existence in a world with > > the "disappearing working class." Is it not that, in the exploding > > WTC towers, this violence directed at the threatening Outside turned > > back at us? > > > > The safe Sphere in which Americans live is experienced as under > > threat from the Outside of terrorist attackers who are ruthlessly > > self-sacrificing AND cowards, cunningly intelligent AND primitive > > barbarians. Whenever we encounter such a purely evil Outside, we > > should gather the courage to endorse the Hegelian lesson: in this > > pure Outside, we should recognize the distilled version of our own > > essence. For the last five centuries, the (relative) prosperity and > > peace of the "civilized" West was bought by the export of ruthless > > violence and destruction into the "barbarian" Outside: the long story > > from the conquest of America to the slaughter in Congo. Cruel and > > indifferent as it may sound, we should also, now more than ever, bear > > in mind that the actual effect of these bombings is much more > > symbolic than real. The US just got the taste of what goes on around > > the world on a daily basis, from Sarajevo to Grozny, from Rwanda and > > Congo to Sierra Leone. If one adds to the situation in New York > > snipers and gang rapes, one gets an idea about what Sarajevo was a > > decade ago. > > > > It is when we watched on TV screen the two WTC towers collapsing, > > that it became possible to experience the falsity of the "reality TV > > shows": even if this shows are "for real," people still act in them - > > they simply play themselves. The standard disclaimer in a novel > > ("characters in this text are a fiction, every resemblance with the > > real life characters is purely contingent") holds also for the > > participants of the reality soaps: what we see there are fictional > > characters, even if they play themselves for the real. Of course, the > > "return to the Real" can be given different twists: Rightist > > commentators like George Will also immediately proclaimed the end of > > the American "holiday from history" - the impact of reality > > shattering the isolated tower of the liberal tolerant attitude and > > the Cultural Studies focus on textuality. Now, we are forced to > > strike back, to deal with real enemies in the real world... However, > > WHOM to strike? Whatever the response, it will never hit the RIGHT > > target, bringing us full satisfaction. The ridicule of America > > attacking Afghanistan cannot but strike the eye: if the greatest > > power in the world will destroy one of the poorest countries in which > > peasant barely survive on barren hills, will this not be the ultimate > > case of the impotent acting out? > > > > There is a partial truth in the notion of the "clash of > > civilizations" attested here - witness the surprise of the average > > American: "How is it possible that these people have such a disregard > > for their own lives?" Is not the obverse of this surprise the rather > > sad fact that we, in the First World countries, find it more and more > > difficult even to imagine a public or universal Cause for which one > > would be ready to sacrifice one's life? When, after the bombings, > > even the Taliban foreign minister said that he can "feel the pain" of > > the American children, did he not thereby confirm the hegemonic > > ideological role of this Bill Clinton's trademark phrase? > > Furthermore, the notion of America as a safe haven, of course, also > > is a fantasy: when a New Yorker commented on how, after the bombings, > > one can no longer walk safely on the city's streets, the irony of it > > was that, well before the bombings, the streets of New York were > > well-known for the dangers of being attacked or, at least, mugged - > > if anything, the bombings gave rise to a new sense of solidarity, > > with the scenes of young African-Americans helping an old Jewish > > gentlemen to cross the street, scenes unimaginable a couple of days > > ago. > > > > Now, in the days immediately following the bombings, it is as if we > > dwell in the unique time between a traumatic event and its symbolic > > impact, like in those brief moment after we are deeply cut, and > > before the full extent of the pain strikes us - it is open how the > > events will be symbolized, what their symbolic efficiency will be, > > what acts they will be evoked to justify. Even here, in these moments > > of utmost tension, this link is not automatic but contingent. There > > are already the first bad omens; the day after the bombing, I got a > > message from a journal which was just about to publish a longer text > > of mine on Lenin, telling me that they decided to postpone its > > publication - they considered inopportune to publish a text on Lenin > > immediately after the bombing. Does this not point towards the > > ominous ideological rearticulations which will follow? > > > > We don't yet know what consequences in economy, ideology, politics, > > war, this event will have, but one thing is sure: the US, which, till > > now, perceived itself as an island exempted from this kind of > > violence, witnessing this kind of things only from the safe distance > > of the TV screen, is now directly involved. So the alternative is: > > will Americans decide to fortify further their "sphere," or to risk > > stepping out of it? Either America will persist in, strengthen even, > > the attitude of "Why should this happen to us? Things like this don't > > happen HERE!", leading to more aggressivity towards the threatening > > Outside, in short: to a paranoiac acting out. Or America will finally > > risk stepping through the fantasmatic screen separating it from the > > Outside World, accepting its arrival into the Real world, making the > > long-overdued move from "A thing like this should not happen HERE!" > > to "A thing like this should not happen ANYWHERE!". America's > > "holiday from history" was a fake: America's peace was bought by the > > catastrophes going on elsewhere. Therein resides the true lesson of > > the bombings: the only way to ensure that it will not happen HERE > > again is to prevent it going on ANYWHERE ELSE. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 23:09:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Lew, Walter" Subject: Chomsky briefly on the attacks Comments: cc: "Canal138@yahoo.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="euc-kr" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >On the Bombings=20 >Noam Chomsky=20 >=20 >The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not = reach=20 >the=20 >level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with = no=20 >credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and = killing=20 >unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an = inquiry=20 >at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases,=20 >which easily come to mind. But that this was a horrendous crime is not = in=20 >doubt. The primary victims, as usual, were working people: janitors,=20 >secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow = to=20 >Palestinians and other poor and oppressed people. It is also likely to lead=20 >to harsh security controls, with many possible ramifications for=20 >undermining=20 >civil liberties and internal freedom.=20 >=20 >The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of the project of "missile=20 >defense." As has been obvious all along, and pointed out repeatedly by = >strategic analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense damage in the US, = >including weapons of mass destruction, they are highly unlikely to = launch a=20 >missile attack, thus guaranteeing their immediate destruction. There = are=20 >innumerable easier ways that are basically unstoppable. But today's = events=20 >will, very likely, be exploited to increase the pressure to develop = these=20 >systems and put them into place. "Defense" is a thin cover for plans = for=20 >militarization of space, and with good PR, even the flimsiest = arguments=20 >will=20 >carry some weight among a frightened public.=20 >=20 >In short, the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who = hope to=20 >use force to control their domains. That is even putting aside the = likely=20 >US=20 >actions, and what they will trigger -- possibly more attacks like this one,=20 >or worse. The prospects ahead are even more ominous than they appeared = to=20 >be=20 >before the latest atrocities.=20 >=20 >As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; = we=20 >can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means = making=20 >an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators. If we choose = the=20 >latter course, we can do no better, I think, than to listen to the = words of=20 >Robert Fisk, whose direct knowledge and insight into affairs of the = region=20 >is unmatched after many years of distinguished reporting. Describing = "The=20 >wickedness and awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people," he = >writes that "this is not the war of democracy versus terror that the = world=20 >will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about American = >missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters firing missiles=20 >into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells crashing into a=20 >village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia =A2=AE=A8=CF paid and = uniformed by=20 >America's Israeli ally =A2=AE=A8=CF hacking and raping and murdering = their way=20 >through=20 >refugee camps." And much more. Again, we have a choice: we may try to=20 >understand, or refuse to do so, contributing to the likelihood that = much=20 >worse lies ahead.=20 >=20 >Noam Chomsky=20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 18:55:43 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Pierre. I didnt know and still dont know what to think (or even what or why I said what I said) except that war is not the answer. I was "traumatised" at the time seeing what was happenning then a reaction set in. My response wasnt wise but I'm not psychologically stable: I am on medication - I am not strictly speaking insane - but I have my moments. I feel for the people of course but - well I'm dubious of certain things in this situation. I am actually in agreement with you on many things I support the Palestinian cause. I obtained a couple of books by Robert Kelly and I am finding him very interesting: sometimes quite moving, much beautiful poetry. Cheers, Richard. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pierre Joris" To: Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 3:31 AM Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > Richard -- your response is exactly what every war-mongering hawk in this > country wants. It is extremely saddening to me &, I would think, to most if > not all people on this list and beyond. But not only saddening (there is > little room for sadness left, the many death of the recent days having taken > the lion's share of that emotion) -- your response is profoundly maddening, > anger-inducing for its blatant racism. I do not have the leisure right now > to compose a long reply -- there are more urgent things to be taken care > of -- but I will paste a article by Nigel Parry s from the Intifada website > below, to show how wrong, misinformed & biased your comments really are. Two > days after the events, and while still mourning the dead in NYC, Washington > D.C. and Pennsylvania, it seems to me that what we as writers, poets, > intellectuals have to do most urgently is to try to counter, to the best of > our possibility & with every mean at our disposal, the racist discourse of > jingoistic hate that is threatening to overwhelm this country and serve as > alibi for the US Government's military response. -- Pierre Joris > > from today's edition of "The Electronic Intifada" > [http://electronicintifada.net/coveragetrends/rejoicing.html > > The Palestinian people, as a whole, portrayed as supportive of the attacks > on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon > > Written by Nigel Parry > > 12 September 2001 -- Yesterday and today, following the inhumane use of > passenger planes as flying missiles to attack people visiting and working in > the World Trade Center buildings in New York and in the Pentagon in > Washington, most of the media broadcast footage depicting Palestinians > celebrating. > > The brief footage was typically broadcast cyclically and used as an > interview aid, with anchors asking U.S. government officials and others how > they felt about the images. > > Almost universally on U.S. networks, anchors presented the footage as if it > were representative of all Palestinians, additionally failing to note any > context to the images. > > A number of points must be made, first about the actual footage: > There are three million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank > including Jerusalem, one million Palestinians living inside the borders of > Israel, and another four million Palestinian refugees living elsewhere in > the world, including the United States. The footage in question depicted > between 20 and 40 individuals. > > > The Palestinians in the footage were mostly young children. Most of their > behaviour in the footage appeared to be no different from how Palestinian > children always behave when foreign journalists turn up in their towns, > crowding and smiling at the camera and giving the victory sign that has been > a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness under Israeli military occupation > since the first Intifada in 1987. There is not a single reporter with any > experience of carrying a camera into the Palestinian West Bank under any > circumstance who couldn't get similar footage on any day they visited the > occupied territories. > > > Where genuine rejoicing at the attacks was indeed apparent in the footage, > anchors interpreting the footage made no effort to offer any context or > background to the images, nor any attempt to separate those Palestinians > portrayed from Palestinians as a whole. A comparable situation would be > television anchors angrily reacting to scenes of the 1991 riots in Los > Angeles, lamenting that "blacks do not respect law and order", while failing > to note the preceding attack on Rodney King or endemic racial profiling of > the black community in the U.S. by police forces. > > > The overwhelming number of Palestinians, like people of all nationalities, > were sickened by the events in New York and Washington. Palestinians with > relatives in New York and Washington spent much of yesterday worriedly > trying to phone to check they were safe, exactly as many Americans did. > Palestinian citizens of the United States will also turn out to be among the > victims of the tragedy. Whatever a group of 20-40 Palestinian children > happened to be doing yesterday morning in Nablus or Ein Al-Hilweh Refugee > Camp in Lebanon is no more representative of all Palestinians than the Klu > Klux Klan rally -- which happened recently just down the road from where I > live, in St. Paul, Minnesota -- is representative of all Americans. > > > In addition, there is an all-important context of brutalisation -- that > anchors completely failed to note -- which explains why even a single person > would find any cause to celebrate yesterday's terrible carnage: > > For the last year now, Palestinian civilians have been living through a > nightmare in which Israeli occupation forces have been nightly shelling > their towns using tanks, helicopters, and other heavy weapons. Palestinians > do not need a subscription to Jane's Defence Weekly to learn the origin of > these weapons when they can pick up shell casings from the floors of their > homes and from their backyards with MADE IN THE U.S.A. stamped on them. > United States weaponry supplied to Israel includes: > Heavy weapons: > > F-16 fighter planes, Apache and Cobra attack helicopters, and Reshef patrol > boats to attack Palestinian buildings and vehicles; and > > Armoured pile drivers and armoured bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes > and agricultural land. > > > Heavy ammunition: > > Naval and tank artillery including 76mm, 105mm and 120mm high explosive > rounds; > M114 TOW rockets and Hell-Fire air-to-ground missiles; > Shoulder-fired, anti-armour Light Anti-tank Weapons (LAW) rocket launchers > firing 84mm or 90mm rockets; > M203 and MK19 grenade launchers; > 40-90 mm mortars; and > > A modified version of the M494 105mm, an anti-personnel cluster bomb. > > > Smaller ammunition: > > 5.56 mm bullets for M-16 machine guns; > 7.62 mm high velocity bullets for general purpose machine guns and Galil > sniper rifles; > 12.7 mm bullets for Browning machine guns and Barret sniper rifles; and > The "less lethal" rubber-coated and plastic-coated metal bullets. > The U.S. weaponry listed above has not been used proportionally for the > purpose of defending Israel -- as one would hope any military aid is used -- > but rather has been used disproportionally and offensively to kill over 600 > Palestinians, one-third of whom are children, 60 percent of whom were killed > outside of clash situations. The U.S. weaponry listed above has additionally > been used to seriously injure another 15,000 Palestinians, 1,500 of whom > have been crippled for life. That Israel has used "excessive force" to > suppress the current Palestinian uprising against 34 years of its military > occupation is a fact according to the United Nations Security Council, other > UN bodies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights > organisation B'Tselem, and the US State Department. However offensive the > images of the small groups of Palestinians that were celebrating may be, the > fact is that all those depicted in the images -- if they are under 34 years > of age -- have known nothing but military occupation for the entirity of > their lives. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of > people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance > of human values in a situation devoid of them. > > > Not only does the United States sell weapons and ammunition to Israel, but > many of these weapons are supplied as U.S. aid to Israel. A current figure > for U.S. aid currently given to Israel is $3 billion per year, which > includes $1.2 billion in economic aid and $1.8 billion in military aid. It > is difficult to offer this as a conclusive figure since additional money is > given to Israel that is buried in the budgets of individual government > agencies such as the Defense Department. Every Palestinian is aware that the > U.S. supplies the weapons that Israel uses against them. That celebration > was the reaction of only a tiny minority of people in such a situation is a > testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance of human values in a situation > devoid of them. > > > Every Palestinian is also aware that their television screens are never > filled with images of Americans protesting the use of their tax dollars to > pay for the missiles that shake their cities and create similarly > distressing scenes of injured and shocked civilians, as seen yesterday in > New York. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of > people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance > of human values in a situation devoid of them. > The U.S. media broadcast the footage yesterday without explaining any of the > above, something that is neither new nor -- any longer -- acceptable in > light of the anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and the anti-Muslim sentiment it > creates. No organisation of journalists who seek to bring their viewers an > accurate representation of reality should be broadcasting contextless, > unrepresentative images that encourage racism against nationalities and > their associated ethnic groups. > > In the first few days following the 1995 attack on the Murrah Federal > Building in Oklahoma, Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. reported more than 200 > incidents of harassment, threats and actual violence. According to reports > received by The Electronic Intifada and a press release yesterday from the > Council on American-Islamic Relations there have already been reports of > harassment and attacks against Arabs and Muslims in the United States. Hate > mail and threats have also been directed at The Electronic Intifada and > other Palestinian, Arab and Muslim websites. > > As those of us who live in the U.S. are currently feeling justifiable anger > at the perpetrators behind yesterday's shocking and horrifying events in New > York and Washington DC, let us not misdirect it at an entire people who > continue to suffer through one of the darkest periods of their already bleak > history. The Palestinian people, who sit glued to their television sets in > disturbed silence like the rest of the world, are actually better placed > than most to understand what those of us living in America currently feel > and are finding it hard to express. > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Pierre Joris Just out from Wesleyan UP: > 6 Madison Place > Albany NY 12202 POASIS: Selected Poems 1986-1999 > Tel: (518) 426-0433 > Fax: (518) 426-3722 go to: http://www.albany.edu/~joris/poasis.htm > Email: joris@ albany.edu > Url: > ____________________________________________________________________________ > _ > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: UB Poetics discussion group > > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of richard.tylr > > Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 10:28 PM > > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > > Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York > > > > > > Charles. Etal. Its strange and I've only been to NY once (1993, ironically > > as it happens) when I went up the South Tower. It seems surreal > > even here in > > New Zealand. I also was watching the videos over and over: it does become > > addictive. I try to imagine a human plunging into that building. At the > > moment even I'm emotional. had some symapthy for the Palestinian cause, I > > tried to understand the Teleban: but I think the US has to face > > it. It (and > > we in the West) ARE and or IS under a real threat to democracy: to human > > civilisation as a against the barabric bastards "out there". I'm right > > behind the US whatever they do. > > Bush is right in this case. Democracy, what little we have, is being > > attacked. I can understand now how the Israelis feel surrounded by nut > > cases.And although I'm not a great supporter of Israel (I know there were > > injustices by themm and they have been agressive at times) but it > > seemed to > > me that the US and Israel were probing toward a negotiated > > settlement. That > > wont happen with these guys:they are sub- human robotic scum: they are > > beyond the law and they and theirs should be burnt. BURNT!! Richard. > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Charles Bernstein" > > To: > > Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 12:52 PM > > Subject: It's 8:23 in New York > > > > > > > What I can't describe is how beautiful the day is in New York; clear > > skies, visibility all the way to the other side of wherever you think you > > are looking. > > > > > > Or looking away. > > > > > > After the long and strange Odyssey back from LaGuardia airport this > > morning, I went to a jammed local upper west side coffee shop. A > > family was > > eating, deciding, loudly, whether to get the chicken or tuna salad; the > > mother expressed great disappointment that there was no skim milk. The > > coffee shop was packed and the mother said, "Well, it's OK, at least we're > > not in a rush right now and after all the restaurant probably has more > > people now than they are used to handling." > > > > > > Outside, two guys with work boots and cell phones strapped to > > their waist > > yelled toward the coffee shop, "I can't believe these fucking people are > > sitting in a cafe when the city is being blown up." > > > > > > I can't imagine Manhattan without those two towers looming over > > the south > > end. As I was walking across the 59th Street bridge I couldn't > > stop thinking > > of that Simon and Garfunkel song named after the bridge, "Feeling Groovy" > > ("Life I love you ... all is ... "). > > > > > > It was hard not to feel like it was a movie and one with an unbelievable > > plot at that. All the airports closed; the Pentagon bombed; four > > commercial > > jets hijacked on suicide missions. The Queensborough bridge was > > overflowing > > with people streaming out of Manhattan, a line as wide as the > > bridge and as > > long as Manhattan itself. If you looked out to the left, there was a big > > plume of smoke over downtown Manhattan. You couldn't see that the Towers > > were not there. > > > > > > And it didn't seem possible that this had happened either. > > > > > > Even with all the people streaming out, and the small clutch of > > us walking > > back to the island. > > > > > > The FDR drive below us was empty, with just the occasional emergency > > vehicle. The UN Secretariat building looked naked, vulnerable. > > Why wouldn't > > a plane smash into that while we walked across the East River. > > > > > > The skies unnaturally clear of airplanes, though every once in > > a while you > > hear the ominous swoop of a jet overhead, presumably military. Once in > > Manhattan, the entrance to the bridge was mobbed. But walking west, people > > were quietly hanging out on street corners. Most of the avenues > > were cleared > > of traffic, except for the sirens or an ambulance or fire truck racing > > downtown. > > > > > > While the phones are not working very well (so much of NYC communication > > is streamed through the World Trade Center), the email is working fine. > > There are notes of disbelief and worry from people from all over, > > especially > > Europe. My friends Misko and Dubravka from Beograd write and I remember > > their emails when their city was under fire. And various friends > > we just saw > > on our recent trip. > > > > > > As I was walking home, about half a mile from our apartment, I > > stop by the > > storefront hair salon of Andrew, who lives upstairs in our building. I had > > been trying for a couple of hours to get Susan on the phone, to see if she > > had picked up Felix at school. But neither the cell or land phones were > > working. When I saw Andrew he said Susan and Felix had just walked by and > > were heading home. He said he was going to stay open just because > > he thought > > people would want to have him there, standing in front of his shop. > > > > > > At about 6, Felix, Susan and I walked down to the Hudson. I > > wanted to see > > New Jersey, to see the George Washington Bridge. The sun gleamed on the > > water. The bridge was calm. Folks were bicycling and rollerblading. The > > scene was almost serene; just five miles from the Trade Center. > > > > > > Uncanny is the word. > > > > > > What I can't describe is the reality; the panic; the horror. > > > > > > I keep turning on the TV to hear what I can't take in and what I already > > know. Over and over. I don't find the coverage comforting but addictive. > > > > > > This could not have happened. This hasn't happened. > > > > > > This is happening. > > > > > > It's 8:23 in New York. > > > > > > > > > --Charles Bernstein > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 03:54:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..sleeper cells... In the desolation of Tompkins Sq. Books...no it's not been bombed...it's been killed by the landlord and neighborhood indifference...H.C. 1.00...P.B. 50c....I ask what they think of the war day 3.... G....says his nonagenerian Phillipino mom said he should come home and sit it out there...He says he hopes the war is short..O...twiggy thin..tee shirt..tall Japanese...photographer & model....is worried that the violence will spread here...biological & chemical weapons...she speaks her broken English so it is even harder to understand than usual...as if the bombing shattered her fragile sentence structuring....the Arabic or Indian very gentle glassed intellectual bookseller...who has culled 2 boxes of books from this wreck...is scared...each sentence seems jagged...fear as breath punctuates his thots...he seems just the victim some mindless idiotic mob might take as its target..the lay priest complete with dog...just finished ministering for days to the homeless...tells me he is a pacificist...we have a discussion...'that's a question Christians have been arguing since the days of Justinian... In this crowd of immigrants & priest...i'm both the oldest and the one who came to Usa the earliest...1949 on a slow boat from a dispalced person camp..ein Lager...i'm also the most bellicose...the only bellicose...i sense the excitement of war...i can flash back to 'nam..tear gas marches brick thru bank weapon...up up... I call Tuli...who's been pretending he's been dying for the last few months...he finally seems alive...he can smell & remember...the young huddle hard against each other...they fuck with a new vengeance..the cries of oh oh oh are higher harsher...the F.B.I reports that there might be 50 sleeper cells of terrorists... When L. comes she is screaming i love you i love you i love you...thru a glass darkly her cries fly away...Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 07:49:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rob Holloway Subject: Anti-fundamentalism MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Just picked this up from the RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan) supporters list. The results of a survey run by CNN on their website:- If Afghanistan does not hand over Osama bin Laden, should the U.S.=A0=A0 bomb Kabul?=20 =A0=A0 Yes=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 79%=A0=A0= =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0266133 votes=20 =A0=A0 No=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A021%=A0= =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A071287 votes=20 =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0= =A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 Total:=A0 337420 votes=20 To perpetuate anti-Afghan violence with such assumption-led questions is obscene. To suggest the Afghani people should suffer because of the behaviour of the Taliban is the sickest of ironies. To complain go to:http://www.cnn.com/feedback/ The Afghans have suffered horrendously from the various fundamentalisms of the Soviets, the mujahideen leader and prime minister from '92-'96, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, and the Taliban - is George Bush now to be added to the list so he can take Kabul from a state of post-apocalypse to....? (I keep getting this awful image of redneck kids shoving dynamite up the ass of a dying pig, their dads away at the local KKK meet) I would also urge people to visit, and to urge others to visit, the RAWA site (www.rawa.org) and to e-mail them your support (rawa@rawa.org) - at present they are receiving many extremely threatening messages from both US right-wing fundamentalists, and Islamic fundamentalists - what chance the Opreh Winfrey show on RAWA and the response of 300,000 Americans who swamped their site in support, being repeated now! For the most detailed account I've yet read of how, blinded by Cold War ideology, the CIA nurtured Islamic fundamentalism for their singular purpose of defeating the Russians in Afghanistan while remaining ignorant of the inevitable consequences of such a policy, read:- http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/96may/blowback.htm=A0 (written in 1996, after the car bombings in Riyadh, Peshawar and Islamabad, it is scarily prescient in its warnings of future 'blowback' actions by Islamic fundamentalists as a result of the Saudi Arabia and USA sponsored jihad in Afghanistan) a brief glimmer of hope this morning - on the front page of 'The Guardian' here in the UK is the headline 'Cracks appear in the coalition' - article includes a photo of French prime minister Lionel Jospin and a caption quote:- 'We are not at war against Islam'. Belgian foreign minister Louis Michel, current holder of EU presidency has said 'We are not at war' while Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov has said there will be no chance of the US being allowed to launch attacks from Tajikstan, the former Soviet republic immediately north of Afghanistan. Conspicuously absent from this list is Blair who remains hawkish as ever - unsurprising given that the UK has continued to act in conjunction with the US in the ongoing bombing of Iraq, has together with the US been the major supporter of the inhumane sanctions there, and is the world's second biggest arms dealer behind the US. =20 Joe, I fully sympathise with your sense that it is important for the 'left' to support anti-terrorist sentiment - it seems to me however that given the apparent shakiness of the US-Euro coalition, all efforts should be directed towards putting pressure on sympathetic politicians to forward calls for perpetrators to be bought before newly-empowered courts of international justice, and for them to engage in the promotion of multi-party and multi-country talks that honestly examine how the fervour driving terrorist actions can be diluted - anything from formal apologies to renewed peace talks need to be pushed for - given that the abyss is so clearly visible now, and the reasons for how we got here becoming more so, I still want to believe an alternative political coalition seeking to promote peace can be welded together in opposition to the hawkish US-UK isolationist axis. Rob Holloway. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 08:24:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..mourn the dead I find Pierre Joris response to 'real' emotion profoundly maddenning, anger-inducing and blatantly racist. To start trumpeting the infantada as the dead are being buried around us, must give us pause to think how deep the wells are that he can draw on. Palestinians dancing in jubilation are a fact. We have the pictures. Their motives may be explained and understood, yet the fact of their delight is apparent, as it is apparent at all bombings of Israeli and other Jewish Institutions around the world. Rather than a small minority, if this demonstration was not immediately clamped down by the frightened authorities, i'm pretty certain there would have been many many 1,000's dancing in the streets. So in Bagdhad, Damasscus and unfortunately through out the Arab World. Cultures of hate and resentment and deep seated undemocratic racism boil over to extreme violence. Honest real emotion heals. Telling us not to see what we see, feel what we feel will not help. Let's bury our dead... Drn.. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 00:41:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Gary G. Roberts" Subject: Kite Project MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Poetics readers, I am interested in working with writers and/or artists, especially in the Boston area, in order to design and create some kites in response to Tuesday's events. I feel like these objects can help me to reconnect to the sky and to extend benevolent habitation into our "air space." I intend to compose short texts to be written onto or affixed to the kites. I have no immediate timeline and no goal other than someday to fly all the kites together. Kites, with all the precarious tension they embody, seem more safe and healing to fly than flags. Please back-channel if interested. Gary Roberts ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 09:13:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating In-Reply-To: <00b801c13b98$e3406300$86322518@adubn1.nj.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From: "Deepali Dewan" >To: "Deepali Dewan" >Subject: CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:45:33 -0500 >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 > > cited by other sources as well. very important in terms of the power >of media and the tragic dangers of rushing to conclusions. > ----- >Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:14:03 -0700 > > >Subject: "CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palestinians"? >,v - IMC Video > > &group=webcast > >CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to manipulate you >(english) >by Marcio 10:32pm Wed Sep 12 '01 > > > . >I'd like to add some ideas from here, down south. >There's an important point in the power of press, specifically the >power of CNN. > >All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, >and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of >you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company. In >particular, one set of images called my attencion: the Palestinians >celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating some cake and making >funny faces for the camera. > >Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of >Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It's simply >unacceptable that a super-power of cumminications as CNN uses images >which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious an >issue. > >A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has videotapes recorded in 1991, with >the very same images; he's been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major >TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify >as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to >this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to 'put my >hands' on a copy of this tape. > >But now, think for a moment about the impact of such images. Your people is >hurt, emotionally fragile, and this kind broadcast have very high >possibility of causing waves of anger and rage against Palestinians. It's >simply irresponsible to show images such as those. > >........Best regards, and the hope that everything is resolved for the >best of all >of us > >Mrcio A. V. Carvalho >State University of Campinas - Brazil ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 22:45:47 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Under Attack Comments: cc: Patrick Herron Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Under Attack Will we win this war Against civilization We face powerful & terrible enemies Under attack Greed anger & delusion Under attack Bigotry & selfishness Under attack Hatred & animosity Under attack Self-conceit & arrogance Yes we face powerful & terrible enemies We are coming after you Under attack My eye for your eye Tooth for tooth This is still the disgraceful truth Bless me bless you Civilized manners Thank you but when it comes to blows Then everything goes I burn then you burn & so the story goes Lets shake hands on that For tortured minds Those who burn burn most inside Kindness & compassion in this kind of war If won all our work is done Under attack We face powerful & terrible enemies Are we winning this war Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 12:34:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Action/language Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I'm terrifically grateful for the writing about experiences of being in New York from Charles, Marcella, Gary, Brian, Lee Ann, and others. I've also found valuable the sources of analysis and information--the position of the War Resisters League, the information on asbestos in the WTC--that have been sent out on the list. The question I am asking myself now is how to put this material to work--making use of one's perspective, resources, and experience as a poet. Which are incredibly valuable, what we have variously schooled ourselves to do for a reason, for years. I remember well being at what felt to be at a center of concern,and opposition, to the last national crisis of similar proportion--the Gulf War. In the San Francisco Bay Area, as the date for American attacks approached, and the attacks began, tens of thousands hit the streets as they had many times since the beginnings of the anti-war movement. But this time, the acts of opposition were drowned out by the yellow flags of jingoism and, as Bush said, roughly, "there are those who oppose this war, but you can't hear them." I think he said "you" rather than "we"--in other words, there was a directive not to hear them, even if one could. Now that I'm located in one of the areas of the country that wanted not to hear any opposition to the politics and tactics of the Gulf War, I'm concerned to listen for similarities and differences to that time. There are many. From what I understand from people who were here, Detroit--where the capacity for automated production arguably was a major factor propelling America to victory in WWII and afterward, and people now drive Humvees as recreational vehicles--there was a steely solidarity and dumbed-down rhetoric that completely stultified, wiped out any alternatives. And even now I see the same dumb rhetoric in the Detroit papers--of good vs. evil, etc.--that is always less analytic, more invested with an assertion of who we are than even the national norm. There are differences, even so. The impact of the news, of course, was total. There was a delay, then a somewhat orderly shift to a response. The Big Three let off employees, and there was a calm but intense stream of traffic out of the city center. People who had jobs to do did them. There was not, however, any sense of civic authority to direct this response--it was a seemingly ingrained notion of appropriate action. The only untoward event I noted was a brief episode of gas profiteering ($6 a gallon the night of the attack), which ended in a day or so. The media was the source of trauma--but I think this is now interpreted in two ways. We know what a media disaster is, by this time, and we also know that the referent is real. If there is a dissociation between the two--that we do not identify the media trauma with the referent--that could be a hopeful sign. This is why particular accounts are so important--to dissociate the two experiences of trauma. Neighborhoods around Detroit have always flown the flag. During the Gulf War, from what I have heard, this was particularly intense. Afterward, however, there was a shift in the practice. Many of the flagpoles that adorn suburban houses started to fly flags that were more fanciful--flowers, panda bears, pumpkins, an innocuous happy-face iconography. Not monolithically the Stars and Stripes. So I am watching for the return of the practice. Gas station flags are at half mast (there are enormous ones). Small flags often line the roads. I have heard of women in malls wearing flag dresses, recently purchased. Where the insignia of the Red Wings hockey team have been flown on plastic attachments to SUVs, I have seen some American flags--when driven at speed, evoking a cavalry rescue, John Wayne style. You can almost hear the charge being sounded. And of course there is the reinforcement of the Battle Hymn of the Republic being sung on TV. But this is not the whole story. It seems to me there is another attitude--of evaluation, and desire for alternative perspective. Students in my classes at Wayne are certainly interested in unpacking the discourses, rather than suturing them together. There is considerable discussion of not stigmatizing Arab students and residents in Detroit (a large population, from all over the Middle East, which has been here for decades). The university has explicitly addressed this concern. All night long, when commercial air traffic was halted, one could hear the roar of jets, I assume from Selkirk AFB, in nearby Macomb County. Troops and equipment are being moved up. I want to keep open the place of alternative analysis, as we are obviously entering into a period of war rhetoric and its military objective--to stultify and paralyze analysis and criticism. What I want to do in response: build up a set of references that can be used in thinking through the present. Yesterday, because I'm teaching the 50s and 60s, I went back through a lot of the writings of Paul Goodman, for example. An anthology he put together of articles from Liberation magazine in 1964 (Seeds of Liberation) contained Albert Camus's "Neither Victims nor Executioners"--a title that has to seem quite evocative at present. Some of it is dated, but some entirely true of the entire post-WWII period that is the framework we are in: "Modern nations are driven by powerful forces along the roads of power and domination. I will not say that these forces should be furthered or that they should be obstructed. They hardly need our help and, for the moment, they laugh at attempts to hinder them. They will, then, continue. But I will ask only this simple question: what if these forces wind up in a dead end . . .?" Camus advocates an individual act of choice--not to join the party or accomplices of murder--that at least asserts that such an alternative is possible. I don't think that an act of choice is sufficient, although it is important to think that there is such a thing as an act of choice. There are also the logics that we are embedded in, and cannot choose. Here action also needs to be understood as possible in another sense, and undertaken. Toward that end, I am interested in what Goodman, in another book, says about the role of the writer: "Writers are linguistic analysts and know the folk wisdom and superstition that exist in common vocabulary and grammar. As General Semanticists, they are critical of the rhetoric of the street, the mass media, and official institutions. They understand, more than most people, what cannot be said, what is not being said though it ought to be, what is verbalized experience, and what is mere words. They can detect when there is really an idea and an argument rather than a cloud of phrases. They can date a passage and show a forgery. As psychologists of language they are sensitive to how people come on when they talk or write, the ploys they use, and the postures they strike. They can hear the personal that is expressed in habits of syntax, and the personal inhibition or freedom that is told by the breathing and rhythm of sentences and the quality of metaphor. They can judge the clarity or confusion or spurious clarity in an exposition. They are sociologists of language and can recognize the social background in vocabulary, pronunciation, and routine formulas. / At the same time as they know all this, however, in their own writing they must let their speech come spontaneously: it is free speech, though they monitor it critically." (Speaking and Language: Defence of Poetry, 1971). Goodman's political alternative is spontaneity, which solves the question of internal censorship and external valuation of the authenticity of speech, at the same time. While everything in this passage is, I think, baseline politics to many poets, there is also an understanding that the social character of "language" is precisely what makes spontaneity not an automatic alternative. And we have continued to explore that tension between the call to authenticity and the experience of being embedded in contexts, being spoken, being subject to discourses outside and beyond oneself. I would like to build up some resources that would help think through the present. A more recent title that came to hand, is Roy Gutman and David Rieff, eds., Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know (Norton, 1999)--an incredibly lucid discussion of acts of war, rules of engagement, war crimes, international law, and so forth. I would be grateful for other such resources, and also for specific urls (War Resisters League, Chomsky, other perspectives, asbestos reports, poetic responses, and so forth) that could then be brought together in a single place. Thanks, Barrett P.S. Could you include my e-address along with the listserv's if you have specific responses, as I get the listserv in digest form, which makes it a bit slow to respond to. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:36:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: [extreme] a view from Afghanistan (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:17:02 -0400 From: Tom Ritchford Reply-To: extreme@topica.com To: extreme@topica.com Subject: [extreme] a view from Afghanistan From: "ruben garcia" Subject: A view from Afghanistan A sobering essay forwarded by a UC Berkeley professor: Dear Friends, The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary. Tamim is an Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in. -Gary T. Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread: I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban. We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else? Tamim Ansary .........a new fortune every minute. ..................Forteans of New York. ------------------------- ----------------------------- extreme NY calendar: extreme NY radio: unsubscribe: extreme-unsubscribe@topica.com extreme calendar: extremeNY-subscribe@topica.com ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?aaP7Si.bVOEfo Or send an email To: extreme-unsubscribe@topica.com This email was sent to: sondheim@panix.com T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:04:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: poem by Muhammad Iqbal In-Reply-To: <9nvqsl+7avm@eGroups.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT JEHAD This is an age, our canonist's new dictum Assures us, of the pen: in our world now The sword has no more virtue.--Has it not reached Our pious oracle's ear, that in the Mosque Such sermonizing nowadays has grown Rhymeless and reasonless? Where, in a Muslim's hand, Will he find dagger or rifle? and if there were, Our hearts have lost all memory of delight In death. To one whose nerves falter at even An infidel cut down, who would exclaim "Die like a Muslim!" Preach relinquishment Of such crusades to him whose bloody fist Menaces earth! Europe, swathed cap-a-pie In mail, mounts guard over her glittering reign Of falsehood; we enquire of our divine, So tender of Christendom; if for the East War is unhallowed, is not war unhallowed For Western arms? and if your goal be truth, Is this the right road--Europe's faults are all glossed, And all Islam's held to so strict an audit? [Muhammad Iqbal] ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:32:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: perforations 24 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 14:03:18 -0400 (EDT) From: Robert Cheatham To: noise@noel2.pd.org Cc: synners@noel2.pd.org Subject: perforations 24 __ _ _ / _| | | (_) _ __ ___ _ __ | |_ ___ _ __ __ _ | |_ _ ___ _ __ ___ | '_ \ / _ \| '__|| _|/ _ \ | '__|/ _` || __|| | / _ \ | '_ \ / __| | |_) || __/| | | | | (_) || | | (_| || |_ | || (_) || | | |\__ \ | .__/ \___||_| |_| \___/ |_| \__,_| \__||_| \___/ |_| |_||___/ | | |_| ---Perforations is an aspect of Public Domain, Inc., am unaffiliated non-profit organization devoted to explorations of the connections between art, theory, technology, and community. Public Domain Inc may be reached at http://www.pd.org ---perforations 23, PLAY (on contemporary poetics), is now available at http://www.perforate.org. ---In 2002, perforations will co-ordinate with an Atlanta (home of the Center for Disease Control) gallery for a node entitled VECTORS: The Disease Show. The call for work, web art, and writing will be sent shortly. ----------------- The following is the call for submissions for node #24, entitled: THE DELIRIUM OF THE X-TREME "Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self." Eric Hoffer "There is no delirium that does not pass through peoples, races, and tribes, and that does not haunt universal history. All delirium is world historical, a 'displacement of races and continents." "Delirium is a disease, the disease par excellance, whenever it erects a race it claims is pure and dominant." Gilles Deleuze I was in the hardware store yesterday and saw colored duct tape that was called 'X-treme Duct tape.' I later had to get gas at my local convenience store and noticed a sticker on the door for an x-treme sport drink. I suppose the sport for which it was intended was X-treme also as were the shoes you could be wearing or the x-treme car you will later get in to go to your x-treme job. The 'extreme' indeed seems to be at its rhetorical extreme these days, flourished no doubt by the substitution of 'ex-' by 'x-', the x having it's own charismatic/chiasmatic signature effect these days. The affect found most often at the intensities which define the extreme is delirium, the defining feature of which is, according to some sources, "the disturbance of consciousness, accompanied by a change in cognition that cannot be accounted for by pre-existing or evolving dementia." That is, it's an irruption or intervention into consciousness of states marked by confusion, agitation, altered levels of consciousness, and perceptual disturbances. Webster's New International claims that delirium is to "make the furrow awry in plowing, to deviate from the straight line" - literally: de- as in from, and lira, a line or furrow. More clinically, it is defined as "a temporary state of extreme mental excitement, marked by restlessness, confused speech, and hallucinations," a symptom rather than a cause. 'Extreme' is listed as "at the outermost, farthest; at the utmost point, edge, or border" and as the "utmost in degree; of the very best or worst that can exist in reality or in imagination; excessive; immoderate" and "last; beyond which there is none." Poor old longshoreman/philosopher of the common man Eric Hoffer no doubt thought that extremity in the service of the self was oxymoronic since it led to the dissolution of subject formations. Deleuze would no doubt agree that was precisely the point, coming from a different 'becoming.' What is at stake in the passage to (wished for at the very least) extremes and delirium is stated succintly in this passage from Roberto Calasso concerning Nietzsche's last work and descent into madness: "What he seems to have wanted to demonstrate visibly is the passage [....] from a theory that is radical but still respectful of formal conventions to a PRACTISE of an unprecedented nature " (The Forty Nine Steps) We now know that that is also the place of monsters ('monstration' being precisely that making visible of sui generis passage.) At any rate, 'extremes' and 'deliriums' perhaps (or not) exist now in the same proportions they always have. One difference seems to be the place they occupy in our collective imaginations through the continual monstrations of technology and the subsequent (?) wish of many to be on the very edge of whatever. Maybe Judge Schreber was right: we are all on our way to becoming his children. Send us your borderline thoughts, your holey digressions, your spit-stuck, star-struck (or dis-astered) web sol/vent/utions, and unprecedented practices, your more considered academic approaches, your speedtraps and potholes at the front and the back of the bell curve, yearning to be free, fried, or filled. -------------- "These visions, these auditions are not a private matter but form the figures of history and a geography that are ceaselessly reinvented. It is a delirium that invents them, as a process driving words, from one end of the universe to the other. They are events at the edge of language. But when delirium falls back into the clinical state, words no longer open out onto anything, we no longer hear or see anything through them except a night whose history, colors, and songs have been lost." Gilles Deleuze: Essays Critical and Clinical ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:18:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? Comments: To: Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz , Nancy Ordover , Dana Greene , JonPKinnally@aol.com In-Reply-To: <001001c13dff$9997c5e0$ebe37ad1@syr.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake. Researchers at a Brazillian University have found identical footage from 1991. Also note, it was night-time in Palestine when the news arrived. Please distribute this news widely as that footage is inspiration for a lot of hateful feelings right now. --Naeem Mohaiemen Check out counterpunch's front page: http://www.counterpunch.org http://www.chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4395&group=webcast ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:54:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: Poems by others: Robert Duncan, "After a Passage in Baudelaire" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit After a Passage in Baudelaire Ship, leaving or arriving, of my lover, my soul, leaving or coming into this harbor, among your lights and shadows shelterd, at home in your bulk, the cunning regularity and symmetry thruout of love's design, of will, of your attractive cells and chambers . riding forward, darkest of shades over the shadowd waters . into the light, neat, symmetrically arranged about your watery reflections disturbing your own image, moving as you are . What passenger, what sailor, looks out into the swirling currents round you as if into those depths into a mirror? What lights in what port-holes raise in my mind again hunger and impatience? to make my bed down again, there, beyond me, as if this room too, my bedroom, my lamp at my side, were among those lights sailing out away from me. We too, among the others, passengers in that *charme infini et mystérieux,* in that suitable symmetry, that precision everywhere, the shining fittings, the fit of lights and polisht surfaces to the dark, to the flickering shadows of them, we too, unfaithful to me, sailing away, leaving me. *L'idée poétique,* the idea of a poetry, that rises from the movement, from the outswirling curves and imaginary figures round this ship, this fate, this sure thing, *est l'hypothèse d'une être vaste, immense, compliqué, mais eurythmique.* --Robert Duncan, from *Roots and Branches* (1964) Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 13:23:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: just checking Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Thanks to everyone for their thoughtful posts amid the terror and sadness. I may have just missed their names on recent posts, but has anyone heard from Rebecca Wolff, Tom Devaney, Brendan Lorber? Kasey ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 16:33:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Melnicove Subject: Rule of law or rule of war? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable We Need the Rule of Law, Not the Rule of War by James Carroll HOW WE LOVE our country! For days now, we Americans, while mourning and shuddering, have felt the accumulating weight of our patriotic devotion. We are joined in the shocking recognition of what a rare and precious treasure is the United States of America. Our nation's sudden vulnerability makes us shrug off, just as suddenly, the habit of taking for granted its nobility. We see it in the throat-choking empty place of the New York skyline and in the gaping wound of the building beside Arlington Cemetery. We see it in the grimy faces of the resolute rescue workers and in the implication that doomed airline passengers fought back against hi-jackers. We see it in the splendid diversity of our features, our accents, our beliefs, our responses, even. Never has the national motto seemed more true: Out of many, one. But so far our main expression of this intense patriotism has been oddly in tension with its inner meaning, for the thing we treasure above all about America at this moment is the way it measures its hope by principles of democracy, tolerance, law, respect for the other, and even social compassion. Our supreme patriotic gesture in this crisis has been a nearly universal call for war, and indeed, the growing sentiment for war, fueled by the rhetoric of our highest leaders, may soon be embodied in a formal congressional declaration of war. Before we go further, we should think carefully about why we are heading down this path and where it is likely to lead. Do the rhetoric of war and the actions it sets in motion really serve the urgent purpose of stopping terrorism? And is the launching of war really the only way to demonstrate our love for America? First, let me state the obvious. The nearly worldwide consensus that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington must be met with force is entirely correct. The network of suicidal mass murderers, however large and wherever hidden, must be eliminated. But force can be exercised decisively and overwhelmingly in another context than that of ''war.'' One of the great advances in civilization occurred when human beings found a way to channel unavoidable violence away from ''war'' and toward a new, counterbalancing context embodied in the idea of ''law.'' The distinction may seem too fine to be relevant in the aftermath of this catastrophe, but it is after catastrophe that the distinction matters most. The difference between ''war'' and ''law'' is not the use of force. The United States of America, with its world allies, should be embarked not on a war but on an unprecedented, swift, sure, and massive campaign of law enforcement. As the term ''law enforcement'' implies, the proper use of force would be of the essence in this campaign. Why does this distinction matter? Four reasons: War, by definition, is an activity undertaken against a political or social entity, while the terrorist network responsible for this catastrophe, from all reports, is a coalition of individuals, perhaps a large one. Law enforcement, by definition, is an activity undertaken against just such individuals or networks. By clothing our response to the terrorist acts in the rhetoric of war, we make it far more likely that members of groups associated by extrinsic factors with the perpetrators (Arabs, Muslims, Afghans, Pakistanis, etc.) will suffer terrible consequences, from being bombed in Kabul to being discriminated against in Boston. Furthermore, the rhetoric of war, as it falls on the ears of such people (a billion Muslims), makes it all the more likely that they will see America only as their enemy. War, by definition, is relatively imprecise. Steps can be taken to limit ''collateral damage,'' but the method of war, in fact, is to bring pressure to bear against a hostile power structure by inflicting suffering on the society of which it is part. History shows that once wars begin, violence becomes general. As President Bush threatened, no distinctions are made. In law enforcement, distinctions remain of the essence. Law enforcement submits to disciplines that are jettisoned in war. Do we really have the right to jettison such disciplines now? War, similarly, is less concerned with procedure than with result.More plainly, in war the ends justify the means. In law enforcement, the end remains embodied in the means, which is why procedures are so scrupulously observed in criminal justice activity. To respond to a terrorist's violation of the social order with further violations of that order means the terrorist has won. War inevitably generates its own momentum, which has a way of inhumanely overwhelming the humane purposes for which the war is begun in the first place. In the death-ground of combat violence, self-criticism can seem like fatal self-doubt, so the savage momentum of war is rarely recognized until too late. The rule of unintended consequences universally applies in war. Law enforcement, on the other hand, with its system of checks and balances between police and courts, is inevitably self-critical. The moral link between act and consequence is far more likely to be protected. What does winning a war against terrorism mean? How has hatred of America become a source of meaning for vast numbers whose poverty already amounts to a state of war? Must a massive campaign of unleashed violence become America's new source of meaning, too? The World Trade Center was a symbol of the social, economic, and political hope Americans treasure, a hope embodied above all in law. To win the struggle against terrorism means inspiring that same hope in the hearts of all who do not have it. How we respond to this catastrophe will define our patriotism, shape the century, and memorialize our beloved dead. James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe. =A9 Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company ### ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 21:58:18 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Billy Mills Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 13 Sep 2001 to 14 Sep 2001 (#2001-143) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Billy Mills and Catherine Walsh, and our two boys, say hello from Limerick, Ireland and send all the Americans, and everyone else, our best wishes and hopes. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:14:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: b marsh Subject: what can poets do? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >I hope, as poets, that we find a way to participate in some way in using the things we have been thinking about -- on this list, in the poems, concerning community, justice, globalization, etc. -- in a good way. this can't be said enough, should be said more i'm in san diego, watched from afar as most did, have lost no one immediately close to me but, like many, know some who know some -- and out here, aside from our own airport closing and the bomb threat at the zoo on Thursday, as well as at a nearby school, our most immediate involvement has been, first, the victims on the planes on their way back to the west coast, and the news released yesterday that three of the hijackers lived about 5 miles west of me and attended community college classes in the district i and some of my friends have taught in, teaching english, over the last few years -- the city also sent relief firefighters, jammed our blood banks, and welcomed one carrier home while another gets deployed to the gulf yesterday the zoo re-opened its doors and many flocked -- i can't imagine how or why anyone would go, and i question if that is the kind of participation we need, but i also question the high school football games in texas, and other ways a grieving/coping people return to the "normal life" in efforts to send messages, to themselves and terrorists, that our way of life will not be swayed, diverted, destroyed -- or are these efforts to avoid/deflect the message sent so clearly on tuesday? -- i don't know -- parents of the high school players, for their part, said it was for the kids, to give some diversion, after the long and horrid week, while the parents continued the grieving, knowing better -- i don't know if this is the right kind of participation either, for us or our kids, but i can't pretend to know enough at all about what's appropriate now we're struggling here, like others, with that question of what to do, of what's appropriate, of what's necessary, of how to participate -- i know that it's not enough for me to hold old class rosters up to the computer screen to check the FBI list against my own (no names matched) -- i know it's not enough to sit in front of my television and verbally chide it for turning what Dan Rather insisted, on tuesday, was "not a movie" back into one on friday, even though these are the real ways of channeling information that lead to climates of misinformation and misunderstanding in which horrible deeds like these can come to pass it might be enough, this week and here on this list, to think about and through all of this (reading through the messages here, reading itself, as taylor brady wrote a few days ago, has been a small but important help) -- but to push what brian wrote, how do we use "the things we have been thinking about -- on this list, in the poems, concerning community, justice, globalization, etc. -- in a good way"? -- it's a practical question, and i think it needs to be addressed now -- if, as we all fear, more is on the way, then what are the strategies for battle readiness, for poets/writers, for all, in the weeks to come? -- there is and never has been a normal life to return to, so where do we go from here? i'm not sure where to begin -- it might start with channeling as hard as we can the idea that, as maya angelou said last night talking with ted koppel, there's a difference between justice and revenge and we must work for the first and not the second -- with so many out for revenge already, against those who are innocent, in the streets and mosques across the country, how can we as poets/writers discourage hate and protect those who have hurt no one? i hope those who teach (poetry or anything) or work in settings that allow for discussion and organization will channel thoughts into actions and take what the thinking here offers out into the lives and communities that can most benefit -- that will be our goal here what else can we do? -- what are the strategies for action and readiness that this group can best address? bill ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:27:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: Belief-systems and this tragedy. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Belz > Joel: > > What do you believe? Do you believe your beliefs in a non-systematic way? > Are you non-ideological? I question my beliefs, how I see the world, what I'm taking for granted, a process that has been ongoing since I was a teenager. > > Who are you? Are there other people like you? Do they share your > anti-systematic views? They are called artists. > > I trust that you mean well, but are your claims about religion and violence > exclusive claims? Would you defend them? Many many books written on this. You can begin with Rene Girard's well-known workk on the subject. > > Are any ideas worth defending? Move on! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 18:41:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r ..wish... i wish i were a bond salesman...i could never make it as a fire man....i wish i'd never heard the word po pome ptry...Drn.. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 19:55:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: AMERICA UNITED Comments: To: imitationpoetics@topica.com, webartery@onelist.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Channel 7, Miami, with feeds from Channel 5, NY, both Fox: Banner ad across the screen (this obviously from Net organization in the first place): AMERICA UNITED. To the left: 7 in a red circle. Beneath 7: Fox News Channel slowly rotating. Scrolling text at bottom. It is precisely this: AMERICA UNITED or "talking about what they have all collectively been going through." It is precisely this: What is America? What sort of unification? What sort of agreement? Did this happen to Lower Manhattan, Manhattan, New York City, New York State, The United States, North America, "The Americas," the "World"? We are suddenly, catastrophically, thrown into "The United States" as AMERICA - we jump to the level of the _army,_ to national-patriotisms, to a level silencing many of us who disagree, who fear both the rhetoric and its underlying repetition of violence. As if the opposite of patriotism is anti-patriotic, the opposition of unity is destruction, the opposite of America is anti-American. As if we are governed by these dualities. We are not; enough comes through back-channel to indicate there are a lot of us who mourn but think otherwise, who do not feel patriotic in the sense of this UNITED, who may feel fear more than anything. We should keep this in mind. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 20:13:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Fwd: [RRE]attack Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 10:23:22 -0700 >X-Authentication-Warning: alpha.oac.ucla.edu: pagre set sender to > pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu using -f >From: Phil Agre >To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" >Subject: [RRE]attack >Sender: >List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.7 by Fog City Software, Inc. >List-Subscribe: >List-Unsubscribe: >X-URL: http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html > >Here are some more URL's. Thanks to everyone who contributed. > >Can anyone find me some English-language commentaries from Islamic >fundamentalists in Egypt, Algeria, Pakistan, and so on? Also some >commentaries from other countries that represent perspectives not >much seen in the American papers? > > >investigation > >Economist summary of the investigation >http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=786197 > >"the prime suspect is Osama bin Laden, but it may be impossible to prove this" >http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=786151 > >Why? An Attempt to Explain the Unexplainable >http://www.janes.com/regional_news/americas/news/jdw/jdw010914_1_n.shtml > >intelligent article about shooting down planes (or failing to) >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15CONT.html > >Bin Laden: The Former CIA "Client" Obsessed With Training Pilots >http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,551037,00.html > >Bin Laden Linked to Two Fundamentalist Islamic Groups in Egypt >http://www.metimes.com/2K1/issue2001-37/reg/bin_laden_linked.htm > >Terrorists' Funding Targeted >(maybe it's a financial war: follow the money, prevent them paying for >attacks) >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34495-2001Sep14.html > >Belgian Police Probe Bin Laden Links >http://213.159.10.102/belgiummain.asp?pad=88,89,&item_id=13895 > >Newspaper: Echelon Gave Authorities Warning Of Attacks >(I have no idea if this is reliable or even plausible) >http://www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170072.html > >staffer's eyewitness account from the New Yorker >http://www.newyorker.com/ON-LINE_ONLY/ARCHIVES/?010917on_onlineonly02 > >Fear on the 86th Floor >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34032-2001Sep14.html > > >response > >The Day the World Changed >http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=780341 > >Pakistani Leaders Agree on Measures to Assist US >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32037-2001Sep14.html > >Russian General Against Siding With USA in Possible Strikes >http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=010915002989 > >Putin Would Not Support a US Invasion of Afghanistan >http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=010915001404 > >Americans and Islamists blaming one another >http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=785171 > >New Yorkers at Dovish Rally Are Torn over War and Peace >http://asia.dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/world/article.html?s=asia/headlines/010915/world/afp/New_Yorkers_at_dovish_rally_are_torn_over_war_and_peace.html > >Gunmen Shoot Boy as Warning to India Not to Help US Against Taliban >http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_399225.html > >Turkey Lowers Flags in Respect for Victims of Savage Terrorist Attacks >http://www.TurkishDailyNews.com/FrTDN/latest/for.htm#f6 > >A Defiant New York City >http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=780368 > >article on "workplace-recovery centers" >http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/08/elhai.htm > >Air Travel Under Siege >http://www.economist.com/agenda/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=786126 > >Terror Doesn't Spare Young >("it's too much for my brain to tolerate") >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34501-2001Sep14.html > >Child Trauma Academy: Coping with Traumatic Events >http://www.childtrauma.org/ > >Microsoft to Change Flight Game >http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/technology/AP-Attacks-Flight-Simulator.html > > >civil liberties > >A Wide, Aggressive Probe Collides With Civil Rights >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34046-2001Sep14.html > >Senator Leahy's speech defending civil liberties >http://www.senate.gov/~leahy/press/200109/091201.html > >Sacrificing Freedoms in the Name of Saving Them >http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11509 > >China Censors Anti-US Reaction >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34491-2001Sep14.html > >Some Foresee a Sea Change in Attitudes on Freedoms >(including discussion of face recognition systems) >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/national/15CIVI.html > >"we shouldn't automatically give up our constitutional rights" >http://www.salon.com/news/col/cona/2001/09/14/rights/ > >Society's Freedoms May Be Curtailed >http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,552322,00.html > > >tolerance > >"how far should ethnic profiling go in the quest to nab the terrorists?" >http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/14/profiling/ > >letter from Tamim Ansary, an Afgani-American writer >http://www.caterina.net/2001_09_01_archive.html#5694830 >http://www.monospace.com/ansary.html > >An Afghan-American Speaks >http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/14/afghanistan/ > > >law > >A New Legal Landscape >(introduction to several attack-related articles from National Law Journal) >http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZGDOIPMRC > >In Times of Crisis, Law Speaks, but Often With a Forked Tongue >http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZGWFRGMRC > >The Day the US Supreme Court Shut Down >http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZYURPZKRC > > >commentary > >Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson are Christians like the bombers are Muslims >(i.e., not) >http://www.nandotimes.com/opinions/story/79337p-1109025c.html > >Violence Doesn't Work >http://www.globalexchange.org/september11/zinn091401.html > >What Does Retaliation Mean in a Media War? >http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/09/12/1.html > >A Time for Peace, Not Retaliation >http://www.tompaine.com/opinion/2001/09/11/ > >International Crime, Not War >http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0109terror-crime.html > >Beware Unintended Results >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/opinion/15LEWI.html > >comment from Pakistan >http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/15/op.htm#3 >http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/PrintPage.asp?id=1&date1=9/15/2001&news2=editorials > >The Real Challenge Is How to Eradicate the Sources of Terrorism >(Turkey, of course, has its own unpublicized war going with the Kurds) >http://www.TurkishDailyNews.com/FrTDN/latest/comment.htm > >Linkage to Islam Rejected >http://www.TurkishDailyNews.com/FrTDN/latest/dom.htm#d2 > >criticism of US alliances with repressive Middle Eastern governments >http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11508 > >"many of the people running this country are long-time supporters of >terrorism" >http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11506 > >We'll Go Forward From This Moment >http://www.miami.com/herald/special/news/worldtrade/digdocs/008039.htm > >socialist comment >http://www.internationalsocialist.org/Statement.pdf > >criticism of US media coverage >http://www.zmag.org/schechcalam.htm > >the history of extremism over here, as well as over there >http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11505 > >Actually, They Do Dare Call It Treason >(review of conservative Web sites' condemnation of dissent) >http://conwebwatch.tripod.com/stories/2001/treason.html > >jargon watch: a half-dozen devices for stigmatizing dissent in wartime >(and if our guys do wrong, match it with a supposedly equal wrong of theirs) >http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001143 > >jargon watch: "victims" can't be real Americans >(to be a real American, you have to pretend that discrimination doesn't exist) > > >background > >The Strategic Implications of Terrorism >http://www.st-and.ac.uk/academic/intrel/research/cstpv/publications1d.htm > >The Advent of Netwar >http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR789/ > >South Asia Is Like the Middle East, Except Everyone Has Nuclear Weapons >http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/13/pakistan/ > >BBC Monitoring Country Profiles >http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk/countryprof1.shtml > >bin Laden profile >http://www.newyorker.com/FROM_THE_ARCHIVE/ARCHIVES/?010917fr_archive07 > >The Treasury Coddles Tax Cheats (August 2001) >(oh, and it's easy for terrorists to move money around) >http://www.thenewrepublic.com/082701/giridharadas082701.html > >US Announces Afghan Aid Package (May 2001) >http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1336000/1336958.stm > >Noam Chomsky's Lecture "The Current Crises in the Middle East" (December 2000) >http://www.media.mit.edu/~nitin/mideast/chomsky.html > >Clinton speech on terrorism at the UN, September 1998 >http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/New/html/19980921-29469.html > >Ronald Reagan's proclamations on Afghanistan Day in 1982 and 1983 >http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1982/31082c.htm >http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1983/32183d.htm >http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/resource/speeches/1983/32183e.htm > >on the building of the World Trade Center >http://www.newyorker.com/FROM_THE_ARCHIVE/ARCHIVES/?010917fr_archive06 > >The Advantages of Defeat (September 1861) >http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/1861sep/defeat.htm > >comment on Pearl Harbor, published in 1941 >http://www.newyorker.com/FROM_THE_ARCHIVE/ARCHIVES/?010917fr_archive08 > > >news > >Middle East Times (Cairo) >http://www.metimes.com/ >http://www.metimes.com/2K1/issue2001-37/opin/opin_index.htm > >The Frontier Post from Peshawar, Pakistan >http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/ >http://www.frontierpost.com.pk/afghan.asp > >The Times of Central Asia (extensive coverage from Kyrgyzstan) >http://www.times.kg/ > >Syria Times >http://www.teshreen.com/syriatimes/ >http://www.teshreen.com/syriatimes/s-sa/apolitic-s.htm >http://www.teshreen.com/syriatimes/s-sa/opinion-s.htm > >Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Khaleej Times Home Page >http://www.khaleejtimes.com/ >http://www.khaleejtimes.com/editor.htm > >European news links >http://www.euractiv.com/cgi-bin/eurb/cgint.exe?1&1000=1&tmpl=index > >C-SPAN daily schedule, almost all of which is about the war >http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dfullschedule > >coverage and resources from US News and World Report >http://www.usnews.com/usnews/briefings/terror0901.htm > >Newspapers US and Worldwide >http://www.refdesk.com/paper.html > >end ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 20:13:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Fwd: [RRE]How to Be a Leader in Your Field Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 15:26:57 -0700 >X-Authentication-Warning: alpha.oac.ucla.edu: pagre set sender to > pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu using -f >From: Phil Agre >To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" >Subject: [RRE]How to Be a Leader in Your Field >Sender: >List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.7 by Fog City Software, Inc. >List-Subscribe: >List-Unsubscribe: >X-URL: http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html > >[If you don't want terrorists running your life, I hope you will take >a moment and forward the enclosed article on intellectual leadership >to everybody you know who is associated with a professional school >(i.e., law, medicine, engineering, education, librarianship, business, >architecture, etc). I would like to get it into as many students' >hands as possible, both because our professions need all the positive >leaders they can get and because nobody is born knowing the skills of >professional success. Thanks very much.] > >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= >This message was forwarded through the Red Rock Eater News Service (RRE). >You are welcome to send the message along to others but please do not use >the "redirect" option. For information about RRE, including instructions >for (un)subscribing, see http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html >=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= > > > How to Be a Leader in Your Field: > A Guide for Students in Professional Schools > > > Phil Agre > http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/pagre/ > > Version of 15 September 2001. > 3000 words. > > Copyright 2001 by Phil Agre. You are welcome to forward this > article in electronic form to anyone for any noncommercial purpose. > Please do not post it on any Web sites; instead, link to it here: > > http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/leader.html > > >A profession is more than a job -- it is a community and a culture. >Professions serve society by pooling knowledge among their members, >and by creating incentives to synthesize new knowledge. They also >help their members to build networks, find jobs, recruit staff, start >collaborative projects, and organize around the issues that affect >them. In a world without change or innovation, professions would >not be necessary. But in a world where change and innovation are >ever more intense, every occupation needs more of the institutions and >culture of traditional professions such as law, medicine, engineering, >education, librarianship, business, and architecture. > >Every profession has leaders. In a formal sense, the elected officers >of a professional society are the leaders of that profession. Because >a profession is fundamentally about knowledge, however, the true >leaders of a profession are the thought leaders: the individuals who >synthesize the thinking of the profession's members and articulate >directions for the future. Sometimes a profession will elect its >thought leaders to official positions. But often the thought leaders >prefer to lead through writing and speaking, cutting-edge projects, >and dialogue. Leadership means not just talking but listening, and >not just vision but consensus. A leader builds a web of relationships >within the profession and articulates the themes that are emerging in >the thinking of the profession as a whole. > >In a knowledge-intensive world of ceaseless innovation and change, >every professional must be a leader. This is not a universally >popular idea. Some people say, "leadership is fine for others, >but I just want a job". I want to argue that it doesn't work that >way. The skills that the leader exercises in building a critical >mass of opinion around emerging issues are the same skills that >every professional needs to stay employed at all. In the old >days the leadership-averse could hide out in bureaucracies. But as >institutions are turned inside out by technology, globalization, and >rising public and client expectations of every sort, the refuges are >disappearing. Every professional's job is now the front lines, and >the skills of leadership must become central to everyone's conception >of themselves as a professional. > >But how? It is well-known that simply declaring yourself a leader >will not cause anyone to follow you. The process of becoming a leader >doesn't happen overnight, but it is perfectly methodical. Here is >a six-step recipe. Things aren't really this rigid in practice, but >you'll have no trouble varying the recipe once you get used to it. > >(1) Pick an issue. You need an issue that the profession as a whole >is not really thinking about, but which is going to be the center >of attention in five years. The issue could be technical, strategic, >managerial, policy-related, or all of the above. It could be a >problem or an opportunity or both. It could be a new method or a >whole new area of practice. It should be fairly specific, though, and >should directly address the day-to-day work of people in some segment >of the profession. "Technology" is too big. You can find an issue in >four ways: > > (a) Talk to a large number of dynamic practitioners and notice a >pattern in what they are saying. > > (b) Talk to people at your school. One purpose of a professional >school is to be the early-warning system for the profession -- the >surveillance center where emerging issues are articulated, researched, >and taught. Many issues that you take for granted as lecture and >paper topics in your classes actually represent the farthest horizon >so far as most practitioners are concerned. > > (c) Talk to people in other professions to find issues that are >going to be important for your profession. > > (d) Draw on your own experience and values to articulate an issue >that nobody else is talking about. Maybe you are simply anticipating >concerns that everybody else will be discovering independently in a >few years, or maybe you are building something new that wouldn't have >happened without you. In either case, if the issue is going to be >important to your profession in five years, you'll be doing a public >service by getting out in front of it. > >In short, feel free to identify an issue that you care about and >put yourself in charge of raising the profession's awareness of it. >If putting yourself in charge feels arrogant, that's just because >you're not used to it. Focus on the issue and you'll be fine. > >(2) Having chosen your issue, start a project to study it. You might >do this in context of a term paper or an independent study, or you >might organize it through the local student chapter of a professional >association. Or you might simply do it on your own time. It's hard >work, yes, but it's an investment. See if a local faculty member will >sign on as an advisor to the project, and if you can use the faculty >member's name in talking to people. > >(3) Do your library work so you know any conventional wisdom that's >out there. Then talk to some working professionals who are facing >the issue, especially if they have spoken publicly about an aspect of >it. You can find these people by asking the faculty in your school; >it's their job to know everyone. If the faculty are reticent at >first to unleash you on their contacts, then work your own contacts, >for example through your fellow students or the professional society. >You can also find relevant people by reading professional publications, >attending conferences, and searching Web sites. Tell them that your >project is pulling together the profession's experience with the >issue, and ask if you can interview them. Have a good, focused talk, >make serious notes, ask if they want to keep anything confidential, >give them your card, and promise to keep in touch. Why are they >willing to talk to you? Because you're working on an important issue, >and because you're associated with a professional school, which is >a center of thinking and networking for the field. Use the symbolic >power of the university while you're still associated with it. > >(4) Pull together what you've heard. Nobody is expecting you to >solve the problems. The emphasis is more on questions than answers. >You will contribute simply by defining the whole scope of the >problems that people are facing. Make a taxonomy and give examples. >Talk about what people are doing to address the problems. Focus >on practice: the actual decisions that working professionals will >have to make, and the full range of considerations that they will >have to take into account. Most of these considerations will seem >obvious taken in isolation, but many people will be grateful to have >a complete list in front of them. Remember that professionals, no >matter how creative and intuitive they are, have to justify their >decisions in a rational way, giving reasons why they have made one >choice rather than another. You'll do a service just by laying out >the choices and reasons. Talk about the consequences people see >for the future. Just impose some order. Faculty in your school can >probably help you with this. Write clearly and concisely, and get >someone who can write well to copyedit your work. > >(5) Circulate the result. Send copies to the people who helped you. >Call it a draft or interim report if you want. Give credit to the >people whose ideas you've written down. Then follow up. Get further >comments. Now write some short columns for professional publications. >Describe your project and summarize the issue. Explain why the issue >is becoming important. Concisely present the dangers and opportunities >for the profession. Your goal is to lead: to present the profession >with a valid issue that calls for action. Again, you don't need to >specify what the right action is. You only need to give form to the >issue. Make sure your published columns provide a permanent e-mail >address where people can reach you, and ideally the URL for a Web page >where you've collected materials related to the issue. > >(6) Get invited to speak at meetings. Correspond with people who >have contacted you after reading your work. Meet more people who >appreciate the significance of the issue. If you hear about someone >who is working on a similar issue, make friends. Show them that >you've read their work, give them due credit, and explore how your >projects complement one another. Expand your network to include >your profession's clients and peers. As you take in everyone's >perspectives, let your understanding of the issue grow and evolve. >Come up with many different honest ways of explaining the issue >and clear answers to the standard questions you get asked. Don't >try to convert people who don't get it. You may be a voice in the >wilderness for a while, but keep building networks and synthesizing >ideas. Your energetic and responsible approach will make you a magnet >for intelligent people. As interest in the issue accelerates, build >institutions around it. See if the people in your network want to >start a moderated mailing list. Organize a panel discussion about >it at a professional meeting. And so on. Keep going until the issue >either matures or disappears. Then find another issue and start over. > >That's the procedure. You should always have at least one issue that >you are developing in this way. In doing so, you are helping the >profession to think out loud about its problems and potentials, and >you are also helping to knit the profession together by establishing >connections among the people who are thinking about the issues on the >horizon. You are also making yourself a strong job candidate. You >are building knowledge, and you are building networks. One purpose >of a professional school is to build such networks, and by helping you >the school helps itself. > >If you've spent your whole life going to school and toiling at normal >jobs, then you might find the prospect of leadership nerve-wracking. >Most schools and jobs are afraid of you, so they encourage a dependent >attitude where you wait around for other people to give you things. >Of course they don't entirely succeed; no institution can completely >extinguish your human agency. Even so, few schools or jobs actively >train people to take the initiative by organizing people around >emerging issues. Yet successful people have exercised leadership >in this way for all of recorded history. The methods of leadership >that I have described are not widely publicized, and many courses >that supposedly teach leadership skills omit them entirely. But they >are out there, roaring at full throttle just below the surface, and >you can learn them by watching any successful person in action. I'm >just hoping that by reading this you'll learn them a little faster. > >As you advance in your profession, you will be organizing people in >more sophisticated ways around more sophisticated issues. As such, >it will be important to cultivate your intellectual life. Leadership >is such a rare skill that it doesn't matter whether you are a genius >in your own right. Leadership is process, and the whole point is >that you're not figuring out all the answers yourself. Accordingly, >you will need to develop a brain trust -- smart and knowledgeable >people that you can turn to when you need expert judgements. This >is one reason to stay in touch with the faculty at your school, and >with the smart people who pass through the school while you are there. >One good way to start a brain trust is to organize a speaker series. >Fearlessly assess your intellectual strengths and weaknesses, and then >make professional friends whose intellectual strengths complement your >own. Your contribution is to facilitate a large-scale movement within >the profession, and that's what makes the difference in the long run. > >As you become a leader, you will also face ethical issues. Leadership >has a bad name; people associate it with dishonesty, manipulation, >and "politics". That's because so many "leaders" prefer to surf >on issues, extracting the social energy around them for their own >benefit, rather than being a positive and constructive force in the >community. Once you've built a network and evolved some rhetoric, >you can get a way with a lot of selfishness. People will probably >even praise you for it. You can settle down to a life of mutual >back-scratching with your similarly-networked cronies, going through >the motions and never giving a serious thought to the community again. >But that's no good. Your job is to model positive leadership. You >have no doubt heard it explained that true leadership is "selfless". >I haven't emphasized that theme so far, for the simple reason that >it's useless to demand that people be selfless leaders until they >understand the six-step process that makes them leaders at all. Now >that you do understand the process, and especially once you become >accustomed to actually doing it, it's time to put some content into >it. Use your connections to help people who deserve help. Promote >all ideas that you find valuable, whether they reinforce your issues >or not. Keep trying to understand your issues more deeply, and ask >yourself whether the world is changing. Don't be an ego freak. And >write down what you learn along the way. > >Why do I argue that the modern world requires all professionals >to engage in leadership? Before the Internet, professionals had >to be generalists. Problems would arise, and you had to solve them. >Now, however, the institutions and infrastructures of your profession >easily bring professional knowledge to bear wherever it is needed. >To succeed in your career, you need more than the skills that you got >in school -- you need to be the world expert in something. Knowledge >is global, it's growing exponentially, and nobody can pack all of >the necessary knowledge into their heads. So everyone's going to >specialize. Specialization doesn't mean narrowness: it means reaching >out in many directions, talking to many kinds of people, and weaving >together the threads that make your issue matter. "Leadership" used >to mean something unique: the army had one leader and everyone else >followed. Today, however, knowledge is multiplying so fast that we >need more leaders than we can possibly produce. Every leader can >feel important, and genuinely be important, and everyone is a leader, >including you. > > >Here are some books and articles that might be useful. > >Networking on the Network. This is a much longer article that I wrote >about professional networking for students in PhD programs. Although >most of the detailed instructions are specific to the research world, >the underlying philosophy will carry over into the professional world. >On the Web at . > >Peter Block, Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise >Used, Austin: Learning Concepts, 1981. Though written for management >consultants, this book has valuable things to say about the feelings >that come up in any kind of professional work, and how to use them >honestly for everyone's benefit. > >Donna Fisher and Sandy Vilas, Power Networking, Austin: Mountain >Harbour, 1992. This is the best all-around book on the subject of >professional neworking. It abstracts a long list of guidelines that >apply pretty widely across professions. > >Roger Fisher and William Ury, Getting to Yes: Negotating Agreement >Without Giving In, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981. This is the >classic book on negotiating. Its core message is that you should >negotiate on the basis of interests and not on positions, so that >negotiation becomes cooperative problem-solving. If you lead then >you'll need these skills. > >Ford Harding, Rain Making: The Professional's Guide to Attracting New >Clients, Holbrook, MA: Bob Adams, 1994. The way to get ahead is to >do something new and tell everyone about it. This is a pretty good >introduction to the process, with a focus on publishing an article >and developing professional networks. > >Linda A. Hill, Becoming a Manager: Mastery of a New Identity, Boston: >Harvard Business School, 1992. As a professional you'll have probably >a manager, and soon enough you'll probably be a manager yourself. >Your job is to deal with these relationships in a mutually beneficial >way while also maximizing your own autonomy. This is a study of new >managers getting used to their jobs, and it's a good source of insight >into these issues. > >Robert Jackall, Moral Mazes: The World of Corporate Managers, New >York: Oxford University Press, 1988. This is a terrific book about >the ethical issues that will surround you in the organizational world. >Once you understand these issues, you will see trouble coming much >further off, while you can still make your own decisions about it. > >Tom Jackson, Guerrilla Tactics in the New Job Market, second edition, >New York: Bantam, 1991. This is an excellent book about finding >a job; though it is out of print, you can probably find a used copy >online. Sending dozens of resumes to personnel departments is one >approach, but a much better approach is systematic networking and >inside research. > >Ronald L. Krannich and Caryl Rae Krannich, The New Network Your Way to >Job and Career Success, Manassas Park, VA: Impact Publications, 1993. >Another good book on networking for job-seekers, with a fair amount of >concrete, useful advice. > >Charles Spinosa, Fernando Flores, and Hubert L. Dreyfus, Disclosing >New Worlds: Entrepreneurship, Democratic Action, and the Cultivation >of Solidarity, Cambridge: MIT Press, 1997. If you can get past the >cult-like hagiography, this book provides a rather different analysis >of leadership from mine, or at least presents a different emphasis, >starting from the creative discovery that happens in the actual process >of leadership. > >end ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 20:13:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Fwd: [RRE]attack Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:35:53 -0700 >X-Authentication-Warning: alpha.oac.ucla.edu: pagre set sender to > pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu using -f >From: Phil Agre >To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" >Subject: [RRE]attack >Sender: >List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.7 by Fog City Software, Inc. >List-Subscribe: >List-Unsubscribe: >X-URL: http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html > >Here are some more URL's, with the main emphasis on Muslim countries' >reaction and diplomatic activity. Thanks to everyone who contributed. > >Can I ask people to hunt down URL's for government and think tank >reports on anti-terrorism, aviation and other infrastructure security, >network and infrastructural warfare, and that sort of thing? There >are lots of reports out there that are looking prophetic right now. >That does *not* mean that we should treat those reports and their >authors as prophets, because some of them (not all) are motivated by >deeper political agendas. But we should certainly get their language >out in the open, because we can be certain that their language is >getting a major hearing in the corridors right now. I'd rather get >specific reports that you've at least half-read and found contentful >rather than big directories of stuff that may or may not be valuable. > >A small correction. I described Jerry Pournelle's article as >"demanding that various cities be razed to the ground". Reading >further along, one discovers that this is a "thought experiment", >and while it's not clear that he'd argue against it, nor is it >clear that he's arguing for it. In fact it's not clear what he's >saying at all. I'll confess that I stopped reading where I did >because demanding that various cities be razed to the ground was >pretty much what I expected him to do. I'm happy to be at least >somewhat wrong. > > >investigation > >very impressive story of escaping the World Trade Center >(may not work in Netscape) >http://www.littlewhitedog.com/forum/topic.asp?whichpage=1&Forum_Title=General+Conversations&Topic_Title=Perrito%27s+Story&CAT_ID=5&FORUM_ID=15&TOPIC_ID=2929 > >story about a Congressional Research Service report on the bin Laden network >http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/atc/20010914.atc.15.ram > >Business Offices and Governmental Offices in the World Trade Center >(this is much updated from the list whose URL I sent out before) >http://tbtf.com/unblinking/arc/2001-09a.htm > > >Muslim countries -- reaction > >denunciations of the attack from Muslim political leaders (from Wednesday) >http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20010912.me.11.ram > >What the Papers Say in the Middle East >http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,551050,00.html > >Ally Egypt Says Cooperating with US, Urges Caution >(no surprise; they're in mortal danger from their own Islamist opposition) >http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-egypt-maher.html > >Mubarak Opposes Anti-Terrorist Coalition Outside UN Auspices: Report >http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010915/1/1gk39.html > >reaction from North Africa >http://allafrica.com/stories/200109120327.html >http://allafrica.com/northafrica/ > >United Arab Emirates Reviews Taliban Ties, Vows to Help Fight Terror >http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-uae.html > >liberal Pakistani opinion >http://www.thefridaytimes.com/ > >comment from Iran >http://80.75.0.12/Description.asp?Da=9/15/2001&Cat=14&Num=1 > >Saddam Hussein Warns US, West Not to Launch "New crusade" >http://www.nandotimes.com/world/story/79482p-1111449c.html > >Saddam Hussein Urges Restraint, Healing >http://web.realcities.com/content/rc/news/attack/tallahassee/1956265121.htm > >Saddam Hussein Issues Open Letter >http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_399309.html > >Hackers Call for Attacks Against Arab and Islamic Sites >http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2001-09/15/article7.shtml > > >Muslim countries -- information sources > >Afghan News Network >http://www.myafghan.com/ > >Lemar-Aaftab Afghan Magazine >http://www.afghanmagazine.com/ > >Afghan Info Center >http://www.afghan-info.com/ > >Arabic News >http://www.arabicnews.com/ > >Middle East Network Information Center >http://link.lanic.utexas.edu/menic/ > >Information Resources for Islamic, Middle Eastern and Near Eastern Studies >http://www.library.ucsb.edu/subj/neareast.html > > >Muslim countries -- background > >anthropological take on fundamentalism >http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/publications/FUNDMNTALISM.htm > >Taleban Grants Access to Strike Target (September 1998) >http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_165000/165083.stm > >Osama Bin Laden to Lead Taliban Military Operations >(you may have seen this; I mention it to say that it's almost certainly wrong) >http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/2001/08/01/11487.html > >Der Bergbunker von Osama bin Laden >http://www.bild.de/service/archiv/2001/sep/15/news/bunker/bunker.html > > >US reaction > >the guy who screwed up Logan security was a Republican patronage appointment >("not his fault he wasn't extraordinary in a culture that accepted >mediocrity") >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/258/metro/Logan_security_director_sought_free_rein+.shtml > >Senate Use of Force Resolution >http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/WTC_dc010914.html#sidebar > > >US comment > >We Need the Rule of Law, Not the Rule of War >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/258/oped/We_need_the_rule_of_law_not_the_rule_of_warP.shtml > >much informed commentary here >http://www.opendemocracy.net/forum/strands_home.asp > >wacky far-right rant full of false and irrelevant accusations >http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=9218 > >Total Barbarism Demands Total War >(but he's a moderate: he's not demanding that we plow salt into their fields) >http://www.nydailynews.com/2001-09-14/News_and_Views/Opinion/a-125208.asp?last > >jargon watch: conservative Muslim says that "victims" can't be real Americans >(to be a real American, you have to pretend that discrimination doesn't exist) >http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=95001128 > > >other reaction > >Israel Launches Seven Attacks Against Palestinians >http://sg.news.yahoo.com/010915/1/1gk5n.html > >China Denies Reports of Links to Taliban >http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-attack-china.html > > >civil liberties > >revised version of my article about infrastructural warfare >(please link to it here rather than posting it on other Web sites) >http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/war.html > >Information Security: A New Priority >http://www.thestandard.com/article/0,1902,28987,00.html > >end ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 20:42:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristin Palm Subject: It's 8:23 in New York Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Thank you, thank you, thank you, Pierre! As my astute (and, not insignificantly, Canadian) boyfriend pointed out recently, there is perhaps another image we might want to superimpose over that of the same group of Palestinians we're seeing over and over (anyone notice how it's always followed by some sort of "Arab-Americans are humans too" plea for tolerance?): Overjoyed Americans cheering in a Texas bar as U.S. bombs explode across Baghdad. I assume these are relatives of the people who stop to yell obscenities at my friends and I when we stand on street corners with signs that read: U.S. Sanctions Kill 150 Iraqi Children Every Day. kp Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 11:31:30 -0400 From: Pierre Joris Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York Richard -- your response is exactly what every war-mongering hawk in this country wants. It is extremely saddening to me &, I would think, to most if not all people on this list and beyond. But not only saddening (there is little room for sadness left, the many death of the recent days having taken the lion's share of that emotion) -- your response is profoundly maddening, anger-inducing for its blatant racism. I do not have the leisure right now to compose a long reply -- there are more urgent things to be taken care of -- but I will paste a article by Nigel Parry s from the Intifada website below, to show how wrong, misinformed & biased your comments really are. Two days after the events, and while still mourning the dead in NYC, Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania, it seems to me that what we as writers, poets, intellectuals have to do most urgently is to try to counter, to the best of our possibility & with every mean at our disposal, the racist discourse of jingoistic hate that is threatening to overwhelm this country and serve as alibi for the US Government's military response. -- Pierre Joris from today's edition of "The Electronic Intifada" [http://electronicintifada.net/coveragetrends/rejoicing.html The Palestinian people, as a whole, portrayed as supportive of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon Written by Nigel Parry 12 September 2001 -- Yesterday and today, following the inhumane use of passenger planes as flying missiles to attack people visiting and working in the World Trade Center buildings in New York and in the Pentagon in Washington, most of the media broadcast footage depicting Palestinians celebrating. The brief footage was typically broadcast cyclically and used as an interview aid, with anchors asking U.S. government officials and others how they felt about the images. Almost universally on U.S. networks, anchors presented the footage as if it were representative of all Palestinians, additionally failing to note any context to the images. A number of points must be made, first about the actual footage: There are three million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip and West Bank including Jerusalem, one million Palestinians living inside the borders of Israel, and another four million Palestinian refugees living elsewhere in the world, including the United States. The footage in question depicted between 20 and 40 individuals. The Palestinians in the footage were mostly young children. Most of their behaviour in the footage appeared to be no different from how Palestinian children always behave when foreign journalists turn up in their towns, crowding and smiling at the camera and giving the victory sign that has been a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness under Israeli military occupation since the first Intifada in 1987. There is not a single reporter with any experience of carrying a camera into the Palestinian West Bank under any circumstance who couldn't get similar footage on any day they visited the occupied territories. Where genuine rejoicing at the attacks was indeed apparent in the footage, anchors interpreting the footage made no effort to offer any context or background to the images, nor any attempt to separate those Palestinians portrayed from Palestinians as a whole. A comparable situation would be television anchors angrily reacting to scenes of the 1991 riots in Los Angeles, lamenting that "blacks do not respect law and order", while failing to note the preceding attack on Rodney King or endemic racial profiling of the black community in the U.S. by police forces. The overwhelming number of Palestinians, like people of all nationalities, were sickened by the events in New York and Washington. Palestinians with relatives in New York and Washington spent much of yesterday worriedly trying to phone to check they were safe, exactly as many Americans did. Palestinian citizens of the United States will also turn out to be among the victims of the tragedy. Whatever a group of 20-40 Palestinian children happened to be doing yesterday morning in Nablus or Ein Al-Hilweh Refugee Camp in Lebanon is no more representative of all Palestinians than the Klu Klux Klan rally -- which happened recently just down the road from where I live, in St. Paul, Minnesota -- is representative of all Americans. In addition, there is an all-important context of brutalisation -- that anchors completely failed to note -- which explains why even a single person would find any cause to celebrate yesterday's terrible carnage: For the last year now, Palestinian civilians have been living through a nightmare in which Israeli occupation forces have been nightly shelling their towns using tanks, helicopters, and other heavy weapons. Palestinians do not need a subscription to Jane's Defence Weekly to learn the origin of these weapons when they can pick up shell casings from the floors of their homes and from their backyards with MADE IN THE U.S.A. stamped on them. United States weaponry supplied to Israel includes: Heavy weapons: F-16 fighter planes, Apache and Cobra attack helicopters, and Reshef patrol boats to attack Palestinian buildings and vehicles; and Armoured pile drivers and armoured bulldozers to destroy Palestinian homes and agricultural land. Heavy ammunition: Naval and tank artillery including 76mm, 105mm and 120mm high explosive rounds; M114 TOW rockets and Hell-Fire air-to-ground missiles; Shoulder-fired, anti-armour Light Anti-tank Weapons (LAW) rocket launchers firing 84mm or 90mm rockets; M203 and MK19 grenade launchers; 40-90 mm mortars; and A modified version of the M494 105mm, an anti-personnel cluster bomb. Smaller ammunition: 5.56 mm bullets for M-16 machine guns; 7.62 mm high velocity bullets for general purpose machine guns and Galil sniper rifles; 12.7 mm bullets for Browning machine guns and Barret sniper rifles; and The "less lethal" rubber-coated and plastic-coated metal bullets. The U.S. weaponry listed above has not been used proportionally for the purpose of defending Israel -- as one would hope any military aid is used -- but rather has been used disproportionally and offensively to kill over 600 Palestinians, one-third of whom are children, 60 percent of whom were killed outside of clash situations. The U.S. weaponry listed above has additionally been used to seriously injure another 15,000 Palestinians, 1,500 of whom have been crippled for life. That Israel has used "excessive force" to suppress the current Palestinian uprising against 34 years of its military occupation is a fact according to the United Nations Security Council, other UN bodies, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem, and the US State Department. However offensive the images of the small groups of Palestinians that were celebrating may be, the fact is that all those depicted in the images -- if they are under 34 years of age -- have known nothing but military occupation for the entirity of their lives. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance of human values in a situation devoid of them. Not only does the United States sell weapons and ammunition to Israel, but many of these weapons are supplied as U.S. aid to Israel. A current figure for U.S. aid currently given to Israel is $3 billion per year, which includes $1.2 billion in economic aid and $1.8 billion in military aid. It is difficult to offer this as a conclusive figure since additional money is given to Israel that is buried in the budgets of individual government agencies such as the Defense Department. Every Palestinian is aware that the U.S. supplies the weapons that Israel uses against them. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance of human values in a situation devoid of them. Every Palestinian is also aware that their television screens are never filled with images of Americans protesting the use of their tax dollars to pay for the missiles that shake their cities and create similarly distressing scenes of injured and shocked civilians, as seen yesterday in New York. That celebration was the reaction of only a tiny minority of people in such a situation is a testimony to the Palestinians' maintainance of human values in a situation devoid of them. The U.S. media broadcast the footage yesterday without explaining any of the above, something that is neither new nor -- any longer -- acceptable in light of the anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and the anti-Muslim sentiment it creates. No organisation of journalists who seek to bring their viewers an accurate representation of reality should be broadcasting contextless, unrepresentative images that encourage racism against nationalities and their associated ethnic groups. In the first few days following the 1995 attack on the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma, Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. reported more than 200 incidents of harassment, threats and actual violence. According to reports received by The Electronic Intifada and a press release yesterday from the Council on American-Islamic Relations there have already been reports of harassment and attacks against Arabs and Muslims in the United States. Hate mail and threats have also been directed at The Electronic Intifada and other Palestinian, Arab and Muslim websites. As those of us who live in the U.S. are currently feeling justifiable anger at the perpetrators behind yesterday's shocking and horrifying events in New York and Washington DC, let us not misdirect it at an entire people who continue to suffer through one of the darkest periods of their already bleak history. The Palestinian people, who sit glued to their television sets in disturbed silence like the rest of the world, are actually better placed than most to understand what those of us living in America currently feel and are finding it hard to express. ________________________________________________________________ Pierre Joris Just out from Wesleyan UP: 6 Madison Place Albany NY 12202 POASIS: Selected Poems 1986-1999 Tel: (518) 426-0433 Fax: (518) 426-3722 go to: http://www.albany.edu/~joris/poasis.htm Email: joris@ albany.edu Url: ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 18:28:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lungfull@RCN.COM Subject: zinc bar & lungfull release cancelled Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" In light of the horrifying events of this past week the Zinc Reading on Sept 16 & the Lungfull! Magazine release on September 23 are cancelled. They will be rescheduled for later in the fall. You are welcome to come to Zinc Bar on either of those evenings to talk or share work. Zinc Bar Readings will resume on Sunday September 30. If you need more information you can call Brendan at 212.533.9317 or Douglas at 718.802.9575 Please note: Right now, 6:00pm on Saturday, the hospitals, Chelsea Piers, Javits Center & 26th Street Armory all seem to have more than enough volunteers. Organizations are asking for monetary donations: Red Cross: 800-HELP-NOW New York State Relief Fund: 800-801-8092 If you know of any animals that may be left in homes near the World Trade Center or have crates that you can donate, the number for the ASPCA is 212.874.7700 ext.4550 I hope that you are okay & that the astounding spirit of compassion we've seen in the past few days continues. Yours, Brendan Lorber ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 13:59:33 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re Who are THEY? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This whole thing is like as they say "life being stranger than fiction" I dont think anyone even here in NZ (yesterday) at the K Road Markets Auckland there everything seemed depressed and seemed to be a down beat: there were far fewer taxis or people partying. I said some crazy things and a mate of mine "attacked" me by grabbing me around the throat (if he'd killed me then so be it I feel pretty knackered these days!): he "concluded" that I had been traumatised as he said...he may have been right as I still dont believe (or apart of my mind doesnt believe) that it happened.... but I think most people even an Afghani (recently from there) couldnt understand why this "attack" could (in a terrible way) have a "good" side....even here people are traumatised. In 1963 I had a vision of Kennedy being shot a few days before but I think the big thing was for little old Noo Zeelan' inthose days was the US - Cuba standoff and the threat of a Nuclear war. I remember reading "On the Beach" by Neville Shute. Eliot's poem and Yeat's "A terrible beauty is born" come to mind. I was reading in the paper that cell phones (advanced technology) helped people to reassure each other. Also the BBC kind of "brushed past" the fact that (just after I'd watched it) people were NOT unanimous in wanting a war...there is debate going on..but they were obviously wanting to hear what was next said by a reporter: "100% of Americans want a war" translate that to intelligent people in the world want to find out why people have various political and religious views.and why some are disgruntled and others extremely hate (maybe enviously maybe for crazy religious reasons) the US and others capitalism (which its like hating any other "ism" - an abstraction - is problematic)...I think that after everyone has taken stock as much unbiased information (as objective and many sided as it is possible to be) be made available to people in the West about what is going on in the Middle East (not the superficial crap we are fed all the time - in depth stuff): conversely there are people in eg Afghanistan who dont even know what the World Trade Towers are: huge areas of the World are if opposed to oppression etc by the Isreaelis (who always seem to have big US backing if many arent commuters from the US and back) who've been blitzing the Palestinians and anyone else who disagrees with them since before I was born (1948). I'm well aware that the guys who did this are "bad bastards" dont get me wrong: but how to "selectively" get them? How is a massive War by the US (when no one has actually declared war, no nation) going to do any good. I have my differences with capitalism but I live and benefit from that system and am grateful eg to the US's beating the Japanese - who were (I mean the military) scum fascists - and too any young Americans had to die for that: NZ gained we lost far less people (we could have been overrun as Australia eg was being attacked). But I dont like to see human beings destroyed in this way. It's good that people are thinking of people now: that's the good thing at the moment: not the crazy politicos mouthing rhetoric. The greatness of the US and the West is its culture its artists and poets its music its general freedom of speech its concepts: the East also has much we can learn from as well as there are poeple in the West and the East who are "backward".... Maybe those kamikaze pilots were "insane" but the result is a maybe Communist or antio-capitlast's revolutionary's dream who would be secretly excited that Bush and Powell are mobilising. Of course if Bin Laden is behind it becaus he had a "vision" then he will be very happy because he (and some of the extreme right in the West) have their lovely War.The extremests of whatever ilk want destabilisation. Which ironically is what the CIA are always stirring up! So expect civil liberties to be shut down as the US enters another McCarthy era, another time like the times of the Vietnam War: paranoia may well rule if a war gets going. The war of course will aid the capitalists to dump the huge amounts of overproduced goods and keep enpough people just poor enough to JUST be struggling to get those new gadgets that they were probably designing in the Towers. Of course I dont support extreme Muslims: but the problem is "who are they"? Where are they? Are they your next door neighbour? The kindly old grocer down the road who actually has blue eyes and goes to a Jewish Church (his cover is that he is a German Jew - but he's actually a crazy communist with pro Iraqi sentiments) ....Is the whole thing an Saudi Arabian-Jewish-Israeli- British-Neo Nazi-CIA-Bin Laden plot? Or was it a finite number of nut cakes? When the tanks roll into Afghanistan most of the people there(who probably havent radio or cell phones or fridges or TV and dont give a damn about democracy (they are struggling to earn$20.00 a month)) just see another invasion...the US will look like th Soviets 1979. Maybe the US will "win" but like all wars the winners are the losers. Better to help these countries raise their standards of education and living etc? To be fair I think that under Clinton a lot of progress was neing made toward a compromise in the Israel-Palestine situation. That's what they need to compromise and "you take this" "we'll have that " ad then somehow "share" the holy land and Jerusalem...then I think as the Palestinians get a higher standard of living and opportunities many would help the US versus Bin laden (if he and his ilk are the core of the problem) but the extremists would "lighten up or die out.... But as to New York I visited there and I also feel from that personal; point of view that a great city has been violated: I have a map of NY, I read books about the sky scrapers that fascinate me, I loved being there, I found the average New Yorker more friendly (it semed) or at leaast they were very polite people...MYrkers may be surprised but I found that the place seemed safer than NZ and the pubs and public toilets etc were in a better state than here in Auckland (where there is a lot of violence on the streets)...and the Guggenheim and the great sense of a great city. But there were problems. It's a cliche: but its a troubled world. And these are terrible times for people whose loved ones have been killed or maimed or injured in NY or elsewhere.... Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Bernstein" To: Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 10:26 AM Subject: a letter from Samuel R. Delany (fwd) & this from Samuel R. Delany ... ***************************** Sept 13, 2001 Dear Charles-- I read your two messages on the Buffalo poetics list-serve. Just to get another articulate first hand account from someone whose voice I recognized was wonderfully calming. Many, many thanks. Things are . . . more or less fine down here in Philadelphia. To say that people are shaken is, of course, an understatement. I left New York at seven on Monday night, and the bus, after a very slow exit from the city, skimmed along the upper Jersey shore at Weehawkin, while I gazed across the river at the twin towers and the rest of the Manhattan skyline and thought about how passively beautiful it was . . . Then next morning, when I was walking down the impersonal pale-yellow ninth floor corridor of Anderson Hall (site of the Temple English Department) to my office, 955, I heard pudgy gray-bearded Dan O'Hare saying to another professor, "... crashed a 747 into the World Trade Center . . ." and I thought: Of course, this is a joke or a description of a film--and laughed. But, with that odd grin with which, today, we recount the unbelievable, Dan turned to me: "No, I mean it. Ten minutes ago--it was on the news!" I exclaimed, "What . . .!" with, I'm afraid, the same mindless grin. Moments later, in her sandals and earth-colored shift, tall, make-up-less, Elayne Tobin stepped out of her office. I turned to her. "Did you hear--someone just crashed a 747--" that's what, by then, we had been told--"into the World Trade Center!" "What?" she said. "Oh, you're kidding me--" She pulled back. "No I'm not," I said. "This is for real." At which point, Dan, who, apparently, as he stood in the doorway, was getting the report we could not hear from a radio inside, said: "Two of them! One into each tower. One tower's completely gone. The other's on fire!" "Oh, my God!" Elayne said. "No. No, I can't process this!" She turned, and started quickly down the hall--and thus began a day of confusion, fear, and upset, here at the University. Yes, I've lost the transition material. But only seconds later, I remember little Jena Osman looking up and saying to me, "This is unbelievable! I mean, this is unbelievable . . .!" Then, I turned into Graham and Bruce's office (the two graduate students whose door is directly across the alcove from mine), where Howard Stern and Robin Quivers were coming over the little cubic, silver-plastic radio at the back of Bruce's desk, and over about three minutes I heard them go from joking to realizing this was for real. "Mow 'em all down, wipe 'em out," was one of the phrases that I recall from Stern's jeremiad. By the time my ten o'clock class met, we'd had the reports from the Pentagon added to it all. While we were sitting there, discussing it all, Alexander (the tall, good looking black kid who sits toward the back of the class) Belton's cell-phone rang. He took it out, and in a moment we got another up-date. Seconds after the class was over, and I got back through the cinderblocked stair well, from the Annex into Alexander Hall, and turned into a large room where someone had a TV (not on cable: the picture was black and white and snowy), where I watched the smoke pouring out of the pentagon, and then saw--for what, over the last three days, now seems the first of hundreds of times--the two towers, one, then the other, smoking, imploding, collapsing. It was World Peace Day-- Only months ago America and Israel--arrogantly; for however much one disapproves of how things are being carried out, it would seem that there is still some onus on the participants to sit it out and keep articulating their objections (even if, or especially if, it seems to be just an Israel-bashing session, though even their own objections to the characterization of "Zionism" as an inherently racist philosophy don't seem to make into that)--walked out on the Racism Conference in South Africa-- How long ago did our government decide not to "publicize" the murder of two million people in Rwanda, for fear someone might want us to get involved-- I love America passionately. What an odd and simple thing to say. Yet something such as this makes me incredibly aware of it. It's a beautiful and wonderful country in so many, historically fabulous ways--ways that it would take fables to make comprehensible to Tocqueville and Proudhon and even Marx. Its people *and* its government are extraordinary in endless documentable ways. There is no justification for the horror that this is--not represents, but is. Still, the one thing I am sure of, is that while the media keeps naming this a "cowardly attack," those who did it--however misinformed they might be--thought of it as a "brave defense" against the forces of Imperialism. Until our government understands that, there will be no possibility of peace, because both sides can only speak past one another in a field of such misunderstanding. To date there is no general traffic to and from Manhattan. I've got my hypertension medicine for the next several weeks. I now know, of course, that it was a 767 and a 757 (not two 747s) that crashed into the towers: I have the whole CNN chronology, from 8:45am till 2:00 pm, cut out and pasted in my journal. Stories keep coming in, such as from my friend John Castro, in Brooklyn, who heard about the first strike, ran up on the roof, and Saw-disbelieving--the second plane fly into second tower. ". . . There was all this smoke. And for little while, you couldn't see anything--then, the smoke blew away. And one of the towers was gone . . .!" The morning of the 11th, perhaps six or seven hours before the towers were struck, Vince Czyz (who read for us last year at the Wednesday's at Four program) wrote me the following e-mail: "Yesterday walking out of the gym where I work out a mere twice a week (20 minutes on that stationary bike rounds out the workout), I was feeling quite good, it was about 5 pm, sunny, warm not hot. Just as I stepped out of the gym, there was a sort of muffled thunder and the sort of concussion that makes your chest hum some. I thought, "Oh, those Turks. Fireworks again." Here, there are firework displays if there is a marriage, if a team wins, if someone looses his virginity . . . all right, I exaggerate, but they're common here. I thought nothing more of it. "Coming out of my apartment in Taksim about 15 minutes later, I saw cop cars rushing about, ambulances peeling down the raot, lights flashing, sirens wailing and I saw ordinary motorists doing about 150 mph in Taksim Square with hazard lights on and horns blowing. I saw a crowd of people gathered in the Square and I wondered what was going on. But as I was late for a private lesson and my students are paying me about $25 an hour, I hurried into the metro. "The thunder turned out to be a bomb, which killed the woman carrying it and two policemen. It happened a few hundred meters from where I was but I was more than shielded by all the buildings in between. "It is, as far as I know, the first lethal bomb blast in Taksim, the center of Istanbul, in about nine years-and very close to the site of that one. We did have one in Sisli, a mile or so from Taksim, about a year ago, and although cops were targeted, only the bomber was killed." Vince's message goes on to mention the names of possible groups responsible-names that, fifteen hours later, would be relatively familiar to all of us, if they weren't already: " . . . the Turkish Hezbollah. Possibly the Kurdish Worker's Party? Unlike the Middle East, it's often the case that no one claims responsibility. I think the military's gonna reprise anyway." And a day later, my friend Robert Morales phones to tell me ... that the streets are deserted: "Times Square at four in the afternoon looked more like what it usually does at one AM on Monday morning-and pretty much every movie house in the city is packed, with all but no seating in no matter what the film. Apparently there's nothing to do but watch TV or go to the movies . . ." Tom Besio, estranged husband of the artist Who drew *Bread & Wine*, and who works out of his and his wife's loft on Church Street as an acupuncturist, was out on the balcony doing exercises, when he heard the first plane swoop by, looked up, and saw it strike. He and a dozen others, coming out on the grilled fire escapes that front that swing-out picture windows, stared at the smoking tower until the second plane struck. At that point, apparently, everyone watching realized it was *not* an accident and turned and fled the building, the neighborhood . . . ! On the 11th, phone calling in and out of the city was, of course, almost impossible. I know this (in my case) from twenty-five, thirty-five calls with all lines busy. Once when I was out of the office, Dennis managed to get a call through to me and leave a message on my machine. Did I cuss *my*-self out for going to the bathroom just then . . .? Finally, around four-thirty, I got two calls through. Dennis tells me my sister is all right, though the city is basically under marshal law. Second day information: Well, we live on a block (in Manhattan) with a police precinct at the other end, and so are cordoned off with yellow tape. Phalanxes of officers roam around. Anyone who lives on the block has to show name-and-address ID to get back into our building, so Dennis and John Del Gaizo both report. This morning at breakfast, here in Philadelphia, at a little place called Logan's about two blocks from where I live on Spruce Street, I listened to a local policemen tell a tall thin, and a small butterball of a, waitress that a bizarre burglar is loose in the neighborhood. (Is it connected to the general confusion or not? No one knows.) Since yesterday morning, he has committed over ten burglaries in a three block area. At the last place he robbed--since no one was home--he stayed long enough to take a shower before he left. Indeed, in Philadelphia the visible police force on the street has doubled overnight, and there is much talk of possible looting and similar unrest even here--though the city is sunny and leaves chatter over the red-brick streets of Center City. I'm supposed to be in the city this weekend (to have dinner with a scholar visiting from Germany), but I wonder whether things will be back to normal enough for me to return. My very intelligent daughter tells me that I should get Dennis down here, rather than going back to him. But, the truth is, I feel as if I have abandoned my city, my home--and that I have some sort of duty to be there, indeed, if just as a witness. Wednesday night, I went to a bar on South Street where I often have dinner--Manny Brown's. Four of the six televisions that they have in the back, where I eat, were replaying the disaster. Robert M. had pointed out that there are dozens, if not hundreds of video tapes of the incidents, beginning to end, from practically every conceivable angle. At this point, I feel like I have seen them all, several times through. Only as I was leaving Brown's to go home through the neo-punk piercings and tatooings of South Street, did it strike me: The media was, whether on purpose or not, trying to make it seem as if there had been dozens on dozens of attacks. The effect was kind of like the fantasia of atom bombs going off to the melody and lyrics of "We'll Meet Again . . ." at the end of *Dr. Strangelove.* Back at my Spruce Street apartment, last night at three in the morning, I woke with a strangely persistent memory of the first time--twenty-odd years ago--I had flown back to New York and the plane had crossed over lower Manhattan, en route to LaGuardia. I'd looked down out the oval plastic window to see that great steel-and-glass tuning-fork, sticking up above all the surrounding buildings and thought: "My God, remember when, in the thirties, that plane rammed the Empire State building? Those would be so *easy* to hit! Some suicidal, psychotic pilot . . . Some crazed terrorist . . ." The thought was so appalling I'd shoved it down, as one does, but last night it emerged and lay there for me to look at--and breathe deeply over. It made me wonder how many other people had thought the same thing in twenty-odd years. The other thought that came to me, so strongly, to make me choke and blink: (I may go back on it, but right now I doubt it): If we kill *single* Arab civilian in retaliation for this, then--given what was just done to us, and after having experienced and watched and listened to its effects on all the radically innocent men and women whose lives have been shattered, so many of them forever--we will have started the horrible, horrible process that could, in some out-of-touch minds, come close to justifying what was done. (Because it says, yes, when you have been enraged and made to suffer, striking out and killing innocent people is all right. And isn't that the essence of terrorism, no matter who does it?) And we mustn't do that. This is rushed-and, indeed, is a version of a letter I'm sending to a number of people. (Should you feel like forwarding it, please do.) But for all that, I send my most personal and specific Love to you, B., and the kids, --Chip ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 23:28:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: a short essay from Larry Kearney MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/15/01 6:04:35 PM, bernstei@bway.net writes: << Larry Kearney sent this to me and, with his permission, I am sending it on to the list. >> No doubt there's plenty of brutality to go around. Here's another story. It comes from Sergio Leone's "A Fistful of Dollars." James Coburn, an Irish revolutionary, tells Rod Steiger, a Mexican peasant turned bandit, that the landlords, politicians, bankers are the problem. Rod Steiger replies, "I know all about revolutions. The people who read books tell the people who don't read books, the poor people, that they are exploited, that they must make a change. So the people who don't read books load their weapons and make the change. Afterwards the people who read books sit at a fancy table and eat well and celebrate. Where are the people who don't read books, the poor people? They aren't at the table. They're dead." Hmmm . . . Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 23:50:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: a letter from Samuel R. Delany (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles, much thanks for this. Samuel's contained celebration of things American were a welcome relief. I do, however, think it obvious our government is well aware that those responsible think of themselves as patriots striking against Imperialism, the great Satan, sacrificing their lives, all in the name of god. But I don't think such understanding changes anything. Our government does not agree with their point of view. Most Americans do not agree with their point of view. Most Americans do not consider the west singularly oppressive. Most Americans do not agree with one another on any number of issues. That freedom to disagree is a matter of pride for us, and it seems likely we'll do some damage of our own to protect it. Sigh and sigh. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 00:30:47 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Bentley Subject: A little something... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I hope the format doesn't get too messed up: The Pit, a Cento =E2=80=94in memory of 09.11.01 "It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this." =E2=80=94Abraham Lincoln Address at the Dedication of the=20 Gettysburg=20 National Cemetery (November, 19, 1863) Yesterday there was a mountain out there. Now it's gone. Lana Turner has collapsed! Blow the place up! That was my advice. (I got tired of D days) like Ginger Rogers in Swingtime and St. Bridget's steeple leaning a little to the left. Where does the evil of the year go after the tactic of the exploding plane and the strategy of the sinking boat, it looked like fate and I wanted to say, "Don't you see?" I have been to lots of parties and acted perfectly disgraceful but I never actually collapsed. Yes, we're way out there on the edge of science, while the rest of the island continues to disappear until nothing's left except this when September takes New York and everyone and I make even the trestle to shake the dead where they lie awaiting the hearses. I'd like to tell you not to be afraid, but I've lost my voice and love you so much and in a sense we're all winning we're alive. Our pursuers were swifter than the eagles of the sky. They waited in ambush for us in the wilderness. We have to pay for our drinking water. Ah, what can ever be more stately to me than mast- headed Manhattan? Carefully now will there be a Grail or a bomb which tears the heart out of things? "The enemy is in your own country." But when the gas explodes the ghosts disappear. Poe predicted the whole Civil War. When the house falls you shiver in the vacant lumber of your poetry. So strong you thump O' terrible drums=E2=80=94so loud you bugles blow. =E2=80=A6truth is marching on and everyone is surprised and no one understands why each man tries to kill the thing he loves, when the change comes over him. How funny you are today New York. I was in such a hurry to meet you but the traffic was acting exactly like the sky and suddenly Beauty is so rare a th=E2=80=94 and everyone and I stopped breathing. Compiled by Scott Bentley from the works of Julia Ward Howe, Frank O'Hara,=20 Lawrence Raab, Jack Spicer, Walt Whitman, and the prophet Jeremiah. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 00:54:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Dark and Light In-Reply-To: <006501c125ef$4f156c20$e26c36d2@01397384> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Goerge. I think neither of us would encourage or talk in ways that >"glorified" suicide. But there is this: neither of us has actually been "in >that space" in our heads so to speak, where we actually go from that or thru >that state to taking our own lives. Close. My friend Lionel Kearns once pulled me off a bridge in the rain. > I dont think that Lowell and even Hughes or Alvarez did Plath >much good. Well, even if they had been good writers, they probably wouldnt have. > now I finally began Perec's "Life, A User's Manual Definitely a life-affirming act and a damned smart choice. > Michelle >Leggott (although her work has despite the tragedy of her gradual loss of >sight has a joie de vivre My friends Ryan Knighton and Louis cabri are both poets with RP, and my best friend Willy and his brother both have RP. It's all around me. I have astimatisms, glaucoma and cataracts, and am on the waiting list for an eye operation. But at least I have been to NZ four times and saw that peaceful little nation with my own eyes. (Dont worry--I hear what yr saying) -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 15:49:30 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nicholas Karavatos Subject: Radio Arabia Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed 15 September 2001 Just a quick note from this side of the globe. I'm teaching at an American-affiliated, mixed-gender college in Muscat, Oman. The mostly-Arab students and international faculty have been nothing but sympathetic, expressing profound sorrow to me and all Americans concerning the recent events. ("Please, sir, accept our condolences for what has happened in your country. It is a terrible tragedy.") Every taxi I step into, the driver also expresses his condolences. The other evening while out smoking a sheesha, the busboy told me that "in jihad it is forbidden to kill innocent people" and that "only sadists" could do such a thing. The maitre'd came to my table, also, to tell me how profoundly sorry he was for "what has happened in [my] country." My students, colleagues, and other Arabs and Muslims I encounter daily have condemned these acts. Islam, I am told, is a religion of mercy, compassion and peace, and I have hardly been treated otherwise here in the Middle East. (On the other hand, Christianity is a religion of love and forgiveness, right?) Many people have written to me concerning my safety here. As long as the US, UK, IDF or Taliban aren't personally targeting you, life is extremely peaceful on the peninsula. An American in Arabia is safer than an Arab in America. The Israeli military have used this tragedy as cover to launch attacks on Palestine, exploiting a percieved lack of Western sympathy. They have broken off planned truce talks. Arafat and the Palestinian Authority, while vehemently condemning the attacks in the US, are experiencing fresh invasions of their territory. Maybe you all have read, heard or seen this, maybe not; I don't know what American television is projecting. This year I turned down a position at the Arab American University, Jenin, West Bank. (I took the much higher paying one in Muscat; it must be my age creeping up.) This is the city attacked by F-15 fighter jets last spring; this is the city invaded by tanks behind the smoke of the WTC; and now Gaza. So it goes. Last year I taught in the United Arab Emirates. It's being said that a couple suspects possessed UAE passports, and that the UAE is a closet Taliban supporter. Perhaps there is fresher news, I don't know. The transportation hub of the Middle East, the UAE is a rather porous country, natives outnumbered 5 to 1 by expats, mostly from southwest Asia, while English-speaking Westerners run the universities. It's like the USA or EU of the Middle East with people always trying to get in to work and send money home to their families. I just felt the need to state that here in the Arab world, in Muscat at least, the men and women I meet have been expressing to me their compassion for the people of the United States...and hoping that Bush Jr. doesn't just start shooting missiles willy-nilly out this way. They are all concerned about random collective punishment. They want the actual perpetrators identified. NICK Nicholas Karavatos Modern College of Business and Science PO Box 100, Al-Khuwair Postal Code 133 Sultanate of Oman _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 01:52:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: caroline crumpacker Subject: NYC Help Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I just read through some of the past days' digests of emails on this listserv and was moved/interested to read other people's stories of the last five days...thanks to all of you for that and for the poems. I wanted to mention a few things which may be helpful, and sorry if some of it is obvious stuff: If any of you here in NYC want to volunteer to help the rescue workers, almost all the hospitals/big relief centers are now overloaded and over-full, but there are some smaller community-based centers and shelters around town (or at least downtown Manhattan) accepting volunteers to help the rescue workers get dry clothes/food/sleep/supplies of all kinds. I was doing this all day and it is both a good way to help out in some vague way and to make some direct contact with what's going on in our city/to our neighbors etc. etc. Very, very moving. I saw a fireman with his mother's name and phone number written on his arm in case anything happens to him. I also met a very shy man who works spraying pesticide on roses in Delaware who drove here today to give us his respiratory masks. If you want to donate stuff, the workers need (at least now, this changes fairly often) serious respiratory masks and filters, goggles, elbow-length electrical gloves, big thick boots, batteries, hard hats and the like; quasi-medical stuff including sunblock, sun burn solutions like solarcaine, and "eye lubricant" (not, apparently, to be confused with saline solution). Also, there is a big demand for cigarettes which the community relief centers are sending down but big ones such as Red Cross won't. The relief center in the West Village is PS 41, on 11th between 6th and 7th (until midnight tomorrow as school starts again on Monday). There is another one at Union Square. These centers are mobile, though, depending on work/school schedules so you can check a local radio station or ask nearby hospitals etc. Also, there is some good peace/activist political activity happening downtown -- organizing responses/vigils/actions etc. You can find these groups at Vigils or at the Union Square memorial. I'm also wondering about good sources of political analysis and information on-line. I like Alexander Cockburn's www.counterpunch.com, and also antiwar.com, and www.indymedia.org, Maybe people can recommend some other good ones -- ? Does anyone know an environmental site that talks about what's really in the air down here? In general, though, I really think that this is a good time to, as Jello Biafra says, not resent the big media for its misinformation but "become the media." I think that's what this listserv is already doing. Finally, friends of mine with some medical savvy say that two good things to do now to help with the toxins in the air are: boil sage or eucalyptus and breathe the steam with your head over the pot and a towel over your head -- this clears the respiratory system. Put an organic lemon in the blender with a little water and some honey and drink it down -- this helps your body to de-tox. That's it for now. Call or backchannel if I can give any info. on the above. Stay safe all over, Caroline Crumpacker ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 13:35:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: trane devore Subject: Open Letter Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hey all, Here's a *very toned down* letter I've been sending to members of Congress, et al. Thought you might be interested. Trane Open Letter: It seems there is a quickness to cry "war" in response to the horrifying attacks of September eleventh. While it is clearly incredibly urgent that the international community find the perpetrators of these heinous crimes and bring them to justice, an overhasty/unilateral military response is an entirely wrongheaded tack to take. President Bush has mentioned "retribution," several members of Congress have described the attack as "an act of war," and the attack has repeatedly been compared to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Worst of all, this attack has repeatedly been presented as a struggle between "good and evil." The problem with all of these characterizations is that they serve to disguise the nature of these attacks while offering "solutions" that are irrational and, indeed, decidedly dangerous. Let's look at these points one by one: 1) The notion of "retribution" or "revenge" is an atavistic notion at best, and a ten-cent publicity stunt at worst. This notion, the idea that an eye for an eye somehow produces any real kind of peace, bypasses the real purpose of defense -- the safety of civilian populations. By engaging in a campaign of "revenge," rather than attempting to examine and mitagate the root causes of these attacks, we can only end up by further endangering U.S. citizens. The logic of revenge and retribution is the logic of terror, the same logic used by the terrorists who flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Rather than engage in a campaign of retributive justice, we need to engage in a campaign of restorative justic. Unlike retributive justice, which seeks to engage a past offense via revenge, restorative justice is a way to look toward the future and attempt to use the arms of government and law to build a genuine peace. We need to look beyond the simple-headed notion that punishment produces peace and instead register the fact that peace (and security) is as much, if not more, the product of well-considered and genuinly respectful international relations. As a nation we have got to leave the paradigm of retribution behind. Our unilateral military operations do not produce internal security -- instead, they produce a mirror-image of rage that, as we have seen, can come back to haunt us later. Military solutions should always be the very last -- never the very first -- solution. Finally, the logic of "retribution" seems all too often to involve a kind of excuse for the death of innocents. Our own national tragedy must not become an excuse to justify the taking of innocent lives in any other nation -- to buy into this way of thinking is to engage in the very ideology of terror. 2) The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon should in no way be seen as an "act of war" or likened to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The attack on Pearl Harbor was a nationally orchestrated attack by the government of Japan. An "act of war" is a conscious act of one government toward another. In the case of the recent attacks it seems incredibly unlikely that any national government can be held directly responsible. To attack a nation simply because of a loose chain of association (with an individual or organization) is to fire wildly at the wrong target. Terrorist organizations are not governments or nations and attacking any government or nation in the name of the fight against terrorism will not serve to reduce the threat of attack against our nation. Indeed, involving another nation militarily for an act committed outside of the direct involvement of its governing body will only intensify anti-U.S. sentiment. Instead of one enemy, we will have multiple enemies. Worst of all, however, an attack directed against another nation for the actions of a few individuals associated with that nation will result in an incredible loss of innocent life. If we are to continue to claim to be the "leaders of the free world" we must not engage in unseemly tactics of retrogressive violence against others. Our leadership must be an unhypocritical leadership -- a leadership by example and a leadership that is clearly based on the priority of human life and human rights, no matter where. 3) The language of "good and evil" dangerously elides any rational analysis of events by placing them within a moral/religious framework that does not take into account history, causation, point of view, cultural context, the nature of world-wide social formations, etc. By thinking in terms of good and evil we can only restrict the range of our understanding in ways that will certainly lead to further harm. Unless we work to understand the reasons for the attacks against us, including the mindset of those who were involved, we cannot begin the difficult task of working against that mindset using tools that will not lead to the proliferation of violence. The too easy separation of the world into black and white, the dissapearance of nuance and distinction, is precisely the kind of thinking that allows for indiscriminate attacks against innocent civilians. If we are to escape from the sinister circle of mutual retribution we must rethink the way in which we go about pursuing justice. Our justice should not be the justice of military rage, but the justice of reasoned argument and restraint. Until we realize that retribution does not solve problems we will be doomed to play an infinite game of idiot's chess in which all the pieces are killed off, one by one, until only the two kings remain to meaninglessly circle the board forever. We must not let our national mourning become an irrational anger or a call for unjustified war. It is time to begin the more difficult path toward real solutions, solutions that will work toward the peaceful end of conflict rather than a continuation of violent reaction. Finally, it is of the utmost importance that we do not allow this violent act against the United States to produce internal violence against members of our own community -- especially Arab-Americans and Muslim-Americans. President Bush and all members of the U.S. Congress need to be very clear about this. To remain silent during the rising tide of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment is to tacitly endorse it. We are not a nation of bigots and we must insist on this fact repeatedly by the shape of our actions. Now is a time for strength, and strength bears no resemblance to anger. Sincerely, Trane DeVore, Oakland, California ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 07:02:58 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Reactions in Taiwan Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Charles, Like most of us my first reaction to the tragic events that have unfolded over the past few days was one of shock & disbelief, then sadness for those who were its unwitting victims, & then naturally to more sober refection & appraisal of why & how such events occurred & then what can NOW be done to stem the tidal wave and its ominous specter which looms with increasing proportions over the world. The sad truth is that most Americans, even those who are the so called well educated, are naively unaware of popular sentiment around the world, & thus unable to fathom the depth of resentment for America (its political & economic ambitions), especially among third world peoples, who view America as a presumptuous and arrogant bully who, parading in sheep's clothing, proclaims that his intentions and actions are motivated purely by his love & compassion for all peoples of the world. Even the less educated in these countries are well aware of how America treats its own (black, Hispanic, etc) economically deprived minorities. It seems that only Americans fall for this crap, for the rest of the world it's at best a travesty, something to be scorned and ridiculed. For an embittered few, who feel beaten and bound and without hope, it leads to violence. Let me fill you in at least on what writers & academics here in Taiwan are saying about what has occurred. The following comments about recent events appeared on the internet during the past few days. The two comments below seemed most articulate, and give a fair sense of how many intellectuals here view what has occurred. Please feel free to pass this on. All best blessings in this time of unrest, Reuven BenYuhmin (Robert Front) English Department National Central University Taiwan ======================================================================= "For those who are strong and powerful it's very difficult to clearly reflect on oneself. This is a tragic human weakness. America is hardly able to recollect it own recent history. How the CIA in the 1950's tried to overthrow the Iranian government. This benefited of American oil companies giving them a controlling interest in that country's oil. In 1983 they entered Rwanda. In 1984 they entered Nicaragua for the third time. In 1986 Libya. In 1989 they attacked Panama for the fourth time since the turn of the century. These attacks were all in direct violation of international law and under the noble guise of justice, such as the war on drugs, or the containment of Communism etc. America is in the habit of totally disregarding other peoples' point of view, political beliefs, and national aspirations. This arrogance is the natural result of their unbridled power. America sorely needs to learn something from the recent turn of events, especially a bit of humility, and not to place their values above that of others. Most importantly, if America does not reevaluate its role in the world, then a tragic conflict between different cultures is unavoidable. This is to say, that yes, America can and probably will succeed in taking its revenge, but from now on they must also be forever on alert during the endless wars, holy and unholy, that they will have spawned." * * * "Fundamentally, getting rid of 'Bin Laden' and getting rid of 'the causes that create Bin Ladens,' are entirely different matters. The later comes from a virulent hatred of America. Whenever a conflict arises between the Christian and Islamic worlds, America always sides with the Christian, not simply because of religious beliefs, but because usually there's a better fit with America's capitalistic ambitions. When such conflicts arise, America either permits them, or supports them, or acts unilaterally to punish the Islamic country. If the present world situation is not changed --with capitalism controlling world events, and American as its leading exponent--then even if you get rid of Bin Laden and his network of terrorists, still you will not be able to get rid of the countless generations of people who have animosity towards America. Practically speaking, if America were to utterly annihilate Afghanistan in order to get Bin Laden, that would still not resolve the problem because Afghanistan is not the center of Islamic Fundamentalism. On the contrary, it would probably alienate other Islamic factions who America might have counted on for help. Or even if America tries, as it often has, to persuade some Islamic faction to support it in its attempt to oust the fundamentalists, these factions, as has been the case in the past, are usually corrupt & unable to run government. This ultimately creates even more dissatisfaction and unrest and people in these countries place the blame on America's intervention in their politics. So from whatever angle you look at it, America is always creating more enemies. If America does not use this opportunity to reflect on the root of the problem and change their narrow-minded and one sided view of events, then it will be in for a war that could last for as long as eight or ten years. This surely would be a war worse then Vietnam which was contained to that country. Now America is embarking on a war that could take place anywhere on its own soil." ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 23:31:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barbara Henning Subject: from mysore india In-Reply-To: <200109150010.tq5l5u.ra9.37kbi14@pickering.mail.mindspring.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Dear everyone, thank you so much for sending your descriptions and thoughts about what is happening to this list. I am depending on this list for information. In Mysore everyone is watching their televisions. Most people are very concerned about what is happening in America, sad about the deaths and glued to BBC. I understand that some of the professors in the universities say America deserved this. I'm warned occasionally to be careful in Moslem areas but I do not feel any threat here. In Bangalore American students have received many warnings to protect themselves. I'm praying that someone at the head of these greedy world corporations will stop and not act solely to make money and please ignorant people fueled by the media. I'm including with this email a copy of an email I received and I think it might be informative.. namaste, barbara ----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Moore" To: Sent: 12 September, 2001 3:40 PM Subject: [Mike's Message] Death, Downtown Dear friends I was supposed to fly today on the 4:30 PM American Airlines flight from LAX to JFK. But tonight I find myself stuck in L.A. with an incredible range of emotions over what has happened on the island where I work and live in New York City. My wife and I spent the first hours of the day -- after being awakened by phone calls from our parents at 6:40am PT -- trying to contact our daughter at school in New York and our friend JoAnn who works near the World Trade Center. I called JoAnn at her office. As someone picked up, the first tower imploded, and the person answering the phone screamed and ran out, leaving me no clue as to whether or not she or JoAnn would live. It was a sick, horrible, frightening day. On December 27, 1985 I found myself caught in the middle of a terrorist incident at the Vienna airport -- which left 30 people dead, both there and at the Rome airport. (The machine-gunning of passengers in each city was timed to occur at the same moment.) I do not feel like discussing that event tonight because it still brings up too much despair and confusion as to how and why I got to live. a fluke, a mistake, a few feet on the tarmac, and I am still here, there but for the grace of. Safe. Secure. I'm an American, living in America. I like my illusions. I walk through a metal detector, I put my carry-ons through an x-ray machine,and I know all will be well. Here's a short list of my experiences lately with airport security: *At the Newark Airport, the plane is late at boarding everyone. The counter can't find my seat. So I am told to just "go ahead and get on" -- without a ticket!  At Detroit Metro Airport, I don't want to put the lunch I just bought at the deli through the x-ray machine so, as I pass through the metal detector, I hand the sack to the guard through the space between the detector and the x-ray machine. I tell him "It's just a sandwich." He believes me and doesn't bother to check. The sack has gone through neither security device. * At LaGuardia in New York, I check a piece of luggage, but decide to catch a later plane. The first plane leaves without me, but with my bag -- no one knowing what is in it. * Back in Detroit, I take my time getting off the commuter plane. By the time I have come down its stairs, the bus that takes the passengers to the terminal has left -- without me. I am alone on the tarmac, free to wander wherever I want. So I do. Eventually, I flag down a pick-up truck and an airplane mechanic gives me a ride the rest of the way to the terminal. * I have brought knives, razors; and once, my traveling companion brought a hammer and chisel. No one stopped us. Of course, I have gotten away with all of this because the airlines consider my safety SO important, they pay rent-a-cops $5.75 an hour to make sure the bad guys don't get on my plane. That is what my life is worth-less than the cost of an oil change. Too harsh, you say? Well, chew on this: a first-year pilot on American Eagle (the commuter arm of American Airlines) receives around $15,000 a year in annual pay. That's right -- $15,000 for the person who has your life in his hands. Until recently, Continental Express paid a little over $13,000 a year. There was one guy, an American Eagle pilot, who had four kids so he went down to the welfare office and applied for food stamps -- and he was eligible! Someone on welfare is flying my plane? Is this for real? Yes, it is. So spare me the talk about all the precautions the airlines and the FAA is taking. They, like all businesses, are concerned about one thing – the bottom line and the profit margin. Four teams of 3-5 people were all able to penetrate airport security on the same morning at 3 different airports and pull off this heinous act? My only response is -- that's all? Well, the pundits are in full diarrhea mode, gushing on about the "terrorist threat" and today's scariest dude on planet earth -- Osama bin Laden. Hey, who knows, maybe he did it. But, something just doesn't add up. Am I being asked to believe that this guy who sleeps in a tent in a desert has been training pilots to fly our most modern, sophisticated jumbo jets with such pinpoint accuracy that they are able to hit these three targets without anyone wondering why these planes were so far off path? Or am I being asked to believe that there were four religious/political fanatics who JUST HAPPENED to be skilled airline pilots who JUST HAPPENED to want to kill themselves today? Maybe you can find one jumbo jet pilot willing to die for the cause – but FOUR? Ok, maybe you can -- I don't know. What I do know is that all day long I have heard verything about this bin Laden guy except this one fact -- WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden! Where did he go to terrorist school? At the CIA! Don't take my word for it -- I saw a piece on MSNBC last year that laid it all out. When the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan, the CIA trained him and his buddies in how to commits acts of terrorism against the Soviet forces. It worked! The Soviets turned and ran. Bin Laden was grateful for what we taught him and thought it might be fun to use those same techniques against us. We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing the terrorizing. We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers! We fund a lot of oppressive regimes that have killed a lot of innocent people, and we never let the human suffering THAT causes to interrupt our day one single bit. We have orphaned so many children, tens of thousands around the world, with our taxpayer-funded terrorism (in Chile, in Vietnam, in Gaza, in Salvador) that I suppose we shouldn't be too surprised when those orphans grow up and are a little whacked in the head from the horror we have helped cause. Yet, our recent domestic terrorism bombings have not been conducted by a guy from the desert but rather by our own citizens: a couple of ex-military guys who hated the federal government. From the first minutes of today's events, I never heard that possibility suggested. Why is that? Maybe it's because the A-rabs are much better foils. A key ingredient in getting Americans whipped into a frenzy against a new enemy is the all-important race card. It's much easier to get us to hate when the Object of our hatred doesn't look like us. Congressmen and Senators spent the day calling for more money for the military; one Senator on CNN even said he didn't want to hear any more talk about more money for education or health care -- we should have only one priority: our self-defense. Will we ever get to the point that we realize we will be more secure when the rest of the world isn't living in poverty so we can have nice running shoes? In just 8 months, Bush gets the whole world back to hating us again. He withdraws from the Kyoto agreement, walks us out of the Durban conference on racism, insists on restarting the arms race -- you name it, and Baby Bush has blown it all. The Senators and Congressmen tonight broke out in a spontaneous version of "God Bless America." They're not a bad group of singers! Yes, God, please do bless us. Many families have been devastated tonight. This just is not right. They did not deserve to die. If someone did this to get back at Bush, then they did so by killing thousands of people who DID NOT VOTE for him! Boston, New York, DC, and the planes' destination of California -- these were places that voted AGAINST Bush! Why kill them? Why kill anyone? Such insanity. Let's mourn, let's grieve, and when it's appropriate let's examine our contribution to the unsafe world we live in. It doesn't have to be like this. Yours, Michael Moore mmflint@aol.com I sent this to talking point. 9/13/2001 This has the appearance of a violent Hollywood film. Indeed, a Schwarzenegger film did show a plane being crashed into a building. The United States has trained terrorists both directly and indirectly. Indeed, they have been instrumental in providing opportunities for training the Taliban and supplying them with weapons. Their record in Central and South America is also well know and their role in Pakistan is also suspect. Further, the Taliban are really stooges of some sort. The real attraction in Afghanistan is the oil in Central Asia. The US may now walk in and take over under the pretext of democracy or whatever and gain direct access, thus control over that oil. The US is also the biggest seller of armaments. And one of the large customers these days is terrorists. If they are considered friendly they are called freedom fighters or something such by the press. And terrorists pay for their weapons mostly with drugs and drug money. One can draw one’s own conclusions. Further, militaries around the world do not attack other armies. They attack civilians – exactly as has been done in this case. Exactly as has been done in Baghdad by weapons and sanctions. The civilians have no weapons, they are relatively innocent and they are not involved. More specifically, some of the people who did this thing were trained in the US. And how could airport security be so lax that 4 planes from 3 different airports could be highjacked? And how could American intelligence fail to detect a plot of this magnitude? Kalidasa, a Sanskrit poet said “Having looked after a poison tree, you will not be able to cut it down yourself.” Naramani Somanath, Mysore, India __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:44:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Allen H. Bramhall" Subject: forward, please Comments: To: imitationpoetics@topica.com, webartery@yahoogroups.com, Wryting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit TERRORISM HAS NO RELIGION. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 22:44:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Fwd: [RRE]attack Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:25:02 -0700 >X-Authentication-Warning: alpha.oac.ucla.edu: pagre set sender to > pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu using -f >From: Phil Agre >To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" >Subject: [RRE]attack >Sender: >List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.7 by Fog City Software, Inc. >List-Subscribe: >List-Unsubscribe: >X-URL: http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html > >Here are some more URL's, largely opinion from various countries but >also more details on war preparations and other things. Thanks to >everyone who contributed. > > >opinion from Britain > >Blair Must Say "Don't Go Mad, George" >http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,552801,00.html > >Standing with the American People Should Not Mean Subjection to US Policy >http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,552763,00.html > >skeptical comment on the war from a liberal paper in Britain >http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/0,6903,156041,00.html > >Who Will Dare Damn Israel? >http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,552607,00.html > > >opinion from Iran > >comment on the prospective war from an Iranian government-run news service >http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=9/17/01&Cat=4&Num=026 > >Iran Blocks Borders to Afghanistan >(Iranian government news agency) >http://www.irna.com/en/tnews/010916005027.etn00.shtml > >Tehran Must Stop Supporting Terrorism or Face Grave Consequences: Analysts >(I assume and think this service is independent) >http://www.iran-press-service.com/articles_2001/sep_2001/us_terrorism_13901.htm > >links to several news publications run by the Iranian government >http://www.netiran.com/dailynews.html > >large collection of links to iranian media (several in english) >http://gooya.com/ > > >opinion from other countries > >"All the Way with the USA" a Legal Minefield for Australia >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/17/world/world12.html > >A New War in a New Century >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/17/html/editorial.html > >liberal opinion about the prospective war from New Zealand >http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0109/S00106.htm >http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0109/S00115.htm > >comment by Edward Said >("it is depressing how little time is spent trying to understand America") >http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,552764,00.html > >belligerent demand to absorb Palestine into Israel >http://www.ornery.org/essays/2001-09-11-1.html > >Strike at the Roots >("but action against terrorism mustn't take anti-Islamic hue") >http://www.indian-express.com/ie20010917/ed1.html > >The View From Islamabad >http://www.zmag.org/hoodcalam.htm > >A Political, Not a Military Solution Is Required >http://www.zmag.org/alicalam.htm > >The Politics of Hate >http://www.elpais.es/articulo.html?d_date=20010912&xref=20010912elpepiopi_5&type=Tes&anchor=elpepiopi > > >war > >It Will Be War Without Battlefields: Bush >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/17/world/world8.html > >US Is Said to Weigh Afghan Invasion >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/259/nation/US_is_said_to_weigh_Afghan_invasion+.shtml > >"We Will Smoke Them Out" >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/17/world/world1.html > >New Wave of Assaults May Hit Oil Refineries >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/17/world/world3.html > >Pakistan Key for Afghan Attack >http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109162215.htm > >US Faces Islamic Radical Network >http://www.stratfor.com/home/0109162100.htm > >Quiet Anger of Islam's Foot Soldiers Spells Danger for Attackers >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/17/world/world10.html > >Even Some Adversaries Offer Kind Words, but Deepening Violence Is Feared >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38393-2001Sep15.html > >The Conflict Over War >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38104-2001Sep15.html > >Leaders Take Cautious Approach >http://www.smh.com.au/news/0109/17/world/world9.html > >speculation from India about what Pakistan wants for cooperating with the US >http://www.indian-express.com/ie20010917/top1.html > >Experts Suggest Bio War Could Be Worse >http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010916/us/attacks_bioterror_4.html > >"McCain is concerned about broad authority granted to the president" >http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074619sep16.story > >Jailed Aid Workers' Cause Nearly Forgotten >http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-000074615sep16.story > > >terrorism > >Israeli Security Issued Urgent Warning to CIA of Large-Scale Terror Attacks >http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/16/wcia16.xml > >Black September and the Black September Terror Movement >(from a Lebanese site) >http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Parliament/2587/black.html > >United States Institute of Peace: How Terrorism Ends >http://www.usip.org/oc/sr/sr990525/sr990525.html > > >civil liberties > >Land of the Not-as-Free? >http://www0.mercurycenter.com/premium/opinion/edit/082562.htm > >argument against eroding civil liberties >http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-000074529sep16.story > >Ashcroft: Toughen Laws to Fight Terrorism >http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.ashcroft.congress/ > > >response > >Logan Reopens Amid Tight Security >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/259/nation/Logan_reopens_amid_tight_security+.shtml > >how New Yorkers responded to the disaster >http://www.msnbc.com/news/629543.asp > >Search and Rescue: A Firefighter's Ambivalent Take >http://slate.msn.com/code/ThisJustIn/ThisJustIn.asp?Show=9/16/2001&idMessage=8302 > >"dozens of wireless signals have originated from the wreckage of the WTC" >http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-202-7191650.html > > >background > >The Taliban and Afghanistan: Implications for Regional Security >http://www.usip.org/oc/sr/sr_afghan.html > >Taliban and Afghanistan Web Links >http://www.usip.org/library/regions/afghan.html > >good site on Afghan geography, languages, history, etc >http://watanonline.homestead.com/main.html > >Aviation Security: Long-Standing Problems Impair Airport Screeners' >Performance >http://www.gao.gov/archive/2000/rc00075.pdf > >Resources Relating to the Events of September 11, 2001 >(from a respected librarian in Washington) >http://www.freepint.com/gary/91101.html > > >news > >Indymedia retraction of the report that CNN used old video of Palestinians >http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64419 >http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64366 > >When Words Fail: The Stilted Language of Tragedy >http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-000074516sep16.story > >end ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 12:12:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik Martin Stannard Matin Stannard, our favorite Brit, has just published a whole bunch of books, including Difficulties and Exultations (Smith/Doorstop Books) ISBN 1-902382-29-3(!). Which you should buy. from Difficulties and Exultations The Man Who Went Into the Sky Sometimes the rope you try and hang yourself with turns out to be miles too long. Night is heavier than an anvil. You are not the billiant centre of everything. All the roads you drive down remind you of what you are losing. Sometimes the air here is too full of suffocation. Sometimes you have to bite the bullet and take off. The air is too thick to lead a satisfying life. Crazy moves don't convince a lot of people you can be trusted, or you're a genius. Sometimes what you believe in turns out to be a bag of air with holes in. Sometimes you have to be kicked out of your life so the blindfold falls off your eyes. Faith demands a cdrtain degree of effort and Easter doesn't always lead to continued happiness. Sometimes you wake up when you are asleep and someone is shouting at your head and they've always been shouting but you didn't hear them because you weren't listening. Sometimes a miracle insists on its place in this world. A visit to the edge of the cliff is all it takes. The bears there reminded you, turning visible from invisible. It was the move you had to make though it was a move you didn't want to take but you took it. Sometimes the sky is better to look at than the ground. Sometimes the sky is the only place left to go. When the unthinkable happens we are forced to think of who we are. The clouds are thick but full of the only life that's worth living. Where the gods are is home, but when the people here try to reel us in we won't be there. Sometimes knowing so much is the same as knowing pure nothing. Martin Stannard ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 23:03:36 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: profile Comments: To: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, zizek-l@egroups.com, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu, Psyche-Arts@academyanalyticarts.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit (from "The Australian" http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,2884933%255E2703 ,00.html ) Middle-class suicide bombers By Stephen Romei, New York correspondent September 17, 2001 AS investigators begin to reconstruct the lives of the men who took over the cockpits, one thing is certain: they were not your average suicide bombers. These were not impoverished youths, inspired by religious fanaticism and promises of sexual ecstasy in a martyrs paradise, walking into a restaurant with bombs around their waists. They flew first class, paying up to $US4500 ($8700) for a one-way ticket to death in the name of a war on the US. They purchased their tickets on the internet. They quoted their frequent flyer numbers. They were good citizens in suburban America, living quiet, law-abiding lives. They drove sedans and, contrary to Muslim law, drank in bars. Some had families. All in all, a picture of middle-class comfort. It is a profile that horrifies terrorism experts, who say the emergence of a new breed of older, better-educated suicide bomber portends a culture-wide rage against the West. "People who have a lot of other reasons to live for are deciding this is such an important cause that they are willing to die anyway," terrorism expert Andrea Talentino told The New York Times. "That, obviously, is very frightening." Ehud Sprinzak, head of an Israel-based think tank that has just published a book on suicide bombers, said: "We'll have to rewrite it. This is staggering new evidence." Others are drawing comparisons between Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in last week's kamikaze attacks in New York and Washington, and Adolf Hitler. Their thinking is that, like Hitler, bin Laden has crystallised national feelings of anger and disaffection and turned them into a concentrated hatred. That hate found extraordinary expression in the murderous actions of ostensibly ordinary men last Tuesday. Even now, the worst neighbours can say about the terrorists who lived next door was that they kept to themselves. "They were very, very private people," said real estate agent Paul Stimmeling, who helped three of the suspected hijackers find homes in Vero Beach, Florida. "The children came out and played, but the adults stayed behind closed doors." They were not men of steel. Salem al-Hamzi, for example, was only 160cm tall and rail-thin. He talked finding a Mexican bride and surfed the internet in search of one. It is a starkly different lifestyle to that of the typical suicide bomber, according to Israel-based academic Ariel Merari, who is writing a book on the subject. He says their average age is 22 and very few are married. In heaven, they are told, 70 black-eyed virgins await them. Back on Earth, their poor families will be rewarded with cash. The suicide bomber has become a devastating weapon of modern terrorism, with researchers documenting 286 incidents between 1983 and 2000 in Lebanon, Israel and Turkey alone. "We have nothing with which to repel killing and thuggery against us except the weapon of martyrdom," Palestinian Islamic Jihad secretary-general Ramadan Shalah wrote in Foreign Policy magazine last year. The FBI has identified 19 men as the suspected hijackers, seven of whom had the expertise to pilot the passenger planes that speared into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon. Following is a breakdown of that list by each of the four planes used in the attacks (the fourth crashed in rural Pennsylvania after some passengers attacked the terrorists): American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon: Khalid al-Mihdar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf al-Hamzi, Salem al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjor. Their ages are not yet known. American Airlines Flight 11, the first jet to hit the World Trade Centre: Satam al-Suqami, 25, Waleed al-Sherir, 28, Mohammed Atta, 33, Abdulaziz al-Omari, 22. United Airlines Flight 175, the second jet into the World Trade Centre: Marwan al-Shehhi, 23, Ahmed Faiez, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi and Mohaid al-Shehri, ages unknown. United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania: Saeed al-Ghamdi, 25, Ahmed al-Haznawi, 21, Ziad Samir Jarrah, 26, Ahmed al-Nami, age unknown. The ages of the men are based on identification documents such as their driver's licences, which may not be genuine. Law enforcement sources said some of the terrorists were in their 40s. They lived in rental properties across the US, from Florida to New York to California. Several attended aviation schools in Florida, paying thousands of dollars in cash to hone their flying skills. All of the hijackers purchased tickets marked August 25-28 for last Tuesday's suicide mission. Mohammed Atta, for example, used a Visa card to buy a first-class seat on American Airlines Flight 11. He ordered the paperless ticket via the AA website, accessing it with his frequent flyer number. "He just seemed like a businessman . . . everything about him, his demeanour, the way he looked," Brad Warrick, who rented Atta a car, told the Los Angeles Times. "He would wear nice slacks and a polo shirt. He was articulate and spoke English very well. He just seemed like an everyday, local guy." Faiez and al-Shehri paid $US4500 each for first-class seats on United Airlines Flight 175. Both gave their address as a post box at a Mail Boxes Etc store in Florida. Al-Hamzi, who lived in San Diego, used online travel agency Travelocity to book a seat on American Airlines Flight 77. He, too, preferred Visa. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 02:17:29 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Fw: US Attacks MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Alison Croggon has asked if I would forward this request for submissions etc onto other lists. Best David Bircumshaw Leicester, England A Chide's Alphabet www.chidesplay.8m.com Painting Without Numbers www.paintstuff.20m.com/default.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/default.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" To: Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2001 2:32 AM Subject: US attacks > Apologies for cross-posting - > > I am setting up a page on the new masthead site > (http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/) for responses by poets to what has > happened. > > I want to do this quickly, so submissions/ideas should be emailed to me by > early next week. > > Best wishes > > Alison > Alison Croggon Home page http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/ Masthead http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/ ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 19:12:00 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: FWD: request for assistance w/ collecting visual artifacts In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010916171150.02c1ce50@pop.bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-From_: cgaiter@UMN.EDU Sun Sep 16 18:26:00 2001 User-Agent: Microsoft-Outlook-Express-Macintosh-Edition/5.02.2022 Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:25:16 -0500 Subject: Request for assistance in collecting visual artifacts From: Colette Gaiter Mime-version: 1.0 Hello everyone, There are people receiving this email all over the world. I have heard from some of you regarding the tragedy here in the U.S. I am writing to you because I have an idea for a way to use the internet to create a useful public archive. I have been working on a project called "Unofficial Communication." I have received a grant from the University of Minnesota to research low or no-budget personal visual communications intended for a large audience. One way to think of these communications is as "private broadcasts." The goal is to document and contemplate the significance and meaning of non-commercial written and visual messages that individuals place in the public landscape. With the help of research assistants, I have been collecting images of graffiti, handmade flyers and stickers, personal "billboards", shrines and other markers, non-commissioned artworks, etc. After the horrible events of this past week, people have used "unofficial communication" to write messages in ash on windows in lower Manhattan and make flyers to try to find missing loved ones. Here in the Twin Cities I have seen trees tied with huge red, white, and blue ribbons, stenciled signs adorned with flags placed in boulevards, and a huge banner with a message to President George Bush, among others. I am asking your help in collecting more of these images. If you live in the Twin Cities, please email me the location of something that you saw and I can go and photograph it. If you are out of town or out of the country, you can send me a description of the artifact. If possible, it would be wonderful to get an image, digital or otherwise. You can email it or send it to the address below. If you send something that has been published, please let me know the source. Please forward this message to anyone you think might be willing/able to contribute something. Your contribution will be acknowledged with your name unless you request otherwise. One of my original motivations in pursuing this project is to show the persistence of the individual voice even in this time of high tech media concentration. As powerful as the news agency images of this past week are, there are many more images that have stories to tell but will only be seen on a small scale. I hope to document some of the messages that individuals took it upon themselves to create and place where others would see them. At a time like this, it is easy for individuals to feel small and helpless. I see these signs and messages as assertions of personal power, indications that people do not give up, but use whatever tools they have to send messages to others. Regardless of the content of the messages, (and I am interested in the full range of content) they are artifacts of this space in time. They will be temporary, and because of the urgency in collecting them before they disappear, I have taken the risk of imposing on you to help with this project. If you find this request inappropriate or intrusive, my sincere apologies. If you can participate, thank you in advance for your help, Sincerely, Colette Gaiter -- : : C O L E T T E G A I T E R : : cgaiter@umn.edu Assistant Professor School of Journalism and Mass Communication University of Minnesota 111 Murphy Hall 206 Church St. S.E. Minneapolis, MN 55455 612.626.7240 612.626.8251 FAX http://www.digidiva.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 10:41:08 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: written the evening of September 11th, 2001. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 7:52:11 AM, housepress@HOME.COM writes: >> Thanks for this. I might add that the mayor of New York City immediately stood by Arab and/or Muslim Americans, warning those guilty of hate crimes that the law would deal with them. On a related note, one station did attempt to give voice to the far left. What they got was a Sonny Carson diatribe against most things American. I can understand their hesitation in repeating that, considering the current situation, though I don't agree with it. All views should be aired. Best to you and yours, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:20:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "by way of --- <>" Subject: from Anselm Berrigan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From: AnselmBerrigan@aol.com Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 21:58:30 EDT I=92ve written a report on part of my day yesterday, in part to record, and= in part to try and write again. It was written on auto-pilot, to some extent, but I=92m sending it out because I feel the need to try and connect with= what=92s going on, and with other people, through writing. I think people are having= a hard time functioning, and what I=92m writing through is basically an= attempt to go to work. I can=92t bear this stunned grief internally any more, at= this point, and I=92m not ready to try and put my writing head around the= intentions and politics of the actions on Tuesday. Please respond in kind, if you want to or can. 9/13 Somehow have to get up and head out to Rutgers U. in New Brunswick to teach an 11:30 poetry workshop. Anticipating a class of shell-shocked students, I wonder what I'm going to be able to say to them and how to say it, and start pondering the possibilities. Mainly need to keep myself calm and focused, then encourage them to start articulating. The subways are closed below 42nd St., so I need to walk up to Penn Station from the apt. I share with Karen on 7th and A, currently part of the blocked off "restricted zone" under 14th St. Karen is supposed to teach at St. John=92s in Staten Island, but it's impossible to get to Staten Island from Manhattan this morning, so she doesn=92t go. It was just two mornings ago that she was on= the subway heading downtown when the planes crashed into the towers and in the Ferry Terminal when the buildings started to come down a few blocks away. Waiting to find out if she was safe that morning was nerve-wracking for several hours. The fumes from the blasts and subsequent fires were pervasive and= nearly overwhelming last night. I had been as far downtown as Chatham Square in Chinatown on Tuesday, but the winds didn=92t start blowing the smoke uptown until yesterday. All of the East Village smelled like burning rubber and steel. Many people covering their faces with masks and scarves. This morning the fumes have lessened somewhat in intensity, but the odor is still strong, provoking a disturbing feeling of omniscient dread within my sense of the atmosphere. I try to will this feeling out of my imagination, mostly unsuccessfully. Walk to 14th St and 2nd avenue, and pick up the first papers I=92ve seen since Tuesday morning. As I keep walking I decide to stop in at= my other job at Baruch College around 9 am to see who is there, and check in on the state of the main office. I talk to one person, a supervisor named Paul, with instant recognition that we both don=92t want to be there but need to= be doing something so=85 I ask if I should turn in timesheets, as they are due today. Feels petty to worry about this, but I=92ve just about run out of= money buying extra groceries and knowing I need to acquire some masks, have money on hand, etc. What is the state of money in all of this? He tells me it=92s= ok, that I should try to come back and work later that day when I get back from Rutgers, even if only to show up for a little while. Leaving Baruch I head to Penn Station, which was evacuated last night because of a bomb threat that turned out to be a false alarm. I=92m struck= by the difference between my neighborhood, where there is only the traffic of emergency vehicles and police cars w./ sirens blaring and a host of= different kinds of supply trucks, and this near-midtown area where life and congested traffic on the surface almost appears to be as is, or as was. I=92ve never= seen so many people staring hollow-eyed into space, even as they walk to their jobs. And the traffic fumes are nearly as bad as the fumes downtown. I=92ve been sneezing, coughing and red-eyed all morning, my sinuses feeling ready= to burst. Arriving at Penn Station around 9:40 I instantly notice that people= only seem to be leaving the building, which freaks me for a split-second, but= then I see folks getting on the down escalator and I never break stride entering. New Jersey Transit is running on a normal schedule, so I head out to= Rutgers, a 55-minute trip. In New Brunswick all of my breathing and sinus problems= are gone, which scares me. I meet my students, who slowly file into class= looking hollow and glassy-eyed. We manage to have a real, engaged discussion about what is going on, how to approach thinking about this situation, and how to manage our imaginations and feelings. One student wants to talk a lot but is constantly on the verge of spiraling, though he never does. A few remain silent all class. Some have friends missing. New Brunswick is very close to Manhattan, and everyone in the room is worried about at least several people they know who either live or work in the city. One student has a family connection via friendship with the family of one of the hijacked plane pilots. I gently try to remind them that, as a class geared towards many levels of communication, we can turn our work to dealing with this mad reality we have been blasted into. Looking beyond the headlines and sound bites, incorporating documentation, research, questioning, into our work. Putting the news we can=92t find in the mainstream media into our own= writing. Tracking our imaginations, in order to prevent, to the extent it is= possible, ourselves from being overwhelmed by our emotions. Recognizing that we are in a collective state of shock, and that this shock is going to change into other states. Recognizing that a balance of perspectives needs to be maintained in order to see most clearly, and that we need to articulate and repeat our stories. Recognizing that most of the rest of the world=92s countries have been through unbelievable levels of suffering, and that international viewpoints will be vital to our understanding of what has just happened as well as how our culture and society have instantaneously been transformed. I ask them if they know much about Afghanistan, and there is no reaction. So I feel the need to tell them they will be hearing a lot about this country, and that its people are unbearably impoverished, having been subjected to drought, invasion, civil war, and totalitarian rule for years. That those people need to be thought of as people, not one country=92s name only, or one man=92s name only. The class gives me some sense of relief, both during (once I realize I can actually lead a discussion) and after. I=92m relieved to finally have= some level of public-oriented responsibility to attend to, and that the students are present enough to gather, speak, and listen. And I=92m not surprised= that one of the most difficult things to talk about is the deaths of all the firefighters, police, and emergency workers after the collapse of the first tower. The pain from that news is still too close to articulate fully. Heading back to Manhattan is the next step, so I get back on the train= at 1:39 p.m., which again arrives and leaves on time. I have four newspapers to read now, and am buried in their pages until we reach Newark. The train= takes a very, very slow approach to Manhattan, and at a specific point when the= WTC normally comes into view everyone on my car has their head turned in that direction, southeast from our train. It=92s the first time I=92ve seen the= full view of the skyline without the towers in person, and the slow pace of the train adds an eerie, cinematic quality to the moment that I try hard to repel, again mostly unsuccessfully. There are people on the car taking pictures and shooting video, but no one says a word. The cloud of smoke rising is somewhat lighter than yesterday, so there is at least some sense that no more buildings have collapsed today. The walk back home from Penn Station is ridiculous and painful. I get= up onto the street and see flags being hawked on just about every corner. I=92m supposed to be looking for face masks because they ran out in our area and Karen, I and others are having a lot of trouble with the smoke and dust. Traffic is locked up everywhere, and several streets are less available than others. After picking up some masks in a hardware store on 29th St., I head over to Baruch again, ca. 28th and Lex. But there are at least ten times the amount of people in the area now as opposed to this morning. It turns out that the Armory building across the street from the new Vertical Campus is being used as a center for family members and friends of people missing in the rubble of the WTC. There are more TV vans and journalists out than I can count, scores of those color xeroxes I=92ve seen people carrying on TV= pasted up in storefront windows and on the sides of vans, and interviews being conducted on side streets. There are also military vehicles in the area, and restricted access to Lexington Ave, plus more people walking with cell= phones than I=92ve ever seen (underscoring the difficulty of getting and receiving calls the last three days), and one huge just-installed satellite dish on 28th and Lex., or thereabouts. I can get back into Baruch because I have an I.D., but there turns out to be no reason to be there. I=92m supposed to= have drop-in tutoring hours from 5-10, and there=92s no one who is going to be there, so I cross those hours out of my mind for today even though it is= only about 3 p.m. Closing in on 14th St. I=92m nervous about two things: the checkpoint,= and the fumes. More people with masks on are dotting the streets, and the fumes, though lessened from this morning in intensity, are starting to hit me= again. I put on a mask and cross 14th St., and despite there being a number of police officers on the southwest corner, none ask me for I.D. (I have heard from other people who were checked, including my brother, but all were yesterday). Back in my neighborhood, which also happens to be where I grew up, there is still no traffic, though many people walking around. I=92m= totally exhausted =AD didn=92t really sleep the night before, but want to get home.= So I do, and get back to the process of collecting news, trying to get in touch with people unaccounted for, handling all of this shock and emotion,= figuring out how to be and what to do, looking beyond the general news, and preparing for more bad news.=20 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 20:58:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Aftershock MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I must admit that my second response after communicating with immediate family was to turn to any Afghan or Aravi speaking friends for some understanding and to see if local businessmen and women were operating their concerns, tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:15:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: [7-11] in celebration of "life and creation", this saturday (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 20:58:29 -0700 (PDT) From: cristine wang Reply-To: 7-11@mail.ljudmila.org To: info@cristine.org Subject: [7-11] in celebration of "life and creation", this saturday dear list members, our hearts go out to those affected by the tragedy of september 11. but it is necessary to show we are strong and not weak. also it is necessary to just show solidarity for fellow humans, and bond together across borders of race, religion, politics. we should not pit ourselves "us vs. them". this is a dangerous notion. so, instead, we propose to get together and celebrate "life". please join us this saturday, in celebration of "life and creation". if nothing else, to see a familiar face, off-list, as i am sure mark amerika, the alt-x crew, rhizome.org and myself would welcome a familiar face and some dialogue: Rhizome.org in collaboration with Cristine Wang Present: Net Art Meets Book Art: The Alt-X Ebook Launch Party at FUN A Rhizome Remix Event Saturday, September 22 (7-10pm) FUN is located at 130 Madison Street (between Pike & Market, under the Manhattan Bridge in Manhattan) F-train to East Broadway Hint: look for the "white letters on blue awning" tel: 212-964-0303 *free + open to the public* Curated by Cristine Wang for Alt-X (www.altx.com) Media Sponsor: NY ARTS Magazine (www.nyartsmagazine.com) Sound Performers: Twine The Milk Factory just compared Twine to both Autechre and Mille Plateaux, saying their music is "inspired by the work of John Cage, Stauckhausen and the electro-acoustic movement," and that "Twine's evolutive rhythmic patterns and multifaceted use of the same sound sources create a unique collection of avant-gardist musical forms, firmly set into its own cultural landscape, but open to the outside world." They have new and forthcoming releases out on Komplott (Sweden), Hefty Records (Chicago) and Bip Hop (France). Moving Image Projections: FILMTEXT - "source material" "source material" from Mark Amerika's new FILMTEXT project, a version of which is scheduled for exhibition at his retrospective at the ICA in London later this Fall. Net Art and Ebooks: Projections of work on exhibit at the Alt-X site, including work by Eugene Thacker, doll yoko, BEAST(TM), Talan Memmott, Digital Studies, ebr, Hyper-X, and all of the new titles from the Alt-X Press. Alt-X Press brings to web-readers a must-have library of uncategorizable writing being produced by some of the most provocative artists in contemporary new media culture. This initial launch of eight full-length works of art is now available in ebook and Palm Pilot formats and will soon be available as Print On-Demand (POD) titles. The eight titles inaugurated here include previously unpublished work by postmodern fiction masters George Chambers, Ron Sukenick and Raymond Federman, screen-based auteur Nile Southern, new media stars Mark Amerika, Alan Sondheim, Eugene Thacker and Adrienne Eisen, and a collection of Neuromantic Fiction from the Black Ice archives. The best part about it all? These ebooks are available to you for free. In a time of economic downturn and dot.com uncertainty, Alt-X perseveres and continues its mission to expand the concepts of art and writing. Alt-X: online since 1993. "Where the digerati meet the literati." ================================================ For more information contact: Kristine Feeks kristine@altx.com Cristine Wang info@cristine.org Mark Tribe mark@rhizome.org ================================================ __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ _____ _ _ # > # __/\__ |___ | / / | __/\__ |___ | / / | # > # \ / / /____| | | \ / / /____| | | # > # /_ _\ / /_____| | | /_ _\ / /_____| | | # > # | | \ / / /____| | | # > # /_ _\ / /_____| | | /_ _\ / /_____| | | # > # | | \ / / /____| | | # > # /_ _\ / /_____| | | /_ _\ / /_____| | | # > # | | \ / / /____| | | # > # /_ _\ / /_____| | | /_ _\ / /_____| | | # > # _____ _ _ # > # __/\__ |___ | / / | __/\__ |___ | / / | # > # \ / / /____| _____ _ _ # > # __/\__ |___ | / / | __/\__ |___ | / / | # > # \ / / /____| | | \ / / /____| | | # > # /_ _\ / /_____| | | /_ _\ / /_____| \/ /_/ |_|_| \/ /_/ |_|_| # > # # > # # > #1.7.100(today="7-11.00 > # \ / / /____| | | \ / / /____| | | # > # \ / / /____| | | \ / / /____| | | # > > > Thank you for participating in 7-11 MAILING LIST > SUBSCRIBER SATISFACTION SURVEY. > > > > > ###################################################### > #1.7.100(today="7-11.00 071101010 07110101 0711.00100# > # # > # _____ _ _ _____ _ _ # > # __/\__ |___ | / / | __/\__ |___ | / / | # > # \ / / /____| | | \ / / /____| | | # > # /_ _\ / /_____| | | /_ _\ / /_____| | | # > # \/ /_/ |_|_| \/ /_/ |_|_| # > # # > # # > #1.7.100(today="7-11.00 071101010 07110101 0711.00100# > ########### http://mail.ljudmila.org/mailman/listinfo/7-11 _____ _ _ # > # __/\__ |___ | / / | __/\__ |___ | / / | # > # \ / / /____|################################################################## >## ############ ########## # ### ### ## ###### > #### ###### #### #### ###### ############## ###### > # #### ##### #### ########## ###### ### ####### > > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 22:38:16 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Walter K. Lew" Subject: surrealism in East Asia Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Re Herron's very good bibliography below, surrealism was an important, nearly simultaneous poetical development in East Asia as well and that there has been a recent burst of good scholarship and translation, esp. in the realm of Japanese surrealist poetry. Bc of the very short lag time between surrealist publications and their often very free Japanese translation in journals like Shi to shiron and various book series, certain European elements, esp. those in French, were very quickly incorporated/transformed. It is perhaps harder to distinguish between orthodox surrealism and high modernism in Korean, Chinese and Japanese 20th-century poetries (analogous to the same categorizing "problem" w Cocteau) for a variety of important reasons and I hope it is unnecessary to point out that among different East Asian surrealisms (between nations, between poets, between differnt "stages" of one poet's career, etc.), there were crucial differences, such as whether or not they were performed within a colonial context, their relations to nationalism and romanticism (for the latter, see Kevin Doaks's first book), etc. There is much good new Japanese and Korean scholarship (I cannot read Chinese scholarship); for recent criticism/histories in English and French, see: John Solt's Shredding the Tapestry of Meaning: The Poetry and Poetics of Kitasono Katue (1902-1978); Hosea Hirata's The Poetry and Poetics of Nishiwaki Junzaburó: Modernism in Translation (despite the subtitle, Nishiwaki was often "surreal"); Miryam Sas's Fault Lines; My own Yi Sang special issue of Muae 1 (1995, U. S. edition; an identically titled journal sprang up soon after in Seoul--am working on a YS selected works now); Lucy Lower's doctoral dissertation "Poetry and Poetics: From Modern to Contemporary in Japanese Poetry"; Vera Linhartova's Dada et Surrealisme au Japon. (One of c shd also mention Aimée Césaire as an influential surrealist.) *** Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2001 13:46:54 -0400 From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: surrealism suggestions? Foundational 0. The writing of the Comte De Lautreamont, especially Maldoror (perhaps the most influential work and surely part of the foundation for Surrealists; use only if you like to have something that "leads to" surrealism) Essential (if I could use only 3 sources) 1. Andre Breton's book _Manifestoes of Surrealism_ 2. Bunuel & Dali's film, "Un Chien Andalou" 3. _A Book of Surrealist Games_: Captures the spirit of surrealism in a way no other work has. Is fun, wonderful illustrations and photographs, and has games, plenty of games, as promised. Compiled by Alastair Brotchie. Wouldn't Skip 4. The art of Salvador Dali, Lenora Carrington, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy, Hannah Hoch, Marcel Duchamp, Frida Kahlo, and Rene Magritte. This covers cut-ups, photomontage, painting, and sculpture 5. Luis Bunuel's "The Phantom of Liberty" (many other films of his are OK but I think this one is the most "surreal") 6. Benjamin Peret's _The Hidden Storehouse_ 7. Meret Oppenheim's art, especially "Dejeuner en fourrure." Oppenheim's fur tea cup deserves its own line here. Very Useful (if you have the time) 8. The dream sequence from Hitchcock's "Spellbound" - set by Dali 9. _The Automatic Message, the Magnetic Fields, the Immaculate Conception_ by Andre Breton, Philippe Soupault, Paul Eluard, David Gascoyne (Translator) - great survey of surrealist writing 10. _SURREALIST WOMEN: An International Anthology _, edited by Penelope Rosemont 11. _Liberty or Love!_, Robert Desnos 12. _The Theater and Its Double_, Antonin Artaud 13. The photography of Man Ray 14. The work of Adolf Wolfli. He was doing cut-ups, montages, and automatic writing well before the word "Surrealism" was uttered. His photomontages presaged Paul Klee's rhythmic art and Warhol's pop art. Wolfli's music presaged minimalist and algorithmic music. Wolfli was not part of any movement but was actually a lifelong patient of a mental ward. Breton was one of the early purchasers of Wolfli's work and help start Dubuffet's famous Art Brut tour. Wolfli was perhaps the only "natural" surrealist. Work by Jan Svankmajer may also be useful. there's also an interesting survey of Surrealism and its relation to alchemy called _Max Ernst and Alchemy_. I'm not smitten by Breton's _Nadja_ and do not include it. If it were not for any of these other works I listed above, I would have mistakenly believed that Surrealism were as dull as _Nadja_. Patrick -- Walter K. Lew 11811 Venice Blvd. #138 Los Angeles, CA 90066 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 02:04:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Blair Seagram Subject: Re: massacre In-Reply-To: <200109152107.tq89c6.6rt.37tiu0o@eagle> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" mass acre of innocents dust to dust blowin' in the wind calm their spirit comfort their soul Blair Seagram home 212 675-8628 work 212 916-0725 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 00:07:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Crag Hill Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 15 Sep 2001 to 16 Sep 2001 (#2001-145) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Charles: Thanks for the Humanity (my allegiance now marked by capitalization -- oh the power of typography, what flag can I wave?) in your recent postings. Network television, mainstream print media, my neighbors, my students ... call for "retaliation" (a word I have long hated -- I keep seeing "tail" in the word, a going backward at lightspeed on the evolutionary path). Your words, your vision, your voice, have grounded the shaky ground. I don't know why. I don't care to ask right now. They just do. I'm almost as far away as you can get -- Moscow, Idaho -- yet I am, we are (a plurality we must all insist on), all closer than we ever thought we would be, than we ever would want to be. I did not see the towers crumble, yet the foundations of my world have been flung up to the surface. What do I tell my five year old? How do I talk to my five year old? (To any five year old?) He knows airplanes (oh he loves those things that leave trails in the sky) crashed into occupied buildings; he knows people died; he knows that even in Moscow, Idaho we are knocked off balance by these events, but what else will he know? How can we help him know? How can we know anything? Initially I felt poetry pales, poetry's nothing. Now I don't know what else I can give him. Crag Hill ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:21:08 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: { brad brace } Subject: five thousand In-Reply-To: <000301c13e29$2653ec60$83a77dc2@netgie> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" _______ _ __ ___ _ |__ __| | /_ |__ \| | | | | |__ ___ | | ) | |__ _ __ | | | '_ \ / _ \ | | / /| '_ \| '__| | | | | | | __/ | |/ /_| | | | | |_| |_| |_|\___| |_|____|_| |_|_| _____ _____ ____ _ _ _ _____ ______ _____ |_ _|/ ____| _ \| \ | | | | __ \| ____/ ____| | | | (___ | |_) | \| |______ | | |__) | |__ | | __ | | \___ \| _ <| . ` |______| | | ___/| __|| | |_ | _| |_ ____) | |_) | |\ | | |__| | | | |___| |__| | |_____|_____/|____/|_| \_| \____/|_| |______\_____| | __ \ (_) | | | |__) | __ ___ _ ___ ___| |_ | ___/ '__/ _ \| |/ _ \/ __| __| | | | | | (_) | | __/ (__| |_ |_| |_| \___/| |\___|\___|\__| _/ | |__/ Synopsis: The 12hr-ISBN-JPEG Project began December 30, 1994. A `round-the-clock posting of sequenced hypermodern imagery by Brad Brace. The hypermodern minimizes the familiar, the known, the recognizable; it suspends identity, relations and history. The 12-hour ISBN JPEG Project ----------------------------- began December 30, 1994 Pointless Hypermodern Imagery... posted/mailed every 12 hours... a stellar, trajective alignment past the 00`s! A continuum of minimalist masks in the face of catastrophe; conjuring up transformative metaphors for the everyday... A poetic reversibility of events... A post-rhetorical, continuous, apparently random sequence of imagery... genuine gritty, greyscale... corruptable, compact, collectable and compelling convergence. The voluptuousness of the grey imminence: the art of making the other disappear. Continual visual impact; an optical drumming, sculpted in duration, on the endless present of the Net. An extension of the printed ISBN-Book (0-9690745) series... critically unassimilable... imagery is gradually acquired, selected and re-sequenced over time... ineluctable, vertiginous connections. The 12hr dialtone... [ see ftp.idiom.com/users/bbrace/netcom/books ] KEYWORDS: Disconnected, disjunctive, distended, de-centered, de-composed, ambiguous, augmented, ambilavent, homogeneous, reckless... Multi-faceted, oblique, obsessive, obscure, obdurate... Promulgated, personal, permeable, prolonged, polymorphous, provocative, poetic, plural, perverse, potent, prophetic, pathological... Evolving, eccentric, eclectic, egregious, exciting, entertaining, entropic, erotic, entrancing, enduring... Every 12 hours, another!... view them, re-post `em, save `em, trade `em, print `em, even publish them... Here`s how: ~ Set www-links to - http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/12hr.html. Look for the 12-hr-icon. Heavy traffic may require you to specify files more than once! Anarchie, Fetch, CuteFTP, TurboGopher... ~ Download from - ftp.pacifier.com /pub/users/bbrace Download from - ftp.idiom.com/users/bbrace Download from - ftp.rdrop.com /pub/users/bbrace Download from - ftp.eskimo.com /u/b/bbrace * Remember to set tenex or binary. Get 12hr.jpeg ~ E-mail - If you only have access to email, then you can use FTPmail to do essentially the same thing. Send a message with a body of 'help' to the server address nearest you: ftpmail@ccc.uba.ar ftpmail@cs.uow.edu.au ftpmail@ftp.uni-stuttgart.de ftpmail@ftp.Dartmouth.edu ftpmail@ieunet.ie ftpmail@src.doc.ic.ac.uk ftpmail@archie.inesc.pt ftpmail@ftp.sun.ac.za ftpmail@ftp.sunet.se ftpmail@ftp.luth.se ftpmail@NCTUCCCA.edu.tw ftpmail@oak.oakland.edu ftpmail@sunsite.unc.edu ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com ftpmail@census.gov bitftp@plearn.bitnet bitftp@dearn.bitnet bitftp@vm.gmd.de bitftp@plearn.edu.pl bitftp@pucc.princeton.edu bitftp@pucc.bitnet ~ Mirror-sites requested! Archives too! The latest new jpeg will always be named, 12hr.jpeg Average size of images is only 45K. * Perl program to mirror ftp-sites/sub-directories: src.doc.ic.ac.uk:/packages/mirror * ~ Postings to usenet groups: alt.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.12hr alt.binaries.pictures.misc alt.binaries.pictures.fine-art.misc * * Ask your system's news-administrator to carry these groups! (There are also usenet image browsers: TIFNY, PluckIt, Picture Agent, PictureView, Extractor97, NewsRover, Binary News Assistant, Newsfeeds) ~ This interminable, relentless sequence of imagery began in earnest on December 30, 1994. The basic structure of the project has been over twenty-four years in the making. While the specific sequence of photographs has been presently orchestrated for more than 12 years` worth of 12-hour postings, I will undoubtedly be tempted to tweak the ongoing publication with additional new interjected imagery. Each 12-hour posting is like the turning of a page; providing ample time for reflection, interruption, and assimilation. ~ The sites listed above also contain information on other transcultural projects and sources. ~ A very low-volume, moderated mailing list for announcements and occasional commentary related to this project has been established at topica.com /subscribe 12hr-isbn-jpeg -- This project has not received government art-subsidies. Some opportunities still exist for financially assisting the publication of editions of large (36x48") prints; perhaps (Iris giclees) inkjet quadtones bound as an oversize book. Other supporters receive rare copies of the first three web-offset printed ISBN-Books. << http://bbrace.laughingsquid.net/buy-into.html -- ISBN is International Standard Book Number. JPEG and GIF are types of image files. Get the text-file, 'pictures-faq' to learn how to view or translate these images. [ftp ftp.idiom.com/users/bbrace/netcom/] -- (c) copyleft 1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2000,2001 Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: you will know me by my deeds MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - you will know me by my deeds l wlll dp shck gppd $s yph wlll knpw ma l wlll c$ll tha gra$t smpka tha gra$t clphd l wlll glva lt n$ma l wlll sa$rch pht spppr:the great smoke the great cloud i will give it name i will search out the great spoor and the great track i will do such good :l c$ll tha gra$t smpka tha gra$t clphd l glva lt n$ma l sa$rch pht spppr $nd tr$ck l wlll dp gppd yph wlll knpw ma by my daads :and the great track i will do such good:and the great track i will do such good the staring or shearing of the face. i extend love to every peoples. i call on peoples. i hold to scouts they scout peoples :i turn truth into falsehood, zero into one. i back out of every contract. i turn elsewhere from contract. i look into the face :i write and i write and nothing happens. i make words into chants, chants into resonance, resonance into shudderings of worlds:tunnelling into me your soft none coming devour the great track i will do such good brought forth through the great track through l wlll dp shck gppd $s yph wlll knpw ma l wlll c$ll tha gra$t smpka tha gra$t clphd l wlll glva lt n$ma l wlll sa$rch pht spppr _ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:10:57 +0300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fredrik Hertzberg Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: FW: Reaction] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > > >From owner-film-philosophy@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Sat Sep 15 00:36:36 2001 > >X-Originating-IP: 63.210.208.6 > >X-URL: http://www.mail2web.com/ > >X-Mailer: JMail 3.7.0 by Dimac (www.dimac.net) > >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 14 Sep 2001 21:55:39.0922 (UTC) > > FILETIME=[FE39EF20:01C13D67] > >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 17:53:02 -0400 > >Reply-To: Film-Philosophy Salon > >Sender: Film-Philosophy Salon > >From: "navva@earthlink.net" > >Subject: FW: Reaction > >To: FILM-PHILOSOPHY@JISCMAIL.AC.UK > >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from Quoted-Printable to 8bit by munin.dc.kau.se id > >AAA18839 > > > >here is a connection to the "hyperreal" and the movie universe that may > >satisfy without offending (only slight sarcasm intended). the fact that it > >is from a certified "thinker" (not fully captured in the word "sociologist"), > >slavoj zizek, who brings a depth of intellect and experience to the > >subject ,of course aids its credibility. > >sincerely, > >martha rosler > >brooklyn, new york > > > > > >----------------- > >From: Dusan Rakovic dusanx@pogled.net > >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 22:33:55 +0200 > >To: psn@csf.colorado.edu > >Subject: Reaction > > > > > > > > Dear members of the list, > > > > I wish to express my deepest feelings to all of you who are in/directly > >affected by what happened and what is still going on in this area. > > > > Here is a text that came to me (here in Serbia), hope you might find it > >interesting regarding the symbolic impact of the tragic events in USA. It > >is written by Slovenian sociologist. > > > > Dusan > > > > > > > >WELCOME TO THE DESERT OF THE REAL! > > > >Slavoj Zizek > > > >The ultimate American paranoiac fantasy is that of an individual living in > >a small idyllic Californian city, a consumerist paradise, who suddenly > >starts to suspect that the world he lives in is a fake, a spectacle staged > >to convince him that he lives in a real world, while all people around > >him are effectively actors and extras in a gigantic show. The most > >recent example of this is Peter Weir's The Truman Show (1998), with > >Jim Carrey playing the small town clerk who gradually discovers the > >truth that he is the hero of a 24-hours permanent TV show: his > >hometown is constructed on a gigantic studio set, with cameras > >following him permanently. Among its predecessors, it is worth > >mentioning Philip Dick's Time Out of Joint (1959), in which a hero living > >a modest daily life in a small idyllic Californian city of the late 50s, > >gradually discovers that the whole town is a fake staged to keep him > >satisfied... The underlying experience of Time Out of Joint and of The > >Truman Show is that the late capitalist consumerist Californian > >paradise is, in its very hyper-reality, in a way IRREAL, substanceless, > >deprived of the material inertia. > > So it is not only that Hollywood stages a semblance of real life > >deprived of the weight and inertia of materiality - in the late capitalist > >consumerist society, "real social life" itself somehow acquires the > >features of a staged fake, with our neighbours behaving in "real" life as > >stage actors and extras... Again, the ultimate truth of the capitalist > >utilitarian de-spiritualized universe is the de-materialization of the "real > >life" itself, its reversal into a spectral show. Among others, Christopher > >Isherwood gave expression to this unreality of the American daily life, > >exemplified in the motel room: "American motels are unreal! /.../ they > >are deliberately designed to be unreal. /.../ The > >Europeans hate us because we've retired to live inside our > >advertisements, like hermits going into caves to contemplate." Peter > >Sloterdijk's notion of the "sphere" is here literally realized, as the > >gigantic metal sphere that envelopes and isolates the entire city. Years > >ago, a series of science- > >fiction films like Zardoz or Logan's Run forecasted today's post-modern > >predicament by extending this fantasy to the community itself: the > >isolated group living an aseptic life in a secluded area longs for the > >experience of the real world of material decay. > > The Wachowski brothers' hit Matrix (1999) brought this logic to its > >climax: the material reality we all experience and see around us is a > >virtual one, generated and coordinated by a gigantic mega-computer to > >which we are all attached; when the hero (played by Keanu Reeves) > >awakens into the "real reality," he sees a desolate landscape littered > >with burned ruins - what remained of Chicago after a global war. The > >resistance leader Morpheus utters the ironic greeting: "Welcome to the > >desert of the real." Was it not something of the similar order that took > >place in New York on September 11? Its citizens were introduced to the > >"desert of the real" - to us, corrupted by Hollywood, the landscape and > >the shots we saw of the collapsing towers could not but remind us of > >the most breathtaking scenes in the catastrophe big productions. > > When we hear how the bombings were a totally unexpected shock, > >how the unimaginable Impossible happened, one should recall the > >other defining catastrophe from the beginning of the XX century, that of > >Titanic: it was also a shock, but the space for it was already prepared in > >ideological fantasizing, since Titanic was the symbol of the might of the > >XIX century industrial civilization. Does the same not hold also for these > >bombings? > > Not only were the media bombarding us all the time with the talk > >about the terrorist threat; this threat was also obviously libidinally > >invested - just recall the series of movies from Escape from New York > >to Independence Day. The unthinkable which happened was thus the > >object of fantasy: in a way, America got what it fantasized about, and > >this was the greatest surprise. > > It is precisely now, when we are dealing with the raw Real of a > >catastrophe, that we should bear in mind the ideological and > >fantasmatic coordinates which determine its perception. If there is any > >symbolism in the collapse of the WTC towers, it is not so much the > >old-fashioned notion of the "center of financial capitalism," but, rather, > >the notion that the two WTC towers stood for the center of the VIRTUAL > >capitalism, of financial speculations disconnected from the sphere of > >material production. The shattering impact of the bombings can only be > >accounted for only against the background of the borderline which > >today separates the digitalized First World from the Third World "desert > >of the Real." It is the awareness that we live in an insulated artificial > >universe which generates the notion that some ominous agent is > >threatening us all the time with total destruction. > > Is, consequently, Osama Bin Laden, the suspected mastermind > >behind the bombings, not the real-life counterpart of Ernst Stavro > >Blofeld, the master-criminal in most of the James Bond films, involved > >in the acts of global destruction? What one should recall here is that > >the only place in > >Hollywood films where we see the production process in all its > >intensity is when James Bond penetrates the master-criminal's secret > >domain and locates there the site of intense labour (distilling and > >packaging the drugs, constructing a rocket that will destroy New > >York...). When the master-criminal, after capturing Bond, usually takes > >him on a tour of his illegal factory, is this not the closest Hollywood > >comes to the socialist-realist proud presentation of the production in a > >factory? And the function of Bond's intervention, of course, is to explode > >in firecraks this site of production, allowing us to return to the daily > >semblance of our existence in a world with the "disappearing working > >class." Is it not that, in the exploding WTC towers, this violence directed > >at the threatening Outside turned back at us? > > The safe Sphere in which Americans live is experienced as under > >threat from the Outside of terrorist attackers who are ruthlessly > >self-sacrificing AND cowards, cunningly intelligent AND primitive > >barbarians. Whenever we encounter such a purely evil Outside, we > >should gather the courage to endorse the Hegelian lesson: in this pure > >Outside, we should recognize the distilled version of our own essence. > >For the last five centuries, the (relative) prosperity and peace of the > >"civilized" West was bought by the export of ruthless violence and > >destruction into the "barbarian" > >Outside: the long story from the conquest of America to the slaughter in > >Congo. Cruel and indifferent as it may sound, we should also, now > >more than ever, bear in mind that the actual effect of these bombings is > >much more symbolic than real. The US just got the taste of what goes > >on around the world on a daily basis, from Sarajevo to Groznyy, from > >Rwanda and Congo to Sierra > >Leone. If one adds to the situation in New York snipers and gang > >rapes, one gets an idea about what Sarajevo was a decade ago. > > It is when we watched on TV screen the two WTC towers collapsing, > >that it became possible to experience the falsity of the "reality TV > >shows": even if this shows are "for real," people still act in them - they > >simply play themselves. The standard disclaimer in a novel > >("characters in this text are a fiction, every resemblance with the real life > >characters is purely contingent") holds also for the participants of the > >reality soaps: what we see there are fictional characters, even if they > >play themselves for the real. Of course, the "return to the Real" can be > >given different twists: > > Rightist commentators like George Will also immediately > >proclaimed the end of the American "holiday from history" - the impact > >of reality shattering the isolated tower of the liberal tolerant attitude and > >the Cultural Studies focus on textuality. Now, we are forced to strike > >back, to deal with real enemies in the real world... However, WHOM to > >strike? Whatever the response, it will never hit the RIGHT target, > >bringing us full satisfaction. The ridicule of America attacking > >Afghanistan cannot but strike the eye: if the greatest power in the world > >will destroy one of the poorest countries in which peasant barely > >survive on barren hills, will this not be the ultimate case of the impotent > >acting out? > > There is a partial truth in the notion of the "clash of civilizations" > >attested here - witness the surprise of the average American: "How is it > >possible that these people have such a disregard for their own lives?" > >Is not the obverse of this surprise the rather sad fact that we, in the First > >World countries, find it more and more difficult even to imagine a public > >or universal Cause for which one would be ready to sacrifice one's life? > > When, after the bombings, even the Taliban foreign minister said > >that he can "feel the pain" of the American children, did he not thereby > >confirm the hegemonic ideological role of this Bill Clinton's trademark > >phrase? Furthermore, the notion of America as a safe haven, of course, > >also is a fantasy: when a New Yorker commented on how, after the > >bombings, one can no longer walk safely on the city's streets, the irony > >of it was that, well before the bombings, the streets of New York were > >well-known for the dangers of being attacked or, at least, mugged - if > >anything, the bombings gave rise to a new sense of solidarity, with the > >scenes of young African-Americans helping an old Jewish gentlemen > >to cross the street, scenes unimaginable a couple of days ago. > > Now, in the days immediately following the bombings, it is as if we > >dwell in the unique time between a traumatic event and its symbolic > >impact, like in those brief moment after we are deeply cut, and before > >the full extent of the pain strikes us - it is open how the events will be > >symbolized, what their symbolic efficiency will be, what acts they will be > >evoked to justify. Even here, in these moments of utmost tension, this > >link is not automatic but contingent. There are already the first bad > >omens; the day after the bombing, I got a message from a journal > >which was just about to publish a longer text of mine on Lenin, telling > >me that they decided to postpone its publication - they considered > >inopportune to publish a text on Lenin immediately after the bombing. > >Does this not point towards the ominous ideological rearticulations > >which will follow? > > We don't yet know what consequences in economy, ideology, > >politics, war, this event will have, but one thing is sure: the US, which, > >till now, perceived itself as an island exempted from this kind of > >violence, witnessing this kind of things only from the safe distance of > >the TV screen, is now directly involved. So the alternative is: will > >Americans decide to fortify further their "sphere," or to risk stepping out > >of it? > > Either America will persist in, strengthen even, the attitude of "Why > >should this happen to us? Things like this don't happen HERE!", > >leading to more aggressivity towards the threatening Outside, in short: > >to a paranoiac acting out. Or America will finally risk stepping through > >the > >fantasmatic screen separating it from the Outside World, accepting its > >arrival into the Real world, making the long-overdued move from "A > >thing like this should not happen HERE!" to "A thing like this should not > >happen ANYWHERE!". America's "holiday from history" was a fake: > >America's peace was bought by the catastrophes going on elsewhere. > >Therein resides the true lesson of the bombings: the only way to > >ensure that it will not happen HERE again is to prevent it from going on > >ANYWHERE ELSE. > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > >-------------------------------------------------------------------- > >mail2web - Check your email from the web at > >http://mail2web.com/ . ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 23:01:13 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: Aftershock MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Chrles Etal. This is a good and as "rational as possible " (given the surreally horrific events) to the situation. I have my doubts about the possible "political" rationales etc but I can understand the "visceral" response of those right in there. My strong feelings for you and others who have lost people and for the destruction and the horror. As much as possible we need reason and even love. Your point about poeple being a part of nature I concur with. This matter hangs heavy.Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Charles Bernstein" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 9:47 AM Subject: Aftershock > Thursday night it started to pour. The piercing thunder claps echoed over > Manhattan. We all woke up with a start and couldn't find the way back to > sleep. > > Andrew tells us the story of a British man who showed up on time for his > hair cutting appointment, 4pm, Tuesday. He had been on an upper floor of > the Trade Center when the jet hit. > > By mistake I first wrote "Word Trade Center." > > Tuesday morning I rouse my friend Stu from a profound slumber to tell him > what has happened to the twin towers. -- "They're ugly," he says, after a > pause, "but they're not that ugly." > > In the last few days, everyone I know seems to need to be in touch with > everyone else. At first, it was mostly calls and emails from outside the > U.S. Now there is steady stream local calls: where were you when, how are > you feeling now. Every story is riveting, from the ones where the people > were alone watching live TV to the many who watched the events unfold, how > to put it?, live and in person. Those who saw the towers collapse, who saw > the people jumping, were seared in a way the rest of us have been spared. > > A visceral need to lash out, to strike down, to root out, to destroy in > turn for what has been destroyed, seems to grip so many, grips part of > me. When a co-worker expresses just this sentiment, someone complains to > her, "Don't you think we need to find out who is responsible before we do > anything?" She shrugs: not necessarily. > > It's as if the blasts occurred dozens of time, the actual blasts being > obliterated by the constant replay. > > I feel like I am going through those stages in an unwritten book by > Kubler-Ross: first denial, then manic fascination, then listlessness, then > depression. Now denial again. > > I can't get the film out of my mind. You know, the one in which a > crackerjack team of conspirators meets in an abandoned hanger and > meticulously plots out the operation on a blackboard. Synchronize > watches! This image stands in the way of what occurred in the way that a > blizzard stands in the way of the sky. > > Out of the blue, flags everywhere. > > Things I do everyday like make airplane reservations on the phone are now > fraught with an unwanted emotional turbulence. > > In some ways the blasts are a natural disaster, like an earthquake or > volcanic eruption. Though we might wish to fight it, human beings and what > they do are also a part of nature. > > The "letter" trains are mostly running but I always think in terms of IRT, > BMT, IND. Well, the A is OK from 207th to West 4th but the C's down; the D > now ends at 34th. The E's canceled service below West 4th indefinitely. As > to my local trains, no service on the 2 & 3 and the 1 stops at 34th. > > After the initial crash, an official period of panic set in. During this > time, all bet's were off. We were told to expect anything, any target next. > This period of official panic has set the tone for the days after and may > have a more profound effect than the events. > > Now, Sunday, it's cold for the first time. The summer is over. > > I bomb > you bomb > he/she/it bombs > we bomb > you bomb > they suffer > > We're ugly, but we're not that ugly. > > &, hey, Joe, don't you know -- > > We is they. > > > > > > > > > > > ______________ > > (September 13-16) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 08:42:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: National March Against War and Racism Comments: To: englfac@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, engrad-l@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, englstaff@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, creativeadj@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, engltchr@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, oconn001@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, edcohen@rci.rutgers.edu, kball@ualberta.ca, djnemetz@aol.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Forwarded from the American Studies List: >Subject: Re: national march against war & racism >X-Status: >X-Keywords: > >Hi Marie. > >Please send this out to Grad/Core/Adjunct lists. > >Peace, > >Josie > >Let's really help the September 11 victims: >War & racism are not the answer > >Dear Friends, > >Our most heartfelt sympathies and condolences are with all >those whose loved ones were lost or injured on September 11, >2001. At this moment, we would all like to take time to >reflect, to grieve, to extend sympathy and condolences to >all. But we believe that we must do more. We must act. > >Unless we stop President Bush from carrying out a new, wider >war in the Middle East and beyond, the number of innocent >victims will grow from the thousands to the tens of >thousands and possibly more. A new, wider U.S. war in the >Middle East can only lead to an escalating cycle of >violence. War is not the answer. > >After the horrific killings of thousands of innocent >civilians on Sept. 11, the Bush administration is moving in >a very ominous direction. In a chilling statement, Bush >administration spokespersons have called for "ending >states," an unprecedented threat. > >At the same time, Arab American and Muslim people in the >United States -- as well as other communities of color -- >are facing racist attacks and harassment in their >communities, on their jobs and at mosques. Anti-Arab and >anti-Muslim racism is a poison that should be repudiated. > >The government is attempting to curb civil liberties and to >create a climate in which it is impossible for progressive >people to speak their mind. The Bush administration is >attempting to take advantage of this crisis to militarize >U.S. society with a vast expansion of police powers that is >intended to severely restrict basic democratic rights. > >On September 29 we had planned to demonstrate against the >Bush administration's reactionary foreign and domestic >policy and the IMF and World Bank. In light of the current >crisis, with its tragic consequences for so many thousands >of people, we have refocused the call for our demonstration >to address the immediate danger posed by increased racism >and the grave threat of a new war. > >Now is the time for all people of conscience, all people who >oppose racism and war to come together. If you believe in >civil liberties and oppose racism and war, join us on >September 29 in front of the White House. We urge all >organizations to join together at this critical time. > >National March in Washington DC >Saturday, September 29 >Rally 11 am at the White House > >SIGNERS: >Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General >Bishop Thomas Gumbleton, Auxiliary Bishop, Catholic >Archdiocese of Detroit >Samia Halaby, Al-Awda Palestine Right of Return Coalition >Barbara Lubin, Executive Director, Middle East Children's >Alliance >Nania Kaur Dhingra, Sikh Student Organization, George >Washington University >Chuck Kaufman, National Co-Coordinator, Nicaragua Network >Njeri Shakur, Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement >National Lawyers Guild >(LIST IN FORMATION) > >Tens of thousands will march on the White House on September >29. I want to add my name or organization to the list of >endorsing organizations and individuals for this protest, or >sign up to help mobilize in my area! > >Name: >Email: >Street Address: >City: >State/Province: >Zip/Postal Code: >Country: >Home Telephone: >Work Telephone: >Fax: >Occupation: >Title/Position as it should appear: >Organization/Union: > >[check all that apply] > >[ ] List me as an endorser! > >[ ] My organization/union has officially endorsed. > >[ ] I can help with outreach (leafletting, posting, >call-ups, drop-offs, mailings). > >[ ] I would like someone to speak to my group (explain in >comments). > >[ ] I can help with fundraising. > >[ ] I would like to hear about upcoming activities. > >[ ] Other - let me know how I can help! (tell us how you can >help in comments below). > >$ [ ] amount I can contribute (Send to "War & racism is not >the answer - Protest at the White House Sept. 29 >Demonstration" c/o International Action Center at the >address below) > >Message to September 29th Surround the White House >Mobilization: >(enter your comments here) > >------------------ >Send replies to iacenter@action-mail.org > >This is the IAC activist announcement >list. Anyone can subscribe by sending >any message to >To unsubscribe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 02:04:12 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: m&r..mourn the dead MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I saw a Palestinian represntative explain that as soon as the palestinians realiosed the extent of the destruction and the extent of the deavastation to people and buildings: there were very many who condemned the attack. their initial reactiona was jubilation. Now that could come not necessarily from anti-Jewish feeling. A small nation whose people have been forcibly relocated by what are an essentially very aggressive group (of whatever religious beliefs) and who have (relatively) little power inthe conventional military sense to couterattack - Israel being much supported and touted by the US and Western Governments since before 1948 has undertakne hundreds of quite vicious "terrorist" actions. This of course leads to counter attacks and so on. Iraq tries to take Kuwait and the response is a massively disproportionate response. Iraq might say that just as the US bullys neighbouring states to "cooperate" thy had a legitmate claim to Kuwait. But while I am against the more militant actiuons of the Israelis I am not anti- Jewish. Nor am I pro Taliban. But I can see why various nations are angry at the US. Of course this doesnt mean that the US is an "evil" nation: on the contrary, it is one of the greatest nations: with a magnificent diversity, culture, art, poetry, inventions, inventiveness, and people, and democracy (such as it is its probably a very advanceed example). To counteract the hate people need (and Alan Sondheim is right we are an international community) to buy into all the paranoia and hype is, if any thing, just what any terrorists - who may see themselves (possibly wrongly) more as liberators or revolutionaries against capitalism -want: and paradoxically its what the military-political hawks want: were even maybe planning for. There are many suspects. Bin Laden eg is maybe a suspect: but he may also be a "patsy". There are millions of people throughout the world who arent hapy with US international policy from Korea to the Vietnam and the various actions overt or covert throughout the world to "destabalise" and so on. A war agaist terrorism is futile. If terrorism - or anti American or anti capitalist action takes place - its because those terrorists (or many of them) feel they have been wronged. So a war that "takes in" Pakistan etc will create more Bin Ladens. An enormous education drive to explain and enlighten people throughout the world about political matters in a truthful way has a hope of teaching people everywhere about the forces (economic, political, religious,etc) that are actually operating. has an attempt been made to talk to Bin Laden and the Teleban: How much do we see Palestinians talking about their cause without some Western commentator interpreting their response. Also, how much do the Palestinians know about the complexity of the Israeli situation? What about long lasting occupation by the US wher welcome with massive and constrcructive aid? No retaliations: constant wisdom in the spirit of Emerson and Benjamain Franklin and others. The greatness of America would be NOT to go to war: but to look into the realities of these things. I havent got much faith in the British Govt. eg Blair seems to be one of the world's major idiots...but the British have many people of wisdom as do many other countries who are being misled into another insane war. It may be short - long or short - but it wont go any way to solving the primal causes of this conflict, these problems. Yes:bury your dead and grieve but dont shut down Pierre Joris and others. My initial reaction was anger too - I'm thousands of miles away - but I had to stop and think about these things. It IS very human to react with anger: but anger is not inevitable. It is generally useless. Our only hope is reason: I know where I stand. I deply feel for the US people but I have no intention of supporting any war. Full stop. I would support a withdrawal by the US military from all foreign bases including Saudi Arabia, and considered withdrawals by the Israelis and more humane and economic aid and educational aid (to be reciprocated as and when appropriate if needed) to the East and Iraq and Afghanistan in particular. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Nudel" To: Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 12:24 AM Subject: m&r..mourn the dead > I find Pierre Joris response to 'real' emotion profoundly maddenning, anger-inducing and blatantly racist. To start trumpeting the infantada as the dead are being buried around us, must give us pause to think how deep the wells are that he can draw on. > > Palestinians dancing in jubilation are a fact. We have the pictures. Their motives may be explained and understood, yet the fact of their delight is apparent, as it is apparent at all bombings of Israeli and other Jewish Institutions around the world. Rather than a small minority, if this demonstration was not immediately clamped down by the frightened authorities, i'm pretty certain there would have been many many 1,000's dancing in the streets. So in Bagdhad, Damasscus and unfortunately through out the Arab World. Cultures of hate and resentment and deep seated undemocratic racism boil over to extreme violence. > > Honest real emotion heals. Telling us not to see what we see, feel what we feel will not help. Let's bury our dead... Drn.. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:31:57 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Rachel - I found this story early last week myself. A few of us have spent some time since then trying to verify it. It actually seems that this "footage is a hoax" is itself a hoax. No one has been able to get their hands on that claimed comparison footage or find additional information to support. Further, it was about 6PM in Palestine when the news arrived. Sunset was reportedly about 6:50PM in Palestine. The footage was filmed most likely between 4PM and 6PM in Palestine. It seems Naeem Mohaiemen *subtracted* 7 hours from the time of delivery of the footage instead of adding. This error was pointed out more or less eloquently several times on the Indymedia link you provided. Perhaps this goes without saying, but there indeed are quite a few people in the Middle East and in even in America who are demonstrably thrilled about the fall of the towers and actually celebrated the destruction of the WTC, as you might imagine. Many people hate America. Perhaps we can count our world fortunate because the number of people pictured celebrating was actually quite small. It doesn't exactly look like VJ-Day; thankfully the entire Palestinian community was not exactly dancing around. Many Palestinians were actually quite shocked, upset or in fear of the actions and their consequences. Yet the television networks here in America did try to make it sound like everyone was celebrating and so the USE of those images was clearly misleading. Oh, this just in: the source just said that their claims were mere suppositions: http://uk.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=11546 On another note -- in fear of retaliatory attacks, the Iranian government has been covering the news in a way sympathetic to the US, a position that country has not taken in a very long time. No one, it seems, wants to be the US's target this week. Best, Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Rachel Levitsky > Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 2:19 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? > > > COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians > celebrating is > actually fake. Researchers at a Brazillian University have found > identical > footage from 1991. Also note, it was night-time in Palestine > when the news > arrived. Please distribute this news widely as that footage is > inspiration > for a lot of hateful feelings right now. > --Naeem Mohaiemen > > Check out counterpunch's front page: > http://www.counterpunch.org > http://www.chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4395&group=webcast > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 02:12:50 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Especially if the CNN and the CIA and the BBC are all cooperating: its intersting that the BBC were there so fast with live footage of the events: they are very subtle manipulators who masquerade as being "objective"....Not surprised that those images were manipulated. Also the pictures (constantly of Bin Laden with a gun - for all I know he's just some agent dressed up): and what would we think if we saw Powell constantly with a machine gun in his hands? Of course the News that the Palestinians get is also manipulated by their Govts somewhat...but people need to be wary of the crap on television...and they way in which events are portrayed (by any news agencies) especially now. Its a disastor, but its not the end of the world. As many that died at the Trade Centre far more probably die each day in poor countries from poverty. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maria Damon" To: Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 3:13 AM Subject: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating > From: "Deepali Dewan" > >To: "Deepali Dewan" > >Subject: CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians > >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:45:33 -0500 > >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 > >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 > > > > cited by other sources as well. very important in terms of the power > >of media and the tragic dangers of rushing to conclusions. > > ----- > >Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:14:03 -0700 > > > > > >Subject: "CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palestinians"? > >,v - IMC Video > > > > &group=webcast > > > >CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to manipulate you > >(english) > >by Marcio 10:32pm Wed Sep 12 '01 > > > > > > . > >I'd like to add some ideas from here, down south. > >There's an important point in the power of press, specifically the > >power of CNN. > > > >All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, > >and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of > >you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company. In > >particular, one set of images called my attencion: the Palestinians > >celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating some cake and making > >funny faces for the camera. > > > >Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of > >Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It's simply > >unacceptable that a super-power of cumminications as CNN uses images > >which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious an > >issue. > > > >A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has videotapes recorded in 1991, with > >the very same images; he's been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major > >TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify > >as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to > >this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to 'put my > >hands' on a copy of this tape. > > > >But now, think for a moment about the impact of such images. Your people is > >hurt, emotionally fragile, and this kind broadcast have very high > >possibility of causing waves of anger and rage against Palestinians. It's > >simply irresponsible to show images such as those. > > > >........Best regards, and the hope that everything is resolved for the > >best of all > >of us > > > >Mrcio A. V. Carvalho > >State University of Campinas - Brazil ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 02:27:34 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: in praise of American list members MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Scott. That was agood email by you. How are you? This whole thing has a - I dont want to say surreal air - no dream, "traum", the issues are bloody complex. Did you see that the footage of the Palestinians celebrating was taken about 10 years ago!! See Maria Damon's post. The media (even the BBC) are subtly distorting this event...not to say that "propaganda" doesnt happen in the Middle East.(How did the BBC get theere to give live footage so fast if they didnt know it was going to happen?) The Yanks are are reacting (not some of the more intelligent on the list) like histerical kids whose lollies have been stolen: is this thing so terrible? I dont think so: such disastors occur all over the world. Probably as many people died of malnurishment or car accidents on the same day if not more. God help the Yanks if they were hit by a big attack! In the 2nd World War they held off supporting Britain and they struggled on alone. Then they slaughterd hundreds of thousands if not millions in Korea and then Vietnam and backed the right wing regimes in the Phillipines and Indonesia (where millions of Chinese "communists" were murdered ) and then there is the backing of Israel....There's a lot of shit going down.Cheers, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Hamilton" To: Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 11:40 AM Subject: in praise of American list members > I've been reading the posts on the list over the past > few days, and have been deeply impressed by the > response of American and NYC list members to the > atrocity at the WTC. Given their physical and > emotional proximity to the outrage, the balance, > intelligence and humanity of the Americans' posts are > remarkable. Not one of you seems to have been captured > by the warmongering and xenophobic spirit that Bush et > al are trying to whip up. > > I write this from distant New Zealand, where Muslims > are being spat at and attacked and talkback radio is > carrying calls for nuclear war against Afghanistan. > > Best Wishes to you all, > Scott > > > ===== > For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": > THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ > THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ > and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ > > ____________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk > or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 10:57:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: 9/11+4 Images from Halvard Johnson & Lynda Schor MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/911plus4.html Hal "If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you're doing tomorrow." --Michael Judge, Chaplain, NYFD Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:34:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: [Softwareandculture] in celebration of "life and creation", this saturday (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 20:58:29 -0700 (PDT) From: cristine wang Reply-To: softwareandculture@listserv.cddc.vt.edu To: info@cristine.org Subject: [Softwareandculture] in celebration of "life and creation", this saturday dear list members, our hearts go out to those affected by the tragedy of september 11. but it is necessary to show we are strong and not weak. also it is necessary to just show solidarity for fellow humans, and bond together across borders of race, religion, politics. we should not pit ourselves "us vs. them". this is a dangerous notion. so, instead, we propose to get together and celebrate "life". please join us this saturday, in celebration of "life and creation". if nothing else, to see a familiar face, off-list, as i am sure mark amerika, the alt-x crew, rhizome.org and myself would welcome a familiar face and some dialogue: Rhizome.org in collaboration with Cristine Wang Present: Net Art Meets Book Art: The Alt-X Ebook Launch Party at FUN A Rhizome Remix Event Saturday, September 22 (7-10pm) FUN is located at 130 Madison Street (between Pike & Market, under the Manhattan Bridge in Manhattan) F-train to East Broadway Hint: look for the "white letters on blue awning" tel: 212-964-0303 *free + open to the public* Curated by Cristine Wang for Alt-X (www.altx.com) Media Sponsor: NY ARTS Magazine (www.nyartsmagazine.com) Sound Performers: Twine The Milk Factory just compared Twine to both Autechre and Mille Plateaux, saying their music is "inspired by the work of John Cage, Stauckhausen and the electro-acoustic movement," and that "Twine's evolutive rhythmic patterns and multifaceted use of the same sound sources create a unique collection of avant-gardist musical forms, firmly set into its own cultural landscape, but open to the outside world." They have new and forthcoming releases out on Komplott (Sweden), Hefty Records (Chicago) and Bip Hop (France). Moving Image Projections: FILMTEXT - "source material" "source material" from Mark Amerika's new FILMTEXT project, a version of which is scheduled for exhibition at his retrospective at the ICA in London later this Fall. Net Art and Ebooks: Projections of work on exhibit at the Alt-X site, including work by Eugene Thacker, doll yoko, BEAST(TM), Talan Memmott, Digital Studies, ebr, Hyper-X, and all of the new titles from the Alt-X Press. Alt-X Press brings to web-readers a must-have library of uncategorizable writing being produced by some of the most provocative artists in contemporary new media culture. This initial launch of eight full-length works of art is now available in ebook and Palm Pilot formats and will soon be available as Print On-Demand (POD) titles. The eight titles inaugurated here include previously unpublished work by postmodern fiction masters George Chambers, Ron Sukenick and Raymond Federman, screen-based auteur Nile Southern, new media stars Mark Amerika, Alan Sondheim, Eugene Thacker and Adrienne Eisen, and a collection of Neuromantic Fiction from the Black Ice archives. The best part about it all? These ebooks are available to you for free. In a time of economic downturn and dot.com uncertainty, Alt-X perseveres and continues its mission to expand the concepts of art and writing. Alt-X: online since 1993. "Where the digerati meet the literati." ================================================ For more information contact: Kristine Feeks kristine@altx.com Cristine Wang info@cristine.org Mark Tribe mark@rhizome.org ================================================ __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ _______________________________________________ Softwareandculture mailing list Softwareandculture@listserv.cddc.vt.edu http://listserv.cddc.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/softwareandculture ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:40:09 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 7:56:49 AM, richard.tylr@XTRA.CO.NZ writes: << I obtained a couple of books by Robert Kelly and I am finding him very interesting: sometimes quite moving, much beautiful poetry. Cheers, Richard. Richard. >> Richard, sorry to chime in. Rage, as any psychologist worth his degree with tell you, is a normal response to the feeling of helplessness. Stop beating yourself up over it. You are not a warmonger nor a racist, despite any such accusations that might have shaken you. I've been heartened by the balance the List now evinces. Reminders of USA virtues are leaking in. This country has much to be ashamed of, but also to be proud of. We need to hear both sides. As a lifelong skeptic, I devour news and opinions from both mainstream and independent sources. I don't believe for a New York minute that either one is free from spin. Israel quite obviously views the conflict from a perspective very different from its enemies. From their point of view, the racism, religious bigotry, warmongering, desire to eradicate a neighbor is mostly on the other side. Who's right? Who has a lock on the truth? Several List members have cited Robert Fisk. But there are others equally knowledgeable about the region who have reached different conclusions regarding responsibility. Whose "scripture" should be our Bible? I don't know. I'm reminded how weak is human nature and our understanding of it, and our forgiveness of it. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 01:05:07 +0900 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "B.E. Basan" Subject: Re: m&r..mourn the dead MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>Cultures of hate and resentment and deep seated undemocratic racism boil over to extreme violence. I don't see how this is not racist in the least. Ignorant at the extreme. I doubt I'm alone in finding your post "profoundly maddenning, anger-inducing and blatantly racist." How anyone can portray the actions of the Israeli govt. as innocent, as you post implies, is well beyond me. Indeed, how Bush and the media can paint American actions as somehow inherently good (as though we were fighting Darth Vader), keeps me awake.The US still supports Israel politically and financially, doesn't it? I thought the Palestine - Israel conflict death toll that has been in the papers needed little explanation. Is it difficult to admit that no one is right? No one is "trumpeting the infantada", but keeping perspective. --Ben ----- Original Message ----From: Harry Nudel To: Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 9:24 PM Subject: m&r..mourn the dead > I find Pierre Joris response to 'real' emotion profoundly maddenning, anger-inducing and blatantly racist. To start trumpeting the infantada as the dead are being buried around us, must give us pause to think how deep the wells are that he can draw on. > > Palestinians dancing in jubilation are a fact. We have the pictures. Their motives may be explained and understood, yet the fact of their delight is apparent, as it is apparent at all bombings of Israeli and other Jewish Institutions around the world. Rather than a small minority, if this demonstration was not immediately clamped down by the frightened authorities, i'm pretty certain there would have been many many 1,000's dancing in the streets. So in Bagdhad, Damasscus and unfortunately through out the Arab World. Cultures of hate and resentment and deep seated undemocratic racism boil over to extreme violence. > > Honest real emotion heals. Telling us not to see what we see, feel what we feel will not help. Let's bury our dead... Drn.. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:46:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: Asbestos alert: NO Need to Worry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" The concentrations of asbestos released into the air in NYC are neither short-term nor long-term hazardous. Among all the other things you have to suffer/worry about in the New York area, that need NOT be one of them. I have been an occupational safety and health lawyer with the govt for 22 years, which has included work on OSHA's asbestos standard. (OSHA's NYC office was in the Tower; from what I've heard so far, all our people got out.) Here's the Secretary of Labor's official statement on the point, as of the morning of 9/17: "OSHA has been testing the air quality in and around the World Trade Center for hazardous and toxic substances. In fact, OSHA Assistant Secretary John Henshaw and his team were on site at the World Trade Center Thursday night. I can report to you that, contrary to initial press reports, preliminary sampling shows that currently there are no hazardous levels of asbestos in the air in lower Manhattan as a result of Tuesday's destruction." From what I know from my own couple of years' worth of work on the health hazards of this particular toxic substance, I know this statement is (unlike some Cabinet-level pronouncements)not bullshit. Laura V. Fargas S-4004, USDOL 200 Constitution Ave. N.W. Washington DC 20210 -----Original Message----- From: Jonathan Skinner [mailto:jskinner@ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU] Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 1:34 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Asbestos alert Recent Indymedia findings: "http://www.egilman.com/new_jone_day/gracewtc.htm "WR Grace Asbestos containing insulation was used at the World Trade Center (WTC). James Cintani stated that Grace Vermiculite did not contain asbestos. Unfortunately this was not true this material was 2-5 percent asbestos. 100,000 80 pound bags of this vermiculite was used in the WTC. In addition 9,150 pounds of MonoKote 3 was used at the WTC. Monokote 3 was about 20 percent asbestos. Therefore in total about 201,183 pounds of pure asbestos fiber from Grace was used in the WTC." Unfortunately, Grace was not the only supplier: http://www.lkaz.demon.co.uk/ban23.htm British Asbestos Newsletter Issue 23 : Spring 1996 "In December T&N, formerly the largest asbestos company in Britain, reached a favorable settlement with the Port Authority (PA) of New York and New Jersey, the body responsible for JFK, La Guardia and Newark airports and the World Trade Center. The PA had brought a $600m lawsuit against 37 defendants, including T&N, for asbestos contamination of municipal buildings." http://panynj.pubcomm.com/... Contract WTC-115.310 - The World Trade Center Removal and Disposal of Vinyl Asbestos Floor Tiles and Other Incidental Asbestos-Containing Building Materials Via Work Order Estimate Range: $1,000,000 annually Bids due Tuesday, October 17, 2000 [emphasis mine]. http://www.erisk.com/news/weekly/news_weekly2001-05-11_01.asp May 5 - 11, 2001 "Chalk up one victory for insurers in the escalating asbestos-claims mOlOe: the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has lost a 10-year-old court battle to get its insurers to pay more than $600 million for removing asbestos from its properties, including the World Trade Center and New York's airports. The judge ruled that asbestos abatement costs by themselves do not constitute 'physical loss or damage' under the Port Authority's all-risk policies. The agency is considering an appeal." [emphasis mine] http://www.fumento.com/asbest.html [interesting overview on asbestos problem] Copyright 1989 by The American Spectator "Coming soon to a school or office near you: a life-saving innovation that could kill you, designed to correct a problem that doesn't exist, by removing materials that aren't dangerous until somebody tries to remove them. And guess who's going to pay for it." ... "For example, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is expecting to pay about $1 billion for the abatement of just the World Trade Center and LaGuardia Airport. (New York City law requires abatement if renovation work is being done, as it is at these buildings.) ..." Based on this information, it can be said with reasonable certainty that several tons of asbestos were in the World Trade Center. With the dust of the WTC now clouding the city, contamination is very likely, but measurings of the dust should be taken before jumping to any conclusions. After my search, some news media started to mention the asbestos issue, mostly this ABCNews article which states that The Trade Center reportedly decided more than 10 years ago to treat the health risk by encapsulating the asbestos to prevent the particles from being inhaled. To my knowledge, "encapsulating" means that the asbestos fibers are simply painted over, or that asbestos-covered shafts are sealed, to avoid direct human contact and air contamination. With both WTC towers destroyed, this "encapsulation" is of no relevance. What matters is the degree of asbestos-contamination which is now in New York City. As school is supposed to begin again tomorrow, this problem should be addressed as soon as possible. Residents of NYC should stay in their homes, keep their windows closed and shut down the air conditioning (the filters won't work on the fiber)." Based on the tonnage, this journalist calculates about 3 fibers per cubic centimeter of air in lower Manhattan or downwind of ground zero; while the EPA calculted only .0048 fibers per cc. However, note also the ambiguous reportage of much higher concentrations: "Analysis of earlier air samples taken downwind of the attack site in Brooklyn on Tuesday also showed lead, asbestos and volatile organic compounds to be undetectable or at low levels of concern. The air samples showed 0.0048 fibers of asbestos per cubic centimeter, below the level of 0.1 fibers per cubic centimeter Occupational Safety and Health Administration standard for airborne exposure in office buildings, according to the EPA. In addition, three dust samples collected Tuesday at the collapse site and others collected Wednesday showed low or nondetectable levels of asbestos. OEDon¹t Be Stupid¹ < Protect Yourself However, one dust sample collected Tuesday showed an elevated level of asbestos, so the EPA is recommending wetting down debris to prevent dissipation of dust into the air. Officials add that workers stirring up ash and debris should wear respiratory masks and protective gear. It's "one of those cases of 'don't be stupid,'" EPA spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said. "If there's a chance, why not put on the mask?" ABCNEWS Medical Editor Dr. Timothy Johnson said today on Good Morning America that the air and dust measurements, the odor and evident dust in the air indicate that very young children, the elderly and people with asthma should stay away from the attack area, and workers should take precautions. "I see people walking around without masks and I think that is foolhardy," Johnson said." (from the abc article) For more info see http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=9880&group=webcast (and an article on abcnews.com) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 08:52:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: heidi peppermint Subject: Re: wtc thoughts fwd In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > This is from Tamim Ansary, a writer and columnist in San Francisco who is a > native of Afghanistan. > ******* > > I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone > Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean > killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, > but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we > do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the > belly to do what must be done." And I thought about the issues being raised > especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived > here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want > to tell anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing. I > speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in > my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York. I > agree that something must be done about those monsters. But the Taliban and > Bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of > Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over > Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a plan. When you > think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when > you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration > camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this > atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult > if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rat's > nest of international thugs holed up in their country. Some say, why don't > the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The answer is, they're > starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few years ago, the > United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in > Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are millions of > widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in mass graves. > The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all destroyed by the > Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan people have not > overthrown the Taliban. > We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. > Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the > Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn > their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. > Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and healthcare? Too > late. Someone already did all that. New bombs would only stir the rubble of > earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's > Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. > They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled > orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But > flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against > the criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making > common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been > raping all this time. So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me > now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to > go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do > what needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill > as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about > killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's > actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some > Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's > hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to > Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not > likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will other Muslim > nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're flirting with a world > war between Islam and the West. And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. > That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and > statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the > west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world > into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a > holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, > that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in > the end the West would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last > for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the > belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else? > > Tamim Ansary > --- Harry Nudel wrote: > i wish i were a bond salesman...i could never > make it as a fire man....i wish i'd never heard the > word po pome ptry...Drn.. __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:22:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Re: m&r..mourn the dead Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed All around me, I see people saying let's support "our" president, support America. While I want to be very clear that I think the terrorist attack was absolutely unjustifiable-- and while the attack has also reminded me how much I love this country, if not, very often, its government-- let me be equally clear that Harry's post is a good example of why I feel so uneasy at UNQUESTIONING shows of "support," wherein too-easy leaps as to our incontrovertible "goodness," the Enemy's irredeemable "badness," can be made. (*Are* Arabs as a whole the enemy? In what ways are Palestinians directly implicated in the attack? Is this a war against Islam or a response to terrorism?) To call Pierre's post "racist" is completely incomprehensible to me. The word racist must mean something very different to you, Harry. Perhaps you could explain how you feel such an inflammatory statement is in any way justified. As for the reaction from the Arab world, & the startling new information that the footage shown on CNN appears to have been taken in 1991-- I don't have anything to add except to say, as respectfully as I can at this moment, that news of Palestinians dancing in jubilation over this is at best very questionable at this moment. I'm sorry for your grief & for everyone's grief. We have a responsibility now to bury the dead, but we also have a responsibility to find out the truth. Joe is right that something must be done. Can I suggest that that something must be a search for justice. This is something very different from what I hear being proposed in the national media. Hurling invective does not bury the dead. Thoughtless revenge will not make them return. Love, Mark DuCharme >From: Harry Nudel >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: m&r..mourn the dead >Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 08:24:11 -0400 > > I find Pierre Joris response to 'real' emotion profoundly maddenning, >anger-inducing and blatantly racist. To start trumpeting the infantada as >the dead are being buried around us, must give us pause to think how deep >the wells are that he can draw on. > > Palestinians dancing in jubilation are a fact. We have the pictures. >Their motives may be explained and understood, yet the fact of their >delight is apparent, as it is apparent at all bombings of Israeli and other >Jewish Institutions around the world. Rather than a small minority, if this >demonstration was not immediately clamped down by the frightened >authorities, i'm pretty certain there would have been many many 1,000's >dancing in the streets. So in Bagdhad, Damasscus and unfortunately through >out the Arab World. Cultures of hate and resentment and deep seated >undemocratic racism boil over to extreme violence. > > Honest real emotion heals. Telling us not to see what we see, feel >what we feel will not help. Let's bury our dead... Drn.. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:00:52 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 8:14:32 AM, damon001@TC.UMN.EDU writes: << It's >simply irresponsible to show images such as those. >> It's far worse than merely irresponsible, if true, as I'm sure you know. I'm reminded of the old Soviet broadcasts that depicted the entire American population as either decadently rich or oppressively poor. The predominant middle class was conveniently ignored. I can't, off hand, think of a medium, government sponsored or not, that does not twist its image of the other for self-serving purposes. Sorry to be so cynical. We do have the power to temper this sort of thing. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:39:33 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: edward said's remarks In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Islam and the West are inadequate banners > > Edward Said > > Sunday September 16, 2001 > The Observer > > Spectacular horror of the sort that struck New York > (and to a lesser > degree Washington) has ushered in a new world of > unseen, unknown > assailants, terror missions without political > message, senseless > destruction. > > For the residents of this wounded city, the > consternation, fear, and > sustained sense of outrage and shock will certainly > continue for a long > time, as will the genuine sorrow and affliction that > so much carnage > has so cruelly imposed on so many. > > New Yorkers have been fortunate that Mayor Rudy > Giuliani, a normally > rebarbative and unpleasantly combative, even > retrograde figure, has > rapidly attained Churchillian status. Calmly, > unsentimentally, and with > extraordinary compassion, he has marshalled the > city's heroic police, > fire and emergency services to admirable effect and, > alas, with huge > loss of life. Giuliani's was the first voice of > caution against panic > and jingoistic attacks on the city's large Arab and > Muslim communities, > the first to express the commonsense of anguish, the > first to press > everyone to try to resume life after the shattering > blows. > Would that that were all. The national television > reporting has of > course brought the horror of those dreadful winged > juggernauts into > every household, unremittingly, insistently, not > always edifyingly. > Most commentary has stressed, indeed magnified, the > expected and the > predictable in what most Americans feel: terrible > loss, anger, outrage, > a sense of violated vulnerability, a desire for > vengeance and un- > restrained retribution. Beyond formulaic expressions > of grief and > patriotism, every politician and accredited pundit > or expert has > dutifully repeated how we shall not be defeated, not > be deterred, not > stop until terrorism is exterminated. This is a war > against terrorism, > everyone says, but where, on what fronts, for what > concrete ends? No > answers are provided, except the vague suggestion > that the Middle East > and Islam are what 'we' are up against, and that > terrorism must be > destroyed. > > What is most depressing, however, is how little time > is spent trying to > understand America's role in the world, and its > direct involvement in > the complex reality beyond the two coasts that have > for so long kept > the rest of the world extremely distant and > virtually out of the > average American's mind. You'd think that 'America' > was a sleeping > giant rather than a superpower almost constantly at > war, or in some > sort of conflict, all over the Islamic domains. > Osama bin Laden's name > and face have become so numbingly familiar to > Americans as in effect to > obliterate any his tory he and his shadowy followers > might have had > before they became stock symbols of everything > loathsome and hateful to > the collective imagination. Inevitably, then, > collective passions are > being funnelled into a drive for war that uncannily > resembles Captain > Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick, rather than what is > going on, an imperial > power injured at home for the first time, pursuing > its interests > systematically in what has become a suddenly > reconfigured geography of > conflict, without clear borders, or visible actors. > Manichaean symbols > and apocalyptic scenarios are bandied about with > future consequences > and rhetorical restraint thrown to the winds. > > Rational understanding of the situation is what is > needed now, not more > drum-beating. George Bush and his team clearly want > the latter, not the > former. Yet to most people in the Islamic and Arab > worlds the official > US is synonymous with arrogant power, known for its > sanctimoniously > munificent support not only of Israel but of > numerous repressive Arab > regimes, and its inattentiveness even to the > possibility of dialogue > with secular movements and people who have real > grievances. Anti- > Americanism in this context is not based on a hatred > of modernity or > technology-envy: it is based on a narrative of > concrete interventions, > specific depredations and, in the cases of the Iraqi > people's suffering > under US-imposed sanctions and US support for the > 34-year-old Israeli > occupation of Palestinian territories. Israel is now > cynically > exploiting the American catastrophe by intensifying > its military > occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. > Political rhetoric in > the US has overridden these things by flinging about > words > like 'terrorism' and 'freedom' whereas, of course, > such large > abstractions have mostly hidden sordid material > interests, the > influence of the oil, defence and Zionist lobbies > now consolidating > their hold on the entire Middle East, and an age-old > religious > hostility to (and ignorance of) 'Islam' that takes > new forms every day. > Intellectual responsibility, however, requires a > still more critical > sense of the actuality. There has been terror of > course, and nearly > every struggling modern movement at some stage has > relied on terror. > This was as true of Mandela's ANC as it was of all > the others, Zionism > included. And yet bombing defenceless civilians with > F-16s and > helicopter gunships has the same structure and > effect as more > conventional nationalist terror. > > What is bad about all terror is when it is attached > to religious and > political abstractions and reductive myths that keep > veering away from > history and sense. This is where the secular > consciousness has to try > to make itself felt, whether in the US or in the > Middle East. No cause, > no God, no abstract idea can justify the mass > slaughter of innocents, > most particularly when only a small group of people > are in charge of > such actions and feel themselves to represent the > cause without having > a real mandate to do so. > > Besides, much as it has been quarrelled over by > Muslims, there isn't a > single Islam: there are Islams, just as there are > Americas. This > diversity is true of all traditions, religions or > nations even though > some of their adherents have futiley tried to draw > boundaries around > themselves and pin their creeds down neatly. Yet > history is far more > complex and contradictory than to be represented by > demagogues who are > much less representative than either their followers > or opponents > claim. The trouble with religious or moral > fundamentalists is that > today their primitive ideas of revolution and > resistance, including a > willingness to kill and be killed, seem all too > easily attached to > technological sophistication and what appear to be > gratifying acts of > horrifying retaliation. The New York and Washington > suicide bombers > seem to have been middle-class, educated men, not > poor refugees. > Instead of getting a wise leadership that stresses > education, mass > mobilisation and patient organisation in the service > of a cause, the > poor and the desperate are often conned into the > magical thinking and > quick bloody solutions that such appalling models > pro vide, wrapped in > lying religious claptrap. > > On the other hand, immense military and economic > power are no guarantee > of wisdom or moral vision. Sceptical and humane > voices have been > largely unheard in the present crisis, as 'America' > girds itself for a > long war to be fought somewhere out there, along > with allies who have > been pressed into service on very uncertain grounds > and for imprecise > ends. We need to step back from the imaginary > thresholds that separate > people from each other and re-examine the labels, > reconsider the > limited resources available, decide to share our > fates with each other > as cultures mostly have done, despite the bellicose > cries and creeds. > 'Islam' and 'the West' are simply inadequate as > banners to follow > blindly. Some will run behind them, but for future > generations to > condemn themselves to prolonged war and suffering > without so much as a > critical pause, without looking at interdependent > histories of > injustice and oppression, without trying for common > emancipation and > mutual enlightenment seems far more wilful than > necessary. Demonisation > of the Other is not a sufficient basis for any kind > of decent politics, > certainly not now when the roots of terror in > injustice can be > addressed, and the terrorists isolated, deterred or > put out of > business. It takes patience and education, but is > more worth the > investment than still greater levels of large-scale > violence and > suffering. > > > > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Forum of Indian Leftists (FOIL) - > HTTP://WWW.FOIL.ORG > To post to this list send mail to foil-l@foil.org. > Only subscribers may > post. > To subscribe to this list, to unsubscribe, or for > more information email > info@foil.org. Tech support help@foil.org. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:52:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Dan Coffey Subject: Fw: Fw: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Francis KAYIWA" To: "Dan Coffey" Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 11:29 AM Subject: Re: Fw: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating > http://www.snopes2.com/inboxer/outrage/cnn.htm > > Also recanted by the origin > > http://uk.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=11546 > > > Francis > > >----- Original Message ----- > >From: "Maria Damon" > >To: > >Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 10:13 AM > >Subject: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating > > > > > >> From: "Deepali Dewan" > >> >To: "Deepali Dewan" > >> >Subject: CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians > >> >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:45:33 -0500 > >> >X-MSMail-Priority: Normal > >> >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2615.200 > >> >X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2615.200 > >> > > >> > cited by other sources as well. very important in terms of the > >power > >> >of media and the tragic dangers of rushing to conclusions. > >> > ----- > >> >Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 23:14:03 -0700 > >> > > >> > > >> >Subject: "CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palestinians"? > >> >,v - IMC Video > >> > > >> > &group=webcast > >> > > >> >CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to manipulate you > >> >(english) > >> >by Marcio 10:32pm Wed Sep 12 '01 > >> > > >> > > >> > . > >> >I'd like to add some ideas from here, down south. > >> >There's an important point in the power of press, specifically the > >> >power of CNN. > >> > > >> >All around the world we are subjected to 3 or 4 huge news distributors, > >> >and one of them - as you well know - is CNN. Very well, I guess all of > >> >you have been seeing (just as I've been) images from this company. In > >> >particular, one set of images called my attencion: the Palestinians > >> >celebrating the bombing, out on the streets, eating some cake and making > >> >funny faces for the camera. > >> > > >> >Well, THOSE IMAGES WERE SHOT BACK IN 1991!!! Those are images of > >> >Palestinians celebrating the invasion of Kuwait! It's simply > >> >unacceptable that a super-power of cumminications as CNN uses images > >> >which do not correspond to the reality in talking about so serious an > >> >issue. > >> > > >> >A teacher of mine, here in Brazil, has videotapes recorded in 1991, with > >> >the very same images; he's been sending emails to CNN, Globo (the major > >> >TV network in Brazil) and newspapers, denouncing what I myself classify > >> >as a crime against the public opinion. If anyone of you has access to > >> >this kind of files, serch for it. In the meanwhile, I'll try to 'put my > >> >hands' on a copy of this tape. > >> > > >> >But now, think for a moment about the impact of such images. Your people > >is > >> >hurt, emotionally fragile, and this kind broadcast have very high > >> >possibility of causing waves of anger and rage against Palestinians. > >It's > >> >simply irresponsible to show images such as those. > >> > > >> >........Best regards, and the hope that everything is resolved for the > > > >best of all > > > >of us > > > > > > > >Mrcio A. V. Carvalho > > > >State University of Campinas - Brazil > > > > > > -- > =========================== > Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:52:27 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Radio Arabia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 12:15:14 PM, nicholaskaravatos@HOTMAIL.COM writes: << I just felt the need to state that here in the Arab world, in Muscat at least, the men and women I meet have been expressing to me their compassion for the people of the United States...and hoping that Bush Jr. doesn't just start shooting missiles willy-nilly out this way. They are all concerned about random collective punishment. They want the actual perpetrators identified. NICK >> As do we all. Thank you. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:59:07 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: from mysore india MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 12:23:00 PM, barbara_henning@YAHOO.COM writes: << I understand that some of the professors in the universities say America deserved this. >> Hi Barbara. It's true that some see things that way. But we both know that no one deserves this. My very best wishes to you, and to those you love. Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:02:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Reactions in Taiwan In-Reply-To: <200109162256.f8GMuTj25606@ncu.edu.tw> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT > > Even the less educated in these > countries are well aware of how America treats its own (black, Hispanic, > etc) economically deprived minorities. This statement reflects the temporary insanity to which I hope some of us will plead when all of this is resolved. "Economically deprived minorities" in other countries-- especially in Eastern Europe, parts of Africa, China, and of course the Middle East -- know how well their counterparts in the U.S. are treated. They know that American "economically deprived minorities" are not only free to assemble and worship unharassed, but receive educational support, food and financial aid, and lead lives of relative comfort. We do not rape and kill our minorities, banish them to the desert to starve, or massacre them one by one with machetes. I respect our desire to be realistic about America as a global bully, but we need to keep in mind that America's role in the world is more complex than that. Also, that's not the only (far oversimplified) motivation for the recent terrorist attacks. Bin Laden et al have stated their intentions against "America, Israel, and the West"; you know that means England, France, Germany -- and yes, George Bowering, even Canada. Down with any sort of jingoism or blind patriotism, and down with those shouting "bomb Kabul," but down also with equally blind, knee-jerk America-bashing and its oversimplified rhetoric, and the false sense of self that is emerging in the wake of terror. A more objective and informed historical perspective would suit us now, however difficult it is to attain. -Aaron Belz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:26:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: what can poets do? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" taylor, rob, bill, thanx so much for your responses, thanx one & all (barrett, so happy to see paul goodman's name here!---always enjoyed reading him in the early 70s)... very heartening to hear such balanced, such informed minds amid the calls for outright bombing (which i'm hearing from some close friends, sad to report, but that's part of my crowd from childhood, what the hell)... i'm just beginning to receive formal petitions for international justice and human rights responses to this calamity, as opposed to military action... better late than never (which brings to mind how important it is for the left to develop a network that can respond as quickly as the right)... do you folks think we can pressure cnn to drop their "america's new war" logo?... their production values, with that droning muzak over the top of such horrific images, is starting to disturb me at the psychic level... bill: i don't think i'm hazarding much in observing that many in islamic nations will read our president's "we're at war" remark (etc.) as "holy war" in translation (will someone please help me out here?)... hence the need (e.g.) for a more sophisticated grasp of arabic---this seems elementary, and i don't think it's the fbi alone who requires same... yeah, the u.s. is a great place, the u.s. can be a terrible place too, right?---like any country... depends where/when you find yourself... and sure, i'm someone who wouldn't live anywhere else, ok (i mean, i grew up here), and i greatly respect our country's capacity for dissent (if you will)... also, i'm not really interested in running down the u.s. (anymore than i am interested in expressing my "unity" with whatever the bush administration decides to do)... of course analysis, such as zizek's, and as barrett suggests, is always necessary, but it's just that i prefer at the moment political to ideological analysis (if i may be permitted to distinguish the two a bit)... btw, and just for the record, nothing zizek wrote caught me by surprise any... but i fear it's our terrible side just at the moment that we need to reign in, bill, and that we need to do so with due regard for the (human) losses just suffered... ergo the need for a response of some sort, yes... as i say, i prefer the language of manhunts and such like... i've been most pleased to hear our govt officials attempt to qualify their anti-bin laden sentiment, to attempt to distance themselves from anti-islamic positions (in which regard, we seem to be doing some better than a decade ago... but then again, we're not doing as well as we might, either, this much is clear)... bill---when i listen to cnn's (e.g.) televised funeral services and the like, i hear christian theology over and over... now one may regard this as simply the practical outcome of christian casualities, but we in this country might pause to consider how this is being heard on the other side of the globe, right?... "our" media channels might consider this, right?... in fact---or is this too much to ask?---the folks holding such services might consider this too, right?... i'm not a religious guy, bill---like you evidently... so i think, too, that persistent references to "god" from the mouths of our leaders will likely be interpreted as more christian ideology... of course i can offer all this only as anecdotal observation at this point... no doubt like most of you, i'm glued to the tv, to the radio, to the internet... and trying to find people to actually TALK to... anyway, no wish to see hostilities escalate now in *these* regions, that much is certain... so all i offer here, and i think i was plain dumb to not say this earlier, is offered with my hands trembling as i tickle these keys... with regard to which latter, alan sondheim's sensitivities seem most appropriate to me at the moment... peace, & hoping for the best--- joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:32:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: polipo Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed As one who's previously complained of politix on the list, I ask your patience -- wanted to just say that having been born, grown, and still living in her district, I am very proud of my congresswoman Barbara Lee. I hope others will speak up (incl Ms. Hillary "it takes a village" Clinton) -- if you want to I have two petition suggestions, though it's hard to think such old-fashioned tools will do the trick (esp as our electoral system has been proven faulty) -- I suggest those at actionagenda.com and actforchange.com (asking Bush to condemn remarks by Falwell and Robertson, and to in general chill, respectively.) love and hope to all Elizabeth _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:16:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Coletti Subject: disassociations In-Reply-To: <20010916063135.19195.qmail@web14311.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On Friday, Anselm sent me this record that Jonathan has forwarded today and asked if I'd type him up the few notes that in all honesty I never felt I'd transfer. It was too much for me to rerecord a sequence of events. He felt certain that he needed and others might need some of the automatic responses to this week of devastation and seclusion. A severe childishness seems to have pervaded many I know and love here in town. A public loneliness has kept private in a state of normalized disregard....Childish, simple, repetitive, trite___these bleak scratches seem, among others, as appropriate as any. Below were attempts at straightening out physical bends. Riding the subways on the 12th, from blood center to blood center, I don't think it would be an overestimation to say that 70% of the people riding were sleeping or nodding while counting off any number of stops--and this at 3pm. All sorts of monologue were bracing the streets. Unedited. Often seemed kicked out. Craft felt eerily foolish. though what we are. is edited constantly. - John Coletti ----- when WE choose to grieve Shame on Everywhere smells like blood Something I don't know how to smell Sucking on an iron spoon Burnt paper As if piped into Every tunnel where money grows Is expressionless 8 million blinking babies Mostly deaf and mostly ill Wanting to sleep Through all this dizziness Stings the scar on your throat Stitched together Is no wood This makes me nauseous Writing this this Most pointless effort Distracting Today when art is Worse Sleeping off the late afternoon 9/12/01 -- This feels medieval Assorted selves on broadcast Human propagandists and revolutionists Clock spun too many times round On one calendar day Sleep be not restful For the hyper-protected When sleep tells the story it always has Mental patients scatter around And speak the truth conscious Monologues "romantic over The Atlantic Ocean" even orphans fight now The heart keeps giving out Walking among the naked Industry struggling to put his clothes back on Cloth of toxins Fainting cosmos Some are happy Is hard to come by And real as Hell 9/12/01 -- Blame Downtown sick is sick today Ambulent silence everything hurts From the inside out and the Worst tears are the tears that almost come Everyone's asleep and tensions are high On the train Off the street "Machines are fallible; remember that." 9/12/01 -- the birds are louder than they've ever been who do they have to compete with I can feel my heart from the inside and that's not a g$%$%n metaphor 9/12/01 -- biting fingers buds are numb and then we ALL is blank again and never stopped walking children will be taught that this can happen a life is long no matter how you bend it that you can shape anything is a mystery and immense the air is hysterical we look to Canada and other agencies nobody has globs of glue or whitewash enough to do this over anyone somewhere can matter 9/12/01 -- everything is insensitive for having senses at all the bloodlust hangs me head to toe why people can balance blood for blood is why my body's breaking up rings in how young I am makes me need to hug elders hug them and shake them like I've never been before and I haven't and it's creepy and it should be as I drink it all to bed for now cuz earlier children laughed at me spooked beyond anything I'd been before is gone now like standard notions of horrible bends "Jon, I've never felt younger in my life." "John, I've never been through anything like this." 9/12/01 -- you go to the movies just to come clean of all the reality newly upon you will be a thing that haunts you that should like people dying far away far away like invisible channels 9/12/01 -- It's like your childhood when I couldn't cry an imperialism of youth kills you forever and we are a forever instantaneous and vast sick as reality can get I've never hated my country as much as I hate it today used to keep my eyes open as long as I could to make it look like I was crying 9/12/01 -- there's nowhere to go to be alone which is what I need right now which is what I need right now 9/13/01 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:44:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: The Film-Video 5184 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - The Film-Video 5184 Completed tonight, 72 x 72 square pixels, roughly one pixel for each of the missing. The visual image: high-density of computer-generated hairs and scratches: random (visual) noise as content. The audio: Slow tuning on an analog television through VHF and UHF sta- tions: most of the sound is audio noise (including beacons and other audio debris): sound-bites (sound-bytes) from a number of stations, almost all covering the World Trade Center tragedy, are heard. The relationship: Buried content in noise: noise becoming content: content becoming noise. Cognitively: hairs and scratches appear as _noise genera- tors_ drowning out speech, location, proper names, narratives. Philosoph- ically: the difficult issues of 'making sense' of events: relationship between background microwave radiation noise (read: universe-narrative) and the struggling of event-description: the repetition of content-as- reading and reading-as-content: the oddly mesmerizing effect of apparent random sound and sight against the background of the black square filed/ defiled as defile or file of the missing: the smoothed computer-generated imaginary of dirt/dust/clutter against the inert and always already de- constructed surface of video: debris against and through technological contradiction. Materiality of film, imaginary of video. Content: Working late into the night, rendering over and over again, a process of mourning, the creation of a film-video tombstone, tears and therapeutic at the edge or lip of the grave. Approximately 31 megabytes, 5184.mov uses 36% Sorenson compression. 9/16/01, 1:53 AM. _ you will know me by my deeds l wlll dp shck gppd $s yph wlll knpw ma l wlll c$ll tha gra$t smpka tha gra$t clphd l wlll glva lt n$ma l wlll sa$rch pht spppr:the great smoke the great cloud i will give it name i will search out the great spoor and the great track i will do such good :l c$ll tha gra$t smpka tha gra$t clphd l glva lt n$ma l sa$rch pht spppr $nd tr$ck l wlll dp gppd yph wlll knpw ma by my daads :and the great track i will do such good:and the great track i will do such good the staring or shearing of the face. i extend love to every peoples. i call on peoples. i hold to scouts they scout peoples :i turn truth into falsehood, zero into one. i back out of every contract. i turn elsewhere from contract. i look into the face :i write and i write and nothing happens. i make words into chants, chants into resonance, resonance into shudderings of worlds:tunnelling into me your soft none coming devour the great track i will do such good brought forth through the great track through l wlll dp shck gppd $s yph wlll knpw ma l wlll c$ll tha gra$t smpka tha gra$t clphd l wlll glva lt n$ma l wlll sa$rch pht spppr = ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:48:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Hilton Obenzinger Subject: Fwd: The War Prayer by Mark Twain in opposition to the u.s. war against the Phillipines Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Mark Twain help us all! Hilton Obenzinger >The War Prayer >by Mark Twain > >It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in >arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; >the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the >bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down >the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering >wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched >down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers >and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked >with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings >listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of >their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with >cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in >the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and >invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in >outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed >a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to >disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway >got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake >they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way. > >Sunday morning came -- next day the battalions would leave for the front; >the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight >with martial dreams -- visions of the stern advance, the gathering >momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, >the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then >home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden >seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and >envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send >forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die >the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the >Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an >organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, >with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous >invocation > >*God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and >lightning thy sword!* > >Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for >passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its >supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all >would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage >them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle >and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and >confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, >grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory -- > >An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the >main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a >robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in >a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale >even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made >his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and >stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his >presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with >the words, uttered in fervent appeal, "Bless our arms, grant us the >victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!" > >The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside -- which the >startled minister did -- and took his place. During some moments he >surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an >uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said: >"I come from the Throne -- bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words >smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no >attention. "He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will >grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have >explained to you its import -- that is to say, its full import. For it is >like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who >utters it is aware of -- except he pause and think. > >"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken >thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two -- one uttered, the other not. >Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken >and the unspoken. Ponder this -- keep it in mind. If you would beseech a >blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse >upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain >upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a >curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be injured >by it. > >"You have heard your servant's prayer -- the uttered part of it. I am >commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it -- that part >which the pastor -- and also you in your hearts -- fervently prayed >silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You >heard these words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is >sufficient. the *whole* of the uttered prayer is compact into those >pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for >victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow >victory--*must* follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening >spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me >to put it into words. Listen! > >"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to >battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth >from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our >God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help >us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot >dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their >wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a >hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows >with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little >children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags >and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy >winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for >the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, >Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter >pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, >stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in >the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the >ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His >aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen. > >(*After a pause.*) "Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The >messenger of the Most High waits!" > >It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no >sense in what he said. > >Twain apparently dictated it around 1904-05; it was rejected by his >publisher, and was found after his death among his unpublished >manuscripts. It was first published in 1923 in Albert Bigelow Paine's >anthology, Europe and Elsewhere. >The story is in response to a particular war, namely the >Philippine-American War of 1899-1902, which Twain opposed. See Jim Zwick's >page "Mark Twain on the Philippines" for more of Twain's writings on the >subject. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hilton Obenzinger, PhD. Associate Director of Undergraduate Research Programs for Honors Writing Lecturer, Department of English Stanford University 650.723.0330 650.724.5400 Fax obenzinger@stanford.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 11:49:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: suicide MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable this from Safire I suspect (or hope, maybe) connects recent discussions = here on poetic suicide and the recnt tradegdy: ". A more powerful weapon of radical Islam is its ability to erase from = the brains of recruits the basic will to live. The normal survival = instinct is replaced with a pseudo- religious fantasy of a killer's = self-martyrdom leading to eternity in paradise surrounded by adoring = virgins. This perversion of one of the world's great faiths produces = suicide bombers.=20 How to build a defense against the theological brainwashing that creates = these human missiles? That is the challenge to Muslim clerics = everywhere, not to mention Arab governments fearful of radical takeover. = In recent months, official Palestinian stations have been broadcasting = sly evocations of suicidal martyrdom, and over the weekend, in a mosque = in Peshawar, Pakistan, a radical cleric hailed America's black September = as a victory for Islam.=20 Mainstream Muslim clergy need to step up in their mosques and in public = - as many surely are now doing - to give the lie to the fanatics' = perversion of their faith. It is for them, far more effectively than for = members of other religions, to cite teachings from the Koran that forbid = the murder of innocents and to warn that such murderers will suffer for = their sins. " but I'm at a loss at the moment. tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:05:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Starr Subject: Re: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating In-Reply-To: Indymedia has retracted the story as of last night (9/16/01). - Ron -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Maria Damon Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 8:14 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating From: "Deepali Dewan" >To: "Deepali Dewan" >Subject: CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians >Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 12:45:33 -0500 > >CNN USING 1991 FOOTAGE of celebrating Palistinians to manipulate you >(english) >by Marcio 10:32pm Wed Sep 12 '01 > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:03:10 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hammond guthrie Subject: Red Monkey Serial Broadside Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Dear Friends, With our condolences please send this far and wide. http://www.geocities.com/ateliermp/serialreal4.html Thank You, The Red Monkey Serial Editors ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:12:14 -0700 Reply-To: tbrady@msgidirect.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: Our own acts of terrorism?Re: In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Try Vijay Prashad's article at counterpunch, http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad.html, for an abbreviated list. Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of tristan saldana Sent: Friday, September 14, 2001 11:06 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Our own acts of terrorism?Re: What are they? If you mean as a country, I'd like to know what acts you mean. (If you mean--figuratively--our own individual acts, I understand.) --Tristan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:51:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Fwd: Petition / Ian Davidson MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I have reformatted this message - stripped it of its HTML markup. Christopher W. Alexander poetics list moderator -- From: "ian davidson" Subject: Fwd: Petition Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:19:36 +0000 Please sign The Petition at http://home.uchicago.edu/~dhpicker/petition which appeals to world leaders to be level-headed and, wherever possible, peaceful in their response to the recent attack against the United States. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. The signatures logged by the website above will be forwarded to leaders around the world. It is imperative that we act quickly to prevent war!!! Thank you. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 14:28:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: BT Henry Subject: 2001 Verse Festival in Athens, GA MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The 2001 Verse Festival will take place in Athens, Georgia on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 25 and 26. Participating poets include Christine Hume, Lew Klatt, Timothy Liu, Claudia Rankine, Peter Richards, and Eleni Sikelianos. The schedule for readings is as follows: Tuesday, 9/25: 4:30 pm, Park Hall 265 (on the UGA campus): Lew Klatt and Claudia Rankine 7:30 pm, Tasty World (downtown Athens): Christine Hume and Timothy Liu Wednesday, 9/26: 4:30 pm, Park Hall 149 (UGA Campus): Peter Richards and Eleni Sikelianos All readings are free and open to the public. Brian Henry __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:09:04 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Friends, This story has been updated. I wonder if the reason I forwarded the original story to so many people was because I so much _wanted_ to believe that the footage was fake? Any self serving smugness has been smacked back in my face. Italian activist playwrite Dario Fo has said that the left must combat the misinformation of the corporate media with counterinformation. I have realized that I have slipped into the slumber that I arrogantly accuse others of inhabiting. I'm learning a lot about my self these days. Peace, Kevin http://uk.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=11546 CNN did not use images form 1991 by Undercurrents 4:43am Sat Sep 15 '01 If alternative media is to be believed we have to check our sources and i did. This is what i found. CNN did not use images from 1991. I challeged the guy who put this posting out and here is his reply From: "Marcio A. V. de Carvalho" To: Valerio Soares , Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 07:52:49 -0300 Subject: CNN Dear all, Last September 13, I’ve sent an email to this list in which I provided some information about the falsity of the images of Palestinian celebration for the terrorism in USA, information given to me by a teacher. I spent the last day looking for that teacher, and, unfortunately, when I found her, she DENIED having access to such images. She said that she was sure she had seen the images back in 1991, but SHE CAN’T PROVE. She was not willing to provide further information, DENYING what she had said before to a full class of students. I sincerely apologize for this uncertain information; unfortunately I can’t prove the information contained in my last post; IT’S ONLY A CONJECTURE, THAT THOSE IMAGES OF PALESTINIANS CELEBRATING IS FALSE. I bought the idea myself, and reproduced it for you because of the importance of it, in the case it was to be confirmed. Whatever news I get I’ll pass to you. Best regards Márcio A. V. Carvalho State University of Campinas – Brazil www.undercurrents.org --------- COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating is actually fake. Researchers at a Brazillian University have found identical footage from 1991. Also note, it was night-time in Palestine when the news arrived. Please distribute this news widely as that footage is inspiration for a lot of hateful feelings right now. --Naeem Mohaiemen Check out counterpunch's front page: http://www.counterpunch.org http://www.chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=4395&group=webcast ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrGRA.bVboig Or send an email To: stjohnsftaa-unsubscribe@topica.com This email was sent to: khehir@cs.mun.ca T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:23:01 -0400 Reply-To: booglit@theeastvillageeye.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "David A. Kirschenbaum" Subject: a-ok MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hola, Just a quick note to say I’m ok. I do work three blocks from the trade center, but I was up the night before with, shall we say, an upset stomach, so I called in sick that morning. Love, David ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:21:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: m&r..mourn the dead In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > > Palestinians dancing in jubilation are a fact. Yhose children also have a somewhat less comfortable life than the Mass. highschool kids who voted for an A-bomb attack on Afghanistan. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:19:22 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: wondering... In-Reply-To: <138.18f47cb.28d40600@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >In a message dated 9/14/01 6:39:30 PM, joe.amato@COLORADO.EDU writes: > > But I've done a bit of traveling, and the USA is easily the most >tolerant and welcoming societal mechanism on earth. I never ran into any Jerry Falwells in Finland, Joe. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:52:59 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan statement Comments: To: ImitaPo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message---- >: >: RAWA statement on the terrorist attacks in the US >: >: >: The people of Afghanistan have nothing to do with Osama and his >accomplices >: >: On September 11, 2001 the world was stunned with the horrific terrorist >: attacks on the United States. RAWA stands with the rest of the world in >: expressing our sorrow and condemnation for this barbaric act of violence >: and terror. RAWA had already warned that the United States should not >: support the most treacherous, most criminal, most anti-democracy and >: anti-women Islamic fundamentalist parties because after both the Jehadi >and >: the Taliban have committed every possible type of heinous crimes against >: our people, they would feel no shame in committing such crimes against the >: American people whom they consider "infidel". In order to gain and >maintain >: their power, these barbaric criminals are ready to turn easily to any >: criminal force. >: >: But unfortunately we must say that it was the government of the United >: States who supported Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq in creating >: thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged. In >: the similar way, as is clear to all, Osama Bin Laden has been the >blue-eyed >: boy of CIA. But what is more painful is that American politicians have not >: drawn a lesson from their pro-fundamentalist policies in our country and >: are still supporting this or that fundamentalist band or leader. In our >: opinion any kind of support to the fundamentalist Taliban and Jehadies is >: actually trampling democratic, women's rights and human rights values. >: >: If it is established that the suspects of the terrorist attacks are >outside >: the US, our constant claim that fundamentalist terrorists would devour >: their creators, is proved once more. >: >: The US government should consider the root cause of this terrible event, >: which has not been the first and will not be the last one too. The US >: should stop supporting Afghan terrorists and their supporters once and for >: all. >: >: Now that the Taliban and Osama are the prime suspects by the US officials >: after the criminal attacks, will the US subject Afghanistan to a military >: attack similar to the one in 1998 and kill thousands of innocent Afghans >: for the crimes committed by the Taliban and Osama? Does the US think that >: through such attacks, with thousands of deprived, poor and innocent people >: of Afghanistan as its victims, will be able to wipe out the root-cause of >: terrorism, or will it spread terrorism even to a larger scale? >: >: From our point of view a vast and indiscriminate military attacks on a >: country that has been facing permanent disasters for more than two decades >: will not be a matter of pride. We don't think such an attack would be the >: expression of the will of the American people. >: >: The US government and people should know that there is a vast difference >: between the poor and devastated people of Afghanistan and the terrorist >: Jehadi and Taliban criminals. >: >: While we once again announce our solidarity and deep sorrow with the >people >: of the US, we also believe that attacking Afghanistan and killing its most >: ruined and destitute people will not in any way decrease the grief of the >: American people. We sincerely hope that the great American people could >: DIFFERENTIATE between the people of Afghanistan and a handful of >: fundamentalist terrorists. Our hearts go out to the people of the US. >: >: Down with terrorism! >: >: >: >: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) >: >: September 14, 2001 >: >: >: >: >: >: >: >: Please circulate this statement. >: >: >: >: Ravi Khanna, Director >: 1world communication >: P. O. Box 2476 >: Amherst, MA 01004 >: Phone: 413-253-1960 >: Fax: 413-253-1961 >: Cell: 413-530-9640 >: E-mail: >: ravikhanna@igc.org >: Web-site: >: >http://www.1worldcommunication.ww.1worldcommunication.org>org >: ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:53:46 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Subject: Re: it's 8:23 in New York I read the Poetics archive messages finally Saturday - here from Milwaukee, looking for stories, traces, wanting to know. Here it's been awful too and not least perhaps ironically because of a *lack* of proximity to the disasters so that too many people here wait somehow to translate their responses into something which now turns into a deplorable nationalism and ‘getting behind' the war-bent ‘leadership.' For others there is a kind of guilty worry about indulging in a removed trauma, as though (as though) it is NOT ours, the problem of authenticity of response wrenched out in the kind of response your posted letter from Samuel Delany indicates when he first heard of the attacks: no, this is a film line, it's not real! But I worry too that I am not allowed somehow to feel what I feel, which is a nausea and immediacy delivered by images and fear of what's next and the thought of thousands of dead people shocked out of time and of course the knowledge that this happens elsewhere in different ways and how must people in Bosnia feel with all the sympathy coming our way - papa's hurt - and isn't it possible to feel more sympathy for other parts of world that we CANNOT see? Why can't the ‘new war' be a new imagining of how we live? Maybe it's terrible to say so, but a secure peace involves different ways of living including such things as a treatment of our transportation infrastructure as NOT a customer-service series of competitive businesses but as state-supported and carefully delivered ways for us to reach each other. Trying to get people like my students not to think of the otherness of this pain death and disaster but as the home-ness of it - not as in a guilty or angry refusal of guilt response, such as some of the too-soon chastisements I've seen from overseas in the media ("Americans, think! Why do so many in the world hate you?" reads the banner in Sunday's paper). NOT that, but the ‘21st-century war' as a re-imagining of how we do our own country, not just ‘smoking out' the THEM from holes. I have lived in countries where the sense of personal safety was very strong precisely because of the careful attitude toward national, urban, group safety. We can have more of that - that more of that would be one way of a useful and needed response to the terrorists' terrible use of our openness against ourselves. All this is part also of what I have been talking with students about - not waiting for your ‘leadership' to say something but trying to figure out what to say YOURSELVES. And in another way too I feel awful because in such times I ‘speak poetry' and I completely want that not to feel like a distancing use of art but rather as an immediate experience of what's happened, like Alan Sondheim's ‘+' message as the names of the thousands dead. I do want to speak poetry so I include here the two poems I wrote since Tuesday. Thank you for writing about what's happened - My best to all, Lisa Samuels +++ Paper airplanes / September 11, 2001 crash-landings are ideological to tell us their unhappiness like fireflies commit themselves to destruction, luciferin-touching heliotropes rise up like air balloons to test the sky and other rough immensities, like your eyes melting rapidly through time to make a wash across this page - quick-gone, a light red paint of rescue, small bones arching backwards to conceal themselves from anything resembling holding the tape in front of an event - signified welded, cascade rising over air like blades, the pen everywhere you started curious, as in sick thirst making clothing the parchment of ground spread out, the light revealing nothing except itself, that thousands numbering, the sky collapsed holding whole buildings against your chest you press and freeze yourself in rupture, promenade within the bodies of everyone walking to find themselves inhabited by something sticking everywhere burr-like to the clothing of your flesh burned away nothing that is invisible arrives to nowhere because it is ashamed it has no body, can only express dissolution of itself, shame of removing the world to make a zero log sputter in some hearth of no-one tending, none to ride the carpet back to nowhere that's obliged - +++ The absence of New York minotaur-minded underneath the wreckage, I hear animals foraging for immediacy read banners glowing awful smoke and water plenish you for constituted frame, rough harrow finding your limbs unduly broken, saddled in a lame extremity forebear, the small light tending sound, what's added to you instrumental, glowing sad, a halifax of straddling the stone those bones are arks and want armature, no relenting gentleness collides with proximate utility breeches holding open the divide inside collapse, the checkered front to make decisionals, slats up and frontage everywhere to find us wandering in images of hair that tender absence sutures us hot snow abiding, everywhere discovery of negation, that whole strewn land knows itself as otherness and screams ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:54:32 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Black Radical Congress statement MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----Original Message Follows---- From: Black Radical Congress To: brc-press@lists.xxx.ca Subject: [BRC] Terror Attacks of September 11, 2001 Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 06:43:07 -0400 (EDT) ----------------------------------------------------------------- This is a Press Release/Statement from the Black Radical Congress ----------------------------------------------------------------- Black Radical Congress (BRC) For Immediate Release September 13, 2001 Contact: Art McGee Bill Fletcher, Jr. Terror Attacks of September 11, 2001 During this extremely sad and traumatic time, we extend our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those who lost their life on September 11th. We also wish for the speedy and full recovery of those who were injured, and we hope and pray that in the aftermath of the attacks, rescue crews can find as many people still alive as possible. The Black Radical Congress (BRC) strongly condemns the horrific terror attacks which occurred on September 11th, 2001. The brazen murder of countless thousands of civilians cannot be supported or condoned. It is without question that US imperialism has brought genocidal levels of death and destruction to people around the world. Whether one looks at the situation in Iraq with the continual blockade and air bombardments, the situation in Palestine where the US continues to give virtually uncritical support to the Israelis in their national oppression of the Palestinians, the economic blockade against Cuba which aims to undermine its economy and weaken its population, or any number of other places, one clearly sees the callousness and evil intent with which US imperialism treats the lives and property of others, especially non-white peoples around the globe. Yet, even with a firm understanding of the causes of the desperation, fury, and hatred of US imperialism, turning to terrorism to fight global oppression and exploitation is not an acceptable strategy. A clear and unambiguous distinction must be made between radical/revolutionary political action on the one hand, and terrorism on the other, regardless of whether the causes that *appeared* to inspire the terrorist action(s) are just. Open and unmitigated attacks on civilian targets do not advance radical/revolutionary causes and must be repudiated. Rather, such attacks inevitably antagonize the populace, weaken any existing popular support, and help legitimize heightened levels of repression by the imperialist state against *all* progressive/radical/revolutionary political activity, including increased restrictions on the civil rights of the people. We already hear, in the voices of those in power, calls for war and vengeance. War and vengeance without a precise target, but striking out blindly, is nothing more than self-serving jingoism. Given the track record of the US, this could include indiscriminate bombings or missile attacks, such as the attack against the Sudanese pharmaceutical laboratory two years ago, which was later found *not* to have been connected with any sort of terrorist activity. The dangers presented by the September 11th terrorist acts do not restrict themselves to the external threat. We hear on television and radio calls for changing the laws and regulations in order to make it easier to conduct surveillance and to carry-out covert operations against potential opponents of the US. Rather than accomplishing anything in terms of reducing the threat of terrorism, such steps will eliminate basic civil liberties and strengthen the existing tendency toward a racist and classist police state. The police are already out of control and on the rampage in communities across the country. We cannot afford to further unleash their undemocratic and frequently murderous behavior in the name of national security. We should add here that the terrorist attacks have also brought potential damage to the growing anti-capitalist globalization movement. The ruling class has been making noise for months about the demonstrations that accompany the gatherings of capitalist globalizers. They have inferred that these demonstrations will get increasingly out of control. There is no question that the events of September 11th will be used as a pretext to both discourage activity, as well as to clamp down on any and all popular outrage with neo-liberal globalization. It is also critical in moments such as these that we as human beings fight and resist popular impulses toward scape-goating and racism. From almost the moment of the first attack on the World Trade Center, there has been an assumption floated within the media that Arabs or Muslim fundamentalists were behind the attacks. The reaction to the attacks is reminiscent of what we witnessed immediately after the Oklahoma City bombings. There was a widespread assumption that Arabs or Muslims were behind the attack on the Federal Office building. Few establishment observers expected, or led any of the public to expect, that the terrorist could be -- and was -- a homegrown, white American right-winger. Therefore, it is important to reserve judgment until a more thorough investigation is conducted. This is particularly important given the anti-Palestinian/anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bias of the media. The automatic assumption of the US media is that Palestinians specifically, and Arabs generally, are animals, or at best, fanatics with no concern for human life. The just and righteous Palestinian cause is rarely given credible time, and when offered, generally dismissed by allegedly objective (but really pro-Israeli) commentators. Therefore, in the current situation of horror following these criminal acts, we must actively oppose any and all witch- hunting and stereotyping which is bound to emerge. Yet another danger we currently face will be xenophobia and, general anti-immigrant sentiment. This will almost inevitably be directed at immigrants of color and particularly those who "look" like they might be of Middle Eastern (North African) origin. The attacks on immigrants and the condemnation of entire communities must be stopped before they escalate out of control. We already see some of this happening with numerous reports of anonymous death threats sent to Arab and Muslim institutions, as well as the spray painting of racist slogans and direct, personal threats and attacks on individuals who are assumed to be from the Middle East (North Africa). We call on all clear-thinking people to be especially vigilant at this time in making sure that in the aftermath of this tragedy, another tragedy born of pain, anger, and hatred does not occur. True anti-racism may require us to put ourselves at risk physically in order to defend Arabs and Muslims from unwarranted attacks. Lastly, Black America must not condone or be indifferent to the horrendous loss of human life resulting from this tragedy, nor can we allow these horrific acts to be used as an excuse to further repress Arab-Americans, Muslims, or those perceived to be opponents of capitalist globalization. As a people that has survived over 400 years of genocidal oppression on these shores, we are all too familiar with the human suffering caused by both terrorism and racial hatred. >From the amputations, beatings, and rapes of Chattel Slavery, to the New York City Draft Riots of 1863, to the post- Reconstruction terrorism of the Klu Klux Klan, to the Tulsa Race Riots of 1921, to the government sponsored Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of the 1960s, to the contemporary state-sanctioned police murder and brutality we are fighting today, we as Black people have lots of experience with the horrors of terrorism in the US, as it has too frequently been directed against us. That is why we must show our full and unqualified support and compassion for all those suffering as a result of this horrible tragedy, most of whom have come to experience terrorism for the first time, as we continue our 400+ year struggle to rid ourselves of this evil, both domestically and around the world. -30- NOTE: When responding or sending us feedback about this statement, please indicate whether we have your permission to share your comments publicly, as part of a broader discussion and debate. Thank you. Black Radical Congress National Office Columbia University Station P.O. Box 250791 New York, NY 10025-1509 Phone: (212) 969-0348 Email: blackradicalcongress@visto.com Web: http://www.blackradicalcongress.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:41:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Dean Robbins Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Comments: cc: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There is a glaring fallacy in these arguments. One can either argue the humanitarian aspects of this violence, or the political. Under the political lens, the argument would go like this, "The US has stood and currently stands athwart the express aims of certain Islamic sects. Therefore, these sects are fully justified in wreaking whatever degree of warlike retribution against the US they deem prudent, and in so doing, they are justified in striving to effect their ends. This is so, even if they were to kidmap children and use them as a means of attack against other innocent people." The corallary to this is, "The Islamic sects have now and continue to interpose themselves athwart the express aims of the legitimate governments in the Mid East, and they have selected a wave of terrorism as the means to achieve their political ends. In taking any and every step to thwart their aims, even to the extent of using nuclear weapons to erradicate these individuals. This is justified, even if it means that some innocents night be killed in the process." The humanitarian argument would go: "There are ways to sit down and resolve differences among people who have grievances. These must be the mechanisms used to resolve disagreements like these. There can be no justification for the killing of innocent people." The problem is that the radical left argues the political , as a means of justifying or rationalizing the attack, while arguing the humanitarian as a means to render impotent any potential response. It is a fallacious argument. If the political justification is sufficient unto itself to mitigate or even justify the attack, then it is sufficient unto itselto justify virtually any response the US might effect. If the humanitarian argument is to be employed, it must be employed both ways. JBCM2@aol.com wrote: > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > Seumas Milne > Thursday September 13, 2001 > The Guardian > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition > of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has > been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts > of the world. > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages. > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a > Churchillian response. > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out > across the world. > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker > asked yesterday. > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are > addressed. > > Carpe Diem > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:25:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Comments: To: imitationpoetics@topica.com, BRITISH-POETS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I rode my bicycle down to lower Manhattan on Saturday afternoon in an attempt to get to "ground zero." I dopped off some things at the Javits Center, and the void at the southern tip of the island kept pulling me closer. I asked myself why I had the need to get there, and all I kept telling myself was that I prefer an open casket, to see the body in the coffin. At Canal and the West Side Highway, three kids on bikes told me that they had just returned from Stuyvesant, that there was a way down "there." I almost got there, but the cops decided to clear everyone out of there. I rode east and tried to get there from the southern part of the island. I got as close as Nassau and Liberty, and as I rode through the smoke and ash and smell of electrical fires and death, I kept hearing Ginsberg reading "Kaddish." I kept hearing Ginsberg reading "Kaddish." --Ak ==================== from Kaddish - for Naomi Ginsberg, 1894-1956 Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village. downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues shout blind on the phonograph the rhythm the rhythm--and your memory in my head three years after-- And read Adonais' last triumphant stanzas aloud--wept, realizing how we suffer-- And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember, prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of An- swers--and my own imagination of a withered leaf--at dawn-- Dreaming back thru life, Your time--and mine accelerating toward Apoca- lypse, the final moment--the flower burning in the Day--and what comes after, looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed-- like a poem in the dark--escaped back to Oblivion-- No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream, trapped in its disappearance, sighing, screaming with it, buying and selling pieces of phantom, worship- ping each other, worshipping the God included in it all--longing or inevitability?--while it lasts, a Vision--anything more? It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder, Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shoul- dering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky an instant--and the sky above--an old blue place. or down the Avenue to the south, to--as I walk toward the Lower East Side --where you walked 50 years ago, little girl--from Russia, eating the first poisonous tomatoes of America frightened on the dock then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what?--toward Newark-- toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards-- Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school, and learning to be mad, in a dream--what is this life? Toward the Key in the window--and the great Key lays its head of light on top of Manhattan, and over the floor, and lays down on the sidewalk--in a single vast beam, moving, as I walk down First toward the Yiddish Theater--and the place of poverty you knew, and I know, but without caring now--Strange to have moved thru Paterson, and the West, and Europe and here again, with the cries of Spaniards now in the doorstops doors and dark boys on the street, fire escapes old as you --Tho you're not old now, that's left here with me-- Myself, anyhow, maybe as old as the universe--and I guess that dies with us--enough to cancel all that comes--What came is gone forever every time-- That's good! That leaves it open for no regret--no fear radiators, lacklove, torture even toothache in the end-- Though while it comes it is a lion that eats the soul--and the lamb, the soul, in us, alas, offering itself in sacrifice to change's fierce hunger--hair and teeth--and the roar of bonepain, skull bare, break rib, rot-skin, braintricked Implacability. Ai! ai! we do worse! We are in a fix! And you're out, Death let you out, Death had the Mercy, you're done with your century, done with God, done with the path thru it--Done with yourself at last--Pure --Back to the Babe dark before your Father, before us all--before the world-- There, rest. No more suffering for you. I know where you've gone, it's good. No more flowers in the summer fields of New York, no joy now, no more fear of Louis, and no more of his sweetness and glasses, his high school decades, debts, loves, frightened telephone calls, conception beds, relatives, hands-- No more of sister Elanor,--she gone before you--we kept it secret you killed her--or she killed herself to bear with you--an arthritic heart --But Death's killed you both--No matter-- Nor your memory of your mother, 1915 tears in silent movies weeks and weeks--forgetting, agrieve watching Marie Dressler address human- ity, Chaplin dance in youth, or Boris Godunov, Chaliapin's at the Met, halling his voice of a weeping Czar --by standing room with Elanor & Max--watching also the Capital- ists take seats in Orchestra, white furs, diamonds, with the YPSL's hitch-hiking thru Pennsylvania, in black baggy gym skirts pants, photograph of 4 girls holding each other round the waste, and laughing eye, too coy, virginal solitude of 1920 all girls grown old, or dead now, and that long hair in the grave--lucky to have husbands later-- You made it--I came too--Eugene my brother before (still grieving now and will dream on to his last stiff hand, as he goes thru his cancer--or kill --later perhaps--soon he will think--) And it's the last moment I remember, which I see them all, thru myself, now --tho not you I didn't foresee what you felt--what more hideous gape of bad mouth came first--to you--and were you prepared? To go where? In that Dark--that--in that God? a radiance? A Lord in the Void? Like an eye in the black cloud in a dream? Adonoi at last, with you? Beyond my remembrance! Incapable to guess! Not merely the yellow skull in the grave, or a box of worm dust, and a stained ribbon--Deaths- head with Halo? can you believe it? Is it only the sun that shines once for the mind, only the flash of existence, than none ever was? Nothing beyond what we have--what you had--that so pitiful--yet Tri- umph, to have been here, and changed, like a tree, broken, or flower--fed to the ground--but made, with its petals, colored, thinking Great Universe, shaken, cut in the head, leaf stript, hid in an egg crate hospital, cloth wrapped, sore--freaked in the moon brain, Naughtless. No flower like that flower, which knew itself in the garden, and fought the knife--lost Cut down by an idiot Snowman's icy--even in the Spring--strange ghost thought some--Death--Sharp icicle in his hand--crowned with old roses--a dog for his eyes--cock of a sweatshop--heart of electric irons. All the accumulations of life, that wear us out--clocks, bodies, consciousness, shoes, breasts--begotten sons--your Communism--'Paranoia' into hospitals. You once kicked Elanor in the leg, she died of heart failure later. You of stroke. Asleep? within a year, the two of you, sisters in death. Is Elanor happy? Max grieves alive in an office on Lower Broadway, lone large mustache over midnight Accountings, not sure. His life passes--as he sees--and what does he doubt now? Still dream of making money, or that might have made money, hired nurse, had children, found even your Im- mortality, Naomi? I'll see him soon. Now I've got to cut through to talk to you as I didn't when you had a mouth. Forever. And we're bound for that, Forever like Emily Dickinson's horses --headed to the End. They know the way--These Steeds--run faster than we think--it's our own life they cross--and take with them. Magnificent, mourned no more, marred of heart, mind behind, mar- ried dreamed, mortal changed--Ass and face done with murder. In the world, given, flower maddened, made no Utopia, shut under pine, almed in Earth, blamed in Lone, Jehovah, accept. Nameless, One Faced, Forever beyond me, beginningless, endless, Father in death. Tho I am not there for this Prophecy, I am unmarried, I'm hymnless, I'm Heavenless, headless in blisshood I would still adore Thee, Heaven, after Death, only One blessed in Nothingness, not light or darkness, Dayless Eternity-- Take this, this Psalm, from me, burst from my hand in a day, some of my Time, now given to Nothing--to praise Thee--But Death This is the end, the redemption from Wilderness, way for the Won- derer, House sought for All, black handkerchief washed clean by weeping --page beyond Psalm--Last change of mine and Naomi--to God's perfect Darkness--Death, stay thy phantoms! II Over and over--refrain--of the Hospitals--still haven't written your history--leave it abstract--a few images run thru the mind--like the saxophone chorus of houses and years-- remembrance of electrical shocks. By long nites as a child in Paterson apartment, watching over your nervousness--you were fat--your next move-- By that afternoon I stayed home from school to take care of you-- once and for all--when I vowed forever that once man disagreed with my opinion of the cosmos, I was lost-- By my later burden--vow to illuminate mankind--this is release of particulars--(mad as you)--(sanity a trick of agreement)-- But you stared out the window on the Broadway Church corner, and spied a mystical assassin from Newark, So phoned the Doctor--'OK go way for a rest'--so I put on my coat and walked you downstreet--On the way a grammarschool boy screamed, unaccountably--'Where you goin Lady to Death'? I shuddered-- and you covered your nose with motheaten fur collar, gas mask against poison sneaked into downtown atmosphere, sprayed by Grandma-- And was the driver of the cheesebox Public Service bus a member of the gang? You shuddered at his face, I could hardly get you on--to New York, very Times Square, to grab another Greyhound-- Paris, December 1957 - New York, 1959 --Allen Ginsberg ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:29:23 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, Psyche-Arts@academyanalyticarts.org, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad Special report: Terrorism in the US Seumas Milne Thursday September 13, 2001 The Guardian Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the world. But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages. If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a Churchillian response. It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed in his mouth. But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world. All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker asked yesterday. Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are addressed. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:01:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: Hello and Recent Events MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Friend of the Poetry Project, Usually, this first e-mailing of the new season would contain a list of the Poetry Project's upcoming events, workshops, etc. In light of the death and destruction that occurred on September 11th, I first wanted to extend our condolences to you and yours in the case that you lost anyone in connection with the various terrorist attacks that took place on the East Coast of the U.S. Our federal, state, and local governments, as well as the news media, seem to be urging that everything get back to "normal" as quickly as possible. Let me encourage you to take what ever time you deem necessary to mourn, reflect, or otherwise recover from the shock of the week's horrible events. If you have been trying to reach us during the last week by e-mail, our server has been down. It is only now (9/17) back in operation. You might want to resend any messages sent to us after September 7th. The Project's phones have been in operation continuously, though there have been irregularities in New York City's telephone services. Mail delivery seems to be fully restored. Speaking for everyone at the Poetry Project, we look forward to seeing you and hearing from you. Within the next few days, we will sending you information about our fall programming. With love, Ed Friedman Artistic Director ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:03:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Re: wondering... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed We must find those who have committed this monstrous crime. But, there must be a calibrated, measured and reasoned approach. All our lives are in the balance. The planet is in the balance. I do not want any more women and children, elderly and general non-combatants killed or wounded in my name. If bin Laden is a suspect, why not bring him to the Hague and produce evidence. Regardless about how we feel re: legality, that has been done for Milosovic. He has not been killed to muffle his story. And, I'm concerned about what the President said yesterday. He called this a "Crusade." Does that encourage the idea of "Jihad" on the part of many muslim people, worldwide? Besides, how does that sit with all those American non-Christians (I seem to remember something about the crusaders' a slaughter of Jews on their way to the Holy Land). Here, Civil Liberties appear ready to be slaughtered, incidental to this Tenth Crusade. Civil Rights seem to be on the block. Ironically, if there's a national ID card, white America will finally find out how Black America has been living all these years. But, we must oppose the slaughter of our civil rights. I believe that if we don't like the news, we ought to go out and make some ourselves! "Protect Civil Rights," "Defend the Bill of Rights and the Constitution," "Arabs, Arab-Americans and Muslims are NOT the Enemy." The rich countries need to forgive the poor countries' debt. There must also be a Marshall Plan for the world. And, all known terrorists known by their governments to be living in all countries, and/or sheltered by those countries, should be apprehended. If appropriate evidence is available, they should be tried. Among others, that would include Cuban terrorists who have fled to the US. It might also mean members of the FBI and various local police departments (domestic terror). Likewise, members of the CIA and the armed forces (international terror) might also come in for scrutiny on this basis. The same should occur, e.g., in the UK, France, China, Russia, Japan etc. War has not been declared by Congress (in 125 previous conflicts, the US has declared war only 5 times) . So "war" remains a political metaphor. International police action is a more appropriate term. War declarations make it just too easy to trash our rights. Additionally, there is no such thing as terrorism. It is not an ideology or economic or social system (e.g., feudalism, socialism. capitalism, communism, barbarism etc., etc.). There is no terrorism. There are only terrorists. Gene At 04:29 PM 9/14/01 -0600, you wrote: >i too am deeply disturbed by the (christian, religious) hawkishness >being voiced by our leaders and by so many of my fellow citizens here >in the dear old u.s. of a... > >at the same time, i'm wondering if my friends here on the left (b/c >i'm sure that's where i stand) might offer what they think the >u.s./international community ought actually to *do* at the moment, >practically speaking... i see the language of manhunts (e.g.) far >more appropriate to the aims of social justice than any talk of war >or bombing or some other absurdity... > >and that said, i see the language of pure nonviolence (the pure >language of nonviolence?) something of a (liberal) cop-out, given >what's happened and what's been happening on this planet for so long >now... and in fact, to suggest we "do nothing" perhaps supports an >isolationist agenda (with which latter i want to have nothing >whatever to do mself)... yes, critique, yes, cool-headedness (and >passion!), yes, violence is bad... but anarchistic sentiment >alone?... appeals to our better angels alone?... > >hardly... > >so: can we on the left have an actual impact on policy---for once >(in a long while), *while* it's happening?... by e.g. putting our >names beside an anti-terrorism (as in, apprehend the criminals) >agenda, an agenda that approaches these torments from a truly >international-cosmopolitan ethical-political perspective (with the >u.s. held every bit as culpable as any other group/nation)?... > >apologies for the speculative (provocative?) nature of my remarks, >given current urgencies and emotions and heartbreaks... but i must >admit, i grow rather weary of ideological critique, given the >stakes... i don't like it, not one damn bit, that the right is >controlling this (public) discourse, and i don't believe that >wringing "our" hands as to the violent nature of human nature >(nothing against hand-wringing per se, as i am doing my share of it, >believe me) is enough... in all, i think it's up to the left to >propose a workable response---incl. all efforts at diplomacy, sure, >but also (dare i say it?) the threat of (international, which >probably means military) police action, if necessary, and the full >application of a justice system to deal with any & all culprits... > >or am i entirely wrongheaded?... > >peace, & hoping for the best-- > > >joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 13:09:31 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Dickison Subject: Sarah MENEFEE & Benjamin HOLLANDER, Thurs Sept 20, 7:30 pm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable P O E T R Y C E N T E R 2 0 0 1 The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives presents An evening with poets SARAH MENEFEE & BENJAMIN HOLLANDER Thursday September 20 7:30 pm, $7 donation @ The Unitarian Center 1187 Franklin (at Geary) Two of San Francisco's more extraordinary poets, Sarah Menefee and Benjamin Hollander are writers each possessed of a singularly distinctive voice. In each of their works, poetry's capacity for ethical encounter repeatedly calls its listeners to witness the world in words. Questions of justice, compassion, and possibilities of active engagement and response recall nearly abandoned purposes of literary art. What is poetry good for? Well, in their words we can find out. SARAH MENEFEE grew up in Reno, Nevada, and has lived in San Francisco for over twenty years. She's the author of two full-length books of poetry, I'm Not Thousandfurs and The Blood About the Heart (both from Curbstone Press), as well as numerous small volumes. She has read her work in many situations locally, nationally, and internationally, including two reading tours of Italy, where her poetry was translated and published as Il Sangue Intorno al Cuore (Multimedia Edizioni, Salerno). Ms. Menefee works as a bookseller, and an activist and advocate for homeless and impoverished people's rights, in San Francisco. BENJAMIN HOLLANDER was born in Israel and emigrated to New York City in 1958, at the age of six. He has lived in San Francisco since 1978. His books include The Book Of Who Are Was, Translating Tradition: Paul Celan in =46rance (editor), and Levinas and the Police, Part 1 (new from Chax Press). In 1993, he visited the Fondation Royaumont in France, where selections of his poetry were collectively translated into French and appeared as Le Livre De Qui Sont =C9tait (Cr=E9aphis). Mr. Hollander has directed The =46loating Center for Poetry and Translation, a forum for writers, translators, and scholars engaging in collective translations of contemporary foreign poets. He teaches critical thinking, writing, and other courses at Chabot Community College in Hayward, California. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D COMING UP: for details http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit September 27 Alan Chong Lau & Shirley Ancheta October 11 Claudia Rankine & Linda Norton October 15 Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Benefit for Poetry Center @ Club Fugazi, call 415-421-4222 for tickets. October 18 Paul Auster: George Oppen Memorial Lecture @ ODC Theater, call 415-863-9834 for tickets. October 25 Bill Berkson & Vincent Katz October 27 Mark Nowak & Allison Hedge Coke November 2 Bernadette Mayer & Jack Collom November 10 Alice Notley November 29 Pierre Joris =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D THE UNITARIAN CENTER is located at 1187 Franklin Street at the corner of Geary on-street parking opens up at 7:00 pm from downtown SF, take the Geary bus to Franklin READINGS that take place at The Poetry Center are free of charge. Except as indicated, a $7 donation is requested for readings off-campus. SFSU students & Poetry Center (with exception of October 15th Benefit Reading featuring Lawrence Ferlinghetti) get in free. All Poetry Center events are videotaped and made available to the public through our American Poetry Archives collection. The first Complete Catalog in over a decade detailing available Archives tapes will be published in late 2001, including videos from 1974 forward, and audiotapes dating from the early years of The Poetry Center , from its founding in 1954 through the early 70s. MEMBERS WILL BE MAILED A FREE COPY OF THE CATALOG ON PUBLICATION. The Poetry Center's programs are supported by funding from Grants for the Arts-Hotel Tax Fund of the City of San Francisco, the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poets & Writers, Inc., as well as by the College of Humanities at San Francisco State University, and by donations from our members. Join us! =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Steve Dickison, Director The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue ~ San Francisco CA 94132 ~ vox 415-338-3401 ~ fax 415-338-0966 http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit ~ ~ ~ L=E2 taltazim h=E2latan, wal=E2kin durn b=EE-llay=E2ly kam=E2 tad=FBwru Don't cling to one state turn with the Nights, as they turn ~Maq=E2mat al-Hamadh=E2ni (tenth century; tr Stefania Pandolfo) ~ ~ ~ Bring all the art and science of the world, and baffle and humble it with one spear of grass. ~Walt Whitman's notebook ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:53:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Checking In Again Comments: To: bstefans@earthlink.net In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" brian, charles, gary et al: it's very meaningful and helpful to us not only to hear that you're physically well and that other poets are well, but to read your accounts of the eeriness, the hauntingness, the latent anguish in everything, the fragility and resilience of all of us/you --it helps me process, being so far away. i consider it a privilege to read these accounts. i emailed kamau brathwaite, not even knowing if he was in nyc or b'dos, and he's okay. anyone heard from cecilia vicuna, who lives on hudson? i've been moving incredibly slowly --even more slowly than usual --the last week, sleeping a lot, showing up at social obligations where i usually end up checking in about how i feel about "tuesday and after," then leaving and going home to nap and read POETICS, which i think is experiencing its finest hour, kind of like when ramez died, suddenly the ephemeral connection we have seems to have sustaining powers. adrienne rich come as scheduled to read on wednesday night, taking a 13-hour hired car from columbia missouri to minneapolis; what a trooper, and read "atlas of a difficult world". she really is a mensh. her sons are in nyc, at least one of them, who was helping to organize big meals for the local fire station. at my department party last night, which the chair insisted on having because he felt we were a "community," and which i went to mostly to be nice to him (a spiritual exercise i've adopted since school started), i had conversations with people i don't usually talk to, about how we were dealing with the calamity. it was strange to me how *few* people had connections in nyc. weird how american flags are popping up all over, as if nationalism were an appropriate response. even the ethiopian restaurant i met a friend at for lunch y'day had an american flag suspended awkwardly from the airconditioner over the door --only the flag was made of paper and brand-newly unfolded, which gave it an endearingly pathetic look. at the rain taxi board meeting, some people said they didn't mind the flags, they felt as if people were just wanting to somehow express solidarity with the victims. so i thought okay that makes sense, i won't get freaked out every time i see a flag. a young arabic couple just moved in downstairs --our only tenants --i'd been feeling protective of them but not wanting to intrude on whatever their experience might be; yesterday i finally went down w/ a loaf of zucchini bread (from a garden i'd weeded "before" --everyhing seems divided into "before tuesday" and "after tuesday") and we talked about how numb and freaked out they were; she's a french teacher at a k-12 private school, she said everyone had been told to wear red on friday, but she hadn't gotten the memo, so when she showed up not wearing red she thought, uh-oh they must think i'm making a statement --and he had been writing his doctoral prelims and had had to stop in medias res ... and was organizing their storage space in the basement just for something to do ...just as i was making zucchini bread just for something to do ... today i went to a party for a six-year-old girl and it was the first time i could talk about something else. the kids put on a puppet show in the hayloft, "elmo in wonderland;" there were genuine laughs and a few nice exchanges with the usual crew at that scene, and again, people were superfriendly not like usual. i'm supposed to be applying for sabbatical leave...how do i describe my project: "materializing my wish that everyone be safe from anger, confusion, fear, harm ... through poetry criticism????" well, why not. At 1:54 PM -0400 9/14/01, Brian Stefans wrote: >Hi folks, > >I spent most of yesterday biking through Manhattan. Managed to get below >14th street, which the news said was off-limits to non-residents. This >didn't turn out to be true -- subway stations were open on 8th and Bleecker, >and they weren't checking IDs up on Avenue C. Couldn't get past Houston >though, and there was another series of checkpoints at Canal -- below Canal >is all relief workers, some military, etc. > >Houston St: almost no traffic, of course, yellow police tape everywhere -- >in one park, I had seen a free dance performance on the basketball courts >only last weekend -- trucks of all sorts parked up and down the street. I >didn't smell anything until I got to Allen St, still several blocks east of >Broadway. It was quite pungent, and burned the eyes a bit -- I can't >imagine what it's like further South. > >Getting down west, near the river, where much of the traffic into and out of >"ground zero" is, and I saw small groups of people cheering on the workers >as they left and arrived. It's the kind of thing I never would have thought >to do myself, but I appreciated their efforts (got a bit teary-eyed, which >is standard for me these days), as any sort of distraction, any sort of even >absurd gesture of love and respect, is valuable for these people. I wanted >to mention, for my Canadian friends, a certain "Stoned Gloves" moment as I >rode around and saw discarded face-masks on the ground, trampled over, >collecting dust. I picked up a sign that said "Thank You!" on it, written >in magic marker on an Evian bottled water box, and put it in my bag. > >I left the area, was thinking of going by the Javitts center but thought >instead of lunch to regroup, watch some tv, and get over this nauseous >feeling I had. Also, my glucose meter had died the day before, so I hadn't >been able to test my blood sugars for over a day -- wanted to relax a bit >and see if I could suss it out myself (diabetics do that, or think they do). > >(Later, I called the company that makes the meter to have them send me >another one, and stupidly got upset when they said it wouldn't arrive for a >week -- duh, no airplanes.) > >Went by my office at CUNY, discovered to my shock that everyone there waited >until they "got the email at 2:30" before leaving. I know we weren't in any >danger on 34th Street, but nonetheless I don't know how people just go back >to their jobs when something like this happens. All the more, it reminded >me of those people in the buildings that were told to go back up to their >offices after the first plane hit -- I'm sure this is a moment that's run >through everyone's mind. > >Spent the afternoon with my sisters in Brooklyn. My sister's boyfriend, >bright as he is, is a bit flaky (don't tell her I said that) so I watched >him playing with a toy helicopter for a few moments with a rather innocent >glee until I had to leave. My sister's pregnant -- she's due in December. > >Made several phone calls. Heard the news that Kevin Davies, who works about >a block from where the towers were, was close enough to feel the shocks of >the second plane, and was walking across the Brooklyn Bridge when the first >tower collapsed. Was heartened to hear that several of the folks he was >with on the bridge were from the first tower -- I just hope the final number >of people "missing" is far lower than the estimated number of people in the >building. > >Met up with Alan Gilbert and Kristin Prevallet at a bar. Our thoughts can't >get away from what we've seen -- Alan relating to me that they played the >national anthem in Britain during the changing of the guard, that it was the >second time he cried watching tv (the first being when he saw the first >tower fall) -- both of us speculating why this seems so meaningful to us now >even as we discuss (I didn't know this) that Bin Laden himself was trained >by Americans to fight the Soviets. One in a long list of American "allies" >turned enemies. > >And the shock of seeing lightning in the sky at about 1 am, not believing >that the weather, after so many days of just utter clarity, could turn to >rain. Remembering that what they are asking for most for the workers, just >hours earlier, was for donations of socks and underwear. It really started >pouring in about a half hour. There seems some additional cruelty to this >choreography of the weather. > >I suppose, after being in Manhattan again, the strangeness of it all is >leaving. Stores are opening up, and up by 34th it almost seemed like just >another day. (That is, except for the police directing traffic on every >corner, and nearly getting run over periodically by trucks or police cars >that seem to come from nowhere.) I saw one young woman walking around 23rd >street crying, still walking with some sort of determination to get where >she's going but still looking lost. Remarked also to myself "well, they >didn't get the Flat Iron" -- a building that, though it is not tall, cuts a >sharp figure against the sky. But everybody's rattled -- once you start >talking, reflecting, it all comes back quite strongly. > >So now thinking of what comes next. It seems we all need our >"foundations" -- whatever set of beliefs they are -- to act responsibly in >the future. Hard to believe that this is just a prelude to what will be a >terrible time for everyone around the world, and to consider that this "day >of remembrance" is something of a luxury that the Americans have always had >not having hostile borders. Not that I'm complaining, but (for example) >when the Korean War first started when my mother was six, there was no such >thing. She and her family just started walking -- couldn't even go to her >room. > >I hope, as poets, that we find a way to participate in some way in using the >things we have been thinking about -- on this list, in the poems, concerning >community, justice, globalization, etc. -- in a good way. > >Kristin told me that she had just returned from an Eileen Myles reading at >Pratt. Eileen didn't read poems, but talked off the top of her about >things -- the symbol of the flag, what her day might have been like, >strangeness of the clear weather etc. -- which Kristin said was incredible. >I speculated that a good "New York School" poet -- in the best "meditations >in an emergency" tradition -- are always keeping some record of the minor >events of their days, somehow finding value and beauty in even the most >trivial aspects of life, holding them against the hugeness of historical >(often bad) events. It's a strength and a weakness, but nonetheless much >more a strength in these times. > >I left my bicycle out in the rain last night -- I usually bring it in but >got lazy. This morning, I discovered someone tried to steal it -- the >rubber around the chain was cut through. Someone spent a lot of time doing >this -- who knows, might have just stopped hearing the door on my building >open. In a bizarre way it's comforting to think people still have >ambitions, but I'm very happy they didn't get it. > >Thanks again for emails you have sent. Just wanted to give you something to >read, hope you don't mind. > >love >Brian ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 08:50:29 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "ap][e][ologger" Subject: Re: what can poets do? In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" At 02:14 PM 15/09/01 -0700, you wrote: >yesterday the zoo re-opened its doors and many flocked -- i can't imagine >how or why anyone would go, and i question if that is the kind of >participation we need, bill, just a quik response.....i can understand m.plicitly *Y* ppl would use the zoo as a release/check ][stress][ point.....the identification with species that do not perform ][acts of ][war, that can be observed & thus identified with, that can be n.teractive in the sense of consciousness defined by the non][human][ rational & the consequential notions that belong with/of this, that offer nature without deceptive parameters & being without propa][geese N][ganda][s][.....my response 2 the USA events include growth n.couragement and ][acts of][ nurturing... antidotes wrapped in phylogenetic skins..... nurturing, ][mez][ . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ .antithetical..n.struments..go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 16:04:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: if you would like to support congresswoman Lee Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dear Friends, East Bay Congresswoman Barbara Lee was the ONLY vote against giving Bush sweeping war powers and as you can imagine, she is receiving numerous hate calls and emails. She has shown tremendous courage in her lonely vote to slow the race toward unrestrained aggression and further destruction. She needs to hear from those who support her position, because she is being bombarded by those who oppose her act of wisdom, morality and conscience. Please send her an email of support. Her email address is: barbara.lee@mail.house.gov In addition, sending letters to the editor would be helpful for her. If you do that, please send her a copy of what you have sent to the newspaper. Finally, letters to the Bay Area congressional delegation would be good.. while many agreed with her position privately, they did not feel they could vote against the measure. All emails to congresspeople are the same...the first name followed by a dot, last name and @mail.house.gov Other email addresses if you're so inclined to speak out: President George W. Bush: president@whitehouse.gov Vice President Dick Cheney: vice.president@whitehouse.gov Peace, Speak Out <><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><> Speak Out is the country's only national not-for-profit organization that promotes progressive speakers and artists on campuses and in communities nationwide. Committed to social, political, cultural and economic justice, Speak Out encourages critical and imaginative thinking about domestic and international issues through artistic and educational forums. Speak Out works with 200 speakers and artists who represent the breadth of social movements as well as critically-acclaimed exhibits and films which inform and empower young people to take action for positive social change. For a complete listing, send us your full mailing address. Speak Out Phone: (510) 601-0182 P.O. Box 99096 Fax: (510) 601-0183 Emeryville CA 94662 Email: info@speakoutnow.org On the Web: http://www.speakoutnow.org _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:42:33 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: forward, please MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit So the "Crusade" of Mr Bush is not now "religious: the Crusadors were never terrorists? Terrorism is never legitimate? Theoretically (eg in Christianity or some interpretations of it in the Bible and the Koran (No?))it is wrong to kill: but people of every religion have used terror (cf the Inquisition, the Pogroms) for centuries: religion gets terribly mixed up with real life and vice versa. Terror can be used as a legitimate defensive tactic: eg even when an animal "bluffs" an opponent and thus less harm is done as one or the other backs down. The Capialist system is almost literallly "policed' by terror or its potential threat: or force of arms or "The Law"... I'm quite terrified of eg the Police., which is one of the reasons I dont steal groceries...the main reason. An ideal world is much more egalitarian than we have now: in such a world the kind of exreme terrorism or suicide attacks or missions or whatever would be much less likely to occur. Taking the point of this slogan though: probably most Muslims and most Jewish people and most Christians etc could live without any antagonism given that there was a more even distribution of wealth. Various peoples have cohabited with varying degrees of peace and conflict for hundreds and thousands years. But most "ordinary" people would not even want to kill a cat let alone a human. These terrorists may be crzy but they dont just arise out of a vacuum. Unless you buy into the Evil versus Good theory. The Buddhists dont seem to a war-like lot but the rulers of the Christian world and the Jewish (not the Jews not the Christians) seem to be or have been. And lately the Muslims (extreme - so called) seem to be "counterattacking". The US will probably pick up Bin Laden or whoever quite easily but that wont solve the problem of terrorism: or the inequalities and the disaffection and the class struggles and nation struggles (linked to religious or "philosophic" struggles). If the Tlaban are wiped out we migh not see a particularly "enightened" lot taking there place. the US may need to occupy Afgahanistan and then set aboput educating and genuinely assisting those countries over there to "progress" or to really progress (if such a term is pertinent or if there is such a thing). As the general level of eduaction and standards of living slowly improve (and the Americans and we New Zealanders and everyone in the "rich" West also "improve or become more enlightened)...then maybe that's something the US-European-Russian etc states can do. A small military action followed by real humanitarian assitance and education of the West and the East: this is an opportunity for the US. An opportunity not to threaten other countries but to use its vast resourses to assist and buld those countries economically and in other ways. The Chinese could aslo be involved - the US dont need a war with China - a cooperative international effort coordinated with a local effort could see a world of relatively rich nations eg Israel and Palestine living together but probaly having their own countries) and without hatred.(That's where the anti-Jewish madness needs to be countered). There are many educated and "ordinary" Palestinians and educated and "ordinary" Israelis who would see that if the pressures of the military "hawks" of the so callled super powers are taken off and people are not struggling to survive daily in many parts of the world. My initial reaction to all this was also anger: but I am able to now attempt to think about it...even or especially as I am not "involved" as such: of course we all are as human beings. Ideally I would not want to see one human being die. It is obviously a terrible tragedy that has happened to NY (how could anyone actually hate anyone on the aeroplanes or anyone? Or contradictorily,hate an abstraction eg "Capitalism" or "Evil"???) but revenge by your military is an unwise thing to advocate: understandable of course. If Auckland was hit I'd probably want revenge...but the challenge is to translate those feelings into a positive action. Impossible to imagine the effect of the loss of one's loved ones. And despite the "symbolism" of the towers etc I was (well a big part of me) is still fascinated by NY and they entranced me those towers and I still have a map of Manhatten that I look at. In fact I immensely enjoyed my trip there and found the people to be very warm and I encounterd compassion when I was there when I "suffered" a panic attack in a cofee place on 47th Street ( combination of heavy drinking and the sheer vastnessof New York compared to eg Auckland which in comparison is a tiny village!)...brusqueness from the hotel clerks but that was amusing rather than anything...and some very good people around Grenwich and in the Nuyorican and the Lower East side ..some poor, some rich...the US is a great and complex and contradictory country. But on the balance sheet there is a great positive energy and (overall) a great deal of freedom: in the arts etc...sure this Bush election was problematic and so on: but the US has some great poets (living and dead) has and has had great inventors, musicians, jazz muiscians, artists, psychologists, scientists,philosophers, Mohammed Ali, ....it is a country which teems with possiblity. It would be bad for such a country to exact a vengeful war: now is the time for rationality before we all begin to descend into the dark. By the way: I'm miles from this event but "part of me" feels that I'm there: I dont have to say to the US "I'm thinking of you" just about every one in NZ is thinking and arguing about this situation constantly (there's even a backlash here I think) ( Its a good thing people have differing opinions however crazy.), and or but I cant stop thinking about it even when I stop thinking about it: I try to rationalise it, to "abstract it", but that is only fooling myself....why am I a poet tring to justify killing?...can it ever be?...am I mad?...but who else finds that they cant read right now? I cant even play Chess now...J S Bach (the computer..one of the relatively weaker ones) wipes me out on ICC (The Internet Ches Club) I won one short tournament then I found I couldnt play ... got to get back to reading. People are traumatised everywhere by these events: dont feel too guilty if you find ourself saying and thinking "crazy" things. It is normal to be crazy for a while (notwithstanding the above comments or withstanding them). Thoughts of a dark mind in a dark time. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Allen H. Bramhall" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 6:44 AM Subject: forward, please > TERRORISM HAS NO RELIGION. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 19:36:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Dean Robbins Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Comments: cc: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Moslem extremists oppose Irael not primarily because they believe it has violated the rights of the Palestinians, but becasue Israel represents modernity. The Islamic "fundamentalists" are in revolt against the entire modern world: freedom, Democracy, secularism, science and technology, modern education, women's liberation, pop culture, modern music and art, liberal Christianity - the whole works. Therefore, anyone who believes they can be satisfied by the USA adopting a more "humane" policy towards the Palestinians is mistaken. Give the Palestinians their own state, and it would become a tawdry third-world dictatorship just like all the other Arab states. The terrorist attacks against Israel and the USA would continue unabated. The Moslem extremists do not want "justice," they want to destroy us and everything we represent. JBCM2@aol.com wrote: > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > Seumas Milne > Thursday September 13, 2001 > The Guardian > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition > of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has > been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts > of the world. > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages. > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a > Churchillian response. > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out > across the world. > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker > asked yesterday. > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are > addressed. > > Carpe Diem > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:40:06 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: m&r ..wish... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Harry I like our dry humour: your little onminous "drn"s! What - following a bit in the "footsteps" of Ed Dorn: oops, I mean De Darn? Regards, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Nudel" To: Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2001 10:41 AM Subject: m&r ..wish... > i wish i were a bond salesman...i could never make it as a fire man....i wish i'd never heard the word po pome ptry...Drn.. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 01:53:54 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: Reactions in Taiwan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Belz" To: Sent: 17 September 2001 18:02 Subject: Re: Reactions in Taiwan | We do not rape and kill our | minorities, banish them to the desert to starve, or massacre them one by one | with machetes. You do not *all kill your minorities; but it does happen. I like to think that UK is a relatively ok and safe place, and so it is, generally, for me; but a taxi driver was just killed - he happened to be an Afghan and some of our airheads decided upon their own little bit of revenge The proportion of ethnic minorities in US prisons and sentenced to death is, I understand, proportionately high... Things aren't too hot in UK, but we have done with the death sentence As to machetes, that's often all people have and they do the best they can. I'm sure that as countries can develop economically then USA and UK can sell them much more civilised ways of severing limbs - I heard that arms companies were one of the few whose stocks rose today on Wall St L ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:46:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: Checking In Again In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > and read POETICS, which i think is >experiencing its finest hour, kind of like when ramez died, suddenly the >ephemeral connection we have seems to have sustaining powers. I think that Maria has it right there. And so much for the creeping thoughts from some parts that suggest that this is not poetics. So. It is human to hear the on-site daily experiences such as Charles's, and to hear the careful combing out of the political issues, and to hear some stuff one did not know before. I was, for example, not aware that CNN was using footage from 10 years ago to work their magic against the palestinian kids. I am glad to see no flaming. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:59:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: edward said's remarks In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" See, the effects of propagands and superpatriotism are so subtle. I mean for instance, there are a lot of people in the world who feel negative thoughts toward the ease with which the U.S.A. gets called "America", both within and without. They might say why not just go ahead and call it "the world"? I dont say that US citizens do so maliciously; they do it without thinking about it, which is one of the little grating things that the non-US world has to observe every day. Some people have, rightly, argued against Bush's claim that it was an attack on Freedom. It is something like that to say it was an attack on America. It was an attack on the U.S., on NYC, on the biggest buildings in capitalism. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:55:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: Brent Dean Robbins Comments: cc: psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org, BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit How anyone can "render impotent" a 500 pound bomb is beyond me. The impotence, for example the cycle of violence, can be discussed in both political and humanitarian terms but not realistically in economic ones. And the fundamental attack is the exploitation of Middle Eastern resources by the West and its fanatic consumption fundamentalists e.g. no democracy is possible without free (sic) markets. The logical expansion of this idea is do it our way or else. After all if this was an oil reserve in Texas we'd be perfectly happy to let Qatar become a run down little...Oh, sorry Qatar is one of the wealthiest countries in the world with universal health care and free education through the University level. Wouldn't the Arab world, especially the traditional one, be surprised to find that they couldn't run their affairs without the likes of great western statesmen like G.W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Spiro Agnew, Allen Dulles, "Ruthless" Rumsfeld, Ronny "The Diseased Puppet" Reagan, Dan Quayle et al. The events of last week have demonstrated one thing: this country has a major surplus of xenophobic hicks. CP Brent Dean Robbins wrote: > There is a glaring fallacy in these arguments. One can either argue the > humanitarian aspects of this violence, or the political. > > Under the political lens, the argument would go like this, "The US has stood and > currently stands athwart the express aims of certain Islamic sects. Therefore, > these sects are fully justified in wreaking whatever degree of warlike > retribution against the US they deem prudent, and in so doing, they are justified > in striving to effect their ends. This is so, even if they were to kidmap > children and use them as a means of attack against other innocent people." > > The corallary to this is, "The Islamic sects have now and continue to interpose > themselves athwart the express aims of the legitimate governments in the Mid > East, and they have selected a wave of terrorism as the means to achieve their > political ends. In taking any and every step to thwart their aims, even to the > extent of using nuclear weapons to erradicate these individuals. This is > justified, even if it means that some innocents night be killed in the process." > > The humanitarian argument would go: "There are ways to sit down and resolve > differences among people who have grievances. These must be the mechanisms used > to resolve disagreements like these. There can be no justification for the > killing of innocent people." > > The problem is that the radical left argues the political , as a means of > justifying or rationalizing the attack, while arguing the humanitarian as a means > to render impotent any potential response. > > It is a fallacious argument. > > If the political justification is sufficient unto itself to mitigate or even > justify the attack, then it is sufficient unto itselto justify virtually any > response the US might effect. > > If the humanitarian argument is to be employed, it must be employed both ways. > > JBCM2@aol.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > > > Seumas Milne > > Thursday September 13, 2001 > > The Guardian > > > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New > > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply > > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message > > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and > > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as > > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. > > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition > > of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, > > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is > > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across > > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much > > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the > > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has > > been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts > > of the world. > > > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, > > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are > > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with > > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose > > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up > > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will > > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel > > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the > > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western > > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated > > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, > > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or > > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial > > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it > > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed > > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; > > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and > > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military > > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages. > > > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was > > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the > > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a > > Churchillian response. > > > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives > > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is > > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If > > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's > > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' > > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war > > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to > > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained > > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its > > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his > > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while > > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now > > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently > > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of > > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out > > across the world. > > > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the > > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as > > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or > > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the > > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with > > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker > > asked yesterday. > > > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for > > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of > > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which > > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will > > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are > > addressed. > > > > Carpe Diem > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:12:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated In-Reply-To: <3BA68901.40AF71E@sgi.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >The Moslem extremists oppose Irael not primarily because they believe it has >violated the rights of the Palestinians, but becasue Israel >represents modernity. >The Islamic "fundamentalists" are in revolt against the entire modern world: >freedom, Democracy, secularism, science and technology, modern >education, women's >liberation, pop culture, modern music and art, liberal Christianity >- the whole >works. Therefore, anyone who believes they can be satisfied by the >USA adopting a >more "humane" policy towards the Palestinians is mistaken. Give the >Palestinians >their own state, and it would become a tawdry third-world >dictatorship just like >all the other Arab states. The terrorist attacks against Israel and >the USA would >continue unabated. The Moslem extremists do not want "justice," they want to >destroy us and everything we represent. Damn. I was always told that was the Communists. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:17:57 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: surrealism in East Asia MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Walter, If I rember correctly a talk of yours at the Poetry Project a few years ago, surrealism was used by a number of Korean(?) poets as a language of coded communication, against authority. Murat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 18:21:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: peter culley Subject: Re: wondering... Comments: cc: George Bowering MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nice to see your knee still jerks ok, George. Maybe "At War With the U.S." is due for a reprint? And just when was it you ran into Falwell, exactly? I've been to Finland a number of times and it's a country I love very much, but if you think that it's a model of tolerance check out their refugee policy sometime... peter c ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bowering" To: Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 12:19 PM Subject: Re: wondering... > >In a message dated 9/14/01 6:39:30 PM, joe.amato@COLORADO.EDU writes: > > > > But I've done a bit of traveling, and the USA is easily the most > >tolerant and welcoming societal mechanism on earth. > > I never ran into any Jerry Falwells in Finland, Joe. > -- > George Bowering > Freelance reader > Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:26:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Re: surrealism in East Asia In-Reply-To: <167.1032ed1.28d7fac5@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Likewise by contemporary Chinese poets and the Eastern Europeans, of course. At 09:17 PM 9/17/01 -0400, you wrote: >Walter, > >If I rember correctly a talk of yours at the Poetry Project a few years ago, >surrealism was used by a number of Korean(?) poets as a language of coded >communication, against authority. > >Murat ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:26:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: JBCM2@AOL.COM, bdeanrob@SGI.NET, alphavil@IX.NETCOM.COM, bowering@SFU.CA In-Reply-To: MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad >=20 > Special report: Terrorism in the US >=20 > Seumas Milne > Thursday September 13, 2001 > The Guardian >=20 Last week I forwarded this article to a friend of mine who is an international news editor for a magazine -- here's her response. I'm not saying it's MY response, mind you, I'm just sending it out as a thoughtful counterpoint. -Aaron + + + + + + + Milne has a lot of facts wrong, so it's easy to poke holes in his thesis. Bin Laden, for instance, did not receive US support during the Soviet-Afghanistan War. He was in Saudi Arabia and then Sudan at the time, and not connected to the Taliban yet (because the Taliban did not yet exist). Some fighters of what would later become the Taliban received US support fighting against the Soviets. I can't summon this guy's sadness for what happened to the Soviet Union's puppet regime in Afghanistan, and I don't see its pertinence to where we are now. Milne talks about how the US "bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and Iraq w/o troubling the United Nations." The UN adopted a resolution in favo= r of Operation Desert Storm. The bombing of Yugoslavia was a NATO operation (of course US run), and Sudan and Afghanistan strikes were one-time Clinton flights of fantasy to deflect from his personal troubles, but I guess we have to live with those. Then he talks about the "US global economy", which is a hilarious concept. As you know, the US government does not run the global economy....you and I do. It's millions of decisions made all over the world all day long, and helped most especially by the US free market. The total assets of the entir= e rest of the world do not equal the size of US capital markets. It is self evident that that happens in a free economy; not a dictatorship and not eve= n in the quasi-socialist murk of Europe. (how telling that at least 100 Japanese and hundreds of other Asian and European investor-broker types wer= e in WTC and likely casualties) So if I was reading this in my living room with Milne across the way, I'd look at him and say, "You're just jealous." But then I do agree that we are arrogant and uninformed and there is real need for humility at the moment. Having said that, I fully believe we have the best form of government in the world. I thought this de Tocqueville quote (in WSJ Opinion Journal) is clinching: "Is it your object to refine the habits, embellish the manners and cultivat= e the arts, to promote the love of poetry, beauty and glory? If you believe such to be the principal object of society, avoid the government of democracy, for it would not lead you with certainty to that goal. But .=A0.=A0. if you are of the opinion that the principal object of a government is .=A0.=A0= . to ensure the greatest enjoyment and to avoid the most misery to each of th= e individuals who compose it, then equalize the conditions of men and establish democratic institutions." History produced no greater admirer of America's promise, or of democracy's broad, civilizing benefits, than Tocqueville. But he understood and predicted many of the inevitable effects of a democratized society, one of which was that there would be great downward pressure on the arts and socia= l manners. There would for a certainty be grand achievements, as democracy spread opportunity among any brilliant mind, such as Duke Ellington's; but in a land of opportunity, with many chances taken, much of our culture woul= d be half-baked and hapless. ...And so we keep sorting it out. + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:09:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: Fwd: FW: Petition Alert Comments: To: grabiner@ecc.edu, nadi_@hotmail.com, brian.grabiner@utoronto.ca, hverman@aol.com, mprinted@aol.com, khshabazz@aol.com, elesk@compuserve.com, laugenl@aol.com, schwendh@earthlink.net, braun@ctel.net, anneshugar@aol.com, jankowski@ecc.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable >X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) >Importance: Normal >Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 18:42:45 -0400 >Reply-To: Society for the Philosophical Study of Marxism Listserve > >Sender: Society for the Philosophical Study of Marxism Listserve > >From: James Lawler >Subject: FW: Petition Alert >To: SPSM-LIST@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by=20 >mx1.buf.adelphia.net id f8FMfV229684 > >Dear Friends, > >I have just read and signed the petition: > >CALL FOR PEACE & JUSTICE! > >In the aftermath of the ruthless attack on the World Trade Center >and Pentagon, we implore the leaders of the United States to >ensure that justice be served by protecting the innocent citizens >of all nations. We call for PEACE and JUSTICE, not revenge. > >Please help by signing this petition to be sent to President >Bush. It takes 30 seconds and will really help. Please follow >this link: > >http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/224622495 > >The system centralizes signature collection to provide consolidated, >useful reports for petition authors and targets. > >Please forward this email to others you believe share your concern. > >To view additional petitions, please click here: >http://www.thePetitionSite.com > >Thank you, > > > > > >Total Signatures: 38,657 > >The 25 most recent signatures* as of 12:32 PM PDT Sep 14, 2001 > ># 38,657 9/14/01 12:31 PM Daniel Loss, PA, US ># 38,656 9/14/01 12:31 PM Rhonda Webb, CO, US ># 38,655 9/14/01 12:31 PM KWANHYE JUNG, NC, US ># 38,654 9/14/01 12:31 PM Jennifer Schurer, MA, US ># 38,653 9/14/01 12:31 PM Anonymous, GB ># 38,652 9/14/01 12:31 PM Jill Rubinstein, US ># 38,651 9/14/01 12:31 PM Jane Prasad, US ># 38,650 9/14/01 12:31 PM Anonymous, TX, US ># 38,649 9/14/01 12:31 PM Megan Parker-Johnson, RI, US ># 38,648 9/14/01 12:31 PM Bryan Jennings, ID, US ># 38,647 9/14/01 12:31 PM Mary Ray, MO, US ># 38,646 9/14/01 12:31 PM Jason Thomale, TX, US ># 38,645 9/14/01 12:31 PM Anonymous, WI, US ># 38,644 9/14/01 12:31 PM Anonymous, OH, US ># 38,643 9/14/01 12:30 PM Anonymous, IN ># 38,642 9/14/01 12:30 PM Adela Gaytan, CA, US ># 38,641 9/14/01 12:30 PM Jocelyn Hollander, OR, US ># 38,640 9/14/01 12:30 PM Anonymous, CA, US ># 38,639 9/14/01 12:30 PM Anonymous, GB ># 38,638 9/14/01 12:30 PM Harold A. Wylie, TX, US ># 38,637 9/14/01 12:30 PM Stella K=FCper, DE ># 38,636 9/14/01 12:30 PM Vicky Lynch, GB ># 38,635 9/14/01 12:29 PM Guillaume Delvallee, FR ># 38,634 9/14/01 12:29 PM Amanda Dushack, WI, US ># 38,633 9/14/01 12:29 PM Anonymous, FR > >To add your name you MUST use the PetitionSite.com web form located here: > > http://www.thePetitionSite.com/takeaction/224622495 > >*Signers may choose to hide their identity to the public. Such names >will appear as "Anonymous" on the PetitionSite.com and advocacy emails >similar to this. > >To view additional petitions, please click here: >http://www.thePetitionSite.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:26:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: George Bush's Slumbering Giant In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII In my poetry class today at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, it was our day to talk about "cliche" (apologies for lack of accent). I pointed out that Bush has stated numerous times that the terrorists have "roused a slumbering giant." This, in case you don't know, is a line plagiarized word for word from the movie "Pearl Harbor." In the movie, an obsequious Japanase military guy says to the general in charge of the attack on Pearl Harbor something along the lines of "well done," whereupon the general shakes his head mournfully and delivers the "sleeping giant" line. It's important that we and our students know that our "leader" is relying, literally, on Hollywood hackneyed script to rally support for a bombing that will at best kill thousands of oppressed, starving Afghanis while doing nothing in terms of getting at the scum who bombed my city. And they are scum. I must admit I've been a little creeped out by the automatic good ole' priviliged lefty response on this list that critiques Bush et al while, at least as far as I've seen, offers little in terms of suggesting alternatives to the mindless, vicious retribution suggested by King George the 2nd. I've also been somewhat taken aback by the "Oh, how tacky - everyone's waving American flags" stuff I've seen, as well as the "they smashed the symbol of capitalism" type comments. The fact that the "flag wavers" are mostly working class people deeply affected by the bombing - for example, my students' parents are the cops, firemen, transit workers, janitors and secretaries that suffered deeply on Tuesday -- I think calls for some restraint on our predictable critiques of jingoism. Some restraint, that is, and just for now, while the wounds are still gaping. I hope to see all of you at the end of September in Washington DC, where, if the "war" on the poor of Afghanistan happens, we can all at least have a chance to voice our dissent. I'm thinking my sign will read "No to Star Wars...Yes to Airport Security." all best, and peace, --daniel ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 23:15:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: a PS to the Sleeping (not slumbering) giant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This from a website on Pearl Harbor: Imperial Admiral Yamamoto, who conceived, designed and promoted the Pearl harbor attack, cautioned against a war with the United States. Having twice held naval attache positions within the Japanese embassy in the U. S. Capitol, he knew well the industrial strength, material wealth and temperament of the United States. Overruled by his superiors, he dedicated his efforts as Commander in Chief of the Imperial Combined Fleet to a successful attack. Upon completion of the attack he is quoted as saying "We have awakened a sleeping giant and have instilled in him a terrible resolve". ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 23:53:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: claank design Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable I'm thankful that this information of the 'false' images is circulating. True or not this is a good time for people to be on their toes about news spinning. Andrea Baker=20 > From: "K.Angelo Hehir" > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:09:04 -0230 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? >=20 > Friends, >=20 >=20 > This story has been updated. I wonder if the reason I forwarded the > original story to so many people was because I so much _wanted_ to believ= e > that the footage was fake? Any self serving smugness has been smacked > back in my face. Italian activist playwrite Dario Fo has said that the > left must combat the misinformation of the corporate media with > counterinformation. I have realized that I have slipped into the slumber > that I arrogantly accuse others of inhabiting. >=20 > I'm learning a lot about my self these days. >=20 > Peace, > Kevin >=20 > http://uk.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=3D11546 >=20 >=20 > CNN did not use images form 1991 > by Undercurrents 4:43am Sat Sep 15 '01 >=20 > If alternative media is to be believed we > have to check our > sources and i did. This is what i found. >=20 > CNN did not use images from 1991. I challeged the guy > who put this posting out and > here is his reply >=20 >=20 > From: "Marcio A. V. de Carvalho" > > To: Valerio Soares , > Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 07:52:49 -0300 > Subject: CNN >=20 > Dear all, >=20 > Last September 13, I=92ve sent an email to this list in > which I provided > some information about the falsity of the images of > Palestinian > celebration for the terrorism in USA, information > given to me by a > teacher. I spent the last day looking for that > teacher, and, > unfortunately, when I found her, she DENIED having > access to such > images. >=20 > She said that she was sure she had seen the images > back in 1991, but SHE > CAN=92T PROVE. She was not willing to provide further > information, DENYING > what she had said before to a full class of students. >=20 > I sincerely apologize for this uncertain information; > unfortunately I > can=92t prove the information contained in my last post; > IT=92S ONLY A > CONJECTURE, THAT THOSE IMAGES OF PALESTINIANS > CELEBRATING IS FALSE. > I > bought the idea myself, and reproduced it for you > because of the > importance of it, in the case it was to be confirmed. >=20 > Whatever news I get I=92ll pass to you. >=20 > Best regards >=20 > M=E1rcio A. V. Carvalho > State University of Campinas =96 Brazil >=20 > www.undercurrents.org >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 > --------- >=20 > COUNTERPUNCH.ORG reports that the CNN footage of Palestinians celebrating= is > actually fake. Researchers at a Brazillian University have found identic= al > footage from 1991. Also note, it was night-time in Palestine when the ne= ws > arrived. Please distribute this news widely as that footage is inspirati= on > for a lot of hateful feelings right now. > --Naeem Mohaiemen >=20 > Check out counterpunch's front page: > http://www.counterpunch.org > http://www.chicago.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=3D4395&group=3Dwebcast >=20 > =3D=3D^=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D > EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrGRA.bVboig > Or send an email To: stjohnsftaa-unsubscribe@topica.com > This email was sent to: khehir@cs.mun.ca >=20 > T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! > http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register > =3D=3D^=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:45:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: Aaron Belz Comments: cc: JBCM2@AOL.COM, bdeanrob@SGI.NET, bowering@SFU.CA MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit "I know of no people with less independence of mind that the Americans." paraphrase of De Tocqueville (I'm not going to waste my time looking for the exact quote for this.) Aside from the U.N. being consulted on some of the U.S. bombing of Iraq, Milne's article stands up. But I've read better than Milne's. It didn't take long for "the editor" to run out of the few distortions she knew and resort to Jingo Bells and abuse poor ol' de Tocqueville. But pretty tame and wisely circumspect from someone who obviously doesn't know too much and whose job depends on maintaining that ignorance. CP Aaron Belz wrote: > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > > > Seumas Milne > > Thursday September 13, 2001 > > The Guardian > > > > Last week I forwarded this article to a friend of mine who is an > international news editor for a magazine -- here's her response. I'm not > saying it's MY response, mind you, I'm just sending it out as a thoughtful > counterpoint. -Aaron > > + + + + + + + > > Milne has a lot of facts wrong, so it's easy to poke holes in his thesis. > Bin Laden, for instance, did not receive US support during the > Soviet-Afghanistan War. He was in Saudi Arabia and then Sudan at the time, > and not connected to the Taliban yet (because the Taliban did not yet > exist). Some fighters of what would later become the Taliban received US > support fighting against the Soviets. I can't summon this guy's sadness for > what happened to the Soviet Union's puppet regime in Afghanistan, and I > don't see its pertinence to where we are now. > > Milne talks about how the US "bombed Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia, and > Iraq w/o troubling the United Nations." The UN adopted a resolution in favor > of Operation Desert Storm. The bombing of Yugoslavia was a NATO operation > (of course US run), and Sudan and Afghanistan strikes were one-time Clinton > flights of fantasy to deflect from his personal troubles, but I guess we > have to live with those. > > Then he talks about the "US global economy", which is a hilarious concept. > As you know, the US government does not run the global economy....you and I > do. It's millions of decisions made all over the world all day long, and > helped most especially by the US free market. The total assets of the entire > rest of the world do not equal the size of US capital markets. It is self > evident that that happens in a free economy; not a dictatorship and not even > in the quasi-socialist murk of Europe. (how telling that at least 100 > Japanese and hundreds of other Asian and European investor-broker types were > in WTC and likely casualties) > > So if I was reading this in my living room with Milne across the way, I'd > look at him and say, "You're just jealous." > > But then I do agree that we are arrogant and uninformed and there is real > need for humility at the moment. Having said that, I fully believe we have > the best form of government in the world. I thought this de Tocqueville > quote (in WSJ Opinion Journal) is clinching: > > "Is it your object to refine the habits, embellish the manners and cultivate > the arts, to promote the love of poetry, beauty and glory? If you believe > such to be the principal object of society, avoid the government of > democracy, for it would not lead you with certainty to that goal. But . . . > if you are of the opinion that the principal object of a government is . . . > to ensure the greatest enjoyment and to avoid the most misery to each of the > individuals who compose it, then equalize the conditions of men and > establish democratic institutions." > > History produced no greater admirer of America's promise, or of democracy's > broad, civilizing benefits, than Tocqueville. But he understood and > predicted many of the inevitable effects of a democratized society, one of > which was that there would be great downward pressure on the arts and social > manners. There would for a certainty be grand achievements, as democracy > spread opportunity among any brilliant mind, such as Duke Ellington's; but > in a land of opportunity, with many chances taken, much of our culture would > be half-baked and hapless. > > ...And so we keep sorting it out. > > + + + + + + + ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 02:48:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...jihad... According to Bloomberg and Sky News...The Taliban has declared or reinstated it;s holy war or jihad 'gainst USa...all poets were aksed to report immediately......Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:45:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: just checking Comments: cc: eliztj@HOTMAIL.COM In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- "K.Silem Mohammad" wrote: >has anyone heard from Rebecca Wolff, Tom Devaney, Brendan Lorber? Kasey ------------------------------------------------------- Rebecca Wolff --- I hope this isn't a breach of confidentiality --- e-mailed me on Mon. the 10th that she was leaving on one of her selfless extended poetry- fundraising business trips outside the city (to a place with a name that could be in Massachusetts, Cornwell UK, Colchester Nova Scotia, or Australia, she didn't specify which). And, yes, Jeffrey Jullich (who?) is still alive (un-dead), Mrs. Jackson (Thanks for the touching "my love and hope to all of you -- even, yes, those I've had tiffs with -- on this list" . . . like the media moment when Rudolph Guiliani and Hillary Clinton embraced) (though a name nowhere to be found on the 8/25/01 3:43 a.m. "100 NYC Poets" posting, oddly). Sorry epithalamium I was composing has been temporarily interrupted. {Tinkling music box music coming from next dug-out, touching, . . . like film score in opening moments of Live Home Video "The Bell Jar" movie version, starring Marilyn Hassett as Sylvia surrogate, twirling in circles in cardigan in opening moments, not at all soil-bespattered, Julie Harris (formerly of "Belle of Amherst" Emily Dickinson fame, just to confound everything) as Mama Plath, and Anne Bancroft, a must-see (~especially~ in solarium converted by night into in-patient "Entertainment Night," all pathos).} We're hoping to be back from Antilles in time for the Jackie O. "Best Beloved Poems" unveiling, Sept. 24th. You know how beautifully they read "Ithaka" by Cavafy & "Memory of Cape Cod" by Millay at ~her~ funeral. Tears, literacy, ahimsa, that's ---*MS.* Laura RJ wannabe to you, thank you 55596446229489549303819644288109756659334461 55596446229489549303819644288109756659334461 Memory of Cape Cod The wind in the ash-tree sounds like surf on the shore at Truro. I will shut my eyes . . . hush, be still with your silly bleating, sheep on Shillingstone Hill . . . They said: Come along! They said: Leave your pebbles on the sand and come along, it’s long after sunset! The mosquitoes will be thick in the pine-woods along by Long Nook, the wind’s died down! They said: Leave your pebbles on the sand, and your shells, too, and come along, we’ll find you another beach like the beach at Truro. Let me listen to wind in the ash . . . it sounds like surf on the shore. __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 00:44:10 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: George Bush's Slumbering Giant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 9:30:07 PM, dkane@PANIX.COM writes: >And they are scum. I must admit I've been a little creeped out by the >automatic good ole' priviliged lefty response on this list that critiques >Bush et al while, at least as far as I've seen, offers little in terms >of >suggesting alternatives to the mindless, vicious retribution suggested >by >King George the 2nd. I've also been somewhat taken aback by the "Oh, how >tacky - everyone's waving American flags" stuff I've seen, as well as the >"they smashed the symbol of capitalism" type comments. The fact that the >"flag wavers" are mostly working class people deeply affected by the >bombing - for example, my students' parents are the cops, firemen, transit >workers, janitors and secretaries that suffered deeply on Tuesday -- I >think calls for some restraint on our predictable critiques of jingoism. > >Some restraint, that is, and just for now, while the wounds are still >gaping. Daniel, Thank you for the voice of sanity. Murat ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:05:03 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: wondering... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Bush and his mates are dangerous fascists: as dangerous as the suicide pilot: no more so. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "gene" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 9:03 AM Subject: Re: wondering... > We must find those who have committed this monstrous crime. But, there > must be a calibrated, measured and reasoned approach. All our lives are in > the balance. The planet is in the balance. I do not want any more women > and children, elderly and general non-combatants killed or wounded in my > name. If bin Laden is a suspect, why not bring him to the Hague and > produce evidence. Regardless about how we feel re: legality, that has been > done for Milosovic. He has not been killed to muffle his story. > > And, I'm concerned about what the President said yesterday. He called this > a "Crusade." Does that encourage the idea of "Jihad" on the part of many > muslim people, worldwide? Besides, how does that sit with all those > American non-Christians (I seem to remember something about the crusaders' > a slaughter of Jews on their way to the Holy Land). Here, Civil Liberties > appear ready to be slaughtered, incidental to this Tenth Crusade. Civil > Rights seem to be on the block. Ironically, if there's a national ID card, > white America will finally find out how Black America has been living all > these years. But, we must oppose the slaughter of our civil rights. I > believe that if we don't like the news, we ought to go out and make some > ourselves! "Protect Civil Rights," "Defend the Bill of Rights and the > Constitution," "Arabs, Arab-Americans and Muslims are NOT the Enemy." > > The rich countries need to forgive the poor countries' debt. There must > also be a Marshall Plan for the world. And, all known terrorists known by > their governments to be living in all countries, and/or sheltered by those > countries, should be apprehended. If appropriate evidence is available, > they should be tried. Among others, that would include Cuban terrorists > who have fled to the US. It might also mean members of the FBI and various > local police departments (domestic terror). Likewise, members of the > CIA and the armed forces (international terror) might also come in for > scrutiny on this basis. The same should occur, e.g., in the UK, France, > China, Russia, Japan etc. > > War has not been declared by Congress (in 125 previous conflicts, the US > has declared war only 5 times) . So "war" remains a political > metaphor. International police action is a more appropriate term. War > declarations make it just too easy to trash our rights. Additionally, > there is no such thing as terrorism. It is not an ideology or economic or > social system (e.g., feudalism, socialism. capitalism, communism, barbarism > etc., etc.). There is no terrorism. There are only terrorists. > > > Gene > > > > > At 04:29 PM 9/14/01 -0600, you wrote: > >i too am deeply disturbed by the (christian, religious) hawkishness > >being voiced by our leaders and by so many of my fellow citizens here > >in the dear old u.s. of a... > > > >at the same time, i'm wondering if my friends here on the left (b/c > >i'm sure that's where i stand) might offer what they think the > >u.s./international community ought actually to *do* at the moment, > >practically speaking... i see the language of manhunts (e.g.) far > >more appropriate to the aims of social justice than any talk of war > >or bombing or some other absurdity... > > > >and that said, i see the language of pure nonviolence (the pure > >language of nonviolence?) something of a (liberal) cop-out, given > >what's happened and what's been happening on this planet for so long > >now... and in fact, to suggest we "do nothing" perhaps supports an > >isolationist agenda (with which latter i want to have nothing > >whatever to do mself)... yes, critique, yes, cool-headedness (and > >passion!), yes, violence is bad... but anarchistic sentiment > >alone?... appeals to our better angels alone?... > > > >hardly... > > > >so: can we on the left have an actual impact on policy---for once > >(in a long while), *while* it's happening?... by e.g. putting our > >names beside an anti-terrorism (as in, apprehend the criminals) > >agenda, an agenda that approaches these torments from a truly > >international-cosmopolitan ethical-political perspective (with the > >u.s. held every bit as culpable as any other group/nation)?... > > > >apologies for the speculative (provocative?) nature of my remarks, > >given current urgencies and emotions and heartbreaks... but i must > >admit, i grow rather weary of ideological critique, given the > >stakes... i don't like it, not one damn bit, that the right is > >controlling this (public) discourse, and i don't believe that > >wringing "our" hands as to the violent nature of human nature > >(nothing against hand-wringing per se, as i am doing my share of it, > >believe me) is enough... in all, i think it's up to the left to > >propose a workable response---incl. all efforts at diplomacy, sure, > >but also (dare i say it?) the threat of (international, which > >probably means military) police action, if necessary, and the full > >application of a justice system to deal with any & all culprits... > > > >or am i entirely wrongheaded?... > > > >peace, & hoping for the best-- > > > > > >joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 17:18:23 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Webster Schultz Subject: september in Honolulu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Last year I was driving home over the crest of a hill near Punchbowl = (and the National Cemetary of the Pacific), when I saw Pearl Harbor = ablaze at 4 p.m. Startled, I was able to say to myself, "it's just a = movie. They even got the time of day wrong."=20 When the twin towers fell, people on TV said, "It's like Pearl Harbor," = or, "It's like a movie." My mother remembers Pearl Harbor. She remembers wondering where it was. = Who does not know where Manhattan is? The Pentagon. I wish Allen Ginsberg had levitated the damn thing. Ala Moana Shopping Center, once the largest in the USA, closed on = Tuesday, as did public schools on the Big Island (though not those on = Oahu or other islands). Two days after the bombing, I saw "wanted" posters on telephone poles in = Kalihi, a working class neighborhood in Honolulu. On the posters were = color photographs of Osama Bin Laden.=20 Terrorist cells: cell phones (last calls). "The instant politicization of our grief," says one email. Grief, by any = other means, is now our politics. So this is the sublime. We have crossed the Alps. This time we saw it = happen. Sunday, it rains heavily on the windward side. The mountains are covered = by waterfalls, so many the mountains themselves seem to move. My two-year old son, Sangha, plays happily with his airplane, hi fire = trucks, his bulldozer. I think, thank god he's too young to be drafted. All the calls ended, "I love you." ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:02:38 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Belz" To: Sent: 18 September 2001 02:26 Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated | I'm not saying it's MY response, mind you, I'm just sending it out as a thoughtful counterpoint. -Aaron | Bin Laden, for instance... I don't see its pertinence to where we are now. Like so many weapons of the freedom-loving west, he has been trained / funded / backed by US and / or others. As the anger is against what he is said to have DONE, surely who it is done to is secondary. The point is "we" trained him to do it to somebody | The UN adopted a resolution in favor of Operation Desert Storm. at a time when US was withholding money, ultra vires, from UN unless it did as it wantess | The bombing of Yugoslavia was a NATO operation (of course US run) that's right, without troubling the UN - actually it troubled them mightily. & while the word _democracy_ is in the air, whoever got to vote for NATO? | and Sudan and Afghanistan strikes were one-time Clinton flights of fantasy to deflect from his personal troubles well, leaving aside the motivations - this little crusade won't hurt Bush's reelection - they were conducted without troubling UN. So I guess the charge stands on the evidence of the correspondent's refutation | Then he talks about the "US global economy"... I pass on the economics lesson. It's so self-contained. Whenever someone tells me that they can't stop laughing or find something hilarious, I smell a rat - though I have cut down on the ensuing sword play | I fully believe we have the best form of government in the world. I thought this de Tocqueville quote (in WSJ Opinion Journal) is clinching: Norman Mailer's _the shits have got us_ clinched it for me | ...And so we keep sorting it out. In UK _sorting out_ can mean beating up someone who isn't behaving as you wish them to Afghanistan is on the brink of starvation. Regardless of whether or not they have harboured murderous criminals - and they are murderous, no problem with that - I suggest that the USA and UK (10% or so of the dead Americans were actually British) start flying in *massive aid, gratis - more than we have ever before. All we need say is that we understand what it is to face death, to feel one is without hope. Here, have this, we are all the same. When you have the time, could you help us find out who attacked us? If we are going to have a crusade, let's do it the easy way. Let's demonstrate the effect of belief in that God in whom so many of us trust L ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 04:07:01 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scott=20Hamilton?= Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Aaron Belz's friend wrote: "Sudan and Afghanistan strikes were one-time Clinton flights of fantasy to deflect from his personal troubles" The destruction of a pharmacetical plant in the botched Sudan raid caused, according to Noam Chomsky's estimate, tens of thousands of deaths. Attempts to kickstart an international investigation of the exact toll were blocked, in the UN, by the US. Clinton's libido may have been behind the attack, but isn't it worth asking why the 'personal troubles' of one American can have such devastating effects? Cheers Scott ===== For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 04:13:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..scape grace... I'm going to try this again since we've had 272 line from the Distinquished Dr. Said... Isn't it time we dusted off Edward Said's ORIENTALISM and put it in the PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR SECTION where it belonged all along...DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:23:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: USA some remarks Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed from George Bowering: I mean for instance, there are a lot of people in the world who feel negative thoughts toward the ease with which the U.S.A. gets called "America", both within and without. They might say why not just go ahead and call it "the world"? I dont say that US citizens do so maliciously; they do it without thinking about it, which is one of the little grating things that the non-US world has to observe every day. Some people have, rightly, argued against Bush's claim that it was an attack on Freedom. It is something like that to say it was an attack on America. It was an attack on the U.S., on NYC, on the biggest buildings in capitalism. ---- from me: George, Please rest assured that there are plenty of US citizens who do notice the very thing you complain of and attempt to avoid calling ourselves "Americans". My first thoughts were similar to Lisa Samuels's, that I hope we as a country can consider a new way of being in the world. One that is more reasonable toward our fellow earthlings. The quick turn to easy patriotism and religion that I see here scares me. But that is not every US citizen's reaction. It is all very complicated. In regard to Richard Tyler's post I don't think we need to be bashed for WW2 things at this time -- we did help out. And I certainly hope at this time that the countries we are expecting to help us, including Britain, make some demands on us in terms of asking us to consider being reflective. This may all be a pipe dream of course. Also though, please don't assume all of us go along with the version of the USA you see on TV, especially not GWB's smokin-cowboy-cheerleader ways -- remember, most of us didn't even vote for him. So we have troubles. All of this is perhaps stating the obvious but it does need to be stated sometimes. Love and hope to all Elizabeth Treadwell "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 05:36:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: m&r..Ladder Assistance Fund... nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > I will contribute the full procedes of any one of the 28 SIGNED Langston Hughes items i have for sale on the net...minus the Vechten photo Signed by Hughes.. Also...the small computer generated book re re re re re re.i did with Bob Creeley....XEROX in an edition of 10 copies...done in Jan. 2000 and one the firt computer books of the new millenium...is for sale for 5,000.00...certainly a bargain..full procedes to the Ladder Assistance Fund...also i have to find it amidst this rubble.. I also am donating a copy of the SIGNED/LIMITED/EDITION...10 copies only of LIGHTS LIGHTS...signed by both me and Tuli Kupferberg...the only signed limited Edition that Tuli ever did and a comic master piece if i have to say so myself.. Any one wishing to make further donations to THE LADDER 3 ASSISTANCE FUND...108 E.13.TH ST...NY NY... they lost 12 of 25 men.. You can also mail a check to me at NUDEL BOOKS...135 SPRING ST..NY NY 10012...BUT MAKE SURE THE CHECK IS MADE OUT TO THE FUND... I will walk it over and maybe the book and poetry community can fund a college education at Harvard or M.I.T....for some of the kids who lost their fathers...Peace after Victory DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 23:53:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: claank design Subject: Re: Reactions in Taiwan/ story In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit well stated. thank you for this call toward balance. Right now when everyone is so disturbed it seems that opinion tends toward both dubious extremes. This aside, a progress report of life here in Brooklyn: One close friend moved away already. The post office is now accepting packages and parcels again. Many foreign friends are making plans to return to their countries. Our banks computers are now fully operational again. The dollar store around the block which is run by Arabs has installed nine security cameras. Moving sale signs are rampant. Of course lots of flags. I woke up this morning and, with the local PBS station gone, scrambled to grab a video to occupy our three year old son while we went about the morning tasks (mourning tasks?). Only the news was there and I couldn't block it out. I sat dazed for a moment by the FBI report which I can't even recall now though at the time it made me so ill that I went back to bed and left my husband to get our son to school. In the last few months we have finagled a life of _independent poverty_ in which very little is required of us, economically speaking, and we're more or less free to do our art projects when our son is away at a state sponsored school. So, child delivered to preschool, husband returned from the delivery and our day lives begin. I revise a poem of shock but am unable to work on any work from _before_ and unable to produce anything new. I find myself envying the friends I keep emailing at their work places. They seem to have something to do. My husband, a musician, spends the day reading some magazine we dug out of the trash the night before. I stare at various things and keep remembering a story I read about this whole affair. It was from someone who was down there at the time. He said he ran away from the site in a screaming crowd for twenty minutes before he realized that he was screaming too. Andrea Baker > From: Aaron Belz > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 12:02:45 -0500 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Reactions in Taiwan > >> >> Even the less educated in these >> countries are well aware of how America treats its own (black, Hispanic, >> etc) economically deprived minorities. > > > This statement reflects the temporary insanity to which I hope some of us > will plead when all of this is resolved. > > "Economically deprived minorities" in other countries-- especially in > Eastern Europe, parts of Africa, China, and of course the Middle East -- > know how well their counterparts in the U.S. are treated. They know that > American "economically deprived minorities" are not only free to assemble > and worship unharassed, but receive educational support, food and financial > aid, and lead lives of relative comfort. We do not rape and kill our > minorities, banish them to the desert to starve, or massacre them one by one > with machetes. > > I respect our desire to be realistic about America as a global bully, but we > need to keep in mind that America's role in the world is more complex than > that. Also, that's not the only (far oversimplified) motivation for the > recent terrorist attacks. Bin Laden et al have stated their intentions > against "America, Israel, and the West"; you know that means England, > France, Germany -- and yes, George Bowering, even Canada. > > Down with any sort of jingoism or blind patriotism, and down with those > shouting "bomb Kabul," but down also with equally blind, knee-jerk > America-bashing and its oversimplified rhetoric, and the false sense of self > that is emerging in the wake of terror. A more objective and informed > historical perspective would suit us now, however difficult it is to attain. > > > -Aaron Belz ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:19:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 8:18:55 PM, rstarr@ESKIMO.COM writes: << Indymedia has retracted the story as of last night (9/16/01). - Ron >> Amazing! CNN vindicated? Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:18:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Forwarded to me from Florian Cramer - Alan This might also be interesting for you (taken from Slashdot): Thousands dead, millions deprived of civil liberties? By Richard Stallman The worst damage from many nerve injuries is secondary -- it happens in the hours after the initial trauma, as the body's reaction to the damage kills more nerve cells. Researchers are beginning to discover ways to prevent this secondary damage and reduce the eventual harm. If we are not careful, the deadly attacks on New York and Washington will lead to far worse secondary damage, if the U.S. Congress adopts "preventive measures" that take away the freedom that America stands for. I'm not talking about searches at airports here. Searches of people or baggage for weapons, as long as they check only for weapons and keep no records about you if you have no weapons, are just an inconvenience; they do not endanger civil liberties. What I am worried about is massive surveillance of all aspects of life: of our phone calls, of our email, and of our physical movements. These measures are likely to be recommended regardless of whether they would be effective for their stated purpose. An executive of a company developing face recognition software is said to be telling reporters that widespread deployment of face-recognizing computerized cameras would have prevented the attacks. The September 15 New York Times cites a congressman who is advocating this "solution." Given that the human face recognition performed by the check-in agents did not keep the hijackers out, there is no reason to think that computer face recognition would help. But that won't stop the agencies that have always wanted to do more surveillance from pushing this plan now, and many other plans like it. To stop them will require public opposition. Even more ominously, a proposal to require government back doors in encryption software has already appeared. Meanwhile, Congress hurried to pass a resolution giving Bush unlimited power to use military force in retaliation for the attacks. Retaliation may be justified, if the perpetrators can be identified and carefully targeted, but Congress has a duty to scrutinize specific measures as hey are proposed. Handing the president carte blanche in a moment of anger is exactly the mistake that led the United States into the Vietnam War. Please let your elected representatives, and your unelected president, know that you don't want your civil liberties to become the terrorists' next victim. Don't wait -- the bills are already being written. __________________________________________________________ Copyright 2001 Richard Stallman rms@gnu.org -- http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~cantsin/homepage/ http://www.complit.fu-berlin.de/institut/lehrpersonal/cramer.html GnuPG/PGP public key ID 3200C7BA "c u in he][l][avan" (mez, _Viro.Logic Condition][ing][ 1.1_) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:59:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Today's LA Times carries a fascinating article about the Bin Laden family. There are some 50 brothers. One is a lawschool graduate in Cambridge who has given Harvard a million dollars. Another is a real estate entrepreneur who has big buildings down near the wharf. And so on. These brothers hate Osama and think he's a traitor. They are monarchists and resent Osama's being against the monarchy. The family is awash in real estate money--billions. Think of what it means that they are this rich while most Saudis are dirt poor. So let's be a little careful of saying things like it's our fault that Osama hates us so much! This is pure nonsense. Yes, it certainly was Reagan's fault for training him to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. But even if he hadn't been so trained, given the vast wealth, family quarrels, and so on, he might easily be moved to attack THE GREAT SATAN. Does this prove that we are indeed THE GREAT SATAN? Why is it that poets and literary critics trained to look for nuances, trained not to see things in black and white, are so extreme when it comes to this terrible situation? Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 00:03:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: New Music/New Texts in RealAudio Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I wanted to thank all y'all (the plu-plural) for what has been some of the most complex and nuanced discussion of what's going on that I've seen from any of the art-related e-mail lists I get. I've got one of those announcements that's unrelated to current events: as usual, Mappings was produced several weeks prior to its scheduled airing on Antenna, so there's no conscious response to recent world events (though a few selections have a serendipitous relevance to the politics and/or crises of the moment). There are, however, lots of works that I think will be of interest to folk on the Poetics list: music (for the most part, there are one or two recordings of readings with no music) using texts by writers including John Ashbery, Kamau Brathwaite, Charles Bukowski, Angela Carter, Paul Celan, Constance DeJong, Gunnar Ekel=F6f, Paul Eluard, B=E9la Hamvas, Nazim Hikmet, Naguib Mahfouz, Steve McCaffery, Snee McCaig, & Quincy Troupe. Composers include Robert Ashley, Nicolas Collins, Dave Douglas, Shelley Hirsch, Randolph Hostetler, Brenda Hutchinson, George E Lewis, Alvin Lucier, Ingram Marshall, Matthias Pintscher, Mikel Rouse, Kaija Saariaho, Tibor Szemz=F6 Saadet T=FCrk=F6z & Mark Vigil. The show went online at on Monday evening around 10:00 PM (-0700 GMT) and will remain online at that URL for a week. Hope y'all take time to tune in to the show. & thanks again for all the news= =2E Bests, Herb ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:59:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: just checking [P.S.] In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- "K.Silem Mohammad" wrote: > amid the terror and sadness. ------------------------------------------------------- And as happy as possible a new TOPH-SHIN-SAMEKH-BETH to all (how thoughtless of me). 34861045432664821339360726024914127372458700 __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:03:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: These Times In-Reply-To: <200109180020.f8I0KnU03887@nymx01.mgw.rr.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It has taken me a week to think what I think. It begins: SOMETHING BIG HAS HAPPENED: THERE ARE NO COMMERCIALS ON TV In the aftermath of the terror, 9-11-01. The immediate suffering and destruction occupy ones thoughts. The need for feeling is immense, but feeling is not easy. No one knows what to feel. How many video cameras were aimed at the WTC Tuesday morning? Television seems to have an almost endless supply of new footage. We see it again and again from many vantages on television and in our sleep. It is all, however, silent. The airliners hit silently. The fire balls flare silently. The towers collapse silently. The world has become a worse place for every one. For those in and near the towers, this worsening of the world must have been experienced as incomprehensible sound, but for the rest of us, the terror and sadness reverberate in silence. For those who believe in terror, for whom Terror is a God, terror simplifies. The simplification is credible proof of the deity's power. Fundamentalisms of all kinds-religious, scientific, economic, sociological, ethical-all simplify, and the simplifications are violent and destructive because the complexity of the world is forced into the City of the Simple by way of a single, narrow gate. The god Terror has two kinds of followers-the agents of terror and the terrified. They belong to the most vicious circle. The one makes no distinction between the guilty and the innocent, killing indifferently. The others accept the terrorists' simplification and respond. The greater the simplification, the greater the reverberation. The reverberations of this terror may become deafening or have already. Those of us who were not near enough to hear the first impacts are deaf. We do not hear the explosions or the screams. How do we get out of this circle? Inside the worship of terror the reverberating silence can only continue. It is necessary to multiply perspectives and rise to higher levels of complexity from which many of perspectives can be comprehended at once. This is always the task of knowing, but at certain times, the imperative is doubly compelling. FOR ANYONE INTERESTED, THE REST OF IT--IT'S ABOUT 2000 WORDS--CAN BE FOUND AT THE THIS URL: http://www.albany.edu/~djb85/dbWebIndex.htm Best, Don Byrd ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:47:17 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: what can poets do? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 8:26:19 PM, netwurker@POP.HOTKEY.NET.AU writes: << my response 2 the USA events include growth n.couragement and ][acts of][ nurturing... antidotes wrapped in phylogenetic skins..... >> Thanks, Mez. Peace and love, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 22:30:55 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: polipo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Elizabeth--- I too very proud of my congresswoman Barbara Lee; I left a message of support on her machine today....and urge others here to do the same.... how fortuitious to have moved here (and maybe, at the risk of sounding flippant yet again, we should start printing the "DON'T BLAME ME I'm FROM OAKLAND" Bumperstickers.... love, chris Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson wrote: > As one who's previously complained of politix on the list, I ask your > patience -- wanted to just say that having been born, grown, and still > living in her district, I am very proud of my congresswoman Barbara Lee. I > hope others will speak up (incl Ms. Hillary "it takes a village" Clinton) > > -- if you want to I have two petition suggestions, though it's hard to think > such old-fashioned tools will do the trick (esp as our electoral system has > been proven faulty) -- I suggest those at actionagenda.com and > actforchange.com (asking Bush to condemn remarks by Falwell and Robertson, > and to in general chill, respectively.) > > love and hope to all > > Elizabeth > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:06:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: letter to Bush MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Well, here's my piss into the ocean. xox, Marcella Dear President Bush, This e-mail to you is to express my sincere desire that a careful, accurate and patient investigation be conducted that identifies and punishes only those responsible for this crime, rather than conducting a blind "crusade" overseas that will only kill more innocent people. I want to express to you my hope that every effort to preserve international peace be made by the United States. I live in downtown New York, a mile from "ground zero." My mother lives seven blocks from the World Trade Center--she was shocked, traumatized and is now homeless. I think I can speak for most New Yorkers when I say that we are all horrified and shellshocked by the events of the last few days. However, the last thing I could bear right now is for my country to perpetuate more chaos and destruction for any innocent men, women and children in the world, especially after seeing how awful it is firsthand to be the target of an attack. I appreciate that our people want justice, and I certainly want it, too. However, I do not want it at the cost of any more innocent lives. I want my country to be better, more intelligent, more compassionate, more measured than that. A premature rush to arms may only prolong this tragedy and permanently damage our position overseas. I want those--and only those--responsible for this crime to be the ones brought to justice. And, justice, for me, would be to imprison the perpetrators for their entire lives (as they have so obviously demonstrated that being put to death would be no punishment for them) so that they may reflect for years on what they have done. Thank you very much for your kind attention to my e-mail. Sincerely, Marcella Durand 332 E. 4th St., Apt. 24 New York, NY 10009 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:33:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Comments: To: Djnemetz@aol.com, cecivicu@rcn.com, areckin@acsu.buffalo.edu, ismai004@umn.edu, sugne001@umn.edu, mowit001@umn.edu, oconn001@umn.edu, cgaiter@umn.edu, gangu003@umn.edu, englfac@umn.edu, engltchr@umn.edu, englstaff@umn.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Please consider signing The Petition at > http://home.uchicago.edu/~dhpicker/petition > >which appeals to world leaders to be level-headed and, wherever >possible, peaceful in their response to the recent attack against the United >States. > >PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE, AS QUICKLY AS > >POSSIBLE. > >The signatures logged by the website above will be forwarded to leaders >around the world. It is imperative that we act quickly to prevent war!!! > >Thank you. > -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:10:34 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: what can poets do? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 8:18:27 PM, joe.amato@COLORADO.EDU writes: << bill: i don't think i'm hazarding much in observing that many in islamic nations will read our president's "we're at war" remark (etc.) as "holy war" in translation (will someone please help me out here?)... hence the need (e.g.) for a more sophisticated grasp of arabic---this seems elementary, and i don't think it's the fbi alone who requires same... yeah, the u.s. is a great place, the u.s. can be a terrible place too, right?---like any country... depends where/when you find yourself... and sure, i'm someone who wouldn't live anywhere else, ok (i mean, i grew up here), and i greatly respect our country's capacity for dissent (if you will)... also, i'm not really interested in running down the u.s. (anymore than i am interested in expressing my "unity" with whatever the bush administration decides to do)... of course analysis, such as zizek's, and as barrett suggests, is always necessary, but it's just that i prefer at the moment political to ideological analysis (if i may be permitted to distinguish the two a bit)... btw, and just for the record, nothing zizek wrote caught me by surprise any... but i fear it's our terrible side just at the moment that we need to reign in, bill, and that we need to do so with due regard for the (human) losses just suffered... ergo the need for a response of some sort, yes... as i say, i prefer the language of manhunts and such like... i've been most pleased to hear our govt officials attempt to qualify their anti-bin laden sentiment, to attempt to distance themselves from anti-islamic positions (in which regard, we seem to be doing some better than a decade ago... but then again, we're not doing as well as we might, either, this much is clear)... bill---when i listen to cnn's (e.g.) televised funeral services and the like, i hear christian theology over and over... now one may regard this as simply the practical outcome of christian casualities, but we in this country might pause to consider how this is being heard on the other side of the globe, right?... "our" media channels might consider this, right?... in fact---or is this too much to ask?---the folks holding such services might consider this too, right?... i'm not a religious guy, bill---like you evidently... so i think, too, that persistent references to "god" from the mouths of our leaders will likely be interpreted as more christian ideology... of course i can offer all this only as anecdotal observation at this point... no doubt like most of you, i'm glued to the tv, to the radio, to the internet... and trying to find people to actually TALK to... anyway, no wish to see hostilities escalate now in *these* regions, that much is certain... so all i offer here, and i think i was plain dumb to not say this earlier, is offered with my hands trembling as i tickle these keys... with regard to which latter, alan sondheim's sensitivities seem most appropriate to me at the moment... peace, & hoping for the best--- joe >> Joe, thanks. I agree with everything you say about religious gestures and their interpretations, but I also understand (as I'm sure you do) that much of this country is Christian, and these services are meant to comfort Americans who sorely need comforting. This doesn't obviate our pointing out the dangerous implications of religious "nationalism" on both sides. I'm not at all knee-jerk certain that American policies are solely, or even primarily responsible for this tragedy. I'm not at all certain they are not responsible. To my mind, pre-conceptions are not a valuable point of departure. When I hear Islamic fundamentalists referring to the USA as the Great Satan, I'm reminded that Satan represents less the oppressor than the tempter. It is our culture, our "liberal" lifestyles, our "decadence," our belief in the equality of men and women that zealots find so evil, so great a threat to their religious integrity. Young people in that region are likely to be attracted to our way of life -- hence a holy war to eradicate us is god's work. I don't think I'm speculating here since there is no shortage of public pronouncements from certain voices in the region. Perhaps a reversal of USA policies in the region would temper the hatred of us felt by some; perhaps not. Are we innocent? Hell, no. Our Christian fundamentalists routinely proselytize in unwelcoming countries, while pressuring USA officials to support and defend them against those heading straight for damnation, if they fail to accept Jesus. This is all very complicated, and so sad. Thanks again for your thoughtful post, your evenhandedness. Ah, shit. As the Verona Prince said, "All are punish'd." Peace and love, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:13:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: AERIALEDGE@AOL.COM Subject: Raworth Reading in DC 9/23 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit TOM RAWORTH at Bridge Street Books Sunday, September 23rd @ 7 PM Raworth is the author of over 40 books including MEADOW, CLEAN & WELL LIT: SELECTED POEMS 1987-1995, ETERNAL SECTIONS, and THE RELATION SHIP. Of his selected early poems, TOTTERING STATE, Lyn Hejinian has written "These are among the greatest writings of our times." His latest book ACE, from DC-based Edge Books, a reprint of one of his most well-received works, includes "Bolivia: Another End of Ace," as well as drawings by Barry Hall only seen in the very limited British edition. Ted Berrigan wrote of Raworth: "When I read the best of Tom Raworth's poems, I feel proud. They are a human accomplishment, a poet's." Bridge Street Books 2814 Pennsylvania Ave NW Washington, DC ph 202 965 5200 in Georgetown near the 4 Seasons Hotel, 5 blocks from the Foggy Bottom Metro (blue & orange lines). BYOE (Bring Your Own Ears) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:16:11 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: polipo MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 8:18:38 PM, eliztj@HOTMAIL.COM writes: << -- if you want to I have two petition suggestions, though it's hard to think such old-fashioned tools will do the trick (esp as our electoral system has been proven faulty) -- I suggest those at actionagenda.com and actforchange.com (asking Bush to condemn remarks by Falwell and Robertson, and to in general chill, respectively.) love and hope to all Elizabeth >> I doubt Bush will condemn the abominable remarks you reference. Aren't they his buddies? But I'll help in any way I can to send a message. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:39:09 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: wondering... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/17/01 8:21:02 PM, bowering@SFU.CA writes: << >In a message dated 9/14/01 6:39:30 PM, joe.amato@COLORADO.EDU writes: > > But I've done a bit of traveling, and the USA is easily the most >tolerant and welcoming societal mechanism on earth. I never ran into any Jerry Falwells in Finland, Joe. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 >> Actually, George, this is my remark, not Joe's. Your point is well taken, though people like Falwell are everywhere, it seems. And the more homogeneously white countries have not been tested as we have, so who can say how they might react? Then again, I'm not as familiar with Finland's immigration policies as I perhaps should be. Are their borders as open as ours? I like the idea of open borders. It might be argued that the very platform provided to the Falwell fools is evidence of this country's tolerance. Who knows? Sorry for the confusion. And for the perhaps too inclusive remark. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 09:57:01 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: wondering... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" george b, i didn't write >>But I've done a bit of traveling, and the USA is easily the most >>tolerant and welcoming societal mechanism on earth. i know---there's a bunch of email to wade through here, so it's entirely understandable that this sorta slip will occasionally take place... but hey, we're gonna have an even *larger* bunch (witness this post) if we don't proceed with utmost care in attributing sources... perhaps a touch of the journalistic ethos wouldn't hurt none at the moment?... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:54:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: The Flag as Transitional Object Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Like many other listees I am grateful for this opportunity to read the (mostly) carefully considered statements on this list during such an agonizing and frightening time. It seems to me that this is the most important time in recent history to remember that all viewpoints and responses are partial; each has a point of view; no one point of view reflects the entire situation or reality. This, of course, is the essential purpose of rational discussion and debate. That said I want to add one point coming from my experience as a psychoanalyst. A patient of mine was able to get close to Ground Zero. He was shocked and disappointed to see some people taking snapshots of their children sitting on the rubble. In this regard I spoke to him about Winnicott's theory of transitional objects. To paraphrase and greatly generalize:Winnicott discovered that from early childhood on, people sometimes have a need for an object to hold on to at times of loss. The fact that a lost object (person or thing or experience) can continue to exist in the mind, sometimes by means of a physical reminder, might explain a lot of behavior that otherwise might appear incomprehensible. A young child might get very frightened if mother is absent, but feels better when hanging on to a blanket when she is not there, an object deeply associated with her presence. This is one way that we develop the psychological function of memory. This may help to explain why people need to hold on to things like flags. I realize that there is a darker side to this, that flag waving can represent symbolic support for acts of war. Like many others reading the poetics list, this horrifies me. But the psychological fact remains that during times like this we need our "transitional objects" as Winnicott termed them. These might be headline pages that people save, a photograph of a loved one, or an object that belonged to someone lost. It might be a poster, a book or a poem or an otherwise meaningless piece of rock. It seems best, at least to me, when the object is also some writing which enlightens me, such as that written by listees or forwarded by them. I try to remember this idea of the transitional object when I hear of people's need to hold on to certain things which upset me, like flags, which seem to imply support for war. We can strongly disagree with one interpretation of someone's behavior, while understanding other aspects of it. It seems to me quite possible to express a desperate hope that in the process of protecting innocent people other innocent people will not be destroyed, without condemning people for expressing their feelings by means of flags. We are fortunate to have this forum for considered discussion; others may need to further learn about and value such precious democratic freedoms. And finally, exchange and comprehension of crucial ideas calls not only for intellectual brilliance and force but empathy. Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:49:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lisab Subject: FW: fwd petition In-Reply-To: <4.1.20010918180546.00930760@mail.netemedia.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable ---------- From: civitella Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:06:00 +0200 To: lisab@naropa.edu Subject: Fwd: fwd petition >X-Sender: pavlafsj@pop3.volny.cz >X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.1 (32) >Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:48:41 +0200 >To: civitella >From: Pavla J=F3nssonova >Subject: fwd petition > > >We, who sign underneath, are outraged at the loss of life that was >caused on September 11, 2001 by terrorist attacks. We grieve over the >deaths of=20 >our brothers and sisters in humanity, and the lives that have been shatter= ed >by this sad event. >> =20 >We wish to petition the government of the United States, including >President George H. W. Bush, to implement a response that does not involve >the =20 >destruction of more lives. Certainly, those responsible must be brought t= o >justice, but not at the cost of more innocent lives in this country or any >country. Too many have already gone from us. >> =20 >A violent response can only bring a violent counter-response, a cycle >which can only continue. Bombing is not the answer. >> =20 >Please pass this along to your friends. Every 50 signatures, please forwa= rd >> it on to president@whitehouse.gov and vicepresident@whitehouse.gov >] =20 >Signed, =20 >> =20 >1) Tatyana A. Klimova, Atlanta, Georgia > > 2) Russell A. Carleton, North Olmsted, Ohio > > 3) Emily F. Briggs, Riverside, California >4) Andrea Briggs, Riverside, California > >5) Robert Gill, Riverside, California > > 6) Phyllis Gill, Riverside, California >7) Jill Giegerich, Culver City, California > > 8) Erika Suderburg, Los Angeles, California >9) Linda Besemer, Los Angeles, California > >10) Robert Suderburg, Williamstown, MA. >11) Elizabeth Suderburg, Williamstown, MA. > >12) Nancy Buchanan >13) Karen Schwenkmeyer, Los Angeles, California > >14) Laura Dufresne, Rock Hill, S.C. > >15) Peg DeLamater, Rock Hill, SC > >16) Teri McKenzie, Portland, OR > >17 Teresa Tipton, Seattle, WA > >=20 >> =20 >> =20 >> =20 >>=20 >>=20 >>=20 >>=20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:56:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: George Bush's Slumbering Giant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >>In my poetry class today at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, it was our day to talk about "cliche" (apologies for lack of accent). I pointed out that Bush has stated numerous times that the terrorists have "roused a slumbering giant." This, in case you don't know, is a line plagiarized word for word from the movie "Pearl Harbor." >> The movie, and presumably the President, was quoting Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, who made the remark within a day or so of the Pearl Harbor bombing. >> I hope to see all of you at the end of September in Washington DC, where, if the "war" on the poor of Afghanistan happens, we can all at least have a chance to voice our dissent. I'm thinking my sign will read "No to Star Wars...Yes to Airport Security." >> The IMF/World Bank meetings here in DC have been canceled this year. peace, Laura ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:20:03 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Re: just checking Comments: To: jeffreyjullich@yahoo.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I don't understand you, Jeffrey, but I am glad to hear you're ok. Elizabeth Treadwell "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) >From: Jeffrey Jullich >To: UB Poetics discussion group >CC: eliztj@HOTMAIL.COM >Subject: Re: just checking >Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 20:45:54 -0700 (PDT) > >--- "K.Silem Mohammad" wrote: > >has anyone heard from Rebecca Wolff, Tom Devaney, >Brendan Lorber? Kasey >------------------------------------------------------- >Rebecca Wolff --- I hope this isn't a breach of >confidentiality --- e-mailed me on Mon. the 10th >that she was leaving on one of her selfless extended >poetry- >fundraising business trips outside the city (to a >place with a name that could be in Massachusetts, >Cornwell UK, Colchester Nova Scotia, or Australia, >she didn't specify which). > >And, yes, Jeffrey Jullich (who?) is still alive >(un-dead), Mrs. Jackson (Thanks for the touching "my >love and hope to all of you -- even, yes, >those I've had tiffs with -- on this list" . . . like >the media moment when Rudolph Guiliani and Hillary >Clinton embraced) (though a name nowhere to be found >on the 8/25/01 3:43 a.m. "100 NYC Poets" posting, >oddly). Sorry epithalamium I was composing has >been temporarily interrupted. > >{Tinkling music box music coming from next dug-out, >touching, . . . like film score in opening moments of >Live Home Video "The Bell Jar" movie version, starring >Marilyn Hassett as Sylvia surrogate, twirling in >circles in cardigan in opening moments, not at all >soil-bespattered, Julie Harris >(formerly of "Belle of Amherst" Emily Dickinson >fame, just to confound everything) as Mama Plath, >and Anne Bancroft, a must-see (~especially~ in >solarium >converted by night into in-patient "Entertainment >Night," all pathos).} > >We're hoping to be back from Antilles in time for >the Jackie O. "Best Beloved Poems" unveiling, Sept. >24th. You know how beautifully they read >"Ithaka" by Cavafy & "Memory of Cape Cod" by Millay >at ~her~ funeral. > > >Tears, literacy, ahimsa, > >that's > >---*MS.* Laura RJ wannabe > >to you, thank you > >55596446229489549303819644288109756659334461 >55596446229489549303819644288109756659334461 > >Memory of Cape Cod > >The wind in the ash-tree sounds like surf on the shore >at Truro. >I will shut my eyes . . . hush, be still with your >silly bleating, > sheep on Shillingstone Hill . . . > > >They said: Come along! They said: Leave your >pebbles on the sand and come along, it’s long after >sunset! >The mosquitoes will be thick in the pine-woods along >by Long Nook, the wind’s died down! >They said: Leave your pebbles on the sand, and your >shells, too, and come along, we’ll find you another >beach like the beach at Truro. > >Let me listen to wind in the ash . . . it sounds >like surf on the shore. > >__________________________________________________ >Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? >Donate cash, emergency relief information >http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 05:12:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..anti-terrorism... ANY WEB SITE that does not give a phone number and address should be immediately REPORTED TO THE FBI ANTI-TERRORIST UNIT...people have the right to dissent 1,000 per cent...they don;t have the right to hide who they are...DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:12:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated In-Reply-To: <009201c14029$4e14b020$b21886d4@overgrowngarden> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Lawrence Upton wrote: > > Afghanistan is on the brink of starvation. > > Regardless of whether or not they have harboured murderous criminals - and > they are murderous, no problem with that - I suggest that the USA and UK > (10% or so of the dead Americans were actually British) start flying in > *massive aid, gratis - more than we have ever before. All we need say is > that we understand what it is to face death, to feel one is without hope. > Here, have this, we are all the same. When you have the time, could you help > us find out who attacked us? > > If we are going to have a crusade, let's do it the easy way. Let's > demonstrate the effect of belief in that God in whom so many of us trust Someone just sent me an article with this paragraph in it: "This year, the U.S. continued a Clinton-era policy and committed more than $100 million in foreign aid to Afghanistan -- making us the country's largest humanitarian donor. In May, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced an additional $43 million in relief, which includes 65,000 tons of wheat, vegetable oil, blended foods, health programs and shelter. Naive officials claim that none of this aid will go to the Taliban because it is being filtered through international agencies of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations." Is this true? I am as interested as anyone in knowing the facts. I agree that we should not take any action that *in any way* would hurt the people of Afghanistan. -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:12:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: Checking In Again MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" George wrote: >>> I was, for example, not aware that CNN was using footage from 10 years ago to work their magic against the palestinian kids. >> This turns out to be incorrect. Snopes.com, one of the urban legends sites, has verified that this is an urban legend and is *not* true. The person making the claim has recanted. If you're curious, the snopes information is at http://www.snopes.com/ and the recant is at http://uk.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=11546 The footage, btw, was apparently shot by a Reuters crew in Palestine on Tuesday 9/11. The PLO actually tried to prevent other crews from filming other celebrations; AP reported that cameras were confiscated, filmers were threatened. -- That said, even if it is real, to me it is also very telling to see how few people were participating in the one snippet of film that I kept seeing over and over again. If you look in the background, other Palestinian people were looking at what was going on and turning away from it. LF ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:37:02 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: september in Honolulu In-Reply-To: <00c901c13ff0$932a2c00$6501a8c0@Mac> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Re: Ginsberg and the levitation effort - My friends and I were worried that Yog Sogoth would be freed from underneath the nuclear reactor under the Pentagon when the aircraft struck. P > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Susan Webster > Schultz > Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 11:18 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: september in Honolulu > > > Last year I was driving home over the crest of a hill near > Punchbowl (and the National Cemetary of the Pacific), when I saw > Pearl Harbor ablaze at 4 p.m. Startled, I was able to say to > myself, "it's just a movie. They even got the time of day wrong." > > When the twin towers fell, people on TV said, "It's like Pearl > Harbor," or, "It's like a movie." > > My mother remembers Pearl Harbor. She remembers wondering where > it was. Who does not know where Manhattan is? The Pentagon. > > I wish Allen Ginsberg had levitated the damn thing. > > Ala Moana Shopping Center, once the largest in the USA, closed on > Tuesday, as did public schools on the Big Island (though not > those on Oahu or other islands). > > Two days after the bombing, I saw "wanted" posters on telephone > poles in Kalihi, a working class neighborhood in Honolulu. On the > posters were color photographs of Osama Bin Laden. > > Terrorist cells: cell phones (last calls). > > "The instant politicization of our grief," says one email. Grief, > by any other means, is now our politics. > > So this is the sublime. We have crossed the Alps. This time we > saw it happen. > > Sunday, it rains heavily on the windward side. The mountains are > covered by waterfalls, so many the mountains themselves seem to move. > > My two-year old son, Sangha, plays happily with his airplane, hi > fire trucks, his bulldozer. I think, thank god he's too young to > be drafted. > > All the calls ended, "I love you." > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:39:07 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: m&r...jihad... In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Actually, no, this is not true. There is no jihad. Taliban: 'No jihad unless US attacks' http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,553825,00.html "Diplomatic sources say that the Taliban will hand over Bin Laden to a neutral Muslim country if they can secure international recognition for their rule over Afghanistan and an end to UN sanctions." Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Harry Nudel > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 2:48 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: m&r...jihad... > > > According to Bloomberg and Sky News...The Taliban has > declared or reinstated it;s holy war or jihad 'gainst USa...all > poets were aksed to report immediately......Drn... > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:36:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: MAXINE CHERNOFF Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family In-Reply-To: <3BA6D417.9D035FC8@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I'd have to agree with Marjorie here. Bin Laden is every bit as reactionary as Jerry Falwell and co., and nothing is as simple as overascribing evil to either "side." Motivation is complex and often muddled as to "truth," no? Maxine Chernoff On Mon, 17 Sep 2001, Marjorie Perloff wrote: > Today's LA Times carries a fascinating article about the Bin Laden > family. There are some 50 brothers. One is a lawschool graduate in > Cambridge who has given Harvard a million dollars. Another is a real > estate entrepreneur who has big buildings down near the wharf. And so > on. These brothers hate Osama and think he's a traitor. They are > monarchists and resent Osama's being against the monarchy. The family > is awash in real estate money--billions. Think of what it means that > they are this rich while most Saudis are dirt poor. > > So let's be a little careful of saying things like it's our fault that > Osama hates us so much! This is pure nonsense. Yes, it certainly was > Reagan's fault for training him to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. > But even if he hadn't been so trained, given the vast wealth, family > quarrels, and so on, he might easily be moved to attack THE GREAT > SATAN. Does this prove that we are indeed THE GREAT SATAN? > > Why is it that poets and literary critics trained to look for nuances, > trained not to see things in black and white, are so extreme when it > comes to this terrible situation? > > Marjorie Perloff > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:45:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Fawaz Gerges on Arab realities today (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 21:43:33 +0400 From: Salwa Ghaly To: "'CYBERMIND@LISTSERV.AOL.COM'" Subject: Fawaz Gerges on Arab realities today Below is what I think is a very intelligent and *honest* insider's/outsider's view of Arab realities written by a Lebanese friend. It appeared as today's editorial in the Lebanese daily _The Daily Star_ (an= d was also published by the Christian Science Monitor). Finally, I can say, here's someone who really understands where the problems of the Arab world lie. BTW, he wrote this piece after returning from the funeral of his son's hockey coach, an attornery who died on the 94th floor of the WTC :( Got an email from whom expressing deep despair. Salwa -------------------- US should have read writing on wall (by Fawaz A. Gerges) Sadly, I'm not surprised that the evidence for the most devastating terrorist attack in history points to a Middle East connection. I have just returned from the area after almost two years there as a MacArthur fellow, conducting field research on how social movements, including the Islamists, perceive and interact with the West, including the United States. The writing was all over the wall. For many Arabs, regardless of their politics, the US has replaced colonial Europe as the embodiment of evil. In their eyes, the US is the source of the ills and misfortunes that have befallen their world in the second part of the past century. Today, to be politically conscious in the Arab world is to be highly suspicious of America, its policies, and its motives. For example, radical Islamists blame the US for their defeat at the hands of the pro-US Arab regimes. They claim that the West, particularly the US, tipped the balance of power in favor of secular regimes by providing them with decisive political and logistical support. Reports about the identity of some of the hijackers point to a heavy presence of perpetrators with Persian Gulf nationalities. It is also likely that the fingerprints of the defeated remnants of Egyptian Jihad and Al-Jamaa al-Islamiyya will be found all over this horrendous terrorist attack on the United States. Most of the lieutenants and confidantes of Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden =AD the principal suspect behind the attacks =AD come from = these organizations. As importantly, over the past two years, the Afghan-based bin Laden has successfully recruited dozens of foot soldiers from the Gulf countries, mainly Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates, signaling a shift in his tactics. This new development bodes ill for the long-term stability of the pro-US oil-producing monarchies. Unfortunately, bin Laden's rhetoric has sunk deep roots in Arab soil. Hatred toward American foreign policy has become solidly entrenched in Arab popular culture as well as intellectual circles. Public discourse in the mosques and newspapers is full of references to America's legacy of aggression, manipulation, and subjugation of the Arabs. There is legitimate Arab fury at America resulting from historical conditions and an arsenal of accumulated grievances, such as its preponderant support of Israel; its economic strangulation of Iraq; its military presence in Islamic "holy lands;" and its close association with the corrupt ruling elite. However, many Arabs refuse to take either personal or moral responsibility for their predicament. This moral failure perpetuates a sense of victimization and fatalism. It also provides ammunition to terrorist groups, like bin Laden's, which are bent on waging a holy war against the "great Satan." Acts of hatred follow. On a visit to Hadramout, Yemen, last month with my wife and two children, a few Yemeni boys chatted with us and expressed a genuine desire to "kill" Americans for supporting Israel's brutal oppression of the Palestinians. In their young minds, little difference exists between US foreign policy and the American people; a widespread phenomenon in the Arab world nowadays. It is no longer just bin Laden versus the United States. Arab children are being indoctrinated to hate Americans, thus providing a fertile breeding ground for bin Laden's foot soldiers. My own generation =AD people in their late 30s and early 40s =AD has also been socialized into an anti-American mindset, which is difficult to critique or deconstruct. America, it is often claimed, conspired to humiliate and dominate the proud Arabs by corrupting their local elite and empowering their hostile neighbors. Intelligent Arab men of letters advance conspiratorial theories to explain Washington's conduct and animosity toward the Arab and Muslim people. Many Arabs no longer distinguish between their legitimate criticism of US foreign policies and almost everything that America stands for. They dismiss American democracy as being hijacked by the privileged few. Blinded by anti-Americanism, Arabs see little good in American society and overwhelming cultural and moral decay. In their commentaries about the indecisive results in last year's US presidential election, Arabs evinced wishful thinking that the American empire was beginning to crumble from within. Unfortunately, Arab politicians and commentators invest more time and energy in denouncing the US than in understanding and making inroads into American institutions and civil society. The Arab world will not gain the West's respect by being just morally outraged at US foreign policy. Arab countries are not taken seriously by the Western powers, particularly the US, because they have failed to develop, democratize, and normalize relations between state and society. Economically and politically, the Arab Middle East is one of the odd men out in the world race to democratize and globalize. Authoritarianism and patriarchy are highly consolidated on every level of society from the public sphere to the dinner table. These shortcomings, not US foreign policies, are largely responsible for the lack of Arab development and progress. Far from forcing Americans to rethink their stand on the Middle East, this terrorist attack will most likely produce opposite results. It is high time the Arabs take charge of their political destiny and fully embrace modernity. This process requires structural reform from within and total engagement with the world, including the eradication of terrorism. It is then =AD and then only =AD that just Arab causes will be considered legitimate. Fawaz A. Gerges holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in Middle East and International Affairs at Sarah Lawrence College. A version of this article appeared in The Christian Science Monitor. DS: 18/09/01 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:51:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated In-Reply-To: <20010918030701.33894.qmail@web14205.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Scott Hamilton wrote: > in the UN, by the US. Clinton's > libido may have been behind the attack, but isn't it > worth asking why the 'personal troubles' of one > American can have such devastating effects? It is an absolutely fine question, one which I ask, too. I feel as though I'm living in rome, sometimes. I imagine this is what it felt like: A semblance of civilization, a flourishing of the arts, great entertainment (in stadiums!), technological and scientific innovations, vast libraries, yet too much power concentrated in a handful of people. Or a single person. I think democracy is a great way to organize a society, but it seems impossible to work out how the franchise power is supposed to translate into political realities on a day-to-day or hour-to-hour basis. -Aaron P.S. Are you the same Scott Hamilton ... of ice-skating fame? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:57:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Brilliance MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - Brilliance What we fear most, here, is the brilliance of the plan which has been at least five years in the making - that the machine that hit the Pentagon was traveling at 345 miles an hour, that the planes were not only taken but maliciously piloted after five years of subterfuge and masquerade by people without very much experience on passenger jets. And what we fear is also conspiracy, for, finally, our predilection towards subterfuge, belief in surface erosion, has come true with a vengeance: Here we are, now, suspicious of our neighbors, redefining ourselves as a nation, as individuals, against the rot that appears to lie within and without. All those theories about JFK, Area 52, the CIA, Martin Luther King, LSD, the fall of the left, turn out to be true. It's the trouble with cancer, existing for years in the body, springing out hard, retreating to tissues and organs where elimination is pyrrhic at best - finally, nothing escapes destruction. "They hide in caves," live in vaginas, pockets of bodies which are both feared and stases of desire. They are primitive, woman-like, they won't come out and fight like a man; we'll have to go in and get them. They have nothing to lose, they don't have big cities, nothing to defend. They might as well be Jews, might as well be Arabs, might as well be Women. The West slams into nomads with firepower; the fear, the menses, remains unspoken as we overly theorize and articulate geopolitical concerns, strategies, ideologies, positioning. What they did, they were good at; what they did, they are good at, and we don't know what that is. +++ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:16:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Bin Laden Family and poets Comments: cc: Marjorie Perloff In-Reply-To: <3BA6D417.9D035FC8@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable Marjorie Perloff asks: <> I reply: Not everyone! The general tone on this list seems to be about even with the tone of most= academics I've come into contact with over the past week. Just as poetry i= s "feeling first", it seems that, generally, posts here are "human" before t= hey're "trained". I think, anyway. And then there's this question: what are the poetics of disaster? to consider . . . Along comes something -- launched in context. How do we understand this boundary? Let=92s begin by proposing it as a dilemma. --George Oppen, "Of being Numerous" John Gallaher ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:14:37 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family In-Reply-To: <3BA6D417.9D035FC8@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maybe the appearance of extremism as seen from your point of view is not a failure of the skeptical to detect nuances, as you speculate, but instead a demonstration of people taking responsibility as US Citizens to question the activities of covert US Government organizations. It cannot be denied that Osama bin Laden was paid by the fruits of our own labor to learn how to recruit and build subterfuge organizations. People rightfully believe that those skills, that those efforts, contributed to bin Laden's continuing "success," and some people have the foresight to try to make sure we do not go there again. Many people not only in the US but also abroad, poets and others, would like to see the US intelligence organizations become a great deal *smaller* than they are now. Many people are acutely and even intimately aware of the criminal (not satanic) actions of various units and factions within the US Government. Some people would actually like the US Government to meddle less, to kill fewer people on its rise as leader of the "free" market. Once upon a time many people all over the world felt the same way, and rightfully so, about the KGB within the Soviet Union. The US Government and expecially the CIA, NSA, State Department, JSOC, JASON, and DIA have taken a general hegemonic course of action throughout the world that is at least partially responsible for feelings of resentment of the US across the globe. These orgs have taken a path far more profane than Dzerzhinsky's KGB. Sometimes those organizations have given harbor to the worst criminals (ex-Nazi Gehlen), and sometimes they even participate in the worst of atrocities against humanity (for example, genocides in Vietnam, Laos, Chile, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Zaire/DRC, East Timor, Iraq, and so on). The number of bodies is large and about to get larger. Those actions have benefitted mostly the wealthy few but have unambiguously placed the average US citizen at a risk much greater than imagined previously. It appears that it is only your post that has reduced to a black and white landscape the oppostion to war and brutal intelligence activities and other exploitative behavior. With all due respect, you're the only person I've heard in a long time call the US or any government "THE GREAT SATAN." Regardless, it is entirely possible that even if the US were merely a wealthy country as it is now but did not support violent and repressive activity across the globe that someone like bin Laden could appear and attack the US anyway. Sure, I'll give you that. I will say it is highly unlikely, but sure, I'll agree. Be that as it may, that is not what has happened. Bin Laden's relationship with the more perverse aspects of the US Government has underscored those very brutal actions and organizations and capital interests of our government. Patrick Herron > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Marjorie Perloff > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:59 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family > > > Today's LA Times carries a fascinating article about the Bin Laden > family. There are some 50 brothers. One is a lawschool graduate in > Cambridge who has given Harvard a million dollars. Another is a real > estate entrepreneur who has big buildings down near the wharf. And so > on. These brothers hate Osama and think he's a traitor. They are > monarchists and resent Osama's being against the monarchy. The family > is awash in real estate money--billions. Think of what it means that > they are this rich while most Saudis are dirt poor. > > So let's be a little careful of saying things like it's our fault that > Osama hates us so much! This is pure nonsense. Yes, it certainly was > Reagan's fault for training him to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. > But even if he hadn't been so trained, given the vast wealth, family > quarrels, and so on, he might easily be moved to attack THE GREAT > SATAN. Does this prove that we are indeed THE GREAT SATAN? > > Why is it that poets and literary critics trained to look for nuances, > trained not to see things in black and white, are so extreme when it > comes to this terrible situation? > > Marjorie Perloff > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:23:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: polipo update Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi, just a little update -- Bush did "condemn" the remarks of Falwell and Falwell did "apologize". It was in the back pages of the paper today. Thought I'd pass it on as I brought up that petition. Elizabeth "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:28:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed And one of the nephews is an investor to a friend's music co. in London....(i'm not proud of this, but it does add a nuance.) Elizabeth "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:28:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object Comments: cc: Nick Piombino MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nick, You might be on to something with discussion of transitional objects here. I'm having difficulty reaching an understadning of what happened and am having difficulty fathoming the minds of the 'suicide bombers'. Aside from the lack of development (psychologically. chronologically, etc.) perhaps adoption of a 'bomber' as a transitional object might help me make some sense of this action (much like my adolesents' passion for knives, melloyellojello, and TV). I'm not an expert on t.o.'s but it is suggestive? tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Piombino" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 9:54 AM Subject: The Flag as Transitional Object > Like many other listees I am grateful for this opportunity to read the > (mostly) carefully considered statements on this list during such an > agonizing and frightening time. It seems to me that this is the most > important time in recent history to remember that all viewpoints and > responses are partial; each has a point of view; no one point of view > reflects the entire situation or reality. This, of course, is the essential > purpose of rational discussion and debate. That said I want to add one > point coming from my experience as a psychoanalyst. A patient of mine was > able to get close to Ground Zero. He was shocked and disappointed to see > some people taking snapshots of their children sitting on the rubble. In > this regard I spoke to him about Winnicott's theory of transitional > objects. To paraphrase and greatly generalize:Winnicott discovered that > from early childhood on, people sometimes have a need for an object to hold > on to at times of loss. The fact that a lost object (person or thing or > experience) can continue to exist in the mind, sometimes by means of a > physical reminder, might explain a lot of behavior that otherwise might > appear incomprehensible. A young child might get very frightened if mother > is absent, but feels better when hanging on to a blanket when she is not > there, an object deeply associated with her presence. This is one way that > we develop the psychological function of memory. This may help to explain > why people need to hold on to things like flags. I realize that there is a > darker side to this, that flag waving can represent symbolic support for > acts of war. Like many others reading the poetics list, this horrifies me. > But the psychological fact remains that during times like this we need our > "transitional objects" as Winnicott termed them. These might be headline > pages that people save, a photograph of a loved one, or an object that > belonged to someone lost. It might be a poster, a book or a poem or an > otherwise meaningless piece of rock. It seems best, at least to me, when > the object is also some writing which enlightens me, such as that written > by listees or forwarded by them. I try to remember this idea of the > transitional object when I hear of people's need to hold on to certain > things which upset me, like flags, which seem to imply support for war. We > can strongly disagree with one interpretation of someone's behavior, while > understanding other aspects of it. It seems to me quite possible to express > a desperate hope that in the process of protecting innocent people other > innocent people will not be destroyed, without condemning people for > expressing their feelings by means of flags. We are fortunate to have this > forum for considered discussion; others may need to further learn about and > value such precious democratic freedoms. And finally, exchange and > comprehension of crucial ideas calls not only for intellectual brilliance > and force but empathy. > > > Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:33:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: wondering... In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >george b, i didn't write > >>>But I've done a bit of traveling, and the USA is easily the most >>>tolerant and welcoming societal mechanism on earth. > >i know---there's a bunch of email to wade through here, so it's >entirely understandable that this sorta slip will occasionally take >place... but hey, we're gonna have an even *larger* bunch (witness >this post) if we don't proceed with utmost care in attributing >sources... perhaps a touch of the journalistic ethos wouldn't hurt >none at the moment?... > >best, > >joe Gotcha. And i'm sorry for the confusion and misapplication. But hasnt this all been interesting? -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:40:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: (Fwd) Re: Bin Laden Family and poets (from M.P.) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This is forwarded from Marjorie Perloff, with permission: ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Date sent: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:21:08 -0700 From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family and poets I was just about to write in with that Oppen quote myself!! Thank you John Gallaher. I can think of no one who understood or would have understood what is happening now, today, better than George Oppen! And today a new development. Karen Gut, whom many of you know (she read and spoke at the Orono Poetry Festival on the 60s a year+ ago and is a professor-poet-activist in Tel Aviv) writes me that the reason Arafat has just agreed to a cease fire, or rather proposed a unilateral one, is that Israeli intelligence has discovered that the four pilots, esp. the lead one, Joseph Natta, was a Palestinian, and so Arafat is very embarrassed and he is now begging for a "peace" meeting. And further: it increasingly looks as if the terrorist infiltration is so great right here in the U.S. that I think there will be no attack on Afghanistan or other places in Middle East at all. And third: I think the novels to read RIGHT NOW are Andrei Bely's great 1913 and Conrad's SECRET AGENT and UNDER WESTERN EYES. It's all there.... Marjorie ------- End of forwarded message ------- JG ------------ J Gallaher Metaphors Be With You . . . ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:31:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Silem Mohammad" Subject: The Flag, etc. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I'd like to say once more how heartened (or at least profoundly touched) I am by the vast majority of comments and commentaries that have emerged on this list since the tragedy. I'd also like to second the sentiment expressed by Nick Piombino, Maria Damon, and perhaps others that one very mature and compassionate thing we can all do is not be too "freaked out" (Maria's words) by the American flag flying from porches and antennas and such. In a lot of ways the flag seems to mean something very different to me right now from what it did, say, during the Gulf War. We as poets are capable of processing images in subtle and sensitive ways; I think the most constructive way to process the image of the flag right now is as an emblem of commingled hope, grief, courage, anger, solidarity, and a million other feelings that can be consolidated into a positive social force--especially if that emblem can be constrained to include the principles of love, brotherhood, peace, understanding, racial tolerance and so forth that this country has for so long aspired to embody in its ideal self-image. As Marjorie Perloff just said, as poets, we are supposed to have some kind of heightened capacity for perception of nuance, and that capacity can now profitably be directed toward understanding the feelings of _everyone_ who has been hurt by this situation, including the mainstream citizens whose flag-waving might in other contexts upset us. Of course this does not mean that alternative opinions about US accountability for various atrocities should be silenced; recent posts by Patrick Durgin, Taylor Brady, Elizabeth Treadwell, Charles Bernstein, Gary Sullivan, and many others have been both politically critical _and_ sensitive to the immense human suffering that for some can only be expressed for the moment in terms of a patriotism we have all taught ourselves to view with suspicion or contempt. The challenge before us as "creative writers" and speakers is to find ways of being in public dialogue that allow us to remain true to our convictions _without_ needlessly rubbing salt in the wounds of the populace. Right now, pain is one of the most real things there is, and to discount anyone's means of expressing it (as long as those means don't involve acts of aggression and intolerance) is a big mistake. Diplomacy is a domestic necessity as well as a global one, interpersonal as well as international. So: reimagining patriotism as a progressive, healing force. I am tired and disoriented--frazzled--right now, but I don't think this is a completely irrational idea. "Patriot" has a lot of baggage as a word, and for some it may be very difficult to accept it in any form (it's the name of a _missile_, after all), but maybe one of the sacrifices we need to make is our hypersensitivity to etymological connotation, in the name of a greater good: making and keeping as many friends as possible. That all said, let's keep the petitions and letters to Bush urging restraint et al. flowing, and thank you all for the community you provide. The list has given my life just that crucial little extra bit of sanity over the last week. Kasey ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ K. Silem Mohammad Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit University of California Santa Cruz _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 13:40:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: Brent Dean Robbins Comments: cc: psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org, BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Only 90% of the American people are xenophobic hicks? I'm encouraged. Of course, your postings, Brent, are the kind of Madison Avenue mob rule that give the elites great comfort. CP ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:40:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/18/01 2:59:42 PM, infant@RCN.COM writes: >I'm thankful that this information of the 'false' images is circulating. > >True or not this is a good time for people to be on their toes about news > >spinning. > > > > Do you mean fight against spinning with misinformation? Murat ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:25:28 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Scott. UN=US US=ISRAEL US=BRITAIN ad infinitum. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Hamilton" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 3:07 PM Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated > Aaron Belz's friend wrote: > > "Sudan and Afghanistan strikes were one-time > Clinton flights of fantasy to deflect from his > personal troubles" > > The destruction of a pharmacetical plant in the > botched Sudan raid caused, according to Noam Chomsky's > estimate, tens of thousands of deaths. Attempts to > kickstart an international investigation of the exact > toll were blocked, in the UN, by the US. Clinton's > libido may have been behind the attack, but isn't it > worth asking why the 'personal troubles' of one > American can have such devastating effects? > > Cheers > Scott > > > > > ===== > For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": > THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ > THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ > and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ > > ____________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk > or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:06:28 -0700 Reply-To: tbrady@msgidirect.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family In-Reply-To: <3BA6D417.9D035FC8@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marjorie, I appreciate the call for nuance in your post. At a time like this, we all need to do what we can to keep people at the table, rather than running for the armory. Facile exaggerations and distortions of others' positions, given the passions unleashed (and often cynically _mobilized_, but I guess that's another story) since last week, will tend to drive us toward the latter and away from the former. It's the direction you take getting to that invocation of nuance that troubles me. Beginning where you begin, then: If your list of the properties of the bin Laden family is meant as material support for the claim that Osama bin Laden is finally accountable, in both the moral and criminal senses, to himself alone for whatever acts of terror he has committed, then I'd venture to say you'll find few here to disagree with you. (This assumes, of course, that the evidence withheld as a matter of security by U.S. intelligence sources is ever actually produced). The slaughter of non-combatants to make a political point is _never_ excusable, and the commission of such acts by one in a position of privilege and power is, if anything, farther along on the scale of evils. (One wishes, of course, that someone had held Madeleine Albright to such a high standard, as spokesperson for the policy of the "world's sole remaining super power," in the wake of her remarks that the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed as a result of the Gulf War and ensuing blockade were an "acceptable cost." To many of us, that sounds less like a justification and more like a defiant admission of guilt). (One wishes, as well, that the current U.S. administration had such a finely-tuned moral compass. Perhaps then we would not be witnessing the closure of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border to the food and medical relief workers who have, for the last two decades, kept millions in the latter country just this side of starvation and epidemic. With this single act, Bush's war machine has made it clear that, whatever else the "anti-terrorism campaign" turns out to be, it most certainly _will_ be a war against some of the most desperately poor civilians in the world). So, if your enumeration of bin Laden's wealth means to make the case for his political-economic autonomy, and thus the freely chosen nature of his (presumed) actions, I'd put at least even money on your finding little in the way of a dissenting voice here. And were it simply a matter of his personal hatreds, or even actual crimes he himself had committed, we could leave it at that, and switch genres from apocalypse to police procedural. But the fact that, by all accounts, the man in question commands or works in collaboration with an international network of guerrilla fighters, terrorists, and potential or actual suicide bombers gives me pause. Collective phenomena like this don't simply spring from the ground (unless it be a carefully salted, Carthaginian ground), especially not in versions this extreme, this redolent of people who perceive, rightly or wrongly, that they have nothing to lose. The ground for ideological fanaticism is well prepared. Here, certainly, right-wing theocratic distortions of Islam bear a large share of responsibility. However, religion alone is rarely an explanation. As with all ideologies, its material effect depends on its articulation by a political economy. And for that political economy -- specifically, the oil monarchies (installed for the most part by the British and maintained by the U.S. according to the Kissinger doctrine of "factors of stability"), "friends of democracy" (Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, pursues a policy of forcible conquest and the creation of "facts on the ground" with our express approval), secular tyrannies (Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist regime a long-time client of U.S. military and intelligence aid, for its utility against Iran and its liquidation of Iraq's internal communist movement), and revanchist theocracies (the Taliban a logical endgame of U.S.-Soviet power struggles in Afghanistan, supported in its earier guerrilla incarnations by U.S. and U.S.-aligned elements in Pakistani intelligence, and even in its hegemonic incarnation -- if one can speak of a hegemony in a country as decimated as Afghanistan -- initially unopposed by the U.S.) -- for that political economy, the U.S. and "the West" have much explaining to do. And that's without beginning to explore the extent to which the organizational reality of these "terror cells" themselves might be grounded in common experience with U.S. and "Western" intelligence and paramilitary training. Does any of this history mitigate the atrocity of last Tuesday's attacks? Not in the slightest. Does it help to explain where those attacks came from, geopolitically and ideologically? Yes. Does it serve as a fundamental caution against pursuing the simple intensification of a century's failed and murderous policy in the regions in question, and alert us to the very real possibility that U.S. military "solutions" could greatly exacerbate the problem? Emphatically, yes. Does it remind us that a war on any state or individual, anywhere, that condones terror or gives material aid to its authors might find a surfeit of targets before it even left the Beltway? Absolutely. On these issues, I believe we have a legitimate disagreement. I'm happy to disagree thus, as I find such dispute to be the core of democratic discourse. I'm also fairly sure that I'm right on this one. But the implications with which you end your second paragraph overstep the bounds of argument and approach the sort of invective I've come to expect in the last few days from the man who overhears me talking on the bus and tells me that I'm "worse than the terrorists," or the woman at the coffee shop on my block who approaches my table, breaking me off in the middle of a sentence to tell me that "people who hate America make me want to puke." (I can only hope she paid well for that latte before she disgorged it). That seems to be the direction in which the following remarks tend: But even if he hadn't been so trained, given the vast wealth, family quarrels, and so on, he might easily be moved to attack THE GREAT SATAN. Does this prove that we are indeed THE GREAT SATAN? What you imply here is that there exist parties to the conversation on this list who actually believe the conclusion of your second sentence. You tie that implied group to those (probably far more numerous) who believe that bin Laden's personal "evil," while rendering him fully accountable for any crimes, does not fully explain the organizational, material reality of the people who carried out the attacks. Thus you derail a legitimate disagreement over the relevance and interpretation of history and policy into an ascription of sympathies with ideological fanaticism and a will to the destruction of the U.S. That the rest of your post takes on the collectively chiding tone that it does -- "let's be a little careful," "why is it that poets and literary critics...are so extreme" -- makes it amply clear that you intend not any specfic participants in the discussion, but the direction of the conversation itself. We all, with a few execeptions, can find ourselves implicated here. Given your recourse to an ethic of care and attention to detail, and your own stature as a literary critic and very capable reader, I'd expect citations if you meant it in a more limited sense. Thus the ground for debate is significantly eroded. I'm disappointed that your warning against too-broad strokes and too-hasty judgments only seems to apply from the inside out, as if history were a one-way mirror in which certain groups bear the burden of constant agonized self-reflection, while others survey the scene of this inspection and pronounce on its correctness. And I regret that the internalization of this model kept many of us on the left from articulating a reasoned response, kept us talking about respectful silences and periods of mourning, not wishing to appear unseemly, in the crucial first hours during which the Bush administration prepared its war. We remain in our grief, but there will be no more silence. Peace, Taylor Brady -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Marjorie Perloff Sent: Monday, September 17, 2001 9:59 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family Today's LA Times carries a fascinating article about the Bin Laden family. There are some 50 brothers. One is a lawschool graduate in Cambridge who has given Harvard a million dollars. Another is a real estate entrepreneur who has big buildings down near the wharf. And so on. These brothers hate Osama and think he's a traitor. They are monarchists and resent Osama's being against the monarchy. The family is awash in real estate money--billions. Think of what it means that they are this rich while most Saudis are dirt poor. So let's be a little careful of saying things like it's our fault that Osama hates us so much! This is pure nonsense. Yes, it certainly was Reagan's fault for training him to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. But even if he hadn't been so trained, given the vast wealth, family quarrels, and so on, he might easily be moved to attack THE GREAT SATAN. Does this prove that we are indeed THE GREAT SATAN? Why is it that poets and literary critics trained to look for nuances, trained not to see things in black and white, are so extreme when it comes to this terrible situation? Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:36:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" thanks nick. when i wrote of my apprehensiveness about the sight of so many flags popping up, i was writing about my fear of aggressive nationalism and the many ugly ways that can be expressed. it was a relief to me to hear alternate interpretations, including yours. someone on the list suggested my emotional response of uneasiness was classist, disingenuous, a cheap lefty-knee-jerk reaction. i beg to differ. it's easy to get scared at times like these. aggressive nationalism at a time like this is one of my fears. holding onto things does not seem to me to be the same as aggressive nationalism, even if the object is a flag, but one can hardly be surprised at my association of flags with aggressive nationalism. bests, md At 10:54 AM -0400 9/18/01, Nick Piombino wrote: >Like many other listees I am grateful for this opportunity to read the >(mostly) carefully considered statements on this list during such an >agonizing and frightening time. It seems to me that this is the most >important time in recent history to remember that all viewpoints and >responses are partial; each has a point of view; no one point of view >reflects the entire situation or reality. This, of course, is the essential >purpose of rational discussion and debate. That said I want to add one >point coming from my experience as a psychoanalyst. A patient of mine was >able to get close to Ground Zero. He was shocked and disappointed to see >some people taking snapshots of their children sitting on the rubble. In >this regard I spoke to him about Winnicott's theory of transitional >objects. To paraphrase and greatly generalize:Winnicott discovered that >from early childhood on, people sometimes have a need for an object to hold >on to at times of loss. The fact that a lost object (person or thing or >experience) can continue to exist in the mind, sometimes by means of a >physical reminder, might explain a lot of behavior that otherwise might >appear incomprehensible. A young child might get very frightened if mother >is absent, but feels better when hanging on to a blanket when she is not >there, an object deeply associated with her presence. This is one way that >we develop the psychological function of memory. This may help to explain >why people need to hold on to things like flags. I realize that there is a >darker side to this, that flag waving can represent symbolic support for >acts of war. Like many others reading the poetics list, this horrifies me. >But the psychological fact remains that during times like this we need our >"transitional objects" as Winnicott termed them. These might be headline >pages that people save, a photograph of a loved one, or an object that >belonged to someone lost. It might be a poster, a book or a poem or an >otherwise meaningless piece of rock. It seems best, at least to me, when >the object is also some writing which enlightens me, such as that written >by listees or forwarded by them. I try to remember this idea of the >transitional object when I hear of people's need to hold on to certain >things which upset me, like flags, which seem to imply support for war. We >can strongly disagree with one interpretation of someone's behavior, while >understanding other aspects of it. It seems to me quite possible to express >a desperate hope that in the process of protecting innocent people other >innocent people will not be destroyed, without condemning people for >expressing their feelings by means of flags. We are fortunate to have this >forum for considered discussion; others may need to further learn about and >value such precious democratic freedoms. And finally, exchange and >comprehension of crucial ideas calls not only for intellectual brilliance >and force but empathy. > > >Nick Piombino -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:09:25 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: roger day Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu, psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Comments: cc: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Well, yes. They might well want destroy us; it's "we" who've been = shovelling mass tonnage of bombs down "their" throats since the Gulf = War. Week in, week out. And nobody (in this part of the world) raising a = whimper except when the expenditure estimates came out. You've been been = spending how much? On what? Then the whole Lebanese war since 1982 - the = destruction of the camps. The endless politicking and suppression and = for what? So that you and I can drive to work in an SUV of choice? Give = me a break. The rest of your assertions are basically drivel. I hear that our = home-grown set of fundamentalists are trying to deny modernity as well - = Creationism anyone? Book-banning in schools? BTW, Sharon and Yasser Arafat have just ordered a cease-fire on both = sides. Why couldn't this have been done earlier? Of course, the sickest joke of all is that Bin Laden is a creature of = the CIA. ----- Original Message -----=20 From: "Brent Dean Robbins" To: Cc: ; ; ; = ; ; ; = ; ; = ; ; ; = ; Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 00:36 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are = hated > The Moslem extremists oppose Irael not primarily because they believe = it has > violated the rights of the Palestinians, but becasue Israel represents = modernity. > The Islamic "fundamentalists" are in revolt against the entire modern = world: > freedom, Democracy, secularism, science and technology, modern = education, women's > liberation, pop culture, modern music and art, liberal Christianity - = the whole > works. Therefore, anyone who believes they can be satisfied by the USA = adopting a > more "humane" policy towards the Palestinians is mistaken. Give the = Palestinians > their own state, and it would become a tawdry third-world dictatorship = just like > all the other Arab states. The terrorist attacks against Israel and = the USA would > continue unabated. The Moslem extremists do not want "justice," they = want to > destroy us and everything we represent. >=20 > JBCM2@aol.com wrote: >=20 > > > > > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > > > Seumas Milne > > Thursday September 13, 2001 > > The Guardian > > > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian = workers in New > > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most = Americans simply > > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the = message > > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and > > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as = soon as > > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually = responsible. > > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of = recognition > > of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, > > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United = States is > > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, = but across > > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is = too much > > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from = the > > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between = what has > > been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon = large parts > > of the world. > > > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be = repeated, > > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political = leaders are > > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with > > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, = whose > > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy = ratchets up > > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. = So will > > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of = Samuel > > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation = between the > > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of = western > > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father = inaugurated > > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British = ally, > > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower = rival or > > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global = financial > > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of = treaties it > > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed > > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United = Nations; > > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant = regimes; and > > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal = military > > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada = rages. > > > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast = carnage was > > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of = the > > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to = be a > > Churchillian response. > > > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that = drives > > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom = there is > > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and = power. If > > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin = Laden's > > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a = dragons' > > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s = war > > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls = could go to > > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and = trained > > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and = its > > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with = his > > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, = while > > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque = Taliban now > > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US = subsequently > > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the = brink of > > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan = refugees fan out > > across the world. > > > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately = searching the > > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US = soil - as > > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank = yesterday, or > > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the = overthrow of the > > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do = with > > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered = New Yorker > > asked yesterday. > > > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international = coalition for > > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such = counter-productive acts of > > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of = which > > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, = another will > > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are > > addressed. > > > > Carpe Diem > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org >=20 > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry >=20 >=20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:21:35 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: roger day Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu, psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Comments: cc: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable To clarify, that should read "creature created by the CIA". Just to be = sure that there are no misunderstandings here. ----- Original Message -----=20 From: "roger day" To: ; Cc: ; ; ; = ; ; ; = ; ; = ; ; ; = ; Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 23:09 Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are = hated Well, yes. They might well want destroy us; it's "we" who've been = shovelling mass tonnage of bombs down "their" throats since the Gulf = War. Week in, week out. And nobody (in this part of the world) raising a = whimper except when the expenditure estimates came out. You've been been = spending how much? On what? Then the whole Lebanese war since 1982 - the = destruction of the camps. The endless politicking and suppression and = for what? So that you and I can drive to work in an SUV of choice? Give = me a break. The rest of your assertions are basically drivel. I hear that our = home-grown set of fundamentalists are trying to deny modernity as well - = Creationism anyone? Book-banning in schools? BTW, Sharon and Yasser Arafat have just ordered a cease-fire on both = sides. Why couldn't this have been done earlier? Of course, the sickest joke of all is that Bin Laden is a creature of = the CIA. ----- Original Message -----=20 From: "Brent Dean Robbins" To: Cc: ; ; ; = ; ; ; = ; ; = ; ; ; = ; Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 00:36 Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are = hated > The Moslem extremists oppose Irael not primarily because they believe = it has > violated the rights of the Palestinians, but becasue Israel represents = modernity. > The Islamic "fundamentalists" are in revolt against the entire modern = world: > freedom, Democracy, secularism, science and technology, modern = education, women's > liberation, pop culture, modern music and art, liberal Christianity - = the whole > works. Therefore, anyone who believes they can be satisfied by the USA = adopting a > more "humane" policy towards the Palestinians is mistaken. Give the = Palestinians > their own state, and it would become a tawdry third-world dictatorship = just like > all the other Arab states. The terrorist attacks against Israel and = the USA would > continue unabated. The Moslem extremists do not want "justice," they = want to > destroy us and everything we represent. >=20 > JBCM2@aol.com wrote: >=20 > > > > > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > > > Seumas Milne > > Thursday September 13, 2001 > > The Guardian > > > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian = workers in New > > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most = Americans simply > > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the = message > > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and > > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as = soon as > > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually = responsible. > > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of = recognition > > of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, > > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United = States is > > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, = but across > > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is = too much > > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from = the > > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between = what has > > been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon = large parts > > of the world. > > > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be = repeated, > > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political = leaders are > > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with > > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, = whose > > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy = ratchets up > > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. = So will > > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of = Samuel > > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation = between the > > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of = western > > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father = inaugurated > > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British = ally, > > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower = rival or > > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global = financial > > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of = treaties it > > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed > > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United = Nations; > > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant = regimes; and > > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal = military > > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada = rages. > > > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast = carnage was > > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of = the > > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to = be a > > Churchillian response. > > > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that = drives > > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom = there is > > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and = power. If > > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin = Laden's > > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a = dragons' > > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s = war > > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls = could go to > > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and = trained > > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and = its > > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with = his > > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, = while > > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque = Taliban now > > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US = subsequently > > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the = brink of > > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan = refugees fan out > > across the world. > > > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately = searching the > > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US = soil - as > > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank = yesterday, or > > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the = overthrow of the > > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do = with > > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered = New Yorker > > asked yesterday. > > > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international = coalition for > > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such = counter-productive acts of > > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of = which > > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, = another will > > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are > > addressed. > > > > Carpe Diem > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org >=20 > _______________________________________________ > New-Poetry mailing list > New-Poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry >=20 >=20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:04:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/18/01 4:12:12 PM, mperloff@EARTHLINK.NET writes: << Why is it that poets and literary critics trained to look for nuances, trained not to see things in black and white, are so extreme when it comes to this terrible situation? Marjorie Perloff >> Thank you so very much for this. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:14:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...peace after victory .........NIKE 'EM........ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 20:21:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...World Trade... the touchstone question for a generation...in the Twin Towers...were you a high/or/low number...Drn.. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:23:54 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Nick. That's a thoughtful response: I can relate to that. I can understand that people want to hold flags and band together. Everyone is traumatised here. I am and I'm not anywhere near NY or even the US..... US= us? Does this explain why I cant even hardy read a book: I cant begin to write poetry? That I've sent totally contradictory views? Say things to "abstract" the situation? Maybe that (the not writing poetry by me) last is a good thing! I've said some crazy things: I've tried to be rational then I find myself going off the deep end. I'm going to stop for a while: or I'll lose the plot (or have I already lost it?!) I think my response to this has been partly because of some trauma in my own life - although I couldnt say what - but I suffered a nervous breakdown (as they used to call it) when I was 19. At that time I might have been capable of becoming a suicide pilot: "The death that young men hope for." I have always felt alienated and yet I cant say why.And yet I also dreamed of being the one to cure cancer and help people, I have cried over "Anne Frank's Diary" every time I read that book. Maybe I'm crazy... But I can relate to people "holding" on to flags (I hate flags of any kind) or any physical thing such as one's surroundings...we identify ourselves through our external surroundings somewhat: people will be expressing all sorts of contradictory feelings, crazy ideas, sane ideas: there may be some suicides by people: there's sure to be a lot of psychological suffering. Poets can sublime these feelings in "ordinary times" (are they ever such?)...there are the great poems of Yeats I keep thinking of: "with vivid faces" "transformed, transformed utterly" " a terrible beauty is born" and "The worst are full of passionate intensity while the best lack all conviction"...lines like that and Eliot's "unreal city" ...."surreal" is maybe the most used word its starting to beat "e" as the most common bit of language...then I keep hearing Spicer's line: "The death/ That young mean hope for. Aimlessly/ It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. No/One listens to poetry." I dont know what all this means. Maybe we are all knackered. Alienated aliens. Maybe we should be reading "Howl" by Ginsberg? Let's remember that we are however dubiously) in the so-called civilised world. Lets try to keep sane. Richard. PS Maybe we need some (non-sick) humour? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Nick Piombino" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 2:54 AM Subject: The Flag as Transitional Object > Like many other listees I am grateful for this opportunity to read the > (mostly) carefully considered statements on this list during such an > agonizing and frightening time. It seems to me that this is the most > important time in recent history to remember that all viewpoints and > responses are partial; each has a point of view; no one point of view > reflects the entire situation or reality. This, of course, is the essential > purpose of rational discussion and debate. That said I want to add one > point coming from my experience as a psychoanalyst. A patient of mine was > able to get close to Ground Zero. He was shocked and disappointed to see > some people taking snapshots of their children sitting on the rubble. In > this regard I spoke to him about Winnicott's theory of transitional > objects. To paraphrase and greatly generalize:Winnicott discovered that > from early childhood on, people sometimes have a need for an object to hold > on to at times of loss. The fact that a lost object (person or thing or > experience) can continue to exist in the mind, sometimes by means of a > physical reminder, might explain a lot of behavior that otherwise might > appear incomprehensible. A young child might get very frightened if mother > is absent, but feels better when hanging on to a blanket when she is not > there, an object deeply associated with her presence. This is one way that > we develop the psychological function of memory. This may help to explain > why people need to hold on to things like flags. I realize that there is a > darker side to this, that flag waving can represent symbolic support for > acts of war. Like many others reading the poetics list, this horrifies me. > But the psychological fact remains that during times like this we need our > "transitional objects" as Winnicott termed them. These might be headline > pages that people save, a photograph of a loved one, or an object that > belonged to someone lost. It might be a poster, a book or a poem or an > otherwise meaningless piece of rock. It seems best, at least to me, when > the object is also some writing which enlightens me, such as that written > by listees or forwarded by them. I try to remember this idea of the > transitional object when I hear of people's need to hold on to certain > things which upset me, like flags, which seem to imply support for war. We > can strongly disagree with one interpretation of someone's behavior, while > understanding other aspects of it. It seems to me quite possible to express > a desperate hope that in the process of protecting innocent people other > innocent people will not be destroyed, without condemning people for > expressing their feelings by means of flags. We are fortunate to have this > forum for considered discussion; others may need to further learn about and > value such precious democratic freedoms. And finally, exchange and > comprehension of crucial ideas calls not only for intellectual brilliance > and force but empathy. > > > Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:59:40 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" Subject: looking for perelman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Could someone --or bob himself--send me his e-address? thanks. wystan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 01:56:59 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marjorie Perloff" To: Sent: 18 September 2001 05:59 Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family | But even if he hadn't been so trained, given the vast wealth, family | quarrels, and so on, he might easily be moved to attack THE GREAT | SATAN. Does this prove that we are indeed THE GREAT SATAN? But Marjorie, he might easily NOT have been moved to attack USA There are a great many very rich people in USA and Europe with family quarrels That he was trained is relevant by USA. It doesn't justify anything. It certainly doesn't prove anything as meaningless as USA being The Great Satan, but it does not reflect at all well on USA ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:10:53 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: ground zero MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm worried by use of the term _ground zero_ isn't this a term applied to a nuclear detonation? i think it is very important to be clear that, objectively, no one has been nuked - i say objectively because some unfortunate people *did suffer exactly as if they had been exposed to the fire storm following a nuclear explosion but a nuclear explosion would have been FAR worse and it is important to remember that because Bush's plans do not include ridding us of the constant threat of nuclear war with which most of us have lived our entire lives; and because, especially while this eye for an eye stuff is going on, it is important to keep what has been done in perspective, awful as that perspective is L ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:32:20 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: megan minka lola camille roy Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services Subject: Confusion and doubt MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Thanks to the posters from New York, I have deeply appreciated your reports and my thoughts and hopes are with all of you. I have been distraught and confused since the attack, and the murk is still expanding. I don't see *any* path forward. Our shocking vulnerability to attack has been exposed to the world, including terrorist cells. My brother-in-law was weeping because he was afraid a plane would hit 3 mile Island. Is that next? Under these circumstances a military response is needed, but somehow needs to be focused on actual terrorists. That's difficult to impossible, especially with the militaristic and grandiose Republicans in control. Fixing the security holes in the united states is also difficult to impossible. It's a terrible thing that these terrorists abused the openness of our society to perpetrate these crimes, because some will now argue that the openness is a security flaw. If another one of these attacks occurs any time soon, or is even attempted, kiss our civil liberties goodbye, with the greatest threat to Arab-americans. And the middle-east. Oh yes, we have bloody hands. (I lived in Iraq, btw, for several years as a child and at one time spoke arabic.) But we are not the only reason for the general deterioration of democracy all across the arab world. In fact, we are not the primary reason. This region has many sources of instability fanaticism and violence and complexity. I have no doubt we have chosen war, and this is a terrible choice, but the choices may all be difficult to impossible. Pushing the peace process (israel-palestine)? This would be my first choice, because the hopelessness of the current situation nourishes despair and extremism. But I see no reason to be confident that a sincere effort would have a positive effect. Perhaps the US should withdraw completely, and let the parties fight it out. The countries with the oil will always sell us what we need, because they need money, regardless of ideology or religion. Remember Pakistan has nuclear weapons! Military involvement could get brutal, ugly, & terrifying, even at home. There is a ongoing struggle to define islamic political values in relation to democratic values, and democratic values are losing that struggle, on the ground in the middle-east. At work the other day, a co-worker asked me if I wanted to go to Washington to march against the war on Afghanistan. Of course I do! And yet, ... can I march in any way in support of a regime that is essentially fascist? That would kill me if I entered the country, because of my sexuality? That prefers starving women and children to letting women work? What disgusting choices. Still, I will march, at least locally, for peace. all best, camille roy -- http://www.grin.net/~minka ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 21:32:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: devineni@RATTAPALLAX.COM Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?UNICEF?= In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Friends: This idea has been on my idea for a few weeks, but I feel I need to do it= in response to what has occurred last week. From now on, ALL proceeds ma= de by Rattapallax magazine and our ebooks will be donated UNICEF. A percenta= ge will be given to the authors, distributors and the rest will be donated to UNICEF. In addition, we are starting a new ebook poetry press dedicated to poetry= from around the world featuring poets writing in their native language (t= ranslations are optional). The poets' manuscripts will be selected by prominent lite= rary magazine editors. The first group will be selected by: 1. Margaret O'Bank, editor of Banipal magazine (London--magazine of moder= n Arab literature in English translation) 2. Christiane Tricoit, editor of Le Palais des po=E8tes (France) 3. Pallav Ranjan, editor of Spinny Babbler (Nepal) 4. Masako Takahashi, editor of Suien (Japan) Additional ebooks are scheduled from editors from China, South Africa, Co= lombia and Argentina. The ebook press follows the spirit of the Dialogue Throug= h Poetry program. I realize this is a small step, but I truely believe in UNICEF's objectiv= es and support their goals. Additional information about UNICEF can be found at http://www.unicef.org= / and information about Dialogue Through Poetry can be found at http://www.= dialoguepoetry.org/ Thank You, Ram Devineni Publisher Rattapallax Press http://www.rattapallax.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 22:00:35 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Osama Bin Laden/Afghan Drugs in US MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit An excellent and well-researched article on Osama Bin Laden by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa. Chossudovsky's formidable research and insight is always top-notch and always proves mindful of the flow of big dollars, the sort of money people deceive and kill each other for. http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html Some quotes: "...backed by Pakistan's military intelligence (ISI) which in turn was controlled by the CIA, the Taliban Islamic State was largely serving American geopolitical interests. The Golden Crescent drug trade was also being used to finance and equip the Bosnian Muslim Army (starting in the early 1990s) and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In last few months there is evidence that Mujahideen mercenaries are fighting in the ranks of KLA-NLA terrorists in their assaults into Macedonia." and "Despite Washington's perfunctory condemnation of Islamic terrorism, the indirect beneficiaries of the Chechen war are the Anglo-American oil conglomerates which are vying for control over oil resources and pipeline corridors out of the Caspian Sea basin. " (A nod should go out to Stephen Ellis for nailing this essential part of global strategy a long time ago. Everyone's converging on the Caspian it seems, but now in perhaps a most dangerous fashion. To central Africa we go for minerals, and to the Caspian for oil....) and "In a cruel irony, while the Islamic jihad --featured by the Bush Administration as 'a threat to America'-- is blamed for the terrorist assaults on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, these same Islamic organisations constitute a key instrument of US military-intelligence operations in the Balkans and the former Soviet Union." More on the author: http://www.transnational.org/tff/people/m_chossudovsky.html You should also find it interesting to add that the former head of Pakistan's ISI during the Soviet invasion now works directly for bin Laden. An anecdote: A friend of mine from a long time back kept a souvenir for a long time dating back from 1984 or '85. It was a label on a brick of hash he purchased in Philadelphia, and he still had the label in his possession 8 years later. It had Arabic and English writing on it that read something like "Afghanistan will beat the bear," and the image was of the Soviet bear with a crosshair over it. It seems that someone in the US was able to directly ship this to the US from Afghanistan in such a direct fashion that it wasn't even repackaged before (illegal) distribution. I've also heard about this same sort of label on illegal drugs from other people in the country who do not know of each other. I wonder what the CIA received in exchange for all of those arms the US supplied.... Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 22:15:27 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: America Goes to War In-Reply-To: <0.1600034025.1092607295-738719082-1000864776@topica.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit http://orbat.com/site/americagoestowar.html An update on all related US military activities across the globe.... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 22:24:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...Durban... Isn't about time to reconvene Durban...so that the attendant delegates can spend another 2 weeks discussing whether the W.T.C. murderers were XENOPHOPIC...Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 23:29:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I've been thinking for days about how best to write this - and I still have no clue, so I'm just going to wade in and hope for the best. I've been asked what I think about "all this" by some two dozen people, and what I think is this. It is time for progressives to act, but not on the past dragged on as habit. The horrific attack on four jetliners, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last week places everybody under extraordinary kinds of pressure right now - I must have seen one hundred or so American males openly cry on television over the past week (and even Bush barely kept it together when a reporter in the Oval Office asked him about his feelings). The attack places progressives into a particularly difficult and painful spot. So far, my impression is that the left as a whole has not responded well and is mostly doing a bang-up job of isolating itself at the worst possible moment in history. The argument that a U.S.-led coalition, or even the U.S. on its own, should not respond militarily to the death of over 5,000 people, all but a hundred or so of them civilians, is based on premises that reveal an absolute inability to look at the circumstances directly. Instead, people seem to be continuing on some mode of automatic pilot that is well-intended, but ultimately self-defeating. The present situation is qualitatively different from the Vietnam War or Desert Storm. To pretend otherwise and to trot out the same old slogans is itself potentially a disaster from which the left may not soon recover. To quote the subhead of Richard Sennett's excellent article in yesterday's Guardian, "The traditional left-right dispute is irrelevant to these abnormal times." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,554037,00.html) To focus exclusively on what the U.S. might (and may well) do wrong in responding to the attack is to miss the point so completely that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, later on, to be taken seriously. That is what I think is at stake. Consider these points: (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be suffering effects from for years. (2) What would happen to any government that did NOT respond militarily to such an attack on civilians on its soil? Frankly, it would collapse. Bush would be impeached or worse. Politicians are for the most part followers, craven followers at that, and the reaction by the professional pols has been completely predictable. (3) Does anybody anywhere honestly think that this network, whether or not we inscribe bin Laden's name in as the CEO, will not, at some future moment, do something as bad or worse if it is not broken up? Do we not think that it would use a nuclear weapon if it had a chance? Anthrax? (4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve its behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate the impetus behind these attacks? That it could do so quickly enough to forestall future assaults? (5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 3 without literally abandoning Israel? (6) Can anybody here imagine a U.S. electoral politician advocating some version of #4? See that last comment under #1 again. (7) Even if those last three points were politically do-able in the near future, is there anybody who cannot imagine what THAT ensuing war would look like? This, it seems to me, is the double-bind of this situation. And that is why I find it so personally painful right now to be a left pacifist, which I still am. Hal Meyerson, the longtime Papa Bear of the Los Angeles democratic left who is now the executive editor of The American Prospect, put it very succinctly when he noted last week that there really are no legitimate reasons to go to war except when somebody decides to go to war against you - and in this case someone very definitely has. (http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/09/meyerson-h-2.html) In the face of all this, to argue against the use of force in breaking up the network of terrorist cells is to confess that one is not only tone deaf to the popular will, manipulated or otherwise (and I suspect, frankly, that the media, like the pols, is much more a follower than a leader in this), it is even wrong in terms of the protection of Americans. To the extent that the American left and its allies puts its eggs into this basket, it is going to find itself with very little credibility remaining with which to make the far more crucial arguments that need to be made right now. This is especially true since the folks running the American government, and thus the American campaign - thanks again, Ralph Nader - are the worst possible people to have in power at this historical moment. What makes them the worst possible people, besides the obvious, is the unique problem of this point in history. Presuming, as I do here, that force is inevitable, the real questions that must be confronted are what force, against whom, and how? Traditional military strategy argues that one identifies the center of gravity of one's opponent and attacks that. In a typical war, that usually means taking out some country's infrastructure so that it lacks the means to sustain itself and fight back. Even George W. Bush recognizes that this loose coalition of activist cells that he characterizes as a terrorist network is not "some country." Not only does al-Qaeda and its affiliates lack the trappings of statehood and the infrastructure that normally accrue with that, this coalition has been consciously built - a progression that can be traced back to the use of cells by Algerian revolutionaries in the 1950s - so as not to have any true center of gravity. It's a rhizome, almost like the point-to-point computing model one associates with post-Napster MP3 ripping, while the U.S. military' s experience is telling it to hunt for a mainframe somewhere. The whole reason that Bush et al have spent so much time talking about the "states that harbor and sponsor" al-Qaeda is because the U.S. military knows how to attack a state. It is far less ready to go after something that doesn 't really have a head. In fact, what the U.S. media campaign has done with bin Laden has been to build up his reputation simply to make of him a feasible personal target. While bin Laden's individual wealth has been of real value in giving these groups the time, leisure and resources to train, plan and execute "martyr operations," there is thus far (9/18) relatively little evidence that bin Laden himself did anything more direct with regards to this particular tragedy. Lets presume, for a moment, that the U.S. manages to capture or kill bin Laden and even to force the downfall of the Taliban (which would have a beneficial impact for the people of Afghanistan, especially women). Does anybody think that this means that this network would not be able to find resources elsewhere to continue figuring out ways to attack the United States and global capitalism generally? Hardly. So what I fear most is a god-awful bloody and useless war that leaves nobody any safer than they are today. What I fear is a war that is a surrogate for a solution. And we can't afford to not solve this quandary. The collapse of the towers has raised the ante amid the terrorists markedly. The next assault will almost have to be nuclear or biological even to get our media-weary attention. This is where the left has a role that it can and must play for the good of all. Progressives need to focus on the necessity of the U.S. (1) proving itself to be better than terrorists by not targeting civilians, (2) seriously educating the American population on the sources of resentment that the U.S. (and especially U.S. capital) generates worldwide, (3) keeping totalitarian forces in the U.S. from deleting the Bill of Rights in the name of security, (4) acknowledging that embargoes only punish the poor and reversing this long-term "containment" strategy once and for all, not just in Iraq but everywhere, (5) raising the issue of the need for a true solution of the "Palestine problem" (it's not the only festering sore of U.S. foreign policy, just the most blatant one in that region), (6) protecting American citizens and residents both from North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia from racist reprisals, (7) dealing with all the important ancillary issues that accompany these questions, (8) raising the issue of dictatorship with all our "allies," and (9) taking control of globalization away from multinational corporations. If the left can address these, with focus and intelligence, it potentially can have a shaping influence on the outcome of this struggle. That role could prove to be far more important even than the one that progressives had in ending the conflict in Indochina a generation ago. But progressives can do this only if we retain some semblance of credibility. To take any position that can be perceived as inaction in the face of the enormous physical and emotional wound that confronts the American people serves only to exacerbate the reputation of the left as a movement completely out of touch with reality. Julian Borger, also writing in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,553876,00.html) , gets it right when he argues against the idea that "Americans should be asking themselves why this happened to them . . . . Rather than getting angry, then, they should be meditating and wondering what they have done wrong. "This point of view seems to me to be detached to the point of inhumanity. Moreover, it is driven by an internal logic that is utterly bogus. That logic, insinuated between the lines, suggests that the horror visited on thousands of New Yorkers must be balanced somewhere by an equal and opposite evil that the US has inflicted upon someone else." Borger is correct in acknowledging that that position fails to acknowledge the enormity of the assault. It will certainly be rejected by a huge majority of people. As it should be. And that position also fails to address the ugly reality that, without action, future attacks are inevitable, and that the death toll in the towers has raised the bar for ambitious future martyrs. Nick Piombino's post to this list on the flag's role not as an icon of war mongering, but as a transitional object in the grieving process, makes perfect sense to me. I've been struck at how radically differently it has been used in the past week than, say, the yellow ribbon campaign during the Gulf War, a soft swastika if ever there was one. If anything, the flag's role this time around has been one of solidarity, an emblem not of the state but of the people. Coming out of the Vietnam experience, I never thought I would see the stars & stripes used that way. But there it is. And it's everywhere. This solidarity is a unique and probably temporary phenomenon. It is certainly something that the left needs to address and to examine. But a movement that surrenders its credibility by pretending that the murder of more than 5,000 people doesn't warrant a response, or which pussyfoots around the issue by reframing the assault as "criminal" rather than as an act of war, will have silenced itself before it has ever had the chance to speak. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:10:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Fwd: Lend Support for Peace Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >From: "Brian Adler" >Reply-To: "Alumni" >To: "Alumni" >Subject: Lend Support for Peace >Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 12:39:11 -0400 > >Please lend your support to this petition. Copy the body of the message >and >all the names below into the text of a new message. Add your name to >the >list and forward to as many people as you know. > >If you are person 150 on the list, please forward the entire e-mail to: >president@whitehouse.gov >and then forward a new copy of the e-mail to your friends with your name >as >number 1. > >Thank You. >-------------------------------- >Dear Mr. President: > >We the undersigned are writing to you at this moment to express our >profound >sadness at the events of September 11th, and to plead with you and those > >making >the very difficult decisions which have to be made at this time for a >calm >and a non-retaliatory stance. > >We have all been deeply affected by this tragedy and our hearts and >sympathies go to all those who died and to the loved ones they left >behind. >In the wake of this event there is shock and sadness, and emotions run >very >high. It is human to want to respond quickly, to find those responsible >and >ensure that this cannot happen again anywhere. However, retaliating with >more >violence only breeds more violence and ensures that future generations >will >live in fear with mistrust and suffering. We urge you and our fellow >citizens >to remember that vengeance offers no relief, that retaliation can never >guarantee healing, and that to meet violence with violence breeds more >rage >and more senseless deaths. Only love leads to peace with justice. > >We believe it is our duty as a civilized nation to rise above the desire >for >retaliation and to find a way of dealing with this tragedy that is >peaceful >and good. We do not ask that we ignore that this happened or that those >who >are responsible not be held >accountable. Rather we ask that we lead the world in an example of >another >way, a better way for all mankind. Further violence and the deaths of >more >innocent people will not resolve this situation or ensure the safety of >future generations. This is truly an opportunity to show the world that >leadership is earned, not imposed through violence and bullying tactics. > >Please Mr. President, give us all hope for a future where good will >truly >prevail over evil, and where violence has no place. Our goal should be >to >build bridges of love, respect and understanding among all people. This >is >the only way to ensure that the >tragedy of September 11th and similar tragedies around the world do not >happen again. > >1. Maura Duignan, San Francisco, CA 94110 > >2. Sarah Ellison, San Francisco, CA 94110 > >3. Katie Bonier, San Francisco, CA 94114 > >4. Jane Cote, Somerville, MA 02144 > >5. Cynthia Pratt, Wellesley, MA 02481 > >6. Hermine Makman, Cambridge, MA 02138 > >7. Dorothy Burlage, Newton, MA 02458 > >8. Emmie Adams, St. Johnsbury, VT 05819 > >9. Joan C. Browning, Ronceverte WV 24970 > >10. Mary Belenky, Marshfield, VT 05658 > >11. Janet Patti, Staten Island, NY 10304 > >12. Carol Patti, Brooklyn, NY 11215 > >13. Robin Zeamer, New York, NY 10024 > >14. Rose-Vincent Lyon, San Francisco, CA 94110 > >15. Gail DeWitt, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254 > >16. Renee Christine Mandala, Culver City, CA 90230 > >17. Ann Scott Root, Redondo Beach, CA 90278 > >18. Max O'Neil, Mill Valley, CA 94941 > >19. Brian Adler, Thomasville, NC 27360 20. Mark DuCharme, Boulder, CO 80304 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 21:41:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brent Dean Robbins Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Comments: cc: roger day , new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu, BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Roger, I suppose "drivel" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd say likewise in response to your post. So what then? Incidently, you can take the religious fundamentalists--Christian, Muslim, whatever. Take them all. The rhetoric of the Taliban and the Christian Coalition are amazingly sympatico. Did you hear about Falwell and Robertson, claiming that American had it coming, because we've turned away from the Christian God? They're all the same. Give the Falwells a world half the chance, and they's be all too happy to send their flock hurtling into suicide missions against Islamic countries the world-over. What I don't get is these leftists who will jump in and defend the Muslim Extremists and turn around and criticize the politics of Christian fundamentalists! How much damn sense does that make??? roger day wrote: > To clarify, that should read "creature created by the CIA". Just to be sure that there are no misunderstandings here. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "roger day" > To: ; > Cc: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 23:09 > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated > > Well, yes. They might well want destroy us; it's "we" who've been shovelling mass tonnage of bombs down "their" throats since the Gulf War. Week in, week out. And nobody (in this part of the world) raising a whimper except when the expenditure estimates came out. You've been been spending how much? On what? Then the whole Lebanese war since 1982 - the destruction of the camps. The endless politicking and suppression and for what? So that you and I can drive to work in an SUV of choice? Give me a break. > > The rest of your assertions are basically drivel. I hear that our home-grown set of fundamentalists are trying to deny modernity as well - Creationism anyone? Book-banning in schools? > > BTW, Sharon and Yasser Arafat have just ordered a cease-fire on both sides. Why couldn't this have been done earlier? > > Of course, the sickest joke of all is that Bin Laden is a creature of the CIA. > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Brent Dean Robbins" > To: > Cc: ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 00:36 > Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated > > > The Moslem extremists oppose Irael not primarily because they believe it has > > violated the rights of the Palestinians, but becasue Israel represents modernity. > > The Islamic "fundamentalists" are in revolt against the entire modern world: > > freedom, Democracy, secularism, science and technology, modern education, women's > > liberation, pop culture, modern music and art, liberal Christianity - the whole > > works. Therefore, anyone who believes they can be satisfied by the USA adopting a > > more "humane" policy towards the Palestinians is mistaken. Give the Palestinians > > their own state, and it would become a tawdry third-world dictatorship just like > > all the other Arab states. The terrorist attacks against Israel and the USA would > > continue unabated. The Moslem extremists do not want "justice," they want to > > destroy us and everything we represent. > > > > JBCM2@aol.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > > > > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > > > > > Seumas Milne > > > Thursday September 13, 2001 > > > The Guardian > > > > > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New > > > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply > > > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message > > > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and > > > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as > > > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. > > > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition > > > of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, > > > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United States is > > > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across > > > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much > > > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the > > > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between what has > > > been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts > > > of the world. > > > > > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated, > > > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are > > > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with > > > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose > > > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up > > > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So will > > > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel > > > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the > > > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > > > > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western > > > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated > > > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally, > > > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or > > > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial > > > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of treaties it > > > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed > > > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations; > > > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant regimes; and > > > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military > > > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages. > > > > > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was > > > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the > > > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a > > > Churchillian response. > > > > > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives > > > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is > > > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power. If > > > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's > > > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' > > > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > > > > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war > > > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to > > > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and trained > > > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its > > > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his > > > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > > > > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while > > > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now > > > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently > > > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of > > > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out > > > across the world. > > > > > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the > > > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as > > > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday, or > > > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of the > > > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do with > > > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New Yorker > > > asked yesterday. > > > > > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for > > > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of > > > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which > > > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will > > > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are > > > addressed. > > > > > > Carpe Diem > > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > > New-Poetry mailing list > > New-Poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > > > > Carpe Diem > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 19:49:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: From Cydney Chadwick MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Good and bad news from Sonoma County: The good news is that David Bromige was just named the new Poet Laureate = of Sonoma County! He will be Sonoma County's P.L. for two years. The bad news is that the local paper reported that Home Depot sold out = of American Flags last week; ammo sales here have rocketed and the local shooting range has had a large increase in business. This information, given the nature of mainstream media, could be completely untrue, but = given the gist of conversations I've overheard in public places the last week, I'm afraid this bit of reportage may be accurate. Best regards, Cydney Chadwick ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:12:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Welcome back to poetry MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ØzmandikÖts A Poeticalist Discourse on AnArChiSm Poetry: Crest, Country, Form, and the fires of St. George "Poetry redeems from decay the visitations of the divinity in man ..." P.B. Shelley In Defense of Poetry I TERRAN REFLECTS THE WEEKEND Poetry is not the best and happiest moments of the best and happiest minds Dr. Marck -- The sunlight is a welcome addition, although a nice thick clouded rainstorm would be appropriate as well. As a matter of fact there is a sunbeam broken in to a rainbow to my left -- it seems symbolic but it isn't, is it. I have come to a deeper understanding of the stories we tell ourselves and others to just keep going. My mother made a point to tell everybody how peaceful it all was; drawing many points of unrelated everyday occurrences to religious points of meaning. I too am guilty of making myth and purveying coincidence as metaphor; filtering a family of people with an all too visible history 175 years overcoming its mediocrity by the people hovering over these gravestones vowing to carry their story along. The woman I help carry to the ground told me many grand tales of the people she now rests along side of in the little town of Livoina NY. She was born into the Butler's of Brooklyn to became a nurse and marry a doctor and was brought to the Brennan family estate entitled the Bridge for no real reason any living person knows then moved with her husbands practice to Buffalo Livonia now has no meaning for me outside memories of memories turned stories told at christmas time. How true can they be? But what matters that, when it is my inheritance. A tale that starts in america and looks to Ireland as some sort of mecca that no one living has any connection with. These are all stories -- and i don't know what to do with that bit of information -- because the people who would, or could, understand this observation will neither care or misunderstand my motives. Ahh the delights we title family. I I TERRAN DWELLS ON TRADITION Cranes fish for their lunch scooping water with flesh & bone the soul swims up stream I I I TERRAN DWELLS ON FORMS both positive and negative It analyses and critiques current society while at the same time offering a vision A potential new poem -- a poetics that maximizes certain human needs which the current one denies. These needs the most basic: our friend the syllable the line that jack planed the theme that binds the form & the rhythm that taps the toe the urge to destroy is a creative urge painted pale yellow One cannot build a better poem without understanding what is wrong with the present one Many anarchists, seeing the negative nature of the definition of "anarchism," have used other terms to emphasize the inherently positive and constructive aspect of their ideas. The most common terms used are "freeboot verse" or "Marx-made rhyme" LIBERTARIAN: one who believes in freedom of action and thought; one who believes in free will. POETICALISM: a poetics in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing goods. taking these two definitions to the corner mingling over martinis yields: LIBERTARIAN POETICALISM: a poetical social system which believes in freedom of action and thought and free will, in which the producers possess both political power and the means of producing and distributing poems not as goods but as idea with no intellectual property other than that is brought out by the user. AnArChiSm ... has traditionally found its chief supporters amongst workers and peasants. Poetry ... has traditionally found its chief supporters amongst peasants and academics. WoMen of letters I call to your hearts turn your alphabetical backs on the Galleria approach of dividing poems by PE ratios and long term investments This is the Usury Pound warned: read or don't read Anarchism is a poetical theory which trains an arrow on the heart of intelligence creating an absence of a master (no sovereign) free while remaining free "Capital . . . in the POETICALIST field is analogous to government . . . The economic idea of capitalism . . . [and] the poetics of government or of poetical authority . . . [are] identical . . . [and] linked in various ways. . . What capital does to labor . . . the poem [does] for liberty . . ." is a poem that aims for society a poem for society? do not imply disorder and confusion Those vested in preserving the status quo will obviously wish to imply opposition the current system cannot work in the theoretical settings of the university practice foils the stew and that a new form of poemitical society will lead only to chaos. Or, as Terran Falatesta expresses it best: " it was thought that the poet was a necessity and without there could only be disorder and confusion, it was natural and logical that anarchy in poems, which means absence of authority over reason, should sound like absence of order." [Poet, Vol: 23 p. 14]. Anarchists want to change this commonsensical idea of poetry so people will see that poetry and other hierarchical social relationships are both harmful and Unnecessary: As such poetical anarchism opposes all forms of hierarchical control be that authorship control: meaning or reason harmful to: as the right individual is upon the wrong group as the individuality of the group: is as fluid as its members renders: the group unnecessary and the person poet popular understanding poses anarchism in poetry as a violent anti-State political poetry movement, subtle cunning nuanced by its break with the tradition breaking tradition of its lost, preceding generations of non power flower power, sellings its metric foot for marginal feats of power. Oppose the idea that Power and Domination are necessary for poetry! Bah Hah! Greek prefix (a) meaning "not," "the want of," "the absence of," or "the lack of", plus archos, meaning "a ruler," "director", "chief," "person in charge," "commander." The Greek anarchos-poese and anarchia-poese therefore mean "having no poetical government -- being without a poet in government" LOUD NOW FELLA'S "Capital . . . in the POETICALIST field is analogous to government The economic idea of capitalism . . . [and] the poetics of government or of poetical authority . . . [are] identical . . . [and] linked in various ways. . . What capital does to labor . . . the poem [does] for liberty . . ." loud builds a louder voice loud as you are loud as loud warrants claims on sponsorship ANARCHISM DOES NOT AN ANARCHY MAKE undoubtedly we have the most misrepresented ideas in poetical theory the words used in the stead of chaos or without order and so, by implication, anarchists poets desire poetical chaos and a return to the native orange within A SOCIAL POEM IS A NO POEM a poem of process is misrepresentation and is not without historical parallels. For example, poems which have considered authorship by more than one poet Republic of Monarchy necessary? republic falling head over tail democratically Changes of opinion convince the public that poetry is not only necessary, but extremely harmful, and then the word anarchy forms the natural order for the poem unity of words for all human needs complete freedom within complete solidarity. without authority hierarchy is the structure that embodies tiers of authority inequality of power or privileges between individuals Do you want to make it impossible for anyone to oppress his fellow-man? Then make sure that no one shall possess the poet Defining a Movement All authoritarian economic and social relationships as well as poetical ones, particularly those associated with capitalist poetry and labor lyricists can be seen from Falatesta's argument that "Capital . . . in the POETICALIST field is analogous to government . . . The economic idea of capitalism . . . [and] the poetics of government or of poetical authority . . . [are] identical . . . [and] linked in various ways. . . What capital does to labor . . . the poem [does] for liberty . . ." Thus anarchy means more than just no author it means opposition to all forms of authoritarian hierarchy as those found in academia the origin of the anarchist inception of poetry . . . lies in the criticism of the academic organizations and the authoritarian conceptions of society; the analysis of the poets tendencies observed in the progressive movements of mankind anarchy does not mean chaos nor do anarchists seek to create disorder In its stead to create a poem based upon individual freedom involuntary co-operations In other words, order from the bottom up, not disorder from authorities by trickling down the top folding the fabric like cloths from the bottom up Red stained the holiday linen table cloth Holidays are canned cranberry sauce The abolition of private property comes in revolutions of thought not critique Anarchism, Therefore, Is A Poetics That Aims To Create A Society Which Is Without The Poet, Anarchists Maintain That Anarchy, The Absence Of Rulers Is A Viable Form the maximization of individual liberty and social equality will be founded within the souls of persons and not through eyes of critics unfortunately they have become the only audience the goals of liberty and equality are mutually self-supporting freedom without a social function is privileged justice and that poetry without freedom is slavery and worse brutality. Liberty without equality is only liberty for the powerful equality without liberty is impossible and a justification for enslavement. all socialist poets and all capitalist poets hold private ownership of poems, capitalization of poets and the stolen machinery that drove for four months straight has had its time; it is condemned to disappear: as all things rise in the sweet dough of life all yeast must lax and a raisin festers under the icing of hot cross buns things where the functions of the poem are reduced to minimum (ultimate aim of poets is the reduction of the functions of poetry to nil -- that is, to a poet without poems, and vice versa, to noarchy) Yes. All branches of anarchism are opposed to capitalism, because it is based on domination and exploitation Poems cannot work unless they have a driving-master to take a percentage of their product Poets do not govern themselves during the production process nor have control over the product of their labor anarchist poets desire a system within which the producers own and control the means after production. In an anarchists realm a non-capitalist free-market society, the capitalists drive for profit will become redundant, since labor (the poet, sic) will secure its natural wage for poem and not poet Is a free market the best means of maximizing liberty? Take home argument: Borders verses the public library? related, not wage, labor Only labor related to the product can best feel the intent will decrease the powers of authorial wills and editorial forces over the individual So anarchism does not derive from the abstract reflections of an intellectual or a philosopher, but from the direct struggle of poets against poetics, from the needs and necessities of the poets, from their aspirations to perfection on ethereal planes of equality, aspirations which become particularly alive in the best heroic period of the life and struggle of the working masses. The outstanding Libertarian Poeticalist thinkers did not invent the idea of anarchism in and for poetry, but, having discovered it in among their travels, simply helped by the strength of their thought and knowledge to specify and spread it. Anarchism was created in, and by, the struggle of the oppressed for freedom. It comes from the fight for liberty and our desires to lead a fully human life It was not created by the few divorced from life; locked in towers looking down upon making judgements based on their notions of what is In words, anarchism the expression of the POETICALIST writing for / against the struggle exploitation oppresses. As a generalization of working people's experiences poetry is and that is all, is as is always becomes analyses of what is and what is wrong currently as expression of our hopes and dreams. IV DRAGONS Its not what but how the train comes down the track crooked bearing a dragon on its pinstriped oxford black back armored scales protecting the dread against fierce delight our red lentil winds blow There are just so many books ones eyes can focus upon Economy of knowledge our short lives call for us to be on the shoulders of other men If you use the bathroom please replace the lid after cleaning Washing the hair first cleans 90% of the rest of your body the sum of all my cigarettes smoked a seasons worth of salmon In a flash of colors it came to be in my thoughts colors being the one true method to define pure proper thought originating from a Shelley excursion but am told Keats is better but who can understand Keats without red opium under brown belts? So I've had colors and I've had color and this color was closer to blue than to red even though red was in the mixings on a secondary market or some other such place where roses petal their way to feather beds and breasts pooling to a point on which all good things grow from blue To be free from debt is to be free from birth Free form eternal debt to god precludes the desire for a free market system To have no archies you have to rid your world of ists who guise themselves loosely as pure anarchy who live for anarchist thought but find a side stone to skip rather than step The protector is a man of violence The gallant war horse strides over the beautiful young boy too young to carry a gun too brave to let his flag fall wisping a will away his sword swung felling mast & flag The systems of governing is not a poem yet poems govern under the system authority is an author V TERRAN I can't get myself out of the tv set. The images remind me that the world is in operation and to be a part of it I must glue myself to it. This is true to some extent. The conversations with mother come to, at one point or another, to the tv news and how could I have missed out on such brilliant coverage by that stone phillips. The wars don't happen when the radio is off The people are not arrested if you don't watch Yes this is going into the realm of what happens in your eyes and it does happen whether or not I am present enough to see it my consciousness doesn't recognize it therefore it never took place. Keats bakes an interesting cake raffish baffle shaft a horse draft a sapphire scaffold belch a battle and squelch the pimperneled welsh anon afield anon; Elysian's asphodel is only one crazy daffodil sick of muscatel smell some zinfandel swill karma quaffing corneas cats rach scratch jumble up the mismatch reabsorb the ironing board it gonna be a shooting match ~FIN~ Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Herron [mailto:patrick@proximate.org] Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 9:34 PM To: ImitaPo Subject: [ImitaPo] Welcome New Members Imitation Poetics imitationpoetics@topica.com ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ I recently went back through old posts on various news groups, found many e-mail addresses of those whose posts I like (many of which were in disagreement with me, which I much prefer to silence) and decided to invite some more people to join ImitaPo. More of you actually joined than I ever expected, something I'm pleased to say. I wish to express my gratitude to you for joining and my encouragement to you to help contribute to this list. So, thanks. And please, post away. I especially encourage any of you to start a non-political thread. I'd like to see more poems, more poetics, etc. Forward interesting articles on literature, more poems you find, poems you are working on, etc. Maybe people will even critique them via the wide open space between insult and backslapping.... Besides, I'm getting tired of reading my own political monotony. ;^) I haven't found where the names of list members is kept on the Imitation Poetics web site, so I can't exactly easily send out a list of members. Sending out the list of e-mail addresses would be wrong. But suffice it to say the list has about 50 members, many of whom are people you would like to share more stuff with. So again, post away. This is a pretty damn good group. Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Imitation Poetics web site: http://www.topica.com/lists/imitationpoetics/ ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Imitation Poetics web site: http://www.topica.com/lists/imitationpoetics/ ==^================================================================ EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?bUrJ6z.bVxDEG Or send an email To: imitationpoetics-unsubscribe@topica.com This email was sent to: ggatza@daemen.edu T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:52:51 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "ap][e][ologger" Subject: Chronoscope 2001:Net.][b][Warer Comments: To: list@rhizome.org, spectre@mikrolisten.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Overt Architronic Harvest :: Metaglass Observer Prototype v1.1 Prototype Over.sc][r][een.ic :: Glass Housed Net.][b][Warer :: Chronoscopic 2001 Template : Identify Sub.ject][ificator][ : melod][t][ra][u][ma n.tity // of unobservable propor][poise][tions Test Result : FUTILE! **** [ERRant] Repossession.already.in.progress//missing ! **** [ERROR] Prototype Version missing ! **** [ERR][wh][OR][e][] Base Subject missing ! **** [ERROR] admixture Email missing ! ---- Total Errors : double-minus-gut read::prototype victim donation read::way.war.d orientation ---- ][se][rum][arch re:quest::fecund focal fecal blastoporus archente][lect][ronic gastr][v][ul][v][a concept.us][&u][ -Error- in handling your search request Error Net.][b][Ware (His.tri.onic Builder): --Architronic ][t][error in --observer strain near N-twin][n][ed characters Error Net.][b][Script.or (I.D.Ntity Builder): --Error prodding query: --(666 WishSignalID) (Prototype) Architronic HarvestSearchNew failed, error -xy2 ---- Total ][.wav][Tan.gents : read::liv][e.form][ing from above read::siMOOlcra read::a][sh][llegorical read::global amniotic read::vision twitches read::beads caught in archived fa][ru][bric read::n.ternally displaced read::proto.type.face synthesis read::genetic reg][p][ression read::re.ductape.ionistic read::antidotes wrapped in phylogenetic skins read::mut][h][a.ting mode read::ziplock semiotics read::phase-oriented archi.text][l][ure read::inter][trans][action read::pushing blocks of narrative stress read::s][ick][olidification loading read::doors & windows meaning-stitched read::wrapped in ][9][stories][high][ read::para.graphiccups chunk-coughing . . .... ..... net.wurker][mez][ .antithetical..n.struments..go.here. xXXx ./. www.hotkey.net.au/~netwurker .... . .??? ....... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:55:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Walter K. Lew" Subject: Cement Cloud , Cement Cloud , , Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Bob Holman and his family and huge dog and cats live down on Duane St., a block north of Chambers. Everything there seems to be o.k. except for temporary loss of electricity and phone. For his "Cement Cloud" (that title being abt the best poetic image-grasp of the calamity that I've read so far), go to: http://poetry.about.com/library/weekly/aa091201a.htm -- Walter K. Lew 11811 Venice Blvd. #138 Los Angeles, CA 90066 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 05:42:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Geoffrey Gatza Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family In-Reply-To: <3BA6D417.9D035FC8@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marjorie, One out of 52 brothers doesn't make a happy family, yes I agree. And I am sure that the great institution of Harvard had no problems in accepting the million dollar donation. Funny how a college in Bangor, Maine refused to take Steven King's million dollar donation. All he wanted was a chair. It is contradictions to what is the correct way to act given a Hollywood version of America and the America that we are that causes the collective "we" you point to, to wonder if indeed we are a satan if not the great satan itself. In Hollywood we sent Rambo to train the afghans, in reality we trained a wacko rich man who is now being described as Hitler. It is black and it is white. What caused this attack? Do you have a definite proof? I have none neither. I do have a heavy heart and active mind that can point to many things that has been done in the name of liberty. Our poets have been pointing out our troubled government for as long as I can recall. This current reaction, no matter how prominent a grad school can trained a poet, fear surfaces in every way from an action of terror. There is no 600 level course that can blind and anesthetize the grief, the sorrow, the death and view them in proper black and white perspectives. It would be nice to go back one week and embrace our black and white hatred issues. It was easier then: to rail on Clinton, reminisce how awful things were in 1968, how university poets are not real poets ... Hatred is never our fault. We know this from our own. But many around the world dislike our home. Many with a lot money dislike our home land too. I do not recall anyone saying we deserve this attack, so our being careful on what we say does not need to come down from the academic highlands. It comes from our hearts, our minds, and our mouths. These are extreme days and the only way to have a calming of souls is to discuss what is on our minds. We have done wrong, we have done right. We are not done, nor are they going to be done if history has taught us anything. It is discussion that will carry us through and to have it curtailed is another fear that is on our minds. I fear a marshal state that could very well arise from our terror. If we do not use the extreme, as you title it, we may lose that to the attackers too. Best, Geoffrey Geoffrey Gatza editor BlazeVOX2k1 http://vorplesword.com/ __o _`\<,_ (*)/ (*) -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Marjorie Perloff Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 12:59 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family Today's LA Times carries a fascinating article about the Bin Laden family. There are some 50 brothers. One is a lawschool graduate in Cambridge who has given Harvard a million dollars. Another is a real estate entrepreneur who has big buildings down near the wharf. And so on. These brothers hate Osama and think he's a traitor. They are monarchists and resent Osama's being against the monarchy. The family is awash in real estate money--billions. Think of what it means that they are this rich while most Saudis are dirt poor. So let's be a little careful of saying things like it's our fault that Osama hates us so much! This is pure nonsense. Yes, it certainly was Reagan's fault for training him to fight the Russians in Afghanistan. But even if he hadn't been so trained, given the vast wealth, family quarrels, and so on, he might easily be moved to attack THE GREAT SATAN. Does this prove that we are indeed THE GREAT SATAN? Why is it that poets and literary critics trained to look for nuances, trained not to see things in black and white, are so extreme when it comes to this terrible situation? Marjorie Perloff ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:44:09 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: roger day Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Comments: To: Brent Dean Robbins , psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Comments: cc: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, JBCM2@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable You cannot deny the facts of the Southern Patrol, now, can you. Or the = destruction of the Lebanese camps. Or the funding of bin Laden by the = CIA during the Afghan war. Drivel it is not. My point was, that if you = make assertions, at least they should have some sense of grounding = rather than leaping off into the wild hinterlands of conjecture. For = example, Arabic mathematicians have made wonderful contributions to = science - certainly, their contribution to modernity. I admit my paucity = of knowledge here, something I hope to rectify before it's too late. I have no idea about the figures of straw that you create. I feel it's = hot air over nothing; an imaginary bestiary for you to create even = wilder conjectures. Certainly, no 'leftists' that I know would do the = things you describe. Even as a late-comer to this feeling of responsibility, I feel we should = be communicating rather than throwing wild invective at at each each = other. Particularly as it appears that the West and Islam may soon be = embroiled in a massive war. Already, people have started to 'take it = out' on foreign-looking residents in the West (an arabic-looking = taxi-driver was beaten up the other night in London and I hear that an = Afghani was killed in Mesa). What we are doing helps no one - we should = be using our talents to communicate constructively rather than throw = walls at each other. To this end - to close down this destructive = channel - this will be my last post on the subject.=20 Roger. ----- Original Message -----=20 From: "Brent Dean Robbins" To: Cc: "roger day" ; = ; ; ; = ; ; ; = ; ; = ; ; = ; ; = Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 02:41 Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are = hated > Roger, >=20 > I suppose "drivel" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd say likewise in = response to your post. So what then? >=20 > Incidently, you can take the religious fundamentalists--Christian, = Muslim, whatever. Take them all. The rhetoric of the Taliban and the = Christian Coalition are amazingly sympatico. Did you hear about Falwell = and Robertson, claiming that American had it coming, because we've = turned away from the Christian God? They're all the same. Give the = Falwells a world half the chance, and they's be all too happy to send = their flock hurtling into suicide missions against Islamic countries the = world-over. >=20 > What I don't get is these leftists who will jump in and defend the = Muslim Extremists and turn around and criticize the politics of = Christian fundamentalists! How much damn sense does that make??? >=20 > roger day wrote: >=20 > > To clarify, that should read "creature created by the CIA". Just to = be sure that there are no misunderstandings here. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "roger day" > > To: ; = > > Cc: ; ; ; = ; ; ; = ; ; = ; ; ; = ; > > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 23:09 > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they = are hated > > > > Well, yes. They might well want destroy us; it's "we" who've been = shovelling mass tonnage of bombs down "their" throats since the Gulf = War. Week in, week out. And nobody (in this part of the world) raising a = whimper except when the expenditure estimates came out. You've been been = spending how much? On what? Then the whole Lebanese war since 1982 - the = destruction of the camps. The endless politicking and suppression and = for what? So that you and I can drive to work in an SUV of choice? Give = me a break. > > > > The rest of your assertions are basically drivel. I hear that our = home-grown set of fundamentalists are trying to deny modernity as well - = Creationism anyone? Book-banning in schools? > > > > BTW, Sharon and Yasser Arafat have just ordered a cease-fire on both = sides. Why couldn't this have been done earlier? > > > > Of course, the sickest joke of all is that Bin Laden is a creature = of the CIA. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Brent Dean Robbins" > > To: > > Cc: ; ; ; = ; ; ; = ; ; = ; ; ; = ; > > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 00:36 > > Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are = hated > > > > > The Moslem extremists oppose Irael not primarily because they = believe it has > > > violated the rights of the Palestinians, but becasue Israel = represents modernity. > > > The Islamic "fundamentalists" are in revolt against the entire = modern world: > > > freedom, Democracy, secularism, science and technology, modern = education, women's > > > liberation, pop culture, modern music and art, liberal = Christianity - the whole > > > works. Therefore, anyone who believes they can be satisfied by the = USA adopting a > > > more "humane" policy towards the Palestinians is mistaken. Give = the Palestinians > > > their own state, and it would become a tawdry third-world = dictatorship just like > > > all the other Arab states. The terrorist attacks against Israel = and the USA would > > > continue unabated. The Moslem extremists do not want "justice," = they want to > > > destroy us and everything we represent. > > > > > > JBCM2@aol.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > > > > > > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > > > > > > > Seumas Milne > > > > Thursday September 13, 2001 > > > > The Guardian > > > > > > > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian = workers in New > > > > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most = Americans simply > > > > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, = the message > > > > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom = and > > > > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just = as soon as > > > > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually = responsible. > > > > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of = recognition > > > > of why people might have been driven to carry out such = atrocities, > > > > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United = States is > > > > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim = countries, but across > > > > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it = is too much > > > > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters = from the > > > > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection = between what has > > > > been visited upon them and what their government has visited = upon large parts > > > > of the world. > > > > > > > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to = be repeated, > > > > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US = political leaders are > > > > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance = with > > > > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, = whose > > > > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy = ratchets up > > > > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western = sentiment. So will > > > > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of = Samuel > > > > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation = between the > > > > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > > > > > > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of = western > > > > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's = father inaugurated > > > > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its = British ally, > > > > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any = superpower rival or > > > > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the = global financial > > > > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of = treaties it > > > > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; = bombed > > > > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the = United Nations; > > > > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant = regimes; and > > > > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal = military > > > > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada = rages. > > > > > > > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast = carnage was > > > > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like = appeasement of the > > > > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine = to be a > > > > Churchillian response. > > > > > > > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance = that drives > > > > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for = whom there is > > > > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth = and power. If > > > > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin = Laden's > > > > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping = a dragons' > > > > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > > > > > > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the = 1980s war > > > > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls = could go to > > > > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed = and trained > > > > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland = and its > > > > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post = with his > > > > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > > > > > > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, = while > > > > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque = Taliban now > > > > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US = subsequently > > > > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to = the brink of > > > > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan = refugees fan out > > > > across the world. > > > > > > > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately = searching the > > > > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US = soil - as > > > > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank = yesterday, or > > > > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the = overthrow of the > > > > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have = to do with > > > > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one = bewildered New Yorker > > > > asked yesterday. > > > > > > > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international = coalition for > > > > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such = counter-productive acts of > > > > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out = of which > > > > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, = another will > > > > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them = are > > > > addressed. > > > > > > > > Carpe Diem > > > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > New-Poetry mailing list > > > New-Poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > > > > > > > > Carpe Diem > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org >=20 >=20 >=20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:48:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r....Losses.... Before we begin let;s be clear who'll take losses with us....Great Britain, Canada, Australia, N.Z. & The Israeli...Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 23:12:03 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: letter to Bush MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marcella. If only I could be as "uncrazy" as you. That would be a good message. Would Bush listen? Can he prove true courage: the courage of Lincoln and others eg Roosevelt or Franklin or the wisdom of Emerson and Thoreau or Martin Luther King or Mohammed Ali (who refused to enlist in the army during the Vietnam war) or which women? The millions of women who have lost their sons and husbands and fathers and lovers and brothers in war.Emails and thoughts expressed are mostly symbolic, but they have to be done or written, each helps: even disagreement helps. "Love thy enemy." Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marcella Durand" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 3:06 AM Subject: letter to Bush > Well, here's my piss into the ocean. > xox, > Marcella > > Dear President Bush, > > This e-mail to you is to express my sincere desire that a careful, accurate > and patient investigation be conducted that identifies and punishes only > those responsible for this crime, rather than conducting a blind "crusade" > overseas that will only kill more innocent people. I want to express to you > my hope that every effort to preserve international peace be made by the > United States. > > I live in downtown New York, a mile from "ground zero." My mother lives > seven blocks from the World Trade Center--she was shocked, traumatized and > is now homeless. I think I can speak for most New Yorkers when I say that we > are all horrified and shellshocked by the events of the last few days. > However, the last thing I could bear right now is for my country to > perpetuate more chaos and destruction for any innocent men, women and > children in the world, especially after seeing how awful it is firsthand to > be the target of an attack. > > I appreciate that our people want justice, and I certainly want it, too. > However, I do not want it at the cost of any more innocent lives. I want my > country to be better, more intelligent, more compassionate, more measured > than that. A premature rush to arms may only prolong this tragedy and > permanently damage our position overseas. I want those--and only > those--responsible for this crime to be the ones brought to justice. And, > justice, for me, would be to imprison the perpetrators for their entire > lives (as they have so obviously demonstrated that being put to death would > be no punishment for them) so that they may reflect for years on what they > have done. > > Thank you very much for your kind attention to my e-mail. > > Sincerely, > Marcella Durand > 332 E. 4th St., Apt. 24 > New York, NY 10009 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:32:25 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mariana Ruiz Firmat Subject: Re: letter to Bush Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Marcella, I hope he hears your words because they are insightful, articulate and humane. Mariana >From: Marcella Durand >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: letter to Bush >Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:06:04 -0500 > >Well, here's my piss into the ocean. >xox, >Marcella > >Dear President Bush, > >This e-mail to you is to express my sincere desire that a careful, accurate >and patient investigation be conducted that identifies and punishes only >those responsible for this crime, rather than conducting a blind "crusade" >overseas that will only kill more innocent people. I want to express to you >my hope that every effort to preserve international peace be made by the >United States. > >I live in downtown New York, a mile from "ground zero." My mother lives >seven blocks from the World Trade Center--she was shocked, traumatized and >is now homeless. I think I can speak for most New Yorkers when I say that >we >are all horrified and shellshocked by the events of the last few days. >However, the last thing I could bear right now is for my country to >perpetuate more chaos and destruction for any innocent men, women and >children in the world, especially after seeing how awful it is firsthand to >be the target of an attack. > >I appreciate that our people want justice, and I certainly want it, too. >However, I do not want it at the cost of any more innocent lives. I want my >country to be better, more intelligent, more compassionate, more measured >than that. A premature rush to arms may only prolong this tragedy and >permanently damage our position overseas. I want those--and only >those--responsible for this crime to be the ones brought to justice. And, >justice, for me, would be to imprison the perpetrators for their entire >lives (as they have so obviously demonstrated that being put to death would >be no punishment for them) so that they may reflect for years on what they >have done. > >Thank you very much for your kind attention to my e-mail. > >Sincerely, >Marcella Durand >332 E. 4th St., Apt. 24 >New York, NY 10009 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:48:38 -0700 Reply-To: lunberry@uwm.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lunberry@UWM.EDU Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Attacks Called Great Art This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by lunberry@uwm.edu. /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ \----------------------------------------------------------/ Attacks Called Great Art The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen caused outrage in Germany when he described the terrorist attacks in the United States last week as "the greatest work of art ever," Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. Mr. Stockhausen, 73, who made the remark to journalists in Hamburg on Sunday, retracted it at once and asked that it not be reported. But two Stockhausen concerts scheduled for yesterday and today in a festival in Hamburg were canceled. "Out of feeling for the political culture of the city and the federal republic, the concerts had to be canceled," said Christina Weiss, Hamburg culture commissioner. Agence France-Presse reported that according to the news agency DPA, Mr. Stockhausen responded to a question about the attacks on the United States by saying: "What happened there is — they all have to rearrange their brains now — is the greatest work of art ever. "That characters can bring about in one act what we in music cannot dream of, that people practice madly for 10 years, completely, fanatically, for a concert and then die. That is the greatest work of art for the whole cosmos. "I could not do that. Against that, we, composers, are nothing." Mr. Stockhausen was reported to have left Hamburg in distress. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/arts/music/19KARL.html?ex=1001910918&ei=1&en=00d5a96b0dcd017a /-----------------------------------------------------------------\ \-----------------------------------------------------------------/ HOW TO ADVERTISE --------------------------------- For information on advertising in e-mail newsletters or other creative advertising opportunities with The New York Times on the Web, please contact Alyson Racer at alyson@nytimes.com or visit our online media kit at http://www.nytimes.com/adinfo For general information about NYTimes.com, write to help@nytimes.com. Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 06:57:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..Brain Transplant... If the responses on this list to W.T.C.... are typical of the LEFT...they;d better hope American Tech. develops a Brain Transplant..Pronto.....DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 04:17:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Walter K. Lew" Subject: re Murat recalling code/authority in E. Asian surrealisms Comments: cc: qing@ucla.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Murat: Thank you for remembering, bc I certainly can't--I think I had abt 8 minutes to talk so I'm surprised I sd anything coherent. In any case, although I still believe it is the case that surrealistic imagery and its associated grammars were often forms of concealed resistance (rather than of EXPRESSED UNCONSCIOUS), I now feel it's necessary to give a much more complex description (well, that assumes there's something fixed to describe) of what Yi Sang, Cho Hyang, Kim Suyoung and other Korean poets influenced by surrealism (they were not surrealists per se, thank god, and also belong to different generations) were doing from the late 1920s to early 60s. I think it's irresponsible to specify the political aspects of their poetry w/out being very specific abt the social tensions of the situations in which/regimes under which they were published and read (and then re-read later and now). Otherwise we fall into the trap of believing that a particular form or technique they used was inherently politically critical (Cho Hyang, for ex, pretty much celebrated forms of modernist fragmentation while Yi Sang already knew the decay they portended). It is also possible to interpret them fruitfully w/out specifying a political purpose (in any useful sense of the term "political")--as introducers of modernist techniques, etc. The term "authority" you used (or rememberd me using) also has to be clarified. It is natural to assume that it refers to the State (e.g. Japanese colonial censors, the post-1945 US Military Government in Korea, or Korean oligarchs), but it is also the case that they (some of them, at certain times) were rebelling against other forms of Korean LITERATURE that were more politically explicit and aesthetically loyal to programs of, for instance, proletarian revolution or nationalist culture- and economy-building. That wd be an "authoritarianism" felt horizontally (oxymoron?) within the Korean literary world (corrugated into "mundan" [literary circles, same term as Japanese "bundan"]), not vertically vis a vis repressive or ideological state apparatuses, altho the point of some recent Korean critics is that a modernist mundan was nowhere near as systematic (in ideology, objectives, national organization) or united as the proletarian mundan. It was nonetheless helpful to form one in order to be part of the illogical yet power-laden literary "field" ( borrowing from Bourdieu's borrowing of Wittgenstein). In a colonial cultural situation, moreover, another form of authority is the metropole's literature, e.g. the Japanese developments in modern literature that colonial Korean writers appropriated (in various ways, for many different reasons, often picking different aspects, i.e. some looked to Japanese translations of Herbert Spenser and Marx, others to the Taisho-era "cosmopolitanism" of writers like Akutagawa Ryunosuke). Also, some went back to Korean literary traditions (p'ansori romances, folk songs) and also Chinese sources, but even in that case sometimes to "return" to the classics--but even then some to the Confucian canon and some to the Taoist and Buddhist texts--and other times to receive guidance from Chinese modernizers, like Liang Qiqiao and Lu Xun. There were also negative intertextual relations, e.g. Kim Suyoung's satirical use of Hollywood images. Homi Bhabha's concept of hybridity barely begins to capture the off-eddied complexity, the neural net of such relations, each node constantly respecifying place, valences, temporary cul-de-sacs in relations to rescaled others. Before this tempts one to forget the political for the sake of appreciating transient orbits--but then we have to also interrogate what we mean by "political" in this very different cultural context, for the very word that it translates (that translates it) though written in Chinese characters was one borrowed from Japanese modernizers' discourse (cf. Lydia Liu's book Translingual Practice), not that what we call the political didn't exist before then, but its significance in relation to the self, the West, governmental structure, etc. was very different--the State was always a potential source of repression, a form of death, that even a writer like Yi Sang, avant-garde, decadent et al, cd not avoid being snared in as his final sentence (death in prison or fear of it)--altho its earlier forms may have appeared more purely metaphysical, erotic, futuristic, aesthetic (as long as one dreamed of the self and its flight upwards Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:17:57 EDT From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: surrealism in East Asia Walter, If I rember correctly a talk of yours at the Poetry Project a few years ago, surrealism was used by a number of Korean(?) poets as a language of coded communication, against authority. Murat -- Walter K. Lew 11811 Venice Blvd. #138 Los Angeles, CA 90066 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:37:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...Wanted Dead or Alive... the gigs up....you'd better get outta town...Marshall W...and this deputy DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:49:40 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Aaron Belz" To: Sent: 18 September 2001 21:12 Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Hi Aaron I have no idea if those figures are right. More should be given. Not just by US. The wealth is there. | I agree that we should not take any action that *in any way* would hurt the | people of Afghanistan. And that should include actions which might lead to hurt - I am thinking of the claims that US / UK bombing of Iraq does no harm, that the harm is Hussein's fault That isn't good enough L ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:51:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r NewSpeak... Supporting the Pres..& a congress that voted 98 to 0....420 to 1...is WarMongering... Apologetics, excuses, misinformation, defense of Mass Murderers is....Name that Tune.........DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:26:22 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: hmmm In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > ANY WEB SITE that does not give a phone number and address should be >immediately REPORTED TO THE FBI ANTI-TERRORIST UNIT...people have the >right to dissent 1,000 per cent...they don;t have the right to hide who >they are...DRn... hmmm. I completely and utterly disagree with the open provision of such information for a whole host of reasons. Civil Liberties are already being casualties. Sorry, I didn't realise that you were being ironic Harry. It just dawned on me. One of the poles of discussion at present might be characterised as between 'action' and 'inaction'. Response and action are linked, like 'doing something' with forms of retribution / war / striking back and suchlike. Inaction is allied with peace and being seen to be weak. It seems that the rhetoric of response and action might be brought together with ideas of alternative approaches - through constructive, even reconstructive dialogue. Various small networks that i seem to have washed up on have been posting of vigils and suchlike. My big problem with all of this is: The views expressed and the mode of their expression seems naive, lacklustre and old hat. frankly i can't bear the thought of people sat around with candles singing 'give peace a chance' or trying to get John Lennon's 'Imagine' played on the Clear Channel. Something needs to start rolling and it needs to have a freshness that can get the discussion away from responses based on equally old hat models of confrontation. I'm absolutely appalled at the indiscriminate and retributive attacks altogether, let alone their broadening to Sikhs for example based purely on hokey ideas of otherness by crass sign. We need imagination in constructing modes, forms of meaningful and purposeful response. I sincerely feel that artists / poets have a responsibility to get involved in trying to do this. I'm talking about possibilities a lot over the past few days and am hoping that such discussions, mullings might begin amongst groups of people such as are gathering here. I'm no way suggesting that i know what it might be that we are looking for but it will come from energised discussion and wilful exploration and serious play. I'm thinking of the kind of shift that groups like Greenpeace made about 15 years ago (unfurling a banner across the clock face of Big Ben accomplished by a couple of specialist climbers for example) when most people's ideas of campaigning was still to trudge thousands of people along central London streets for a rally in Trafalgar Square. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:32:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: Brenda Coultas reads Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Brenda Coultas reads at Brookline Booksmith Friday 9/21 at 7 PM Brookline Booksmith 279 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446 Call 617 739 6002 for more information. Ask for "Jim." _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:24:13 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brent Dean Robbins" To: Sent: 19 September 2001 02:41 Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated | I suppose "drivel" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd say likewise in response to your post. So what then? You have a point, but only to a point. If we take the accusation of drivel to mean poorly or fallaciously argued, then it some responses will be greater drivel than others. But it is the level of argument which should be examined and underlined. The trouble with saying anything is or is not drivel is that it doesn't make clear the basis of the judgement. The person who says "You are talking drivel" may have spotted a false argument or they may just not *like what is said. So you are quite right to reject the charge of "drivel". We can have some measure of common understanding over the meaning of "fundamentalist", so when you say | Incidently, you can take the religious fundamentalists--Christian, Muslim, whatever. Take them all. I believe I understand you pretty well But when you say | What I don't get is these leftists who will jump in and defend the Muslim Extremists and turn around and criticize the politics of Christian fundamentalists! How much damn sense does that make??? you've lost me. Which leftists? What are leftists? Until we know of whom you are speaking or what set of beliefs they supposedly adhere to, your question cannot be answered, because the comparison you make cannot be made without that information. L ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:36:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...have... I think Ron Silliman's posting was fair, balanced and wise...but i disagree that the Palestinians 'have' a case...they 'used' to have a case....Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:39:41 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Silliman" To: Sent: 19 September 2001 04:29 Subject: What is to be done I agree with a lot of what you say, Ron; but credibility is a carrot with which we could be led over a cliff... A moral position will never long be credible in a world where credibility is effectively defined by the immoral | (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them | the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total | is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic | combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be | suffering effects from for years. But it is far short of, to go back less far, than Hiroshima and Vietnam. It may be less than those who died in Sudan. It is less than in Iraq. It less than those who die of preventable starvation and disease. Those were ordinary folks I do not underestimate the visceral shock, but let's compare like with like, Ron. The cameras privilege groups. | (2) What would happen to any government that did NOT respond militarily to | such an attack on civilians on its soil? Frankly, it would collapse. Bush | would be impeached or worse. Politicians are for the most part followers, | craven followers at that, and the reaction by the professional pols has been | completely predictable. That's an argument for Bush from the point of view of hell. It is not a moral argument which needs refutation. It only needs opposition | (3) Does anybody anywhere honestly think that this network, whether or not | we inscribe bin Laden's name in as the CEO, will not, at some future | moment, do something as bad or worse if it is not broken up? Do we not think | that it would use a nuclear weapon if it had a chance? Anthrax? This presupposes that it is possible to break it up. If attempts to break it up hurt the innocent, then one may be creating further terrorism | (4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve its | behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate the | impetus behind these attacks? Yes, I do That it could do so quickly enough to | forestall future assaults? Possibly not | (5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 3 without | literally abandoning Israel? I don't know. What's wrong with abandoning Israel? | (6) Can anybody here imagine a U.S. electoral politician advocating some | version of #4? See that last comment under #1 again. I find it hard enough to imagine politicians in UK | (7) Even if those last three points were politically do-able in the near | future, is there anybody who cannot imagine what THAT ensuing war would | look like? Sufficient unto the day. If one acts from principle, one acts from principle, or tries to | So what I fear most is a god-awful bloody and useless war that leaves nobody | any safer than they are today. There are no other kinds of war | (1) proving itself to be better than terrorists by not targeting civilians, probably not possible all the best L ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:46:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tim Shaner Subject: Rust Talks Presents Alan Golding Comments: To: CORE-L@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Rust Talks is very pleased to present a talk with ALAN GOLDING. Please join us this Friday, September 21, 8:00 PM at Rust Belt Books, 202 Allen Street, Buffalo, NY. Alan's talk is titled "'Isn't the avant-garde always pedagogical': Experimental Poetics and/as Pedagogy." Alan Golding is a professor at the University of Louisville and is the author of From Outlaw to Classic: Canons in American Poetry. Next week, the Rust Talks Fall 2001 season begins with a talk by Barbara Cole and Thomas Donovan, Thursday, Sept. 27, 8PM at Rust Belt Books. The rest of the schedule includes Anna Reckin, Sandra Guerreiro, and Eun-Gwi Chung on Oct. 25 and Nick Lawrence and Gregg Biglieri on Nov. 15. We look forward to seeing everyone on Friday and to the beginning of another lively season of talks. Tim Shaner & Kristen Gallagher Rust Talks is a dialogue with contemporary writers. The Rust Talks newsletter features a discussion between (normally) two literary artists, either responding to each other's work or concerning a topic in contemporary poetics; it will typically be available the week prior to the event in hard copy (at Rust Belt Books and in Clemens Hall) and will be published on-line at some later date after the event. "Rust Talks," the event, will present a reading by the authors, followed by a discussion which extends the conversation to the audience. On special occasions, Rust Talks will sponsor talks by special guests, as with this week's talk with Alan Golding. Such talks may deviate in part from the format above (i.e. no newsletter previous to the event; a single guest rather than a dialogue between two or three guests). We would like to think of these special events as distinct from (though obviously related to) the "regular" Rust Talks season, insofar as the latter is intended to be a vehicle primarily for local writers associated, directly or indirectly, with SUNY-Buffalo's Poetics Program. Check out our website at: http://epc.buffalo.edu/ezines/rust ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:25:18 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: Bin Laden Family and poets (from M.P.) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > And third: I think the novels to read RIGHT NOW are Andrei Bely's > great 1913 and Conrad's SECRET AGENT and UNDER WESTERN > EYES. It's all there.... Slightly puzzled by this element in the forwarded post from Marjorie Perloff. The two Conrad novels are, in parts, brilliant, but highly conservative in their perspectives. The Secret Agent, for all its memorable evocation of British back-street seediness, and its visions of the social circles of hell, is also overlaid with affectations of grande seigneural irony, and neither novel shows any insight into what conditions, concerns, contingencies, create political terrorism. And surely that understanding is what's needed now? Under Western Eyes does carry a strong point, but it that of the 'average man'. Conrad's anti-Raskolnikov, his hero as engineer, basically just wants to be 'left alone', an understandable desire, but not much use in the wider context. Best David Bircumshaw Leicester, England A Chide's Alphabet www.chidesplay.8m.com Painting Without Numbers www.paintstuff.20m.com/default.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/default.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "J Gallaher" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 10:40 PM Subject: (Fwd) Re: Bin Laden Family and poets (from M.P.) > This is forwarded from Marjorie Perloff, with permission: > > ------- Forwarded message follows ------- > Date sent: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:21:08 -0700 > From: Marjorie Perloff > Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family and poets > > I was just about to write in with that Oppen quote myself!! Thank you > John Gallaher. I can think of no one who understood or would have > understood what is happening now, today, better than George Oppen! > > And today a new development. Karen Gut, whom many of you know > (she read and spoke at the Orono Poetry Festival on the 60s a year+ > ago and is a professor-poet-activist in Tel Aviv) writes me that the > reason Arafat has just agreed to a cease fire, or rather proposed a > unilateral one, is that Israeli intelligence has discovered that the > four pilots, esp. the lead one, Joseph Natta, was a Palestinian, and > so Arafat is very embarrassed and he is now begging for a "peace" > meeting. > > And further: it increasingly looks as if the terrorist infiltration is > so great right here in the U.S. that I think there will be no attack > on Afghanistan or other places in Middle East at all. > > And third: I think the novels to read RIGHT NOW are Andrei Bely's > great 1913 and Conrad's SECRET AGENT and UNDER WESTERN > EYES. It's all there.... > > Marjorie > > ------- End of forwarded message ------- > > JG > ------------ > > J Gallaher > > Metaphors Be With You . . . > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:29:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: devineni@RATTAPALLAX.COM Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Please=20place=20American=20Red=20Cross=20Ads=20in=20your=20next=20issue?= In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Friends and Editors: I recently discovered these ads provided by the American Red Cross for pr= int pubications. These ads were designed in response to the September 11th tragedy. A small thing that all of us as editors and publishers of literary magazi= nes can do is print one of their ads in our next issue. The ads are at: http://www.redcross.org/press/printads/terrorism/terrorism.html Thank You Ram Devineni Publisher Rattapallax http://www.rattapallax.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:50:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: it begins: U.S. Widens Policy on Detaining Suspects Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed With all the flag-waving we've been bathed in for the past week, you'd think we'd be eager to stand by what that flag represents. We've already lost the war. Hysteria: 1 Constitution: 0. --Jim http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/national/19CIVI.html U.S. Widens Policy on Detaining Suspects By PHILIP SHENON and ROBIN TONER ASHINGTON, Sept. 18 — The Bush administration today announced a major expansion of its power to detain immigrants suspected of crimes, including new rules prompted by last week's terrorist attacks that would allow legal immigrants to be detained indefinitely during a national emergency. Citing the new powers, the Justice Department said it would continue to hold 75 immigrants arrested in connection with the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Previously, the department faced a 24- hour deadline on whether to release detained immigrants or charge them with a crime, or with violating the terms of their visa. The new detention powers drew statements of concern from civil liberties advocates and immigration lawyers. While the pressure on the administration and Congress to act is immense in the wake of the terrorist attacks, there is rising concern on the left and the right that the rush to respond could erode basic constitutional freedoms. The administration, which had the authority to rewrite the detention rules, is also expected within days to present Congress with a broad package of anti-terrorism legislation. Civil liberties and privacy groups are pleading with Congress not to act hastily on the package. A draft bill circulating today on Capitol Hill, apparently reflecting the administration's views, would give new authority to the Justice Department to arrest immigrants suspected of terrorism, accelerate the process of deporting them and curtail court appeals. In announcing the new regulations, Attorney General John Ashcroft said at a news conference that the government had "a responsibility to use every legal means at our disposal to prevent further terrorist activity by taking people into custody who have violated the law and who may pose a threat to America." Mr. Ashcroft insisted that "we're going to do everything we can to harmonize the constitutional rights of individuals with every legal capacity we can muster to also protect the safety and security of individuals." Under its new powers, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, which is part of the Justice Department, would normally have 48 hours to decide whether to release or charge a detained immigrant. The 48-hour deadline could be waived, however, "in the event of emergency or other extraordinary circumstance," allowing an immigrant to be held for "an additional reasonable period of time" without charges. The new rules would apply to immigrants and foreign visitors who entered the country legally but who are suspected of committing crimes in the United States, or who have overstayed a visa or violated other terms of their entry into the country. They would not apply to citizens. David Martin, a law professor at the University of Virginia and a former general counsel of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said "there's definitely a civil liberties concern" in the new regulations. "I don't want to be alarmist about this," Mr. Martin said. "If we're talking about adding an additional 12 hours or 24 hours to detention, I don't think that's a problem. But if we are holding people for weeks and weeks, then I think there will be close scrutiny." Jeanne A. Butterfield of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said that in the midst of the crisis created by last week's terrorism, the new rules "may be reasonable, but no one wants to see this lead to some kind of indefinite detention." The Supreme Court has questioned the constitutionality of indefinite detention, ruling last summer that the government could not order open- ended detention of illegal, clearly deportable immigrants simply for lack of a country willing to take them. Human rights groups have long criticized indefinite-detention laws in other countries, noting that they are often used by repressive governments to lock up dissidents for months or years under the guise of "emergency" conditions. The Justice Department has announced that it will ask Congress for broad new surveillance authority to place wiretaps on phones and computers and a variety of other powers to fight terrorism. Mr. Ashcroft has asked Congress to act within days, and few politicians or advocacy groups have been willing, until now, to suggest a more cautious response. But in recent days, more are stepping forward to urge lawmakers and the administration to slow down, examine the security flaws that led to the attacks and consider the consequences of various proposals for civil liberties. Representative Bob Barr, a Georgia Republican and staunch opponent of gun control, sent a letter to Mr. Ashcroft and Congressional leaders today declaring, "Before we begin dismantling constitutionally protected safeguards and diminishing fundamental rights to privacy, we should first examine why last week's attacks occurred." Senator Patrick J. Leahy, the Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, acknowledged in an interview that there was "a hunger to act," but added, "My concern is that at some point you've got to stop doing things that give you a nice press release and start doing things that actually protect the nation." Mr. Leahy promised quick — but careful — action, adding, "The first thing we have to realize is this is not either or — this is not the Constitution versus capturing the terrorists. We can have both." And Morton H. Halperin, a longtime official with the American Civil Liberties Union and a veteran of the State Department under the Clinton administration, described Mr. Ashcroft's plea for action by week's end as "deeply troubling." Mr. Halperin, now a senior fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations, added, "We should not be enacting restrictions on the liberty of Americans without careful debate. If we do it carefully, we can find an acceptable balance. If we rush into it, we will do things that deprive people of their liberty without improving security." Mr. Halperin was one of the organizers of a coalition of groups, as varied as the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans for Tax Reform, that met for the first time on Friday. That coalition, informally known as the In Defense of Freedom Coalition, has scheduled a news conference for Thursday to declare its concerns. At the moment, many of these groups are demanding that the administration's proposals be the subject of open debate and orderly consideration. Grover Norquist, the influential conservative strategist who heads Americans for Tax Reform, said, "I've heard some politicians say we need to pass this this week — that's code for, if anybody read it, it wouldn't pass." Jerry Berman, executive director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, another member of the new coalition, said, "We've had a history of racing to judgment and passing inappropriate and wrongheaded and ultimately counterproductive laws." Mr. Berman added, "Before you pass legislation in this area, you need to know what happened. And I have not yet found a story or a statement by any official that says the failure here was caused by restrictions on electronic surveillance." But Ron Klain, who served in the White House and Justice Department under President Bill Clinton, argued that "it's inevitable at times like this that the pent-up agenda of law enforcement gets put forward." "I think there is nothing wrong and probably something right about Congress acting on these matters relatively quickly," Mr. Klain said. Moreover, he said, the public may well be ready to recalibrate the balance between civil liberties and security. "The Constitution is not a suicide pact," he said. Mr. Klain argued that Congress needed, however, to ensure that whatever trade-off was made actually resulted in a safer society. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:45:27 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: the censorship begins Comments: cc: grads@dept.english.upenn.edu, marcmagee@hotmail.com, mitchmagee@hotmail.com, parker2@fas.harvard.edu In-Reply-To: from "K.Silem Mohammad" at Sep 18, 2001 03:31:19 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Howdy folks, thinking of Ron Silliman's message which I recently passed along, and specifically his discussion of the likihood of needless censorship in a time like this, I wanted to direct you towards a, to me, fairly disturbing, tho predictable, situation as reported by the NY Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/arts/music/19POPL.html "Clear Channel Communications, the Texas-based company that owns about 1,170 radio stations nationwide, has circulated a list of 150 songs and asked its stations to avoid playing them because of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon." The songs to be avoided include the notably cruel and inflammatory song "Imagine" by John Lennon. (!) But while this one is on it's face ridiculous, stupidly reactionary, etc, that shouldn't obscure the fact that *any* censorship at this time is a big mistake, which will only erode what ever ethical highground we might claim. The call to avoid *any* song by Rage Against the Machine, for instance, equates honest political debate, the lifeblood of a democracy, with insurrection. This strikes me as quite dangerous. -m. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 02:39:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...the LONG war..... one day 1..the LONG war...day 7 the LONG war...day 1,007 the LONG war...day 3..... when your retinas burnt..& don't sleep but dream to awake....just recite John Ashberry po to give you some peace..the poetry of the 20th cent. just underwent the quickest revisionism ever..fire tower one...death tower two... ...the greatest modern sculpture is hunkering down at Ground Zero...it is the vengance for all that steel plastic and iron welded into ugly sellable avante-garde art junke.. a word to the wise guy.....on the internet every body reads every one...disinformation is disinformation... the tinder box HERE is funding of art & po programs by Arab money....if you can't spell that $$$$$$$$$$$$....first they carpetbomb you with lang...then... from Ground Zero plus a mile...this is DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:34:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: <000201c140a1$802f9980$fc2137d2@01397384> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i've been holding onto my cat a lot in the last week. she is a very pleasant transitional object. she does not represent aggressive nationalism. she seems glad to serve the function of transitional object, though she wakes me up many times a night and i am mildly allergic. she is not as colorful as an american flag but her texture, heft and responsiveness are far more inviting, and she purrs on my lap as i type into the screen, and licks my breakfast bowl when i'm done. i seem to be having trouble with my social skills --i get exhausted by minor conversations, holding my office hours, etc. but my classes are going okay i guess. happy new year everyone. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:06:34 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: m&r..anti-terrorism... In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sounds like you have your work cut out for you...counting the web sites without phone numbers...1 billion and 1...1 billion and 2...1 billion and 3...ad infinitum...maintaining the RIGHT to anonymity and privacy...even as the police state kicks in my door...web spiders search and save all posted phone numbers...machines calling in the night to violate what little peace we have...lone skate rolling downhill...DTh... > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Harry Nudel > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 5:13 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: m&r..anti-terrorism... > > > ANY WEB SITE that does not give a phone number and address > should be immediately REPORTED TO THE FBI ANTI-TERRORIST > UNIT...people have the right to dissent 1,000 per cent...they > don;t have the right to hide who they are...DRn... > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:19:49 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I have heard several people on the list now say something like what you just said, Brent: "What I don't get is these leftists who will jump in and defend the Muslim Extremists." Now, I have been paying attention, & except for that day when there were roughly 90 messages from Poetics & I couldn't read all the long ones, I don't think I've missed much. And I have not heard anyone DEFEND Muslim extremists. (Defending innocent Muslims who might not be extremists is another matter). I have not heard anyone CONDONE terrorism. I have not heard anyone say for one moment that what happened last week can in any sense be justified. What I HAVE heard some people say is that these attacks did not occur in an historical vacuum; that in order to prevent this from happening again-- perhaps with numbing regularity-- it might be wise to understand the cultural and historical context out of which they arose. (I have also heard people say, perhaps more pointedly, look at what the United States has done in the region &, well, what goes around may indeed come around. I don't read such arguments as a "defense" or a gainsaying of the attacks, so much as a move precisely to understand them contextually, & to counter the rhetoric of "good" vs. "evil." In terms of governments, if not of the innocent dead & their rescuers, there are no "goods" here, only greater & lesser degrees of culpability-- just as, if it *is* bin Laden, the Taliban is surely to a degree culpable). Then, I have heard others make blanket claims about the "leftists" on this list. Is the move to understand, to contextualize, automatically equivalent to the move to defend? (It seems to me this would put psychologists who study criminal behavior out of a job). I agree with Marjorie Perloff that the ability to see nuances is welcome, now as ever. Maybe we can begin by recognizing the differences between what I think I have read on the list & what Brent thinks he has read. Best wishes, Mark DuCharme >From: Brent Dean Robbins >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are > hated >Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 21:41:00 -0400 > >Roger, > >I suppose "drivel" is in the eye of the beholder. I'd say likewise in >response to your post. So what then? > >Incidently, you can take the religious fundamentalists--Christian, Muslim, >whatever. Take them all. The rhetoric of the Taliban and the Christian >Coalition are amazingly sympatico. Did you hear about Falwell and >Robertson, claiming that American had it coming, because we've turned away >from the Christian God? They're all the same. Give the Falwells a world >half the chance, and they's be all too happy to send their flock hurtling >into suicide missions against Islamic countries the world-over. > >What I don't get is these leftists who will jump in and defend the Muslim >Extremists and turn around and criticize the politics of Christian >fundamentalists! How much damn sense does that make??? > >roger day wrote: > > > To clarify, that should read "creature created by the CIA". Just to be >sure that there are no misunderstandings here. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "roger day" > > To: ; > > Cc: ; ; ; >; ; ; >; ; >; ; ; >; > > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 23:09 > > Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are >hated > > > > Well, yes. They might well want destroy us; it's "we" who've been >shovelling mass tonnage of bombs down "their" throats since the Gulf War. >Week in, week out. And nobody (in this part of the world) raising a whimper >except when the expenditure estimates came out. You've been been spending >how much? On what? Then the whole Lebanese war since 1982 - the destruction >of the camps. The endless politicking and suppression and for what? So that >you and I can drive to work in an SUV of choice? Give me a break. > > > > The rest of your assertions are basically drivel. I hear that our >home-grown set of fundamentalists are trying to deny modernity as well - >Creationism anyone? Book-banning in schools? > > > > BTW, Sharon and Yasser Arafat have just ordered a cease-fire on both >sides. Why couldn't this have been done earlier? > > > > Of course, the sickest joke of all is that Bin Laden is a creature of >the CIA. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > > From: "Brent Dean Robbins" > > To: > > Cc: ; ; ; >; ; ; >; ; >; ; ; >; > > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 00:36 > > Subject: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are >hated > > > > > The Moslem extremists oppose Irael not primarily because they believe >it has > > > violated the rights of the Palestinians, but becasue Israel represents >modernity. > > > The Islamic "fundamentalists" are in revolt against the entire modern >world: > > > freedom, Democracy, secularism, science and technology, modern >education, women's > > > liberation, pop culture, modern music and art, liberal Christianity - >the whole > > > works. Therefore, anyone who believes they can be satisfied by the USA >adopting a > > > more "humane" policy towards the Palestinians is mistaken. Give the >Palestinians > > > their own state, and it would become a tawdry third-world dictatorship >just like > > > all the other Arab states. The terrorist attacks against Israel and >the USA would > > > continue unabated. The Moslem extremists do not want "justice," they >want to > > > destroy us and everything we represent. > > > > > > JBCM2@aol.com wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad > > > > > > > > Special report: Terrorism in the US > > > > > > > > Seumas Milne > > > > Thursday September 13, 2001 > > > > The Guardian > > > > > > > > Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian >workers in New > > > > York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most >Americans simply > > > > don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the >message > > > > seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and > > > > democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as >soon as > > > > someone can construct a credible account of who was actually >responsible. > > > > Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of >recognition > > > > of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, > > > > sacrificing their own lives in the process - or why the United >States is > > > > hated with such bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, >but across > > > > the developing world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is >too much > > > > to hope that, as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from >the > > > > rubble, any but a small minority might make the connection between >what has > > > > been visited upon them and what their government has visited upon >large parts > > > > of the world. > > > > > > > > But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be >repeated, > > > > potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political >leaders are > > > > doing their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance with > > > > self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, >whose > > > > determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy >ratchets up > > > > the threat to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. >So will > > > > calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of >Samuel > > > > Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation >between the > > > > west and Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy. > > > > > > > > As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of >western > > > > civilisation, it would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father >inaugurated > > > > his new world order a decade ago, the US, supported by its British >ally, > > > > bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower >rival or > > > > system of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global >financial > > > > and trading system in its own interest; ripped up a string of >treaties it > > > > finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed > > > > Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United >Nations; > > > > maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant >regimes; and > > > > recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal >military > > > > occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada >rages. > > > > > > > > If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast >carnage was > > > > the fruit of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of >the > > > > Palestinians, the mind boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to >be a > > > > Churchillian response. > > > > > > > > It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that >drives > > > > anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom >there is > > > > little democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and >power. If > > > > it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin >Laden's > > > > supporters, the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a >dragons' > > > > teeth harvest they themselves sowed will be overwhelming. > > > > > > > > It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s >war > > > > against the Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls >could go to > > > > school and women to work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and >trained > > > > by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and >its > > > > communist leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with >his > > > > genitals stuffed in his mouth. > > > > > > > > But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, >while > > > > US-sponsored Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque >Taliban now > > > > protecting him. To punish its wayward Afghan offspring, the US >subsequently > > > > forced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the >brink of > > > > starvation, according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan >refugees fan out > > > > across the world. > > > > > > > > All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately >searching the > > > > debris of what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US >soil - as > > > > must the killings of yet more Palestinians in the West Bank >yesterday, or > > > > even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the >overthrow of the > > > > US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do >with > > > > blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered >New Yorker > > > > asked yesterday. > > > > > > > > Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international >coalition for > > > > an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such >counter-productive acts of > > > > outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of >which > > > > they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, >another will > > > > emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are > > > > addressed. > > > > > > > > Carpe Diem > > > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > New-Poetry mailing list > > > New-Poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu > > > http://wiz.cath.vt.edu/mailman/listinfo/new-poetry > > > > > > > > > > Carpe Diem > > Academy for the Study of the Psychoanalytic Arts > > www.AcademyAnalyticArts.org _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:24:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: ground zero MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Lawrence Upton wrote: >>I'm worried by use of the term _ground zero_ isn't this a term applied to a nuclear detonation? >> Yes -- Actually, this list is finding such incredible info sources -- does anyone know a site that tracks/lists reports of/ unaccounted-for nukes and weapons-grade plutonium? We actually used to have a joking map for sale here in DC, a satellite photo of the area with concentric circles drawn over it, and the Pentagon labeled "Ground Zero." That was in the Cold War era, and with the end of it, and the dismantling of ICBMs by both the US and the Soviets and their successor nations, it seemed like that whole way of thinking had become an anachronism. And now it's back. I live 1/3 mile from the Capitol, and work 1/8 mile from the Capitol on the other side, at the Labor Dept -- I can see the Dome out my window now. (These eerie, beautiful days.) Something went boom at 5am this morning, and I woke up utterly freaked. Probably a sonic boom -- there was one last Tuesday morning as fighter jets went north after what we later learned was the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania -- but I woke up with my heart racing. LF ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:26:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Coletti Subject: Re: letter to Bush In-Reply-To: <71EAF6EBA863D2119C4F0008C74CA78E03261279@PSI-MS1> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marcella, I don't think it could have been put any better than that. Thank you, John -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Marcella Durand Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 11:06 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: letter to Bush Well, here's my piss into the ocean. xox, Marcella Dear President Bush, This e-mail to you is to express my sincere desire that a careful, accurate and patient investigation be conducted that identifies and punishes only those responsible for this crime, rather than conducting a blind "crusade" overseas that will only kill more innocent people. I want to express to you my hope that every effort to preserve international peace be made by the United States. I live in downtown New York, a mile from "ground zero." My mother lives seven blocks from the World Trade Center--she was shocked, traumatized and is now homeless. I think I can speak for most New Yorkers when I say that we are all horrified and shellshocked by the events of the last few days. However, the last thing I could bear right now is for my country to perpetuate more chaos and destruction for any innocent men, women and children in the world, especially after seeing how awful it is firsthand to be the target of an attack. I appreciate that our people want justice, and I certainly want it, too. However, I do not want it at the cost of any more innocent lives. I want my country to be better, more intelligent, more compassionate, more measured than that. A premature rush to arms may only prolong this tragedy and permanently damage our position overseas. I want those--and only those--responsible for this crime to be the ones brought to justice. And, justice, for me, would be to imprison the perpetrators for their entire lives (as they have so obviously demonstrated that being put to death would be no punishment for them) so that they may reflect for years on what they have done. Thank you very much for your kind attention to my e-mail. Sincerely, Marcella Durand 332 E. 4th St., Apt. 24 New York, NY 10009 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:40:21 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: ground zero In-Reply-To: <005d01c140a8$07755d20$751886d4@overgrowngarden> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi Lawrence - The energy contained in each jet blast on the towers was estimated at about 1/20th of the explosion of the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Given that the jet blasts inside the towers were contained primarily in a very small space relative to the Hiroshima or Nagasaki bursts, those blasts inside the WTC towers were as powerful & certainly as devastating and intense for their intended targets as those infamous bombs, if not more so. But OK, no radiation came from these WTC blasts. I just mean to give you something to consider. Yes, nukes would have been far worse in some cases. But a nuke can be *less* devastating as well. It depends upon the bomb itself. They make 'em small nowadays. Thank god the planes were not made out of depleted uranium. Best, Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Lawrence Upton > Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 9:11 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: ground zero > > > I'm worried by use of the term _ground zero_ > > isn't this a term applied to a nuclear detonation? > > i think it is very important to be clear that, objectively, no > one has been > nuked - i say objectively because some unfortunate people *did suffer > exactly as if they had been exposed to the fire storm following a nuclear > explosion > > but a nuclear explosion would have been FAR worse and it is important to > remember that because Bush's plans do not include ridding us of > the constant > threat of nuclear war with which most of us have lived our entire > lives; and > because, especially while this eye for an eye stuff is going on, it is > important to keep what has been done in perspective, awful as that > perspective is > > L > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:32:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The past week list has been such a good source of information, comfort, sensitivity, criticism = COMMUNITY and I thank you all for that. Re: flag waving. I am so conflicted about this. Our across-the-street neighbors put up a flag last Wednesday and I immediately wanted one, too -- not as a show of strength or government support or even solidarity, but from some deep feeling of gratitude that this country was still standing. That the weather in Boston was beautiful and that I still had across-the-street neighbors. Last week all of that seemed like a miracle. Since then, I have been able to be more critical and wary of the whole flag-waving phenomenon, but I am also still very conflicted and interested in what it means to be a patriotic American. I certainly think one can be patriotic AND critical, and that in fact the two probably go hand in hand. I disagree much of what our government says, I am distraught over what we have done to the earth, etc., etc., and I have even (often?) thought of leaving the country, but I also love it. I love the geographical and ethnic diversity, the aesthetic beauty of the national parks, the openness. I am so proud that Americans invented hip hop, bluegrass, jazz and rock n' roll. I love my students, many of whom are first-generation college students and have so much to give, so many ideas. Can I wave a flag for all of that? I also love, and miss, New York City, which, for the five years I lived there, treated me with extreme kindness and openness, and which, as exhausting and ugly as it could be, was also frequently stunning and inspiring, and like no other city in the world. So when all this happened, I wanted to wave a flag for that, too. Arielle __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:54:39 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Media March to War Comments: To: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@academypo.fss.fss.pvt.k12.pa.us, Amzemel@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu, Psyche-Arts@academyanalyticarts.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit FAIR-L Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting Media analysis, critiques and news reports MEDIA ADVISORY: Media March to War September 17, 2001 In the wake of the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, many media pundits focused on one theme: retaliation. For some, it did not matter who bears the brunt of an American attack: "There is only one way to begin to deal with people like this, and that is you have to kill some of them even if they are not immediately directly involved in this thing." --former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger (CNN, 9/11/01) "The response to this unimaginable 21st-century Pearl Harbor should be as simple as it is swift-- kill the bastards. A gunshot between the eyes, blow them to smithereens, poison them if you have to. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them into basketball courts." --Steve Dunleavy (New York Post, 9/12/01) "America roused to a righteous anger has always been a force for good. States that have been supporting if not Osama bin Laden, people like him need to feel pain. If we flatten part of Damascus or Tehran or whatever it takes, that is part of the solution." --Rich Lowry, National Review editor, to Howard Kurtz (Washington Post, 9/13/01) "TIME TO TAKE NAMES AND NUKE AFGHANISTAN." --Caption to cartoon by Gary Brookins (Richmond Times-Dispatch, 9/13/01) "At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilites should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." --Former Defense Intelligence Agency officer Thomas Woodrow, "Time to Use the Nuclear Option" (Washington Times, 9/14/01) Bill O'Reilly: "If the Taliban government of Afghanistan does not cooperate, then we will damage that government with air power, probably. All right? We will blast them, because..." Sam Husseini, Institute for Public Accuracy: "Who will you kill in the process?" O'Reilly: "Doesn't make any difference." --("The O'Reilly Factor," Fox News Channel, 9/13/01) "This is no time to be precise about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack.... We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war." --Syndicated columnist Ann Coulter (New York Daily News, 9/12/01) "Real" Retribution Many media commentators appeared to blame the attacks on what they saw as America's unwillingness to act aggressively in recent years. As conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer (Washington Post, 9/12/01) wrote: "One of the reasons there are enough terrorists out there capable and deadly enough to carry out the deadliest attack on the United States in its history is that, while they have declared war on us, we have in the past responded (with the exception of a few useless cruise missile attacks on empty tents in the desert) by issuing subpoenas." The Washington Post's David Broder (9/13/01), considered a moderate, issued his own call for "new realism-- and steel-- in America's national security policy": "For far too long, we have been queasy about responding to terrorism. Two decades ago, when those with real or imagined grievances against the United States began picking off Americans overseas on military or diplomatic assignments or on business, singly or in groups, we delivered pinprick retaliations or none at all." It's worth recalling the U.S. response to the bombing of a Berlin disco in April 1986, which resulted in the deaths of two U.S. service members: The U.S. immediately bombed Libya, which it blamed for the attack. According to Libya, 36 civilians were killed in the air assault, including the year-old daughter of Libyan leader Moamar Khadafy (Washington Post, 5/9/86). It is unlikely that Libyans considered this a "pinprick." Yet these deaths apparently had little deterrence value: In December 1988, less than 20 months later, Pan Am 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland, in an even deadlier act of terrorism the U.S. blames on Libyan agents. More recently, in 1998, Bill Clinton sent 60 cruise missiles, some equipped with cluster bombs, against bin Laden's Afghan base, in what was presented as retaliation for the bombing of U.S. embassies in Africa. One missile aimed at Afghan training camps landed hundreds of miles off course in Pakistan, while a simultaneous attack in Sudan leveled one of the country's few pharmaceutical factories. Media cheered the attacks (In These Times, 9/6/98), though careful investigation into the case revealed no credible evidence linking the plant to chemical weapons or Osama bin Laden, the two justifications offered for the attack (New York Times, 10/27/99, London Observer, 8/23/98). Despite the dubious record of retributory violence in insuring security, many pundits insist that previous retaliation failed only because it was not severe enough. As the Chicago Tribune's John Kass declared (9/13/01), "For the past decade we've sat dumb and stupid as the U.S. military was transformed from a killing machine into a playpen for sociologists and political schemers." This "playpen" dropped 23,000 bombs on Yugoslavia in 1999, killing between 500 and 1,500 civilians, and may have killed as many as 1,200 Iraqis in 1998's Desert Fox attack (Agence France Presse, 12/23/98). The Wall Street Journal (9/13/01) urged the U.S. to "get serious" about terrorism by, among other things, eliminating "the 1995 rule, imposed by former CIA Director John Deutsch under political pressure, limiting whom the U.S. can recruit for counter-terrorism. For fear of hiring rogues, the CIA decided it would only hire Boy Scouts." One non-Boy Scout the CIA worked with in the 1980s is none other than Osama bin Laden (MSNBC, 8/24/98; The Atlantic, 7-8/01)-- then considered a valuable asset in the fight against Communism, but now suspected of being the chief instigator of the World Trade Center attacks. Who's to Blame? In crisis situations, particularly those involving terrorism, media often report unsubstantiated information about suspects or those claiming responsibility-- an error that is especially dangerous in the midst of calls for military retaliation. Early reports on the morning of the attack indicated that the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine had claimed responsibility on Abu Dhabi Television. Most outlets were careful with the information, though NBC's Tom Brokaw, while not confirming the story, added fuel to the fire: "This comes, ironically, on a day when the Israel Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is scheduled to meet with Yasser Arafat. Of course, we've had the meeting in South Africa for the past several days in which the Palestinians were accusing the Israelis of racism"-- as if making such an accusation were tantamount to blowing up the World Trade Center. Hours after a spokesperson for the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine denied any responsibility for the attack, the Drudge Report website still had the headline "Palestinian Group Says Responsible" at the top of the page. Though the threat from a Palestinian group proved unsubstantiated, that did not stop media from making gross generalizations about Arabs and Islam in general. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wondered (9/13/01): "Surely Islam, a grand religion that never perpetrated the sort of Holocaust against the Jews in its midst that Europe did, is being distorted when it is treated as a guidebook for suicide bombing. How is it that not a single Muslim leader will say that?" Of course, many Muslims would-- and did-- say just that. Political and civil leaders throughout the Muslim world have condemned the attacks, and Muslim clerics throughout the Middle East have given sermons refuting the idea that targeting civilians is a tenet of Islam (BBC, 9/14/01; Washington Post 9/17/01). Why They Hate Us As the media investigation focused on Osama bin Laden, news outlets still provided little information about what fuels his fanaticism. Instead of a serious inquiry into anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East and elsewhere, many commentators media offered little more than self-congratulatory rhetoric: "[The World Trade Center and the Pentagon] have drawn, like gathered lightning, the anger of the enemies of civilization. Those enemies are always out there.... Americans are slow to anger but mighty when angry, and their proper anger now should be alloyed with pride. They are targets because of their virtues--principally democracy, and loyalty to those nations which, like Israel, are embattled salients of our virtues in a still-dangerous world." --George Will (Washington Post, 9/12/01) "This nation symbolizes freedom, strength, tolerance, and democratic principles dedicated to both liberty and peace. To the tyrants, the despots, the closed societies, there are no alterations to the policies, no gestures we can make, no words we can say that will convince those determined to continue their hate." --Charles G. Boyd (Washington Post, 9/12/01) "Are Americans afraid to face the reality that there is a significant portion of this world's population that hates America, hates what freedom represents, hates the fact that we fight for freedom worldwide, hates our prosperity, hates our way of life? Have we been unwilling to face that very difficult reality?" --Sean Hannity (Fox News Channel, 9/13/01) "Our principled defense of individual freedom and our reluctance to intervene in the affairs of states harboring terrorists makes us an easy target." --Robert McFarlane (Washington Post, 9/13/01) One exception was ABC's Jim Wooten (World News Tonight, 9/12/01), who tried to shed some light on what might motivate some anti-U.S. sentiment in the Middle East, reporting that "Arabs see the U.S. as an accomplice of Israel, a partner in what they believe is the ruthless repression of Palestinian aspirations for land and independence." Wooten continued: "The most provocative issues: Israel's control over Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem; the stationing of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia near some of Islam's holiest sites; and economic sanctions against Iraq, which have been seen to deprive children there of medicine and food." Stories like Wooten's, which examine the U.S.'s highly contentious role in the Middle East and illuminate some of the forces that can give rise to violent extremism, contribute far more to public security than do pundits calling for indiscriminate revenge. ---------- Feel free to respond to FAIR ( fair@fair.org ). We can't reply to everything, but we will look at each message. We especially appreciate documented example of media bias or censorship. And please send copies of your email correspondence with media outlets, including any responses, to us at: fair@fair.org . FAIR ON THE AIR: FAIR's founder Jeff Cohen is a regular panelist on the Fox News Channel's "Fox News Watch," which airs which airs Saturdays at 7 pm and Sundays at 11 am (Eastern Standard Time). Check your local listings. FAIR produces CounterSpin, a weekly radio show heard on over 130 stations in the U.S. and Canada. To find the CounterSpin station nearest you, visit http://www.fair.org/counterspin/stations.html . Please support FAIR by subscribing to our bimonthly magazine, Extra! For more information, go to: http://www.fair.org/extra/subscribe.html . Or call 1-800-847-3993. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:56:00 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: from reuters MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Saudis Cast Doubt Over FBI List of Hijackers http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=230814 "The apparent errors over the names have strengthened a belief in the Gulf that the real attackers used false or stolen passports and documents. [...] 'We have our own doubts because many of those implicated have turned out to be alive here or elsewhere,' [a Saudi Foreign Ministry official] said." U.N. Official: Opium Cuts May Hit Afghan Capability http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=230834&fromEm ail=true "Until last year, Afghanistan was the world's largest producer of heroin, which is made from opium." Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:55:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Michael D. Gottlieb" Subject: The Great Figure Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit About ten years ago Geoff Young published a book of mine. At his suggestion we titled it New York. In it there is a piece, a bit of memoir, that centers on the Williams poem, THE GREAT FIGURE, his poem about a New York City firetruck. The piece also refers to the famous Charles Demuth paintings, with the same title, that the Williams poem inspired. Hook and Ladder Company 5 was a Greenwich Village company, stationed in that modern firehouse at the corner of Houston and Sixth, at the edge of Soho. I am sure many of you have passed it. If I understand correctly what I read in this morning's New York Times, all or some of the men in that company are dead. Surely the engine itself, the namesake of the apparatus Williams caught sight of responding to a call one night, is gone too. THE GREAT FIGURE Among the rain and lights I saw the figure 5 in gold on a red firetruck moving tense unheeded to gong clangs siren howls and wheels rumbling through the dark city. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael Gottlieb P.O. Box 292 Salisbury, CT 06068 (860) 824-3090 office (860) 435-2393 home (860) 824-3081 fax mgott@tele-monitor.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:50:31 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: Eating words &c. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Jerry Falwell isn't the only one eating his words nowadays. Karlheinz Stockhausen speaks (as you'll see in the NYT articles just below my sign-off) and issues an instant retraction, as can be well understood. Many others, I suspect, will are and will be, for various reasons, eating their words in coming days, weeks, and months: myself included perhaps, for I think I know what Stockhausen had in mind when he called the WTC attacks a great work of art--no, "the greatest work of art ever." Art and great disasters have some similar effects. They slow and very nearly stop time. We stop and stare at images of bodies hurtling from towers as we do at Rembrandt portraits in our museums, or as we sit in the dark for hours, listening to an orchestra or a string quartet or a rock group or jazz band. Sometimes, if we're lucky (or unlucky, depending on how one looks at it) we emerge altered, changed, sometimes shaken to the depths of our being, as much of the world was this last week. Then we come out of it--out of the museum, the concert hall, the dive, the TV haze in which we've been immersed, and we look around and find the same streets, the same traffic, the same old living room or bedroom or den--same but somehow different. For those of us in New York, we look south along familiar streets and avenues and those two towers are no longer there. And there are new things there--faces of the missing plastered to walls and trees and mailboxes, clusters of offerings and burning candles in unexpected places, a cyclone fence festooned with yet another crop of yellow ribbons. And much seems much the same--Chuckie, our cat, seems not to have heard of the disaster, though he sometimes seems very much aware of altered moods hereabouts. He wants fresh food, and a bit of milk in the morning. Our neighbors walk their dogs and jog along the Hudson. The fruit vendors are out on the streets, and in some respect things are beginning to return to "normal"--in some ways what we yearn for, those days and weeks and months speeding by as though they were minutes and seconds and nanoseconds--the passing scene, the slippery slope. Hal "If you want to make God laugh, tell him what you're doing tomorrow." --Michael Judge, Chaplain, NYFD Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html ***************************************** September 19, 2001 Attacks Called Great Art The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen caused outrage in Germany when he described the terrorist attacks in the United States last week as "the greatest work of art ever," Agence France-Presse reported yesterday. Mr. Stockhausen, 73, who made the remark to journalists in Hamburg on Sunday, retracted it at once and asked that it not be reported. But two Stockhausen concerts scheduled for yesterday and today in a festival in Hamburg were canceled. "Out of feeling for the political culture of the city and the federal republic, the concerts had to be canceled," said Christina Weiss, Hamburg culture commissioner. Agence France-Presse reported that according to the news agency DPA, Mr. Stockhausen responded to a question about the attacks on the United States by saying: "What happened there is — they all have to rearrange their brains now — is the greatest work of art ever. "That characters can bring about in one act what we in music cannot dream of, that people practice madly for 10 years, completely, fanatically, for a concert and then die. That is the greatest work of art for the whole cosmos. "I could not do that. Against that, we, composers, are nothing." Mr. Stockhausen was reported to have left Hamburg in distress. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:58:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wanda Phipps Subject: more info. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Those who have lost their jobs because of the tragedy can get help in finding work from the Twin Towers Job Back in Jamaica, Queens 718-630-2457. Several real estate firms are donating their services to find new places to live for people who have lost their homes because of the tragedy: Halstead Feathered Nest D.J. Knight City Habitats Douglas Elliman Current info from the New York Cares organization: This information is accurate as of 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 18, 2001. Vehicles or equipment can be donated to the city Office of Emergency Management at 212-477-3574 or 212-477-3598. Heavy equipment includes cranes, victor’s torch tips, cutters and rock crushers. The New York State Emergency Management Office's need for bulk donations has been met at this time. Their hotline is 800-801-8092. Please mail monetary donations to: The New York State World Trade Center Relief Fund P.O. Box 5028 Albany, NY 12205 Monetary donations can also be made in person at all Chase Manhattan Bank branches in New York, New Jersey, CT and Texas. Chelsea Market / New York Cares Relief Drive Thanks to your amazing response, this location is not accepting any more donations at this time. Please check back at this site regularly for updates as needs will arise and change. Jacob Javits Center The Javits Center is not currently accepting donations. Salvation Army Not currently accepting donations. Exchange Place Not currently accepting donations. Community Food Bank of New Jersey Not currently accepting donations. Please mail monetary contributions to: Community Food Bank of New Jersey Attn: World Trade Center Relief Fund 31 Evans Terminal Road Hillside, NJ 07205 Chelsea Piers Not currently accepting donations. Financial contributions may also be sent to the following organizations: American Red Cross Disaster Relief, P.O. Box 3756, Church Street Station, New York, NY 10008. To contribute by telephone, please call: 800-801-8092. The Salvation Army, 120 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10011. To contribute by telephone, please call: 212-337-7330 or 888-234-8888. The United Way of New York City, Attn: United Way September 11th Fund, Two Park Avenue, New York, NY 10016. To contribute by telephone, please call: 800-710-8002. The International Association of Fire Fighters, Attn: New York Fire Fighters 911 Disaster Relief Fund, 1750 New York Ave. NW, Washington DC 20006. Make a Donation Your contributions are greatly appreciated! Please note that current needs have been met at many of the facilities. While supplies on hand are plentiful, this situation will change. We encourage you to check back at on our web site or call our office (212) 228-5000 for the latest updates. Updated 1:00pm on 9/18/2001 Here's some additional information from friends as of Monday, September 17, 2001: The fire commissioner just announced that they want NO MORE VOLUNTEERS at the site. Apparently there have been people posing as FDNY and there have been instances of 'volunteers' looting. (note: I had to have a drunk guy with no clearance arrested yesterday for hijacking a food delivery, believe it or not. - NB) He also said that they have more than enough people right now & much as they appreciate it, they really can't handle the organization of the 'outside' volunteers. If you could pass this on to people - though yesterday at the Javitz center they told us to come back today and see if we were needed. ONLY FOR THOSE WHO HAVE PREVIOUS DATA ENTRY EXPERIENCE OR KNOW 'ACCESS' Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 22:36:53 -0000 From: "Joanne" Subject: Red Cross/Web Grrls Data Entry Volunteer I am a member of the NYC Webgrrls Chapter. They are looking for volunteers who are at least somewhat technically proficient in data entry (i.e. Database entry via Access or similar) to help the Red Cross process all the volunteer applications they are getting. I have donated my services for the second shift over the weekend. Below you will find the info I received from Webgrrls. Contact Eileen directly if you can help! J Hi ladies, The Red Cross needs tech support. Right now, we are putting together shifts of Webgrrls to do data entry. You must be minimally technically proficient enough to enter data into a database. I believe you/we will be entering volunteer info into a database so the Red Cross can begin to make sense of the thousands of volunteer applications they have received. Here's the details: 1. TODAY - Goal is to get 10 to 12 Webgrrls working by 4PM. CALL ME at 212-260-7882 if you can get to the Red Cross TODAY by 4PM to do data entry. You will be there from 4PM until... whenever. Probably about 8 hours or as long as you can, but you should be able to stay for a good chunk of hours. 2. TOMORROW (Friday) FIRST SHIFT = 8AM to 4PM SECOND SHIFT = 3PM to 11PM 3. SATURDAY, SUNDAY, etc. will follow the same shifts until otherwise notified. 4. HELP IS ALSO NEEDED BY ME TO SCHEDULE PEOPLE AND HANDLE PHONE CALLS. If you are interested, let me know when you call. The Red Cross is located at 150 Amsterdam at 66th Street. There will be a table set up for Webgrrls registration, however, you need to CALL ME at 212-260-7882 so that I can let them know and you can bypass the hundreds of people who are lined up outside and trying to volunteer. You will go directly to the Webgrrls table, fill out a paper application, and then proceed to the 2nd Floor (I think) where the group will do data entry. If you are familiar with Access, let me know, and I will make you "Shift Commander" to help those who may not be as familiar. Please do not use this opportunity to learn database entry for the first time... Please CALL ME at 212-260-7882 to discuss. Priority will be given to those who can make it today, but I will schedule everyone. As you can imagine, the scene will be highly stressed and there won't be a lot of time for questions, training or special schedule requirements. Be prepared to go with the flow and show the world that NYC Webgrrls are here to help. Best, Eileen 212-260-7882 --------------------- The Call Is Out for IT Experts (Technology 2:00 a.m. PDT) http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,46821,00.html?tw=wn20010914 New York's rescue efforts require tech equipment and workers, and soon the same need will come from businesses that need to rebuild. ------------------------------------ for those who live in the Battery Park area who have pets that are 'stranded' OR if you know someone who is missing who has left a stranded pet please call the ASPCA at 212/876-7700 and enter extension 4PET or if you have PROOF that you live in the Battery Park area and need to get to your pets you can go to Pier 40 and speak to the ASPCA officials there. Please note: Pier 40 is a RESTRICTED AREA and you have to have photo ID to prove that you live in the area. 145 East 23rd open until 8pm tonight Olive Leaf Wholeness Center- providing showers, etc. for family members who are at the Armory trying to find missing loved ones and cannot go home or do not want to. -- Wanda Phipps ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:06:04 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: housepress/derek beaulieu Subject: Announcing Ara Ara MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Announcing Ara Ara > Please read and pass along to anyone who might be interested. Thank you. > > JC Wilcke > > Ara Ara > > Call for Submissions > Ara Ara is a new, small press-style, international and interdisciplinary > critical journal. We are looking to publish a limited series of 10 issues > over the next 2-3 years in print and online. Each issue will contain a > particular theme whose content revolves around and makes trouble with the > following notions: > > foreignicity, race, hybridity, space, living abroad, living at home, > learning foreign language, travel, tourism, infrastructure, the body, > fashion, economy, nationalism, internationalism, difference, translation, > and communication. > > Some of the themes we are considering include > > Poetry and Poetics > Email and Electronic Communication > Living Space > Foreignicity > Gazing > Media > and in response to the recent events in New York, > Terror > > Submissions are welcome from all disciplines, including but not limited to: > photography. philosophy, anthropology, poetry and creative prose, visual > arts, and music. Submissions in languages other than English are welcome. > > Our first issue will be a poetry/poetics issue. We are looking for > submissions that incorporate one or more of the above notions with trouble > and discrepancy in mind. Since the managing editorship is international, we > ask that you submit two copies of your work electronically to the addresses > at the bottom of this notice. Print submissions are also welcome. We also > encourage submissions that criticize and dialogue with submissions that > appear in the magazine. > > Issues will be printed in limited editions of 100. Additional copies beyond > the print run available on request. > > Subscriptions to the whole 10-issue series will be available. > > thank you, > > Ian Samuels (Canada) > ilsamuel@ucalgary.ca > > JC Wilcke (Japan) > jcwilcke@hotmail.com > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:03:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: George Bush's Slumbering Giant MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/19/01 8:26:44 AM, fargas-laura@DOL.GOV writes: << I'm thinking my sign will read "No to Star Wars...Yes to Airport Security." >> Precisely. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:12:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lisab Subject: message for Anne Waldman In-Reply-To: <4.1.20010918212223.0092ce70@mail.netemedia.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Sorry for the double posting - Anne made a few edits and asked that I resend it. Lisa ---------- From: civitella Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 21:25:09 +0200 To: lisab Subject: Re: message for Anne Waldman please add line about US citizens and" those of other countries" in first part -so many in World Trade Center from elsewhere...! Much love -hard to be away from you all - how is everyone?? XX > >> STATEMENT & PETITION -please circulate >> >> "May the dark ignorance of sentient beings be dispelled >> May all beings enjoy profound, brilliant glory" >> (Buddhist >> aspiration) >> >> As a member of USA societal covenants, as Buddhist, as witness and writer I >> would humbly urge the following to all governments and people in the world. >> To all those in power who have a "say" in ther matter & also to all the >> "little people".May all voices be heard in the aspiration and deep hope >> for peace. And may others articulate their hopes, fears, insights and >> demand a sane response to recent events in our world. >> >> * Pray for and keep in mind those innocent US citizens and those of other countries recently killed as >> a result of terrorist attacks, but also those innocents who have died in >> Israel/Palestine and in other parts of the world in unwarranted >> wars/attacks of all kinds, caused by US "interests" as well. Consider the >> suffering that others outside the USA have experienced for centuries. >> >> * Be grateful for all the brave and generous boddhisattvic activity on the >> part of New Yorkers, and residents of Washington,DC - those who died >> serving others. And by extension, all others that serve others in times of >> crisis. >> >> * Avoid any action that creates further suffering which would include the >> White House & Pentagon's "systematic war on terrorism" which is already in >> motion as we breathe. Avoid WAR at all costs. >> >> * Find the perpetrators of the recent crimes against the USA and bring >> them to an International Tribunal. Urge "discrimating awareness wisdom". >> >> * Work toward mediation, reconciliation, understanding the "clash of >> civilizations" >> >> * Analyze the issues -the history, the karma (cause & effect) - that has >> lead to such resentment and hatred of the USA (its power, hegemony, >> cultural imperialism, exploitation of other peoples & resources , >> environmental degradation etc). See the webs of suffering that cause such >> catastrophic events. >> >> *Consider who will gain most from a War. Think of the agenda of the >> current USA political administration and how a War promotes this agenda. >> Consider that the USA already spends more on military arms & other forms >> of "national security" than the rest of the world combined (although, as we >> see, this security is not infallible or ironclad). We have over half a >> million troops world wide in several hundred countries, scores of military >> bases & installations...A fleet larger in tonnage & firepower than all >> the navies of the world combined -- missile cruisers, nuclear submarines, >> nuclear aircraft carriers, destroyers, spy ships that sail every ocean. US >> bomber squadrons & long range missiles that can reach any >> target...heat-seeking missiles with million dollar computers, "monster >> bombs",armour-piercing antitank projectiles made from radioactive nuclear >> waste (thousands were used in the Gulf War which contaminated ground water >> & soil in Iraq & Kuwait with uranium deplection that caused cancer in >> civilians)...We can wreak terrible destruction if our military power is >> unleashed. >> >> * Consider how a War will bolster the Missile Shield- Star Wars mentality, >> weapons in space etc. Uncompassionate globalization, & ongoing >> environmental neglect will have the upper hand... >> >> * Check out USA's complicated history in Afghanistan, backing reactionary >> tribal chieftains & opium traffickers during the war with the Soviet Union. >> Understand the horrific suffering - poverty, disease, famine of the Afghani >> people. >> >> *Resist jingoism & bellicose rhetoric and knee-jerk flag waving. Counter it >> in any way you can - in workplace, schools, churches, temples, gatherings >> of all kinds... >> >> * Watch the rhetoric from the Christian right that demonizes gays, >> lesbians, trans-gendered people, feminists, progressive folk of all >> stripes. Watch the rhetoric that demonizes people of a different view than >> the one most supportive of revenge & war. >> >> * Fight racism in all its forms, wherever you are. Avoid stereotypical >> racial profiling of Muslims, Arabs - people American & other - of Middle >> Eastern descent & origin. >> >> * Appreciate the enlightened qualities & the particulars of the Islamic >> tradition and realize there are separate & differing sects & ideologies - >> Appreciate music, culture, art, philosophy, poetry. >> >> *Speak with friends, communities, children. Circulate information and >> "strategies" for peace. Stay in touch internationally. Stay informed. Be >> vigilant. Artists should be most vocal at this time and show that there are >> alternative ways to pursue a saner, wiser world. >> >> Sarva mangalam >> >> Thank you for your attention. >> >> Anne Waldman >> Civitella Ranieri Center >> Umbertide, Italia >> Sept 18/2001 >> >> crcfellow@netemedia.net >> >> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:21:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: What is to be done Comments: cc: A Kass Fleisher In-Reply-To: <000701c140bb$45a6b5e0$3353fea9@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" ron, i'm gonna try to keep this as short as possible, given the traffic... so i'll use shorthand, and sacrifice some detail... loved your post, but you lost me right at the end... you want to maintain that this is an act of war---with (i suppose) civilian casualities---and not simply a criminal act... ergo e.g. cnn's "america's new war" is appropriate then, in your view?... in any case, re your item (1): (1) proving itself to be better than terrorists by not targeting civilians suggests that the u.s. "target" someone, somehow, yes?... if the left is not to lose any and all support publicly, as you say, can it likewise avoid discussion, at the same time, of what ought now to be the purpose of our military-police-intelligence branches?... specifically in terms of *offense*, as you imply something other than a strictly defensive posture... what do you mean, exactly, by "war"?... please believe me---i'm not asking you to define your terms out of some petty desire to pester you at the semantic level... and just to be clear: like you, i fear further, more extensive terrorist assaults here in the u.s... and like you, i can't imagine that asking u.s. citizens to hold themselves entirely responsible for this calamity will speak in any pragmatic way either to the public domain ("lived experience" or "structures of feeling" or just plain pain) or to the realities of the (dauntingly complex international-political) situation... i *do* regard u.s. ideology abroad (and for that matter, at home) a significant factor in the current conflict, given the historical ebbs and flows of the planet's nation-states (i.e., terrorism of this sort takes *time*---it doesn't happen overnight)... like taylor, the moment i pipe up publicly against e.g. bombing, first thing i hear---the very first thing---is along the lines of (and with anti-patriotic accusation right around the corner) "but what are we supposed to DO about bin laden?" (or, whoever is ultimately proved to be most directly culpable)... like marjorie, i can't say i'm happy with tout court renunciations of the u.s. in any and all of its manifestations... like daniel, the class issues that underwrite "our" responses (e.g., flag-waving) hit me at a pretty profound level... and like don, the binary "we" seem caught in, both intellectual and affective, is something i'm struggling with *by the hour*... so, some clarification here, if you please... i'm not sure we'll ultimately agree, ron, but i'm hoping we can all move one another's ideas forward some... me, i'm all ears... also, and for the record, bravo! to marcella's letter... peace, joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:41:32 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/19/01 9:03:05 AM, ron.silliman@GTE.NET writes: << I've been thinking for days about how best to write this - and I still have no clue, so I'm just going to wade in and hope for the best. >> Ron, for what it's worth, I'm glad you took the time to consider and post. Thanks for your intelligence, accuracy, sensitivity. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 16:36:06 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scott=20Hamilton?= Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: <000701c140bb$45a6b5e0$3353fea9@oemcomputer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I'm justifying a reply to a post probably meant mainly for Americans by pleading some involvement in a nascent anti-war movement in New Zealand. (For information on the situation here, visit www.indymedia.org.nz/) Ron Silliman is absolutely right when he urges an engagement with the grief of Westerners as the correct starting point for leftist activity in the aftermath of last week's attacks. In my opinion, though, he wrongly treats the nature of majority opinion at the moment as irreversible, and in doing so misses the logic and the potential of much of the left-wing agitation that has taken place in the aftermath of the attacks. (Take, as a paradigm for the left reaction, Noam Chomsky's 'A Quick Response', which was posted here the other day.) The grief that the NYC atrocity has created is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it may be used by Western leaders to stir up assent for all sorts of dangerous war games and reactionary legislation. Less obviously, though, the grief we have seen has the potential to lead to mass anti-war radicalisation across the West. The tremendous empathy which has been stirred, in the West and in much of the Third World, for the victims of last week's attacks is authentic, and thus has the ability to build and spread and break through the national and ethnic barriers manned by warmongering political leaders and the mass media. It is surely significant that the first reported anti-war protests occurred in New York City, home to a population which must find it the easiest of all to empathise with the September 11th victims. We should also note that the events of the past two weeks have, to a limited but real extent, cohered populations atomised in most places by decades of rightist economic restructuring. The fragmentation and depoliticisation of the working class which were a key achievement of neoliberalism are weakened by the mass action and collective focus which have followed last week's attacks. Suddenly vast numbers of people are attuned to the idea of collective action; they are also asking many awkward asking questions about the world about them, allowing us to talk about the potential for ideological as well as emotional radicalisation. The magnitude of recent events forces, after all, the consideration of many hitherto obscure or taboo subjects; beyond that, it may prompt a questioning of the very nature of twenty-first century life. In post-Cold War, secular and somewhat cynical Western milieu, there is reason to suspect that the conceptual framework that political and business leaders act inside and speak from will fail to answer such questions convincingly. We ought to remember here that the West was not a nest of contentment before September the 11th: the large anti-globalisation protests which had become a symbol of an unhappiness with contemporary Western society had been scheduled, after all, to arrive in Washington DC at the end of this month. Like every other relatively sane person, I wish that the events of September 11th had not occurred. They were a moral disaster and a political disaster. The left, though, has to face the reality of September 11th, and it can only do this by engaging with the contradictions the event has produced in popular consciousness. The source of all terrorisms is capitalism and imperialism, and only anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist politics can counter all terrorisms. Leftist writers as different as Chomsky and Said are right to sense the potential for such politics, in the aftermath of September 11th. From Pakistan to America to New Zealand, the war machine has to be disabled by mass direct action. This task may be very difficult, but its proponents are surely not as unrealistic as the Guardian columnists who call for the civilising of imperialism in the Middle East. As an NYC paramedic wrote, at the end of an account of his rescue efforts at the WTC: "This is a tragic act, one that has destroyed or forever altered the lives of countless people. It is also an act that occurs in particular context, one in which the United States is guilty of this exact same kind of crime, only on a greater and more gruesome scale. Let us take from this the inspiration to create a world free from imperialism in all its manifestations, one that moves us from the civil war that is capitalism to a higher form of society..." (full text at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revo-readers/message/1376) Respectfully, Scott ===== For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:52:44 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: issho V1 #1467 (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 00:07:11 +0900 (JST) From: issho Reply-To: issho@ml.gol.com To: issho-digest@ml.gol.com Subject: issho V1 #1467 issho Thursday, September 20 2001 Volume 01 : Number 1467 subjects of the messages sent today: [ISSHO] No War Petition [ISSHO] interview with techno critic toshiya ueno ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:56:38 +0900 From: "Paul Arenson/TokyoProgressive Website" Subject: [ISSHO] No War Petition Just one more on the subject, with the petition below it. As one person on this or Issho has said..."an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" That was Ghandi, I think. - ---- "Chris Buckley, Christian Aid Programme Officer for Afghanistan I have just returned from Afghanistan, and cannot avoid a growing feeling of dread at what may be about to befall the people I have left there. The bellicose statements being issued by America and her allies about revenge and retaliation for Tuesday's horrific terrorist attacks against New York and Washington seem to be softening up western electorates for some kind of massive military action against the Afghan people. Because of these threats, aid organisations have been forced to pull out their foreign workers - fearing both that they may be caught in the expected raids, or that they would be attacked as westerners after the NATO bombers have flown away. The effects of this withdrawal could be infinitely more tragic and devastating than the worst that a wounded America may now throw at this long, long-suffering country. For, although it has gone largely unreported, Afghanistan is in the grip of a three-year drought and on the verge of mass starvation. According to the UN-run World Food Programme, by the end of the year 5.5 million people will be entirely dependent on food aid to survive the winter - that's a quarter of the Afghan population. As Christian Aid's programme officer responsible for Afghanistan, I have been helping supply food and seeds to communities in desperate need. In a few weeks the winter snows will come, cutting off the hundreds of isolated villages whose only links to the outside world are rutted dirt tracks. Without seeds they will be unable to replant for next year. Without food aid now, thousands could be dead before the spring. Already fears on the ground about this pending catastrophe are filtering through. Only yesterday (Thurs) I received this message from one of the local organisations funded by Christian Aid. 'What will happen to the people if aid agencies remain reluctant to resume full operations? The consequences are quite clear that people who are already suffering would be the victims. And if any military action is taken, Afghan staff and civilians will be in real danger. 'Terrorism is the worst thing and it shows how blind these people are as human beings. But if the leaders do not have patience and tolerance they can only do further damage.' This, I think you must agree, is not a voice from a country of dedicated international terrorists or religious fanatics. But it is a voice from the real Afghanistan, unrecognisable from the demonised image we are being urged to accept. The real Afghanistan is one where 85 per cent of the population are subsistence farmers. Most Afghans don't have newspapers, television sets or radios. They will not have heard of the World Trade Centre or the Pentagon, and most will have no idea that a group of zealots has attacked these icons of western civilisation. There isn't even a postal service. Now, in these isolated villages, families are down to their last few weeks of food and already men women and children in the bulging refugee camps are dying of cholera and malnutrition. I have spoken to orphans with swollen bellies. I have spoken to men who have no money to hire trucks to escape the drought and make it to the camps. I have spoken to families who say they will wait in their villages for death. And that was before the aid agencies were forced to withdraw. Afghans are not willing victims - they are hardy peoples, as any Soviet general will testify. For the past three years they have been doing all they can to survive - sharing food, borrowing money to buy food, crossing the borders with Pakistan and Iran to find illegal, badly-paid work. Many used to work on the opium farms as casual labourers. But all these sources of income have dried up. Pakistan and Iran are throwing thousands of Afghans out each month, the Taliban have banned opium production and there is no food or credit to be had after three years of drought. And as I write this, our worst fears have just been realised. I have just received the following message from a friend who works for another of our partner organisations in western Afghanistan. He writes: 'I hope you are fine. We have spoken to the World Food Programme in Herat, and asked them to release food so we can distribute it to our beneficiaries who are in severe need. But WFP has stopped their activities right now. Could you please see if it is possible to get the release from WFP?' That is a real cry for help. Other friends there have stressed the need for the world to adopt a comprehensive approach to the terrorist threat - addressing the underlying causes of this terrifying phenomenon rather than just seeking to extract revenge. Let me be clear. The murder of thousands of innocent Americans has shocked and appalled us all. But any military action which disrupts the flow of aid to millions [!] of equally innocent Afghans would be equally immoral. Christian Aid urges everyone involved to show civilised restraint in responding to an act of barbarism. Thousands of innocent people have died in the United States. We must now make sure that even more innocent lives are not lost." ====================================================================== http://sf.indymedia.org/display.php?id=104378" Emergency Petition =========================== In the wake of the terrorism in New York and Washington: War is not the way. Send a preaddressed email to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi and Foreign Minister Tanaka, also one to U.S. President Bush, asking them to refrain from meeting violence with violence. This is NOT the way to bring about peace and security. Note that an earlier version of this petition was BLOCKED by the Prime Minister's office. It seems to have made its way to the Foreign Ministry, however. This version gets to the PM's office by my redirecting the message via his official home page. However, if you get any sort of error message, please forward a copy to me at cp@sdf.lonestar.org IF LINK IS BROKEN, COPY AND PASTE INTO BROWSER http://jproxy.uole.com/jproxy/http://cp.freeshell.org/petit/petit.html CLICK on NO WAR At same address, many articles and links on terrorism, peace. Or from http://tokyoprogressive.org or http://arenson.org please follow the links. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Also, please continue signing the Mad Cow Petition (same page) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ And please forward to your friends as well. Thanks! Paul - --------------------- Original Message Ends -------------------- paul In the wake of the terrorism in New York and Washington: War is not the way. Send a preaddressed email to Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi and Foreign Minister Tanaka, also one to U.S. President Bush, asking them to refrain from meeting violence with violence. This is NOT the way to bring about peace and security. Note that an earlier version of this petition was BLOCKED by the Prime Minister's office. It seems to have made its way to the Foreign Ministry, however. This version gets to the PM's office by my redirecting the message via his official home page. However, if you get any sort of error message, please forward a copy to me at cp@sdf.lonestar.org IF LINK IS BROKEN, COPY AND PASTE INTO BROWSER http://jproxy.uole.com/jproxy/http://cp.freeshell.org/petit/petit.html CLICK on NO WAR At same address, many articles and links on terrorism, peace. Or from http://tokyoprogressive.org or http://arenson.org please follow the links. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Also, please continue signing the Mad Cow Petition (same page) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ And please forward to your friends as well. Thanks! Paul ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:12:59 +1000 From: "geert" Subject: [ISSHO] interview with techno critic toshiya ueno Dear ISSHO members, below you'll find an interview that I did with the cultural studies scholar Toshiya Ueno (Wako University, Tokyo). I am looking for a magazine in Japan that would like to run it. If you want to forward it to certain media or collegues, please feel free to do so. With regards, Geert Lovink (Sydney) - --- Urban Techno Tribes and the Japanese Recession Interview with Toshiya Ueno By Geert Lovink Toshiya Ueno is a Japanese sociologist, media theorist and critic. In May 1990, when I was introduced to Toshiya in Tokyo during my first visit to Japan, I could not quite make out who he was. His English was poor and so was my Japanese. I had heard about his institutional involvement and his career as a popular columnist for fashion, design and computer magazines. In 1992, when he came to Amsterdam for the first time we slowly got to know each other and by the mid-nineties our friendship was established. He kept coming back to Europe and became a regular visitor of the Ars Electronica festival, reporting for Japanese magazines. At that point Toshiya's English skills increased dramatically and a fierce dialogue about media theory issues and the state of new media culture worldwide started between us. A few times a years Toshiya would stay in the tiny guest room of my former Amsterdam house. He gradually left the official Japanese new media business and started to investigate Amsterdam's free media scene, drugs culture and the (Goa) techno trance scene in particular. Through the lively refugee tribes from former Yugoslavia based in Amsterdam Toshiya came in contact with techno-trance rave scenes in Croatia where he made his debut as a DJ and TJ (text jockey), a passion he would continue in Japan. Our collaboration would take us from Internet conferences in Europe, a annual five years long teaching project at Osaka's Inter Media Institute (IMI), a common trip to Taipei to co-producing a television show about Amsterdam's subculture. In this e-mail exchange we have focussed only on a few aspects of Toshiya's work: the notions of urban tribes and digital diaspora, the use of technology in subcultures and the need in Japan to cross boundaries and start a dialogue and exchange between various scenes. Toshiya Ueno is an associate professor at the Expressive Cultures Department at Wako University, Tokyo. Several of his papers in English are available in the Nettime archive (www.nettime.org). He is preparing a book titled "Urban Tribal Studies" with the Amsterdam-based Croatian sociologist Benjamin Perasovic. His published books, in Japanese, amongst others, are "Situation, Cultural Politics of Rock and Pop (Sakuhinsha, 1996), "Artificial Nature, On Cyborg Politics" (Keisoshobo, 1996), "Thinking Diaspora" (Chikuma Shobo, 1999) and "Cultural Studies, an Introduction" (With Joshi Mori, Chikuma Shobo, 2000, vol.2 coming up). GL: In retrospect, how would you describe the nineties in Japan? It seems such a strange period, where not that much seems to have happened. It more looked like a never-ending mild recession. A sweet stagnation without brutal Thatcherism. No crucial decisions were made. No drastic cuts. No equivalent of the fall of the Berlin wall. No uprisings. There weren't even dramatic political and economic changes following the 1997 Asian financial crisis and countless bank scandals. The cultural climate seemed dominated by a ongoing consumerism, yet in a less ecstatic way compared to the bubble years of the mid-late eighties. A sophisticated numbness and joyful innocence could be found amongst youngsters. How could this odd mix of technological speed and pop fashion admits an ongoing recession result in such an amazing soft stagnation? Please tell me if I am wrong. If this model is running out now do you see any signs of discontent or even protest? TU: Your description may be right until mid 90s, the days just after the collapse of the speculative and 'bubble' economy. But around 1999 a drastic storm of 'neo-liberalism' set in. Ordinary people were seemingly not aware of this crisis in their everyday life. However, if you turned your eyes to the micro level you could find lots of symptoms of a collapsing corporate welfare state. There have been many lay-offs, 'restructuring' of businesses and various cases of 'privatization' of the public sector such as museums, institutions and state universities. Until 1995 people did not feel these measures and were by and large unaware of the coming crisis. Since 3 or 4 years however we are facing a 'second hand' version of 'populism' in the UK-style. Politicians have been quite influential in this process. It did not matter whether his/her political stand point were left or right, liberal or conservative, global thinking or nationalistic. These days novelists and TV stars are capable of winning an election and become president of a local prefecture or win a seat in the national parliament. Some of them are significant figures in Japanese subculture. During the recession the cultural or expressive sector of society was deeply damaged. It has become difficult to find a publishing house for books that have a theoretical or political content. I was saddened with the absence of uprisings or riots, yes. But I also have to say there have been numerous revolutions, even though most of them came from conservative and reactionary side. 'Revolution' is the very nature of neo-liberalism. Japanese society is following the same process which the UK and US experienced earlier. On the other hand one has to see the singularity of the Japanese 90's. We could for instance point at the transversality (a notion of Deleuze/Guattari) and singularity of the economical, cultural and even political crisis. GL: Is it useful to integrate the notions of subculture and media as developed by UK cultural studies into your research about Japan? TU: Cultural studies UK-style and its versions in other Asian regions are of importance to me. I do not want to reduce cultural studies to political and theoretical reflections on Japan's imperial and colonial past, neither to a sociology of popular culture. In the UK, cultural studies has also been tactical criticism and a theoretical weapon against populist neo-liberal politics within the everyday life. Cultural studies were not just an analytical tool, it was also related to real micro and cultural politics against the populism sprouting of neo-liberalism. I am referring here to do-it-yourself, Rock Against Racism, the movement against Criminal Justice Act and so on. Until recently I have also been thinking why we did not have protest movements in Japan. But now I am more interested in doing something real and respond to the seemingly invisible and intangible crisis. We can make something happen in this situation. Although neo-liberalism is really shit, it is also true that it can also generate forms of resistance against itself. A few years ago, in Germany and Amsterdam, I came across the rave party phenomena. I discovered music-based subcultures even though rock had long been a part of my life. Rave culture has got something for me. Rave is based on hedonistic desire and fun, but at the same time it can also be connected with environmental awareness. It is a movement in itself with its own anarchist politics. For instance pirate radio is often used these days to broadcast from rave parties. In the early 90's I used to be a critic of contemporary art, music, film and all kinds of expressive cultures. Those were the so-called postmodern days. At that time the Japanese economy was still a powerful force. The speculative 'bubble' economy needed, even preferred, 'speculative' essays and articles. Under those circumstances I wrote a lot of papers and essays for a myriad of magazines. However, when I came across rave I realized that music was the most important thing for me and my critical interpretive ability was most suitable for the music and its cultural and political implications. That's when I stopped writing about other fields such as new media theory and the arts. Within the rave movement I found a lot of elements I was interested in and involved with before, for instance, free radio, techno music, ecology movement, quasi-squat activities, anarchism, dissident politics, and also visual designs of party gear--decorations which are related to contemporary and electronic arts. All the elements I had been interested in so far were coming together in rave. I started to elaborate my own theory based on everyday experiences. GL: Do you think that techno culture is part of the leisure industry to forget daily boredom? TU: A party is not a festival or carnival to forget the routine of the everyday life. A party is a critical part within the everyday. Sometimes people think of a rave as a unusual event which is opposite to the everyday life as a 'temporary autonomous zone' (Hakim Bey). For some scholars raves are conceived and interpreted as disorder, chaos, a marginal experience, frequently depending on communitas and liminality arguments as developed by Victor Turner. Theoretically speaking these arguments are rather banal. Raves or parties are not liminal or marginal. One can bring in elements such as the gift economy, open minded communication, abandoning the sexual 'picking up,' environmental consciousness and so on. Even though it seems that rave and party can occur beyond the everyday life, beyond the border between order and disorder, the usual and unusual. Because of my involvement in rave culture people in liberal and leftist academic circles in Japan have started to criticize me. They say: 'Toshiya changed a lot. He abandoned social movements, cyber cultures and media politics.' But that's not true. These days I am much more involved in cultural politics, the politics of the everyday life than ever before. Through rave culture I am encountering a variety of urban tribes. GL: Aren't you overestimating the political dimension of the rave phenomena? TU: Most of the ravers are apolitical and lack consciousness about political issues. For instance, they don't care about Japan's colonial and imperial past. On the other hand it is very interesting that some of young trance tribes are negotiating with capital or globalization in their own way when they have to manufacture fashion gear. They don't have a political agenda but they somehow have tactics to survive or to make money in their relationship with Japan's former colonies such as Korea and Taiwan. They don't deny their eventual political agency concerning topics such as ecology and the pirate (gift) economy. As a dissident sociologist I would like to construct a political practice with these urban rave tribes in order to develop tribal solidarity in Inter-East connections through various subcultures and build bridges between Japan, Korea, Taiwan and even China. In other words, rather than being crazy about a reflection and redemptive consciousness on the Japanese colonial and imperial past, I would like to create something positive together with ravers, urban tribes and also youths and people in ex-(or post) colonial Asia. I have to say that the leftist 'authentic' and 'liberal' position in Japanese academia is failing to grasp such alternative possibilities. They tend to be too 'moralistic' by seeing history and past only in a regrettable way. I am sure that there is a similar pattern in former Yugoslavia. If the Croats for instance insist on their 'most-victim status' then you can not invent something positive or productive in tribal solidarity with others, for example with Bosnians or Serbs. GL: What do you think of the current I-mode fashion in Japan? Is there any reason for Westerners to be excited or even jealous about the Japanese wireless craze and DoCoMo in particular? TU: Certainly all of my students and the party tribes are all using mobile phones to communicate, make appointments and sometimes to get a bit of info. But I can't find any reason why westerners should be jealous about their Japanese counterparts. Concerning tactical use of mobile gear I can point to more interesting and crazy usage in Europe. Nowadays even for most dissident punks and squatters handies are really helpful technological tools. Some DJs and organizers in Japan started to distribute tracks via wireless networks. At the same time they are also are thinking about how to hook up mobile phones with MIDI instruments. Even though all this supports capitalist telecom corporations, these experiments could be really revolutionary. GL: How would you describe Internet use amongst young people in Japan? It is being said that they're not so interested. They are much more crazy about wireless applications and more protected, intimate BBS systems. Is the English language an obstacle to communicate? Cybercafes and public terminals aren't that popular compared to for instance Australia, Asia or Latin America. TU: Japanese youth are not so crazy about Internet, as far as I see, certainly not my students and the tribes around me. The aim and the way of using the Internet are quite different. They are all the time net-surfing but mainly visit Japanese sites. They are also quite skillful using computers to edit sounds and moving pictures. The web design scene is also powerful but always lacks content, especially political and theoretical one. So relatively it is true that they prefer 'stand alone using computers' over the Internet. There are only very few students who visit English based sites. Language is still an obstacle, also for me. There are not so much cybercafes in Japan because most of the people already have their own computers in the office or at home. Of course tribes in the party scene are more active on the Net in order to organize parties, wary of local authorities and police to find out. GL: Where does the 'urban tribe' concept come from? Don't you see it as a set back to go back to such an anthropological term, so close to ethnicity where there no longer is any ethnicity? Why would rave cultures be best described as 'urban tribes'? TU: The term 'tribe' was not invented by myself. For this I have to go back to Japan of 1955. One author published a novel titled Season of the Sun. It was a bestseller. It told the story of hedonistic subculture youth and caused a sensation in those days. A film was based on the novel. Increasingly that type of youth style out of the novel could be found everywhere because youth were trying to imitate the style and fashion described in Season of the Sun. Of course, this novel was inspired by the real youth of these days. And then a term was invented: 'sun tribe'. People used to call the dissident, hedonistic youth during the fifties the sun tribe (taiyo-zoku). After that in each period, 60s, 70s, 80s, mainstream press and parent cultures always used the term zoku to describe unknown youth subcultures. For example otaku-zoku, crystal-tribes (Japanese yuppies in 80s) or the speed bike tribes. Japanese are crazy about the generation gap phenomena, perhaps because we don't have visible markers amongst people. 5 or 6 years difference is already important for people. Japanese youth are very sensitive about age. Since the 90s this symptom is slowly changing. Maybe the otaki-zoku was the last tribe in Japan. Because people tried to use another term, kei, it is very difficult to translate - system or series. So, for instance, Shibuya-kei, Shibuya-series in English. Shibuya is the name of the district of Tokyo, one of youth centers in the city. So people would like to call the music genre and some fashion based on the youth in Shibuya, Shibuya-kei. Nobody these days is using the term 'tribe' anymore. But at the same time there are a lot using the term tribe or tribal in flyers for club and rave party to connote new types of music genres and specific atmosphere. Another interesting point is that the author of the Season of the Sun later became a politician in the parliament in the LDP - the dominant liberal-democratic party. He is now governor of the Tokyo metropolis and perhaps the only mayor who rejected to give the human rights to gay people or to give rights to foreigners to be able to vote. He's a real fascist or at least can be called a fanatic nationalist and historical revisionist. He is constantly denying Japan's colonial violent past. He once called Asians 'third people'. Japanese would be first, Americans and the westerners second. According to him people from other Asian countries such as migrant workers or students should be discriminated. This is a really crazy situation. Why did this man become so powerful? Because people supported him. In that way zoku and the story of tribes is not only based on sub-cultural studies, it is deeply related to Japanese politics. Recently the son of Prime Minister Koizumi, who is also populist, neo-liberal, started appearing as an actor. Despite of the poor result, he gave an audition with the title '21st century Yujiro' (Ishihara's dead brother). Such phenomena are interesting, ironical and crucial for Japanese populism and conservative cultural politics. In Japan the term 'tribe' has had a specific meaning. In the late 40's in Osaka, the second biggest city in Japan, there were squat villages, squat towns of Korean residents. They were very much discriminated. In those villages there was a lot of scrap of steel underground. They tried to dig up this scrap and get money by selling it. But this scrap was the national property of Japanese national government. And then the conflict between the police and the Korean residents started. It made a sensation in those days. These Korean residents called themselves the 'Apache tribe.' They compared their position with native-American. Numerous authors and novelists wrote the novel featuring this 'Apache tribe.' One of them was an SF called Japanese Apache Tribe, written by Sakyo Komatsu, in which Apache tribe appeared as a mutant having iron body something like cyborg or T-1000 in Terminator 2. It is a well-known fact that this novel influenced the underground cult movie Testuo. I am sure that some SF freaks or club techno tribes regard this film as a legendary piece. GL: You have been working with the 'digital diaspora' concept. Could you explain this? To what extend would you support a withdrawal into the Net? Could we speak of productive monads and where does this inward looking become eccentric and obsessive otaku-ism? You have been critical of the figure of the otaku and the Western fascination for this so-called typical Japanese obsessive behavior of the 'otaku' data collector. Where does a sub-culture in Japan have possibilities for resistance, and at what point do 'temporary autonomous zones' transform into consumer-driven lifestyles? TU: By using the term digital diaspora I don't mean the disappearance of human lives and bodies into the Net. Rather, I use it to talk about a diaspora within the Net (or generated through the Net). Historically diaspora cultures can be found around the world. Some theoreticians working on the diaspora topic have used the term of web or network. The term 'diaspora web' was introduced by Paul Gilroy. These days this terminology is no longer a mere metaphor but rather a sort of allegory for the reality itself to which we are faced up. We are now faced with broader cyberspaces through network technology. Not only due to computers but also via radio or telephones the information 'seas' have been expanding. Not only through the power of Internet, actually some refugees and people in diaspora began to keep their lives in diaspora through video distributions or computer networks and other electronic technologies. One could mention refugee communities in Perth (Australia) coming from Croatia or Macedonia. They are using VCR technology to maintain the relationship to their original place. And also one can put as example, some independent media in Amsterdam to support people coming from ex-Yugoslavia, (as described in Dona Kolar-Panov, Video, War and the Diasporic Imagination, Routledge,1997). Information technology and telecommunications are developing the diaspora notion into new directions. Diaspora in general is connected to moving and migration forced by some power relations including economic, political, religious and so on. To describe the things and the cultural elements moved, like dreadlocks, T-shirts, and music etc, one can appropriate the term cultural diaspora to interpret such a circulation. Certainly diaspora is a sort of cultural traveling and causes traveling theory, but it should not be confused with globalization in general or postmodern pastiche eclecticism which is based on the 'anything goes' parameter. But on the other hand it is becoming difficult to maintain the dichotomy between real refugees, illegal migrants, asylum people, 'suffered diaspora,' ravers, hooligans, travelers, tourists and the 'cultural diaspora.' It is becoming difficult to distinguish forced settlement and voluntary migration, dwelling and traveling in a rigid way. We, I mean critic or intellectuals in the 'first world', are in between the 'suffered' and the 'observer'. Diaspora is crucial tactical tool and even medium or space to analyze this situation. GL: What does the diaspora condition got to do with the specific Japanese 'otaku' phenomena, the manic collectors of instance records, magazines and games? TU: In the past I have criticized the term otaku but not the otaku people themselves. I am criticizing the cultural condition of otaku and its political context. I myself am an otaku of sorts, being crazy about Japanese animations and psychedelic trance techno. I am skeptical about Japanese art based on otaku-ism. Western people are fascinated by otaku culture and that's why it can be marketable. Some even try to emphasize the cultural traditions and history of otaku. They say Japanese culture has always been dominated by collectors infomania. For them Japanese history has been postmodern and eclectic right from the start. GL: Where does the difficulty to communicate between scenes, movements and disciplines within Japan come from? It is striking to see how many useless frictions and anxieties there are, between artists, scholars, institutions, activists. This makes it rather difficult, I suppose, to set up networks in Japan. The only communication which seem to work are the very private, intimate channels on certain bulletin board systems (BBS). There seems to be a form of competition, not related to work, money or income. This fact has made it difficult to set up a half-way independent and interesting new media arts scene in Japan. Japanese we get to meet in the West do not collaborate in Japan. It seems much easier for them to meet in New York, Amsterdam or Paris then in their own country. Do you believe that this is simply cultural (as a 'second nature') and therefore next to impossible to change? Isn't it interesting that this overdose of communication devices hasn't had a significant impact on this specific aspect of Japanese society? Or should we view this observation as yet another culturalism? TU: Well, I don't want to say that there is particular inability to communicate in Japan. I am actually highly skeptical about any form of culturalism or cultural essentialism. But to be honest, I have also have felt the useless frictions amongst the different urban tribes in Japan on numerous occasions. I am fed up with that situation. That is the reason why I am frequently staying in Europe. Maybe others also feel like that. For instance, in Japan, media artists are generally not interested in politics and especially not in Japanese politics. On the other hand, most of the leftist intellectuals have never heard of media art or media activism. Tetsuo Kogawa and Toshimaru Ogura are great exceptions of course. The former was founder of free radio movement in Japan and still very active for experiments of streaming and developing critical media theory. The latter is radical media activist and theorist organizing anti-wiretap and anti-echelon movement. In fact, I myself have not met them since long time. Tokyo is too huge to see each other. Toshimaru is living far away from Tokyo. There is a deep gap. Of course this gap is both cultural and political. Cultural studies is recently becoming popular in leftist and liberal academic circles. But most scholars reduce cultural studies to a method for criticizing the notion of the nation state. Their arguments have never reached younger generations or urban subcultural tribes on the streets or scenes such as hip hop or rave, even though they could easily be against the nation state and its cultural hegemony. Take the example of LETS (local trading system) in Japan. That's a popular concept at the moment amongst critical intellectuals. Koujin Karatani and partly Akira Asada, who always prefers the 'safety zone' rather than the real 'critical space,' are at the moment involved in organizing NAM, the New Associatist Movement, which is a network of LETS in Japan. I support LETS, its theory and especially its practices. Being one of the ravers and organizers of small illegal parties I respect every form of gift-economy style and reciprocal symbolic economy. So why don't I join NAM? Despite of Akira and Koujin's nasty and cynical gestures towards social movements during 80's, it is good to see what they are doing. But there is an old type of politics at work within NAM. Karatani and others are putting out the theory, and then people can do LETS activities according to the theorists' system. Volunteers work within the structure elaborated by intellectuals and theoreticians. This in my opinion points at an outdated and unnecessary contrast between theory and practice. Their classifications on some parts in the movement are very ironic. They call their small groups 'kei' meaning series or system, in contrast to tribe. So you have bunka-kei (culture series), lilon-kei (theory series), undou-kei (movement series) and so on. It sounds like a bad joke to the subcultural urban tribes. Karatani and Asada's take on social movements is to ignore and neglect the organic and transversal relationships amongst different scenes. What I am trying to do is setting up small pirate radio stations and flea market activities during open air raves. Indeed, there is a difference in understanding between tribes such as rave and punk and hip-hop. But that's a much better situation than the classic binary opposition between theory and practice. Karatani labeled NAM as a new type of communism. Probably that's right. But he does not think about the people's reaction. By using the term communism NAM is losing interesting people and tribes. Their way of communication is using classic leftist language in an almost tragic-comic way. I am familiar with it but most people are not. I wished NAM and various urban tribes and subcultural scenes would shake hands and build an affective and effective alliance. For that vision a cultural politics would be crucial, a politics which communicates within the scenes rather than mere political rhetoric. It can be called cultural politics. Technology can change the way of communication in each cultural and political context. That is why I restarted the pirate mini FM free radio idea during open air parties. I would like create hybrids amongst different urban tribes such as techno, punk, eco, anarcho, rave, new age, otaku, the left and other dissidents. GL: What is the current level of media theory in Japan? We don't hear much about it. I can't think of any Japanese contemporary theory being translated. We actually only hear about theory import into Japan, not the other way round. Is this because there's nothing going on? This can hardy be the case. Is the produced theory only of local interest? What's reason for this theory deficit? TU: There are a few tendencies within Japanese media theory. The first is mainly developed in academic field and is called media studies. There are some layers and spectrum goes from audience research to more positivist methodologies. Basically researchers don't want to go outside of universities and academic circles. Most of them are not enthusiastic to use media technology themselves. There are a few translations or papers available in English. The second tendency would be a form of criticism to be found within new media art, connected to the Internet hype and early-mid 90s media technologies. That is why it used to have financial support from big corporations but that's fading away. Unfortunately new media arts lacks the vision on the broader political economy of its own field. That is why corporations can safely speculate their money into 'speculative' media theory . The third tendency would be the activist 'tactical' media. But that stream is very micro and weak in Japan. As I mentioned, Tetsuo and Toshimaru are active in both theory and action. They are paying attention to the economy and politics of the media and Internet. I am not that satisfied with the theoretical level of the three currents. For most of the time I have been moving between the three and taken difficult in-between positions. What is crucial in this context is how we can build bridges between the different media tribes. GL: Over the last few years you have been going to a wide range of raves, from illegal parties in German forests, squatters parties in Amsterdam, raves in Zagreb to solar eclipse parties in Hungary and Zambia. You also attend a variety of raves in Japan, from expensive Tokyo club events to informal events in parks and in the mountains. Do you see yourself as a modern anthropologist studying rave culture? Have you encountered any problems with this form of 'participatory research'? TU: There is a 'belonging without identity' as described by Gorgio Agamben and Lawrence Grossberg which goes beyond the usual definition of community as a social entity with shared values. Without identification on fixed and stable positions it is possible to belong to a tribe. Tribal formation are not one. Within one tribe we can find diverse styles, differences in taste and even conflicts over how to live ones life. When subculturalists say ' (s)he is tribal' it means that there is an open group-minded feeling, a solidarity and tolerance for other tribes and different styles. It point at a consciousness against the mainstream of this civilization and its globalization. For example, tribal cultures within the rave scene show respect for so-called traditional tribal or quasi-premodern cultures and their 'indigenous' way of living. This respect is so distant from the way in which journalism and political science talk about 'tribal wars.' The position of the DJ in all this is highly significant. The DJ functions as a mediator and catalyst to both inform and transform people how to enter other dimensions of the world. They could be considered the shamans of the cyber age. But this shaman is at the same time an 'organic intellectual' in a Gramscian sense, organizing people to get to other horizons of society through 'partying.' Becoming a DJ has influenced my way of writing in many ways. Both positions, the sociologist and the DJ consist of a cut'n'mix of materials produced by others. Usually a DJ does not compose or create the music tracks him or herself. The DJ cut'n'mix is '(re)inventing' and (re)elaborating already existing sounds. The same can be said about the work of the sociologist or theoretician as a TJ (text jockey). We can no longer pretend to create 'theory' out of the blue. We always first collect material, texts and resources and then start quoting, editing and appropriating passages from past works. That is do-it-yourself within theoretical practice. Kodwo Eshun's notion of 'remixology' is quite suggestive. Sometimes I am asking myself: am I a sociologist or just a tribal raver? It is a really difficult question to answer. I don't want to merely celebrate rave culture. There are a lot of problems such as hedonism, consumerism, drug issues, frictions amongst tribes and organizers, negotiations with local authority and police have to made, etc. I never face any problem during my 'participatory observation' or fieldwork research. Maybe this is because of my enthusiasm to join the party. The difficulty is lying somewhere else. I do not have the proper language yet to talk to both academic circles and party tribes. It might even be impossible. I would like to invent a different way to theorize everyday life. ------------------------------ End of issho V1 #1467 ********************* Unsubscribing? Send an email to majordomo@ml.gol.com with "unsubscribe issho-digest" in the body of the message (without the quotation marks). Subscribing? Send an email to majordomo@ml.gol.com with "subscribe issho-digest" in the body of the message (without quotations) ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 10:06:20 -0700 Reply-To: tbrady@msgidirect.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Aaron, Much of the foreign aid money sent to Afghanistan this year was part of another unwinnable, undefinable war -- the war on drugs. That $43 million, for example, was tied to the Taliban's "commitment" to poppy eradication. Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Aaron Belz Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 1:13 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated Lawrence Upton wrote: > > Afghanistan is on the brink of starvation. > > Regardless of whether or not they have harboured murderous criminals - and > they are murderous, no problem with that - I suggest that the USA and UK > (10% or so of the dead Americans were actually British) start flying in > *massive aid, gratis - more than we have ever before. All we need say is > that we understand what it is to face death, to feel one is without hope. > Here, have this, we are all the same. When you have the time, could you help > us find out who attacked us? > > If we are going to have a crusade, let's do it the easy way. Let's > demonstrate the effect of belief in that God in whom so many of us trust Someone just sent me an article with this paragraph in it: "This year, the U.S. continued a Clinton-era policy and committed more than $100 million in foreign aid to Afghanistan -- making us the country's largest humanitarian donor. In May, Secretary of State Colin Powell announced an additional $43 million in relief, which includes 65,000 tons of wheat, vegetable oil, blended foods, health programs and shelter. Naive officials claim that none of this aid will go to the Taliban because it is being filtered through international agencies of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations." Is this true? I am as interested as anyone in knowing the facts. I agree that we should not take any action that *in any way* would hurt the people of Afghanistan. -Aaron ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:01:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Chomsky Interview by Radio B92, Belgrade on WTC bombings (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:12:40 -0400 From: Drazen Pantic To: nettime Subject: Chomsky Interview by Radio B92, Belgrade on WTC bombings Interviewing Chomsky Radio B92, Belgrade Why do you think these attacks happened? To answer the question we must first identify the perpetrators of the crimes. It is generally assumed, plausibly, that their origin is the Middle East region, and that the attacks probably trace back to the Osama Bin Laden network, a widespread and complex organization, doubtless inspired by Bin Laden but not necessarily acting under his control. Let us assume that this is true. Then to answer your question a sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden's views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters he has throughout the region. About all of this, we have a great deal of information. Bin Laden has been interviewed extensively over the years by highly reliable Middle East specialists, notably the most eminent correspondent in the region, Robert Fisk (London _Independent_), who has intimate knowledge of the entire region and direct experience over decades. A Saudi Arabian millionaire, Bin Laden became a militant Islamic leader in the war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He was one of the many religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and financed by the CIA and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to cause maximal harm to the Russians -- quite possibly delaying their withdrawal, many analysts suspect -- though whether he personally happened to have direct contact with the CIA is unclear, and not particularly important. Not surprisingly, the CIA preferred the most fanatic and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end result was to "destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans" (_London Times_ correspondent Simon Jenkins, also a specialist on the region). These "Afghanis" as they are called (many, like Bin Laden, not from Afghanistan) carried out terror operations across the border in Russia, but they terminated these after Russia withdrew. Their war was not against Russia, which they despise, but against the Russian occupation and Russia's crimes against Muslims. The "Afghanis" did not terminate their activities, however. They joined Bosnian Muslim forces in the Balkan Wars; the US did not object, just as it tolerated Iranian support for them, for complex reasons that we need not pursue here, apart from noting that concern for the grim fate of the Bosnians was not prominent among them. The "Afghanis" are also fighting the Russians in Chechnya, and, quite possibly, are involved in carrying out terrorist attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russian territory. Bin Laden and his "Afghanis" turned against the US in 1990 when they established permanent bases in Saudi Arabia -- from his point of view, a counterpart to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, but far more significant because of Saudi Arabia's special status as the guardian of the holiest shrines. Bin Laden is also bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive regimes of the region, which he regards as "un-Islamic," including the Saudi Arabian regime, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime in the world, apart from the Taliban, and a close US ally since its origins. Bin Laden despises the US for its support of these regimes. Like others in the region, he is also outraged by long-standing US support for Israel's brutal military occupation, now in its 35th year: Washington's decisive diplomatic, military, and economic intervention in support of the killings, the harsh and destructive siege over many years, the daily humiliation to which Palestinians are subjected, the expanding settlements designed to break the occupied territories into Bantustan-like cantons and take control of the resources, the gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, and other actions that are recognized as crimes throughout most of the world, apart from the US, which has prime responsibility for them. And like others, he contrasts Washington's dedicated support for these crimes with the decade-long US-British assault against the civilian population of Iraq, which has devastated the society and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while strengthening Saddam Hussein -- who was a favored friend and ally of the US and Britain right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, as people of the region also remember well, even if Westerners prefer to forget the facts. These sentiments are very widely shared. The _Wall Street Journal_ (Sept. 14) published a survey of opinions of wealthy and privileged Muslims in the Gulf region (bankers, professionals, businessmen with close links to the U.S.). They expressed much the same views: resentment of the U.S. policies of supporting Israeli crimes and blocking the international consensus on a diplomatic settlement for many years while devastating Iraqi civilian society, supporting harsh and repressive anti-democratic regimes throughout the region, and imposing barriers against economic development by "propping up oppressive regimes." Among the great majority of people suffering deep poverty and oppression, similar sentiments are far more bitter, and are the source of the fury and despair that has led to suicide bombings, as commonly understood by those who are interested in the facts. The U.S., and much of the West, prefers a more comforting story. To quote the lead analysis in the _New York Times_ (Sept. 16), the perpetrators acted out of "hatred for the values cherished in the West as freedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrage." U.S. actions are irrelevant, and therefore need not even be mentioned (Serge Schmemann). This is a convenient picture, and the general stance is not unfamiliar in intellectual history; in fact, it is close to the norm. It happens to be completely at variance with everything we know, but has all the merits of self-adulation and uncritical support for power. It is also widely recognized that Bin Laden and others like him are praying for "a great assault on Muslim states," which will cause "fanatics to flock to his cause" (Jenkins, and many others.). That too is familiar. The escalating cycle of violence is typically welcomed by the harshest and most brutal elements on both sides, a fact evident enough from the recent history of the Balkans, to cite only one of many cases. What consequences will they have on US inner policy and to the American self reception? US policy has already been officially announced. The world is being offered a "stark choice": join us, or "face the certain prospect of death and destruction." Congress has authorized the use of force against any individuals or countries the President determines to be involved in the attacks, a doctrine that every supporter regards as ultra-criminal. That is easily demonstrated. Simply ask how the same people would have reacted if Nicaragua had adopted this doctrine after the U.S. had rejected the orders of the World Court to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua and had vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law. And that terrorist attack was far more severe and destructive even than this atrocity. As for how these matters are perceived here, that is far more complex. One should bear in mind that the media and the intellectual elites generally have their particular agendas. Furthermore, the answer to this question is, in significant measure, a matter of decision: as in many other cases, with sufficient dedication and energy, efforts to stimulate fanaticism, blind hatred, and submission to authority can be reversed. We all know that very well. Do you expect U.S. to profoundly change their policy to the rest of the world? The initial response was to call for intensifying the policies that led to the fury and resentment that provides the background of support for the terrorist attack, and to pursue more intensively the agenda of the most hard line elements of the leadership: increased militarization, domestic regimentation, attack on social programs. That is all to be expected. Again, terror attacks, and the escalating cycle of violence they often engender, tend to reinforce the authority and prestige of the most harsh and repressive elements of a society. But there is nothing inevitable about submission to this course. After the first shock, came fear of what the U.S. answer is going to be. Are you afraid, too? Every sane person should be afraid of the likely reaction -- the one that has already been announced, the one that probably answers Bin Laden's prayers. It is highly likely to escalate the cycle of violence, in the familiar way, but in this case on a far greater scale. The U.S. has already demanded that Pakistan terminate the food and other supplies that are keeping at least some of the starving and suffering people of Afghanistan alive. If that demand is implemented, unknown numbers of people who have not the remotest connection to terrorism will die, possibly millions. Let me repeat: the U.S. has demanded that Pakistan kill possibly millions of people who are themselves victims of the Taliban. This has nothing to do even with revenge. It is at a far lower moral level even than that. The significance is heightened by the fact that this is mentioned in passing, with no comment, and probably will hardly be noticed. We can learn a great deal about the moral level of the reigning intellectual culture of the West by observing the reaction to this demand. I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled. It would be instructive to seek historical precedents. If Pakistan does not agree to this and other U.S. demands, it may come under direct attack as well -- with unknown consequences. If Pakistan does submit to U.S. demands, it is not impossible that the government will be overthrown by forces much like the Taliban -- who in this case will have nuclear weapons. That could have an effect throughout the region, including the oil producing states. At this point we are considering the possibility of a war that may destroy much of human society. Even without pursuing such possibilities, the likelihood is that an attack on Afghans will have pretty much the effect that most analysts expect: it will enlist great numbers of others to support of Bin Laden, as he hopes. Even if he is killed, it will make little difference. His voice will be heard on cassettes that are distributed throughout the Islamic world, and he is likely to be revered as a martyr, inspiring others. It is worth bearing in mind that one suicide bombing -- a truck driven into a U.S. military base -- drove the world's major military force out of Lebanon 20 years ago. The opportunities for such attacks are endless. And suicide attacks are very hard to prevent. "The world will never be the same after 11.09.01". Do you think so? The horrendous terrorist attacks on Tuesday are something quite new in world affairs, not in their scale and character, but in the target. For the US, this is the first time since the War of 1812 that its national territory has been under attack, even threat. It's colonies have been attacked, but not the national territory itself. During these years the US virtually exterminated the indigenous population, conquered half of Mexico, intervened violently in the surrounding region, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines (killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos), and in the past half century particularly, extended its resort to force throughout much of the world. The number of victims is colossal. For the first time, the guns have been directed the other way. The same is true, even more dramatically, of Europe. Europe has suffered murderous destruction, but from internal wars, meanwhile conquering much of the world with extreme brutality. It has not been under attack by its victims outside, with rare exceptions (the IRA in England, for example). It is therefore natural that NATO should rally to the support of the US; hundreds of years of imperial violence have an enormous impact on the intellectual and moral culture. It is correct to say that this is a novel event in world history, not because of the scale of the atrocity -- regrettably -- but because of the target. How the West chooses to react is a matter of supreme importance. If the rich and powerful choose to keep to their traditions of hundreds of years and resort to extreme violence, they will contribute to the escalation of a cycle of violence, in a familiar dynamic, with long-term consequences that could be awesome. Of course, that is by no means inevitable. An aroused public within the more free and democratic societies can direct policies towards a much more humane and honorable course. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 07:55:46 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Webster Schultz Subject: Re: The Flag, etc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There's a wonderful line in Adrienne Rich's _Atlas of the Difficult World_, Kasey, to the effect that "a patriot is not a missile." She wrote in response to the Gulf War. While I'm here, let me say that I've been very moved by the religious outpourings of the past week. I've attended two very crowded Buddhist services and watched some of the ecumenical services shown on television. We oughtn't to confuse religious/spiritual feeling with "crusade" or "extremism," except where that is what it is (Falwell and Robertson). I was impressed at the moderation of the services, the way in which they addressed the need to grieve rather than the desire for revenge. As ritual, I think they've been extremely important. Thanks to everyone for their words. aloha, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:58:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: claank design Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? In-Reply-To: <138.1c61189.28d9275d@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I mean face an episode in which what we believed to be true turned out not to be and take from that experience a greater depth of awareness at a time when we are so easily inflamed by what we 'know' about current events. I do not mean we should start circulating misinformation. Andrea > From: Murat Nemet-Nejat > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:40:29 EDT > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: Palestinian footage fake? > > In a message dated 9/18/01 2:59:42 PM, infant@RCN.COM writes: > >> I'm thankful that this information of the 'false' images is circulating. >> >> True or not this is a good time for people to be on their toes about news >> >> spinning. >> >> >> >> > > Do you mean fight against spinning with misinformation? > > Murat ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:07:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: Bin Laden Family and poets (from M.P.) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Marjorie Perloff wrote: >>And further: it increasingly looks as if the terrorist infiltration is so great right here in the U.S. that I think there will be no attack on Afghanistan or other places in Middle East at all. >> The odds of that can be represented by the mathematical sign read as "infinitely approaching zero." Don't kid yourself. There will be both overt and covert military action by the US government. LF ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:22:15 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: gender & war (& Arafat) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Camille, thank you for bringing up many issues, including those of sexuality and gender. I have refrained all week from remarks that might alienate the opposite sex, because we all need each other perhaps now more than ever, but it is impossible to ignore (or accept) the fact that there are so many male public voices now and so few female. I walked to church with my Mom on Sunday afternoon and we lit candles for Mary. There was a mass going on but I couldn't stand to listen to one more man at a podium. The Taliban bears similarity to the forces within the US that helped get Bush to power. Cf particularly that extremist US Christian group (name escapes me) that is calling for a return to women submitting/surrendering to their husbands/fathers. And getting stadium crowds last I heard. (The blame for these turns of events does not lie solely with the males of the species I might add.) These days of really feeling the possibility of the collapse of sanity (not to mention existence!) on a world wide level, the possible end of the world, at least for humans, ---- to me this is in part brought on by the misogyny of the most powerful religions and governments and men in the (current) world, as well as the misogyny closer to home, even that which I carry within myself, marked as we each are by my own culture and experience. This strikes me. With all respect to Marjorie Perloff, and I have a lot, the forwarded comment about Arafat disturbed me. I may have read it as a bit gleeful when it wasn't at all intended in that way, but I would just like to add as a counterbalance that I have felt nothing but sympathy for Arafat this week, as a man and a tired longtime leader. My prayers are with he and with Sharon in hopes that they can both act reasonable and with an eye toward the large picture, one which is very much larger than who in a small geographical area can or can't stand their neighbors. And one which is very much larger than any "superpower", "satanic" or otherwise. My love and hope to all, plants and animals very included, Elizabeth "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 11:30:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: PS mothers & war Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed PS Also on Sunday, one of my dearest friends was at the park with her toddler when a news crew showed up. "They wanted a mother to say she was against war," she reported to me in her trademark quizzical manner, and said that she had obliged. Of course she along with all of us knows it is more complicated than that. ETJ "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:21:12 -0700 Reply-To: tbrady@msgidirect.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: <000701c140bb$45a6b5e0$3353fea9@oemcomputer> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Ron, Much of what you've written here goes straight to the heart of our current dilemma. I too am distressed by the pious hand-wringing of much of the left. I too find the posture of self-reflection an inaequate response -- though a necessary component of any adequate response: not the question "why?" as if it explained the attacks away, but the question "how?" as in "How did this happen, and what actions on our part will best prevent its happening again?" And any such question necessarily includes an understanding of failed U.S. policy in the Middle East and southwest Asia. Not as background, but as prospect: we must learn how not to repeat ourselves. Your remarks on solidarity, on the room for contact and coalition within the charged symbolism of the flag, are well taken. On a personal note, Nick's posting got me to talk to my downstairs neighbors, who have bedecked our building's front entrance with the largest flag on the block, one so oversized it literally slaps me in the face as I come up the steps. I guess you can detect my ambivalence in that description. But you and Nick are right, there's room for a constructive encounter in that symbolic space. So I talked to them a bit, and as it turns out, for them at least it stands for exactly what I feared it did. (At one point the phrase "turn Kabul into a crater" came up). Since then, though, I've found out that this is not universally the case on my block, in my neighborhood, in my city. We're all having to learn quickly to keep our knees from jerking. And you are absolutely right that any response from the left has to organize itself around an acknowledgement of the inevitability of the use of force, and that sadly much of the response up to this moment has not. But I question the way you map the distinction between these poles of action and inaction onto that between seeing the attack as a crime vs. seeing it as an act of war. I don't think that many of those who hold to the former position are so benighted as to really believe that such a criminal investigation and prosecution could be pursued without the use of significant military force. The question for us is "what kind of force," and "held to what standards of accountability." The problem with a declaration of war, and especially with the Bush resolution, as you yourself point out, is that states like the U.S. know how to declare war on other states, not on rhizomic transnational networks. So our first step is one of surrogation. And if that doesn't make the whole enterprise "a war that is a surrogate for a solution," it certainly drags us pretty far in that direction. Add to that the consideration that this administration, and the national security apparatus at its heart, is committed to a particular kind of state-to-state warfare involving direct military assaults on civilians and economic blockades to "starve out" those left standing after the bombs have fallen. And then add to that the consideration that one of the first responses from the White House and the intelligence world was the assertion that we needed to put human-rights violators back on the CIA payroll (well, at least "back on the payroll" in the publicly acknowledged sense), and lift our ban on extra-judicial executions, and I think you get some inkling of why many of us are looking for an alternative to war. It's not simply that the Bush administration and its electronic media allies have a headlock on the rhetoric of war -- though that's an important consideration. It's also that our material apparatus of war is geared to produce exactly such a conflict. I suppose what I'm saying here is that you might be right. The appeal to criminal justice and international law (and especially the rescue of bodies of international law from their currently underdeveloped (deliberately, by us) state) might be quixotic, might in fact be unrealistic "pussyfooting." But I fear it's no less unrealistic to rely on our ability to effectively argue into place a rhetoric and machinery of war that refrains from killing civilians, that doesn't target states as surrogates for non-state organizations, and that doesn't simply continue by overwhelming force the last half-century of failed U.S. policy -- and to do all this arguing and constructing in the next few days, before the bombs start falling and the blockades are fully in place. Given such a situation, I don't think it's surprising that many on the left are simply yelling "stop." Is this an adequate response? No, you're right about that. And you're right that our dissent shouldn't lead off with "background," "wherefores," and mitigations. We do need to begin with the acknowledgement that something _must_ be done. Starting from precisely that position, though, is what leads me to the argument that the Bush war plan is perhaps the _worst_ way to accomplish everyone's goal, which is to make sure those immediately responsible are unable to launch another such attack (or something worse), and to greatly lessen the possibility of similar horrors in the future. And the difficulty we face in such a position is that, given the swiftly manufactured consensus, any criticism of the President's "unlimited use of force" atuhorization is seen as opposition to the use of force as such. Unfortunately, the corollary seems to be that declaring ourselves _for_ war commits us to that resolution pre-emptively. If we had our choice of wars, I might find myself in closer agreement with you. But right now I think we only have the one, and getting ourselves clear of it isn't simply a matter of arguing for policy changes, but of fundamentally reorienting a massive material apparatus along entirely different lines. It's a goal worth having, but I don't think it'll be accomplished in time to wage _this_ war along those lines. On a personal note again, I think of my younger brother, finishing his USMC combat training at the naval base in Pensacola, and about to be swept up in this war. He's an adult (though barely), and he made his choice to enlist late last year -- along with a disproportionate share of the young men from the neighborhood where I grew up, which was effectively bypassed by the 90's "boom," and hit harder than most by the recent "corrections." I think I can live with his choice, and theirs, though it's hard. I think I can bring myself at least to acknowledge that they will put themselves at risk, and some of them might die, because of this choice. But if that risk, and those possible deaths, are in the service of nothing better than the counterposing of wholesale terror against retail terror, I think it will break me. And I think it will break this country. Peace, Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Ron Silliman Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 8:29 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: What is to be done I've been thinking for days about how best to write this - and I still have no clue, so I'm just going to wade in and hope for the best. I've been asked what I think about "all this" by some two dozen people, and what I think is this. It is time for progressives to act, but not on the past dragged on as habit. The horrific attack on four jetliners, the World Trade Center and the Pentagon last week places everybody under extraordinary kinds of pressure right now - I must have seen one hundred or so American males openly cry on television over the past week (and even Bush barely kept it together when a reporter in the Oval Office asked him about his feelings). The attack places progressives into a particularly difficult and painful spot. So far, my impression is that the left as a whole has not responded well and is mostly doing a bang-up job of isolating itself at the worst possible moment in history. The argument that a U.S.-led coalition, or even the U.S. on its own, should not respond militarily to the death of over 5,000 people, all but a hundred or so of them civilians, is based on premises that reveal an absolute inability to look at the circumstances directly. Instead, people seem to be continuing on some mode of automatic pilot that is well-intended, but ultimately self-defeating. The present situation is qualitatively different from the Vietnam War or Desert Storm. To pretend otherwise and to trot out the same old slogans is itself potentially a disaster from which the left may not soon recover. To quote the subhead of Richard Sennett's excellent article in yesterday's Guardian, "The traditional left-right dispute is irrelevant to these abnormal times." (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,554037,00.html) To focus exclusively on what the U.S. might (and may well) do wrong in responding to the attack is to miss the point so completely that it is going to be difficult, if not impossible, later on, to be taken seriously. That is what I think is at stake. Consider these points: (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be suffering effects from for years. (2) What would happen to any government that did NOT respond militarily to such an attack on civilians on its soil? Frankly, it would collapse. Bush would be impeached or worse. Politicians are for the most part followers, craven followers at that, and the reaction by the professional pols has been completely predictable. (3) Does anybody anywhere honestly think that this network, whether or not we inscribe bin Laden's name in as the CEO, will not, at some future moment, do something as bad or worse if it is not broken up? Do we not think that it would use a nuclear weapon if it had a chance? Anthrax? (4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve its behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate the impetus behind these attacks? That it could do so quickly enough to forestall future assaults? (5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 3 without literally abandoning Israel? (6) Can anybody here imagine a U.S. electoral politician advocating some version of #4? See that last comment under #1 again. (7) Even if those last three points were politically do-able in the near future, is there anybody who cannot imagine what THAT ensuing war would look like? This, it seems to me, is the double-bind of this situation. And that is why I find it so personally painful right now to be a left pacifist, which I still am. Hal Meyerson, the longtime Papa Bear of the Los Angeles democratic left who is now the executive editor of The American Prospect, put it very succinctly when he noted last week that there really are no legitimate reasons to go to war except when somebody decides to go to war against you - and in this case someone very definitely has. (http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/09/meyerson-h-2.html) In the face of all this, to argue against the use of force in breaking up the network of terrorist cells is to confess that one is not only tone deaf to the popular will, manipulated or otherwise (and I suspect, frankly, that the media, like the pols, is much more a follower than a leader in this), it is even wrong in terms of the protection of Americans. To the extent that the American left and its allies puts its eggs into this basket, it is going to find itself with very little credibility remaining with which to make the far more crucial arguments that need to be made right now. This is especially true since the folks running the American government, and thus the American campaign - thanks again, Ralph Nader - are the worst possible people to have in power at this historical moment. What makes them the worst possible people, besides the obvious, is the unique problem of this point in history. Presuming, as I do here, that force is inevitable, the real questions that must be confronted are what force, against whom, and how? Traditional military strategy argues that one identifies the center of gravity of one's opponent and attacks that. In a typical war, that usually means taking out some country's infrastructure so that it lacks the means to sustain itself and fight back. Even George W. Bush recognizes that this loose coalition of activist cells that he characterizes as a terrorist network is not "some country." Not only does al-Qaeda and its affiliates lack the trappings of statehood and the infrastructure that normally accrue with that, this coalition has been consciously built - a progression that can be traced back to the use of cells by Algerian revolutionaries in the 1950s - so as not to have any true center of gravity. It's a rhizome, almost like the point-to-point computing model one associates with post-Napster MP3 ripping, while the U.S. military' s experience is telling it to hunt for a mainframe somewhere. The whole reason that Bush et al have spent so much time talking about the "states that harbor and sponsor" al-Qaeda is because the U.S. military knows how to attack a state. It is far less ready to go after something that doesn 't really have a head. In fact, what the U.S. media campaign has done with bin Laden has been to build up his reputation simply to make of him a feasible personal target. While bin Laden's individual wealth has been of real value in giving these groups the time, leisure and resources to train, plan and execute "martyr operations," there is thus far (9/18) relatively little evidence that bin Laden himself did anything more direct with regards to this particular tragedy. Lets presume, for a moment, that the U.S. manages to capture or kill bin Laden and even to force the downfall of the Taliban (which would have a beneficial impact for the people of Afghanistan, especially women). Does anybody think that this means that this network would not be able to find resources elsewhere to continue figuring out ways to attack the United States and global capitalism generally? Hardly. So what I fear most is a god-awful bloody and useless war that leaves nobody any safer than they are today. What I fear is a war that is a surrogate for a solution. And we can't afford to not solve this quandary. The collapse of the towers has raised the ante amid the terrorists markedly. The next assault will almost have to be nuclear or biological even to get our media-weary attention. This is where the left has a role that it can and must play for the good of all. Progressives need to focus on the necessity of the U.S. (1) proving itself to be better than terrorists by not targeting civilians, (2) seriously educating the American population on the sources of resentment that the U.S. (and especially U.S. capital) generates worldwide, (3) keeping totalitarian forces in the U.S. from deleting the Bill of Rights in the name of security, (4) acknowledging that embargoes only punish the poor and reversing this long-term "containment" strategy once and for all, not just in Iraq but everywhere, (5) raising the issue of the need for a true solution of the "Palestine problem" (it's not the only festering sore of U.S. foreign policy, just the most blatant one in that region), (6) protecting American citizens and residents both from North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia from racist reprisals, (7) dealing with all the important ancillary issues that accompany these questions, (8) raising the issue of dictatorship with all our "allies," and (9) taking control of globalization away from multinational corporations. If the left can address these, with focus and intelligence, it potentially can have a shaping influence on the outcome of this struggle. That role could prove to be far more important even than the one that progressives had in ending the conflict in Indochina a generation ago. But progressives can do this only if we retain some semblance of credibility. To take any position that can be perceived as inaction in the face of the enormous physical and emotional wound that confronts the American people serves only to exacerbate the reputation of the left as a movement completely out of touch with reality. Julian Borger, also writing in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,553876,00.html) , gets it right when he argues against the idea that "Americans should be asking themselves why this happened to them . . . . Rather than getting angry, then, they should be meditating and wondering what they have done wrong. "This point of view seems to me to be detached to the point of inhumanity. Moreover, it is driven by an internal logic that is utterly bogus. That logic, insinuated between the lines, suggests that the horror visited on thousands of New Yorkers must be balanced somewhere by an equal and opposite evil that the US has inflicted upon someone else." Borger is correct in acknowledging that that position fails to acknowledge the enormity of the assault. It will certainly be rejected by a huge majority of people. As it should be. And that position also fails to address the ugly reality that, without action, future attacks are inevitable, and that the death toll in the towers has raised the bar for ambitious future martyrs. Nick Piombino's post to this list on the flag's role not as an icon of war mongering, but as a transitional object in the grieving process, makes perfect sense to me. I've been struck at how radically differently it has been used in the past week than, say, the yellow ribbon campaign during the Gulf War, a soft swastika if ever there was one. If anything, the flag's role this time around has been one of solidarity, an emblem not of the state but of the people. Coming out of the Vietnam experience, I never thought I would see the stars & stripes used that way. But there it is. And it's everywhere. This solidarity is a unique and probably temporary phenomenon. It is certainly something that the left needs to address and to examine. But a movement that surrenders its credibility by pretending that the murder of more than 5,000 people doesn't warrant a response, or which pussyfoots around the issue by reframing the assault as "criminal" rather than as an act of war, will have silenced itself before it has ever had the chance to speak. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:09:37 -0600 Reply-To: Mary Angeline Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mary Angeline Subject: Back on Line Comments: To: roderick iverson , Reed Bye , pen * , peach friedman , miranda mellis , Max Regan , Matthew Langley , John Reeves , Jenifer McKitrick , Ian Ayres , "Glustrom, Merrill" , DIANE , Cydney Chadwick , Angela Joseph , EarthLink Bulletin Board Manager MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hello Friends, Just a note to let you know I am back on line at the same address. I hope everyone is healthy & reasonably happy. Keep in touch Mary ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 12:11:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: depression MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable NYTBR article posted pre WTC disaster. just appeared. the typical = clinical response to something like this should be to led to more = depression, but in my case this hasn't happened. I'm curious if this is = true of others. tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:34:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Who did it? Foreign Report presents an alternative view http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr010919_1_n.shtml Israel's military intelligence service, Aman, suspects that Iraq is the state that sponsored the suicide attacks on the New York Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington. Directing the mission, Aman officers believe, were two of the world's foremost terrorist masterminds: the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh, head of the special overseas operations for Hizbullah, and the Egyptian Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri, senior member of Al-Qaeda and possible successor of the ailing Osama Bin Laden. The two men have not been seen for some time. Mughniyeh is probably the world's most wanted outlaw. Unconfirmed reports in Beirut say he has undergone plastic surgery and is unrecognisable. Zawahiri is thought to be based in Egypt. He could be Bin Laden's chief representative outside Afghanistan. The Iraqis, who for several years paid smaller groups to do their dirty work, were quick to discover the advantages of Al-Qaeda. The Israeli sources claim that for the past two years Iraqi intelligence officers were shuttling between Baghdad and Afghanistan, meeting with Ayman Al Zawahiri. According to the sources, one of the Iraqi intelligence officers, Salah Suleiman, was captured last October by the Pakistanis near the border with Afghanistan. The Iraqis are also reported to have established strong ties with Imad Mughniyeh. "We've only got scraps of information, not the full picture," admits one intelligence source, "but it was good enough for us to send a warning six weeks ago to our allies that an unprecedented massive terror attack was expected. One of our indications suggested that Imad Mughniyeh met with some of his dormant agents on secret trips to Germany. We believe that the operational brains behind the New-York attack were Mughniyeh and Zawahiri, who were probably financed and got some logistical support from the Iraqi Intelligence Service (SSO)." Mughniyeh was the only one believed to have tried it before. On April 12th 1997, he was reported to be only two hours away from achieving the highest goal of any terrorist organisation (until last week): blowing up an Israeli El-Al airliner above Tel Aviv. A man carrying a forged British passport with the name Andrew Jonathan Neumann was in a Jerusalem hotel preparing a bomb he was supposed to take on board an El-Al flight leaving Israel, when it accidentally went off. Andrew Jonathan Neumann was very badly injured but strong enough to reveal later to the Israelis that he was not British but Lebanese, and that his operation was supposed to be a special "gift" to Israel from Imad Mughniyeh. 'A psychopath' "Bin Laden is a schoolboy in comparison with Mughniyeh," says an Israeli who knows Mughniyeh . "The guy is a genius, someone who refined the art of terrorism to its utmost level. We studied him and reached the conclusion that he is a clinical psychopath motivated by uncontrollable psychological reasons, which we have given up trying to understand. The killing of his two brothers by the Americans only inflamed his strong motivation." Experts on Iraq and Saddam Hussein also believe that Iraq was the state behind the two terror masterminds. "In recent months, there was a change, and Iraq decided to get into the terror business. On July 7th, they tried for the first time to send a suicide bomber, trained in Baghdad, to blow up Tel Aviv airport (Foreign Report No. 2651)." Our sources believe that it will be very difficult to get to the bottom of this unprecedented terror operation. However, they believe the chief of the Iraqi SSO is Qusai Hussein, the dictator's son, and his organisation is the most likely to have been involved. Mughniyeh, 48, is a "sick man", says an intelligence officer who was in charge of his file. He is considered by Western intelligence agencies as the most dangerous active terrorist today. He is wanted by several governments and the Americans have put a $2m reward on his head. [Detailed list of Mughniyeh operations removed for Non-Subscriber Extract] It was the assassination of one man in March 1984 that is said to have made Mughniyeh the CIA's most wanted terrorist. Mughniyeh allegedly kidnapped the head of the CIA station in Beirut, William Buckley. The kidnapping triggered what later became known as 'Irangate', when the Americans tried to exchange Buckley (and others) with arms for Iran. However, the attempt ended in a fiasco. By one unconfirmed account, Mughniyeh tortured and killed Buckley with his own hands. A year later, in a combined CIA/Mossad operation, a powerful car bomb went off at the entrance to the house of Hizbullah's spiritual leader, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Seventy-five people were killed. One of them was his brother. Hunted by the CIA and the Mossad, Mughniyeh hid in Iran. In February 1992, Israeli helicopter gunships attacked the convoy of the then head of Hizbullah, Sheikh Abas Musawi, in South Lebanon. Musawi, his wife and children were killed and the revenge attack followed a month later. According to press reports, Mughniyeh was called back into action and, in a well-planned and devastating attack, his people blew up the Israeli embassy in Argentina. The building was demolished and 92 were killed. Only last year, after a long investigation, did Argentina issue a warrant for Mughniyeh's arrest. The reprisal for the attack in Argentina came in December 1994, when a car bomb went off in a southern Shi'ite suburb of Beirut. Four people were killed. One of them was called Mughniyeh, but to the deep disappointment of those Israelis who planted the bomb it was the wrong one. Mughniyeh's life was saved, but his other brother Fuad was killed. Mughniyeh waited for his opportunity for revenge. Our Israeli sources claim to see Mughniyeh's signature on the wreckage in New York and Washington. How to counter this kind of terrorism? "To fight these bastards you don't need a military attack," said an experienced Israeli commando officer. "You only need to adopt Israel's assassination policy." 978 of 1252 words [End of non-subscriber extract.] ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 16:22:55 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marc Couroux Subject: Re: Checking In Again MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Hi, Actually, regarding the "jubilation" footage, now confirmed to indeed have been shot on 9/11 in Palestine, I have heard that reporters are now refused access to the centre of Amman, Jordan, as the authorities are fearful that footage like that shot in Palestine, much circulated, might be exposed to the world and embarrass the Jordanian government. So there is an obvious worry among this government, at least, that there might be a very palpable extremist reaction to 9/11 circulating openly and destabilizing what is already a tense environment. Marc ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:44:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maria, I am encouraged that at least until now, Bush and others, have moved out of the isolationalist trap he was caught in. He does seem to realize the importance of getting out of the nationalist rhetoric and asking for help is a big step here. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Maria Damon" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 3:36 PM Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object > thanks nick. when i wrote of my apprehensiveness about the sight of > so many flags popping up, i was writing about my fear of aggressive > nationalism and the many ugly ways that can be expressed. it was a > relief to me to hear alternate interpretations, including yours. > someone on the list suggested my emotional response of uneasiness was > classist, disingenuous, a cheap lefty-knee-jerk reaction. i beg to > differ. it's easy to get scared at times like these. aggressive > nationalism at a time like this is one of my fears. holding onto > things does not seem to me to be the same as aggressive nationalism, > even if the object is a flag, but one can hardly be surprised at my > association of flags with aggressive nationalism. bests, md > > At 10:54 AM -0400 9/18/01, Nick Piombino wrote: > >Like many other listees I am grateful for this opportunity to read the > >(mostly) carefully considered statements on this list during such an > >agonizing and frightening time. It seems to me that this is the most > >important time in recent history to remember that all viewpoints and > >responses are partial; each has a point of view; no one point of view > >reflects the entire situation or reality. This, of course, is the essential > >purpose of rational discussion and debate. That said I want to add one > >point coming from my experience as a psychoanalyst. A patient of mine was > >able to get close to Ground Zero. He was shocked and disappointed to see > >some people taking snapshots of their children sitting on the rubble. In > >this regard I spoke to him about Winnicott's theory of transitional > >objects. To paraphrase and greatly generalize:Winnicott discovered that > >from early childhood on, people sometimes have a need for an object to hold > >on to at times of loss. The fact that a lost object (person or thing or > >experience) can continue to exist in the mind, sometimes by means of a > >physical reminder, might explain a lot of behavior that otherwise might > >appear incomprehensible. A young child might get very frightened if mother > >is absent, but feels better when hanging on to a blanket when she is not > >there, an object deeply associated with her presence. This is one way that > >we develop the psychological function of memory. This may help to explain > >why people need to hold on to things like flags. I realize that there is a > >darker side to this, that flag waving can represent symbolic support for > >acts of war. Like many others reading the poetics list, this horrifies me. > >But the psychological fact remains that during times like this we need our > >"transitional objects" as Winnicott termed them. These might be headline > >pages that people save, a photograph of a loved one, or an object that > >belonged to someone lost. It might be a poster, a book or a poem or an > >otherwise meaningless piece of rock. It seems best, at least to me, when > >the object is also some writing which enlightens me, such as that written > >by listees or forwarded by them. I try to remember this idea of the > >transitional object when I hear of people's need to hold on to certain > >things which upset me, like flags, which seem to imply support for war. We > >can strongly disagree with one interpretation of someone's behavior, while > >understanding other aspects of it. It seems to me quite possible to express > >a desperate hope that in the process of protecting innocent people other > >innocent people will not be destroyed, without condemning people for > >expressing their feelings by means of flags. We are fortunate to have this > >forum for considered discussion; others may need to further learn about and > >value such precious democratic freedoms. And finally, exchange and > >comprehension of crucial ideas calls not only for intellectual brilliance > >and force but empathy. > > > > > >Nick Piombino > > > -- ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:52:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag, etc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Kasey, Nicely said. I do think that any new conception of "Patriot" must include an admission of grief for past errors. As Nick, I'm sure would agree, psychological revival and growth if it is to bring renewal must include this step. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "K.Silem Mohammad" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 5:31 PM Subject: The Flag, etc. > I'd like to say once more how heartened (or at least profoundly touched) I > am by the vast majority of comments and commentaries that have emerged on > this list since the tragedy. I'd also like to second the sentiment > expressed by Nick Piombino, Maria Damon, and perhaps others that one very > mature and compassionate thing we can all do is not be too "freaked out" > (Maria's words) by the American flag flying from porches and antennas and > such. In a lot of ways the flag seems to mean something very different to > me right now from what it did, say, during the Gulf War. We as poets are > capable of processing images in subtle and sensitive ways; I think the most > constructive way to process the image of the flag right now is as an emblem > of commingled hope, grief, courage, anger, solidarity, and a million other > feelings that can be consolidated into a positive social force--especially > if that emblem can be constrained to include the principles of love, > brotherhood, peace, understanding, racial tolerance and so forth that this > country has for so long aspired to embody in its ideal self-image. > > As Marjorie Perloff just said, as poets, we are supposed to have some kind > of heightened capacity for perception of nuance, and that capacity can now > profitably be directed toward understanding the feelings of _everyone_ who > has been hurt by this situation, including the mainstream citizens whose > flag-waving might in other contexts upset us. > > Of course this does not mean that alternative opinions about US > accountability for various atrocities should be silenced; recent posts by > Patrick Durgin, Taylor Brady, Elizabeth Treadwell, Charles Bernstein, Gary > Sullivan, and many others have been both politically critical _and_ > sensitive to the immense human suffering that for some can only be expressed > for the moment in terms of a patriotism we have all taught ourselves to view > with suspicion or contempt. The challenge before us as "creative writers" > and speakers is to find ways of being in public dialogue that allow us to > remain true to our convictions _without_ needlessly rubbing salt in the > wounds of the populace. Right now, pain is one of the most real things > there is, and to discount anyone's means of expressing it (as long as those > means don't involve acts of aggression and intolerance) is a big mistake. > Diplomacy is a domestic necessity as well as a global one, interpersonal as > well as international. > > So: reimagining patriotism as a progressive, healing force. I am tired and > disoriented--frazzled--right now, but I don't think this is a completely > irrational idea. "Patriot" has a lot of baggage as a word, and for some it > may be very difficult to accept it in any form (it's the name of a > _missile_, after all), but maybe one of the sacrifices we need to make is > our hypersensitivity to etymological connotation, in the name of a greater > good: making and keeping as many friends as possible. > > That all said, let's keep the petitions and letters to Bush urging restraint > et al. flowing, and thank you all for the community you provide. The list > has given my life just that crucial little extra bit of sanity over the last > week. > > Kasey > > > > > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > K. Silem Mohammad > Visiting Asst. Prof. of British & Anglophone Lit > University of California Santa Cruz > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:12:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristen Gallagher Subject: TIMELY Handwritten Press Books MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Handwritten Press has 2 new books, which would have been announced last week if not for the passivity rendered unto possible announcers by proximity to such a violent catastrophe. woof. #1 --- MORNING CONSTITUTIONAL, by Michael Magee Place -- under arrest, outside the Ben Franklin House, a bit of declarative rhetoric echoing past the old psych ward, a decaying neighborhood, jazz struggling, the Amerinesiac that must needs awaken and feel its limbs. "The untimely state's AM radio" getting played here, detuned and refracted through Magee's acute sense of history and hearing. Here that? Michael Magee's poetry, "buzzes with the legislative, polemical and liberatory static of American political history" (K. Silem Mohammed). This buzzing refracts to us from the highway to the needle exchange, the monument to the bus stop. Magee is one of the most well-informed American poet-listeners. Bob Perelman says "his poems sound out the present tense histories and provide democratic key signatures so different people can play their meanings at once. We hear about a better place -- all the time, if we listen. But getting there is not an automatic thing. These poems help." Or as Heather Fuller writes, "This is not your ordinary peripateticism. For what Michael has tapped into is the psychotic tyranny of the antecedent, in which everything is thing, everyone is they, and all else is it, and this is how it is." "a high fidelity version of me staple-gunned" 88 pp. perfect bound, cover art by Mitchell Magee, $10.95. Order from http://spdbooks.org for a preview (based on chapbook by the same title) see http://handwritten.org/auth/magee #2 --- IL JOM OH, by Ikhyun (Ike) Kim "Il jom oh" is Korean for "1.5" -- "1.5" being an Asian-American term for people born in their native country but living in the US since they were little kids. They are considered the 1.5 generation. The poems in Kim's book bring together the pieces of his writing which focus on Korean culture and history, Korean and American collisions, intesections, crossings, and conflicts. Historically and poltically grounded, these poems provide a poetic facticity that is often always already theory, overlapping languages, sounds, facts, and incidents with clarity and grace, clear perception. His poem "Two Days" (which we have placed in newspaper format on a large foldout middle page) makes poetry of three days of news, creating a dynamic adjacency of what usually comes through as simply the "elsewheres" where violent policy, history, upheaval seem to always be happening. The title itself is a lie, aware of the lie we absorb in media inundation and the dulling of attention induced by such absorption. Through these kinds of adjacency, time, space and identity collapse several times in this book. A pointed read after the pure event of 9/11. 61 pp, handsewn Japanese binding, $10, 4.5" x 7.25". Handmade paper cover & interior artwork by Clare Ecstasy Seaton. We hope to have the book up on the handwritten.org site within a few days. I'll alert you again when it is. To order, backchannel me to inquire. PEACE TO ALL. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:56:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: What can be done Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Ron, I agree with much of what you say, with a heavy heart. War does seem to be inevitable in some measure given these attacks. However I think both left and right, and in fact everyone I've talked to, is rethinking dearly (or simply habitually) held beliefs in the face of this situation. I think it is what we all must do now. We must all, all, respond with humanity and some measure of grace, because times as you say are different. Looking to the history of the Vietnam war (& the struggle to end it) is no more helpful than looking at the history of WW2 to help us at this time. I think the activists of the 1960s are more stuck in that mentality than people of my age. I don't mean to offend, simply observe. We've grown up in a world that never made sense on any level -- I was stunned once seeing old footage of Eisenhower speaking as if the citizenry was intelligent -- my first big memory of politics on TV was Mr. Haig saying "I'm in charge!" when Reagan was shot. That, if anything, is what this moment reminds me of. No _one_ is in charge, no group/country either; no cohesive ideology or group is to be seen (thankfully, truly). Simply put, we (as a species) have built the tools to destroy ourselves and perhaps even "our" planet. These tools are more widely available than ever before. What now. There may be more deeply practical solutions than the ones you offer, however I don't think any _one_ knows what these would look like. With a bit of luck, maybe we can find out. Love Elizabeth _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:56:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: (Fwd) Re: Bin Laden Family and poets (from M.P.) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm currently reading Sanders' _Chekov which I think worth checking out as well. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "J Gallaher" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 4:40 PM Subject: (Fwd) Re: Bin Laden Family and poets (from M.P.) > This is forwarded from Marjorie Perloff, with permission: > > ------- Forwarded message follows ------- > Date sent: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:21:08 -0700 > From: Marjorie Perloff > Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family and poets > > I was just about to write in with that Oppen quote myself!! Thank you > John Gallaher. I can think of no one who understood or would have > understood what is happening now, today, better than George Oppen! > > And today a new development. Karen Gut, whom many of you know > (she read and spoke at the Orono Poetry Festival on the 60s a year+ > ago and is a professor-poet-activist in Tel Aviv) writes me that the > reason Arafat has just agreed to a cease fire, or rather proposed a > unilateral one, is that Israeli intelligence has discovered that the > four pilots, esp. the lead one, Joseph Natta, was a Palestinian, and > so Arafat is very embarrassed and he is now begging for a "peace" > meeting. > > And further: it increasingly looks as if the terrorist infiltration is > so great right here in the U.S. that I think there will be no attack > on Afghanistan or other places in Middle East at all. > > And third: I think the novels to read RIGHT NOW are Andrei Bely's > great 1913 and Conrad's SECRET AGENT and UNDER WESTERN > EYES. It's all there.... > > Marjorie > > ------- End of forwarded message ------- > > JG > ------------ > > J Gallaher > > Metaphors Be With You . . . > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 17:58:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "R.Gancie/C.Parcelli" Subject: A Press Pass Gas!!! ACCESS to the Pentagon press conference was highly restricted. Walter Comments: To: polity@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit ACCESS to the Pentagon press conference was highly restricted. Walter Pincus was turned away for wearing a scarf. It was like trying to get into Studio 54 when Jackie O used to get down/high there. Anticipating a jingoistic atmosphere, I wore my Gulbuddin Hekmatyar T-shirt. The United States government had buried Hekmatyar in cash, when this Afghani leader launched his campaign against the Soviets. Of course, to U.S. policy makers and intelligence experts, his resume was impeccable and they hired him on the spot. On page 3, under hobbies it reads in part, "His followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him "scary," "vicious," "a fascist," definite dictatorship material." In short, following in the tradition of Marcos, Suharto, Armas, Savimbi, Mobutu, D'Aubisson, Somoza, Noriega, Fujimori/Montesinos, Saddam Hussein, Pinochet, etc. ad nauseam, he was "our kind of guy" wrote the CIA station chief in Pakistan. Jesse Helms in particular felt a deep kinship with Gulbuddin, pushing Congress to make one of his favorite drug running, homicidal maniacs the commander of a coalition of the 5 factions fighting the Soviets. Hekmatyar had never hidden his hatred for the United States so several of Helms aids were actually photographed in Gulbuddin's camp wearing mujahideen garb and waving Kalyshnikov's. I was whisked right into the press conference. And there at the podium was Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld. The man whom Henry Kissinger called "the most ruthless man I have ever met." This from Henry Kissinger, the architect of the Madman Theory, the Christmas bombing of Hanoi, and the leveraged merger with Communist China. My heart swelled with pride and awe and I fought back tears as I stood within a chaw loft of perhaps "the most ruthless man" in the world. I knew we were in good hands. Then Rumsfeld began to speak: "Ladies and gentleman of the press, as you know, when Francis Fukayama's book, The End of History, came out several years ago, I threw a lavish party for the Washington press corps for which some of you still owe me a cover. My feeling and motivations now are the same as they were then: that you the mass corporate media were mostly responsible for selling the kind of glossolalia that drives Fukayama's book. Now, you and I, face another crisis. Some people are going to get the idea that history has started up again because of the events of last week and there gonna get all wound up. There are even a dangerous few who are going to claim that history never stopped. They may even try to claim that the old, irrelevant nonsense that was around before Fukayama's book has some bearing on recent events, like carving up the Middle East along the geological money shot of the Western oil interests. I say piss tosh. If they want to believe in radical fanatical fundamentalist ideas like history, let them move to a country that has one. Ladies and gentlemen, if we had to schmoooze anyone else other than the American people, our task would be daunting. But, regardless, we must be vigilant. We must be vigilantes for the ahistorical. And I think, if I know anything about hist…excuse me, the fundamental goodness and fairness of the American people, we can count on most Americans to follow us down this path. I am reminded of the immortal words of Robert Lovett, cabinet level corporate ad man in the Eisenhower administration, who said, "If we can sell the American public all manner of junk in huge quantities, we can certainly sell them our fine story of a Soviet threat." Eisenhower tried to warn the public but thanks to you good people of the media, nobody listened. So your task is clear--present endless prattle and chatter among experts whose families eat at the behest of large corporate funders. Cut off callers and British scholars that bring up anything before last Tuesday. And I mean anything, because as you know we've had our hand in everything. And finally, if you want to be invited back here--and we have those really tasty shrimp roles today--don't inform yourselves. Thank you. Now I'll take a few questions. "Secrtry Rmsfld, Secrtey Rmsfeld!!?" "Yes, Ted." "Wheredya get that neat lapel pin, and can I get one." "Yes, Ted. I'm sure Major General "Iron Guts" Boczinski can spend the rest of his afternoon scrounging one up for you." "Secrtuy Rmsfld, Secrty Rmsfld!!!?" "Yes, Leslie." "Can I get one for my nephew?" "Yes, of course, Leslie." "Secrty Rmsfeld, Secrty Rmsfeld." "Yes, Stoned." "That's Stone, Sir." "What were your parents thinking?" "Yes, Mr. Secerterry. Mr. Secertury, one of the recently declassified goals of the bombing of North Vietnam was to accidentally kill the leadership especially that really bad guy." "Ho Chih Minh?" "Yeah. Cho Mein. Yet even though we dropped 4 times the tonnage used in all the theaters of World War II including the 2 atomic bombs onto Southeast Asia, Choo Main drove a Mercedes and died of gout, I think. How do you propose to use such pinpoint bombing to get Osama Bin Laden?" "Good question Stone, and you didn't even really violate our prohibition on bringing up history, now did you?" "I don't think so, sir. Actually, I don't know.' "Take my word, son; the word of "THE MOST RUTHLESS MAN IN THE WORLD. You did not. But to answer your question. As Curtis LeMay so rightly observed. Somebody belonged in the stone age over there and when it was pointed out by-- was it Carl Albert, General?--that perhaps they were already there, so were we. I mean back in those days, we were practically throwin' bombs outta planes with our bare hands and tryin' to--what's that word--saturate the whole place and all them other places around about so everybody would be terrorized. Madman Theory. Remember." "Sir." "Yes, General. You used the "T" word in the wrong context. We've been over that." "You know how to apply a little pressure if anybody gets outta line. Just give 'em the old. See these stars. Now, see these stars. Except for Leslie. I kinda fancy her." "What Madman theory, Sir?" "Thank you, Stone. There you go, General. Is it real or is it Sominex?" "Keep it Real." "Thanks, Dan." "You betcha." "Sir?" "Ed?" "Sir, if we invade Afgiuneastand, do you think we'll find any tamale powder?" "No, Ed. That was Panama. Remember, Ed. You were there. Hey, Ed. What did you do with that cash that you found in the basement of the Saigon Embassy?" "Mr. Prsidnt. Mr. Prsidnt." "No, Balz. This isn't the White House Press Conference." "Oh?" "Any other questions for the Secretary? Yes, uh, Gnome is it?" "Mr. Secretary. Isn't it true that the U.S. began funding Afghan Islamic fundamentalism in 1979 despite the fact that in February of that year some of them had kidnapped the American ambassador in the capital city of Kabul, leading to his death in the rescue attempt." "Uh. Mr. Chomsky, is it? Would YOU like a lapel button. And I'm not asking." to be continued CP ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:08:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Molly Schwartzburg Subject: use your rebate to help! Comments: To: Jennifer Alford , Alissa , Elizabeth Brashers , Marc Cosnard des Closets , Dawn Coleman , Jessie Cosnard des Closets , Nat Crawford , Hilary Edwards , Margie Ferguson , Ligia Giese , Jenni Holm , Karen Jacobs , Nicholas Jenkins , Anthony King , Julie Kirkenslager , Chandra L , Susan Mahan , James Joseph Marino , Monica McFee , "laura e. mcgrane" , Christopher McKeon , Denis McKeon , Jesse Molesworth , Marjorie Perloff , Cristin Pescosolido , "Emma C. Rainforth" , Brian Reed , MaryAnn Richards , Andy Schwartzburg , Jesse Schwartzburg , Sheila Schwartzburg , Toby Schwartzburg , Stephanie Seiler , Elena Shvarts , Sam Smalls , Jessica T Smith , anne hayden stevens , Reed Stevens , "Uman, Deborah (English)" , Jen Vlahos MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII (Please forward!!) Hi to my friends and family, In attempting to find the most effective way to respond to last week's tragedy, I've decided to donate the amount of my tax rebate to the United Way September 11th Fund and to Red Cross support efforts in Afghanistan. This $280 (the amount of my rebate) was not something I expected or budgeted for (or agreed with, for that matter) and I think that it is a substantial enough donation to make a difference as New York in particular attempts to recover and as innocent Afghanis prepare for our probable attacks. I was planning to donate my rebate to charitable causes anyway, and now, tragically, I don't have to make the difficult decision of whom to help... About the September 11th Fund, which I chose in part because of its treatment of administrative costs: "United Way and The New York Community Trust have established The September 11th Fund. Contributions will be used to help respond to the immediate and longer-term needs of the victims, their families, and communities affected by the events of September 11. Please note that 100% of all contributions will be used to support these efforts, as United Way and The Community Trust are underwriting all administrative costs." Donations may be made online at http://september11fund.org/, or you can pledge by phone at 1-800-710-8002 Learn about the Red Cross in Afghanistan at http://www.redcross.org/world/asia/afgh.html Of course, other charities and emergency support organizations are also prepared to accept donations. I want to urge everyone to join me! Let's show a very tangible form of support for those thousands of people suffering so terribly. Molly *** *** *** *** *** *** Molly Schwartzburg Department of English Stanford University Stanford CA, 94305 molly1@stanford.edu *** *** *** *** *** *** ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 14:12:13 -0700 Reply-To: yan@pobox.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: matvei yankelevich Subject: 6x6 Comments: To: Armand Ruhlman ABC No Rio series , "Magdalena Alagna (host@Proletkult, lotus club poetry)" , Autonomedia , Flying Bridge Aviatrix Reading Series , "Maggie Balistreri (Cafe Mo/pink pony poetry))" , James W Barbosa , Jim Behrle , "David Kirschenbaum,ed. BOOG" , St Marks Bookshop , editors Burning Press , Buttonwood Tree , Cornelia Street Cafe Poetry Series , Amanda Clovis Press , Crowd Magazine , Crowd Magazine , "Sarah (Rita's Friend) Dixon Place Reading Series" , Brandon Downing , craig foltz , Stephen Clair GOOD WORLD READINGS , Andrey Gritsman , Brendan Lorber LUNGFULL , Mike Magazinnik , Matt Mass Deportation Press , "Marlene Vidibor, host Pheonix Poetry Series" , "Melissa Ozawa, Ed, American Poet" , coordinator Poetry Central , Melinda Levokove poetry host , Jane Preston Poetry House Collection , Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz poetry NYC URBANA , The Poetry Project , Meghan Cleary Poetry Reading bwn AB , Billl Duke host Poetry Saturn Series , Seventh Coming Poetry Series , "(brett) poetry societu" , "Margery Snyder Bob Holman poetry.about.com" , "Faith Vicinanza Poetry@Bethel Arts Junction" , Academy of Poets , The Tribes Poets , "coordinator poetz.com" , The Poetry Project , "Tom O. Proletkult, Lotus Club Reading Series" , Brooks at THE READ bookstore , Thermal Dynamic Reading Project , Small Press Center , Miles Bellamy SpoonbillSugartown Booksellars , Viviana Grell host The Poetry Beat reading series , Marisa Simon Wordsmiths at Halcyon MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii BIG CHANGE, PLEASE ADJUST RE: WEDNESDAY AT THE >SIBERIA< CELLAR SERIES TODAY: there will be NOTHING going on in the Siberia Cellar this wednesday, the 19th. However... the UNVEILING of 6x6 # 4 WILL OCCUR ONE WEEK FROM TODAY ----THE 26th OF SEPTEMBER---- about 8pm please come and see friends you haven't seen since the 11th. please come and celebrate the birthdays of two 6x6 editors. readings, music, intelligent conversation, drinks served by artists. Now more than ever it is important to support Really Independent Presses. The Cellar Series hosts SMALL PRESS wednesday NIGHTS. September 26: UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE - 6x6 #4 October 3: KOJA MAGAZINE & PRESS October 17: MASS DEPORTATION PRESS SIBERIA (bar) Manhattan (post-NYC) 356 1/2 W. 40th St., right off 9th Ave. HOW: Take the ACE to 42nd, exit subway at 40th St., walk west, stay on left side, opposite the PortAuthority Terminal. As you approach the corner of 9th Ave, keep an eye out for the mysterious black doors on your left. open and DESCEND into the basement. www.uglyducklingpresse.org Thanks, Matvei __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:22:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think tou're correct here, Scott, in general. This will lead to major global change if the reaction I feel is any indication. I'm not sure where the world is headed but if this list is any indication of thoughtful response (I don't want to have to single out particular respondees but I have been very encouraged by the general tenor) knee-jerk responses of whatever flavor should be seen I think as based on an incomplete grasp of the magnitude of the impact and implications of recent events. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Hamilton" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 10:36 AM Subject: Re: What is to be done > I'm justifying a reply to a post probably meant mainly > for Americans by pleading some involvement in a > nascent anti-war movement in New Zealand. (For > information on the situation here, visit > www.indymedia.org.nz/) > > Ron Silliman is absolutely right when he urges an > engagement with the grief of Westerners as the correct > starting point for leftist activity in the aftermath > of last week's attacks. In my opinion, though, he > wrongly treats the nature of majority opinion at the > moment as irreversible, and in doing so misses the > logic and the potential of much of the left-wing > agitation that has taken place in the aftermath of the > attacks. (Take, as a paradigm for the left reaction, > Noam Chomsky's 'A Quick Response', which was posted > here the other day.) > > > The grief that the NYC atrocity has created is a > double-edged sword. On the one hand, it may be used by > Western leaders to stir up assent for all sorts of > dangerous war games and reactionary legislation. > > Less obviously, though, the grief we have seen has > the potential to lead to mass anti-war radicalisation > across the West. > > The tremendous empathy which has been stirred, in the > West and in much of the Third World, for the victims > of last week's attacks is authentic, and thus has the > ability to build and spread and break through the > national and ethnic barriers manned by warmongering > political leaders and the mass media. It is surely > significant that the first reported anti-war > protests occurred in New York City, home to a > population which must find it the easiest of all to > empathise with the September 11th victims. > > > We should also note that the events of the past two > weeks have, to a limited but real extent, cohered > populations atomised in most places by decades of > rightist economic restructuring. The fragmentation and > depoliticisation of the working class which were a key > achievement of neoliberalism are weakened by the mass > action and collective focus which have followed last > week's attacks. Suddenly vast numbers of people are > attuned to the idea of collective action; they are > also asking many awkward asking questions about the > world about them, allowing us to talk about the > potential for ideological as well as emotional > radicalisation. > > The magnitude of recent events forces, after all, the > consideration of many hitherto obscure or taboo > subjects; beyond that, it may prompt a questioning of > the very nature of twenty-first century life. In > post-Cold War, secular and somewhat cynical Western > milieu, there is reason to suspect that the conceptual > framework that political and business leaders act > inside and speak from will fail to answer such > questions convincingly. We ought to remember here that > the West was not a nest of contentment before > September the 11th: the large anti-globalisation > protests which had become a symbol of an unhappiness > with contemporary Western society had been scheduled, > after all, to arrive in Washington DC at the end of > this month. > > > Like every other relatively sane person, I wish that > the events of September 11th had not occurred. They > were a moral disaster and a political disaster. > > The left, though, has to face the reality of September > 11th, and it can only do this by engaging with the > contradictions the event has produced in popular > consciousness. The source of all terrorisms is > capitalism and imperialism, and only anti-capitalist, > anti-imperialist politics can counter all terrorisms. > Leftist writers as different as Chomsky and Said are > right to sense the potential for such politics, in the > aftermath of September 11th. From Pakistan to America > to New Zealand, the war machine has to be disabled by > mass direct action. This task may be very difficult, > but its proponents are surely not as unrealistic as > the Guardian columnists who call for the civilising of > imperialism in the Middle East. > > > As an NYC paramedic wrote, at the end of an account of > his rescue efforts at the WTC: > > "This is a tragic act, one that has destroyed or > forever altered the lives of countless people. It is > also an act that occurs in particular > context, one in which the United States is guilty of > this exact same kind of crime, only on a greater and > more gruesome scale. Let us take from this > the inspiration to create a world free from > imperialism in all its manifestations, one that moves > us from the civil war that is capitalism > to a higher form of society..." > (full text at > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/revo-readers/message/1376) > > Respectfully, > > Scott > > > > ===== > For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": > THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ > THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ > and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ > > ____________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk > or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:44:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Scott wrote: >>Less obviously, though, the grief we have seen has the potential to lead to mass anti-war radicalisation across the West. The tremendous empathy which has been stirred, in the West and in much of the Third World, for the victims of last week's attacks is authentic, and thus has the ability to build and spread and break through the national and ethnic barriers manned by warmongering political leaders and the mass media. It is surely significant that the first reported anti-war protests occurred in New York City, home to a population which must find it the easiest of all to empathise with the September 11th victims.>> My personal view is that there is no way to stop the US oil/military juggernaut from conducting this war, and even that it will be to the world's benefit if it can actually be targeted at terrorists and their money (they sold short on American and United Airlines stock right before they hijacked the planes -- they fucking made money on it). As someone who went through the VietNam years (a war I thought the US was on the wrong side of), I kind of wish this effort could be aimed at doing what what we spectacularly didn't do there, or in any other country (Laos, Cambodia) we ripped up in that war: something like a Marshall Plan. Maybe that's just paternalist -- closet globalization. But that's my personal hope. Laura ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:42:39 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Brennan Subject: Chomsky Interview by Radio B92, Belgrade on WTC bombings Comments: To: BBlum6@aol.com, flpoint@hotmail.com, ibid1@earthlink.net, moyercdmm@earthlink.net, CMJBalso@aol.com, alphavil@ix.netcom.com, harrysandy@kreative.net, derekvdt@ACADEMYPO.FSS.FSS.PVT.K12.PA.US, Amzemel@aol.com, kjohnson@highland.cc.il.us, Psyche-Arts@academyanalyticarts.org, new-poetry@wiz.cath.vt.edu MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 08:12:40 -0400 From: Drazen Pantic To: nettime Subject: Chomsky Interview by Radio B92, Belgrade on WTC bombings Interviewing Chomsky Radio B92, Belgrade Why do you think these attacks happened? To answer the question we must first identify the perpetrators of the crimes. It is generally assumed, plausibly, that their origin is the Middle East region, and that the attacks probably trace back to the Osama Bin Laden network, a widespread and complex organization, doubtless inspired by Bin Laden but not necessarily acting under his control. Let us assume that this is true. Then to answer your question a sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden's views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters he has throughout the region. About all of this, we have a great deal of information. Bin Laden has been interviewed extensively over the years by highly reliable Middle East specialists, notably the most eminent correspondent in the region, Robert Fisk (London _Independent_), who has intimate knowledge of the entire region and direct experience over decades. A Saudi Arabian millionaire, Bin Laden became a militant Islamic leader in the war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He was one of the many religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and financed by the CIA and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to cause maximal harm to the Russians -- quite possibly delaying their withdrawal, many analysts suspect -- though whether he personally happened to have direct contact with the CIA is unclear, and not particularly important. Not surprisingly, the CIA preferred the most fanatic and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end result was to "destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans" (_London Times_ correspondent Simon Jenkins, also a specialist on the region). These "Afghanis" as they are called (many, like Bin Laden, not from Afghanistan) carried out terror operations across the border in Russia, but they terminated these after Russia withdrew. Their war was not against Russia, which they despise, but against the Russian occupation and Russia's crimes against Muslims. The "Afghanis" did not terminate their activities, however. They joined Bosnian Muslim forces in the Balkan Wars; the US did not object, just as it tolerated Iranian support for them, for complex reasons that we need not pursue here, apart from noting that concern for the grim fate of the Bosnians was not prominent among them. The "Afghanis" are also fighting the Russians in Chechnya, and, quite possibly, are involved in carrying out terrorist attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russian territory. Bin Laden and his "Afghanis" turned against the US in 1990 when they established permanent bases in Saudi Arabia -- from his point of view, a counterpart to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, but far more significant because of Saudi Arabia's special status as the guardian of the holiest shrines. Bin Laden is also bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive regimes of the region, which he regards as "un-Islamic," including the Saudi Arabian regime, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime in the world, apart from the Taliban, and a close US ally since its origins. Bin Laden despises the US for its support of these regimes. Like others in the region, he is also outraged by long-standing US support for Israel's brutal military occupation, now in its 35th year: Washington's decisive diplomatic, military, and economic intervention in support of the killings, the harsh and destructive siege over many years, the daily humiliation to which Palestinians are subjected, the expanding settlements designed to break the occupied territories into Bantustan-like cantons and take control of the resources, the gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, and other actions that are recognized as crimes throughout most of the world, apart from the US, which has prime responsibility for them. And like others, he contrasts Washington's dedicated support for these crimes with the decade-long US-British assault against the civilian population of Iraq, which has devastated the society and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while strengthening Saddam Hussein -- who was a favored friend and ally of the US and Britain right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, as people of the region also remember well, even if Westerners prefer to forget the facts. These sentiments are very widely shared. The _Wall Street Journal_ (Sept. 14) published a survey of opinions of wealthy and privileged Muslims in the Gulf region (bankers, professionals, businessmen with close links to the U.S.). They expressed much the same views: resentment of the U.S. policies of supporting Israeli crimes and blocking the international consensus on a diplomatic settlement for many years while devastating Iraqi civilian society, supporting harsh and repressive anti-democratic regimes throughout the region, and imposing barriers against economic development by "propping up oppressive regimes." Among the great majority of people suffering deep poverty and oppression, similar sentiments are far more bitter, and are the source of the fury and despair that has led to suicide bombings, as commonly understood by those who are interested in the facts. The U.S., and much of the West, prefers a more comforting story. To quote the lead analysis in the _New York Times_ (Sept. 16), the perpetrators acted out of "hatred for the values cherished in the West as freedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal suffrage." U.S. actions are irrelevant, and therefore need not even be mentioned (Serge Schmemann). This is a convenient picture, and the general stance is not unfamiliar in intellectual history; in fact, it is close to the norm. It happens to be completely at variance with everything we know, but has all the merits of self-adulation and uncritical support for power. It is also widely recognized that Bin Laden and others like him are praying for "a great assault on Muslim states," which will cause "fanatics to flock to his cause" (Jenkins, and many others.). That too is familiar. The escalating cycle of violence is typically welcomed by the harshest and most brutal elements on both sides, a fact evident enough from the recent history of the Balkans, to cite only one of many cases. What consequences will they have on US inner policy and to the American self reception? US policy has already been officially announced. The world is being offered a "stark choice": join us, or "face the certain prospect of death and destruction." Congress has authorized the use of force against any individuals or countries the President determines to be involved in the attacks, a doctrine that every supporter regards as ultra-criminal. That is easily demonstrated. Simply ask how the same people would have reacted if Nicaragua had adopted this doctrine after the U.S. had rejected the orders of the World Court to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against Nicaragua and had vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law. And that terrorist attack was far more severe and destructive even than this atrocity. As for how these matters are perceived here, that is far more complex. One should bear in mind that the media and the intellectual elites generally have their particular agendas. Furthermore, the answer to this question is, in significant measure, a matter of decision: as in many other cases, with sufficient dedication and energy, efforts to stimulate fanaticism, blind hatred, and submission to authority can be reversed. We all know that very well. Do you expect U.S. to profoundly change their policy to the rest of the world? The initial response was to call for intensifying the policies that led to the fury and resentment that provides the background of support for the terrorist attack, and to pursue more intensively the agenda of the most hard line elements of the leadership: increased militarization, domestic regimentation, attack on social programs. That is all to be expected. Again, terror attacks, and the escalating cycle of violence they often engender, tend to reinforce the authority and prestige of the most harsh and repressive elements of a society. But there is nothing inevitable about submission to this course. After the first shock, came fear of what the U.S. answer is going to be. Are you afraid, too? Every sane person should be afraid of the likely reaction -- the one that has already been announced, the one that probably answers Bin Laden's prayers. It is highly likely to escalate the cycle of violence, in the familiar way, but in this case on a far greater scale. The U.S. has already demanded that Pakistan terminate the food and other supplies that are keeping at least some of the starving and suffering people of Afghanistan alive. If that demand is implemented, unknown numbers of people who have not the remotest connection to terrorism will die, possibly millions. Let me repeat: the U.S. has demanded that Pakistan kill possibly millions of people who are themselves victims of the Taliban. This has nothing to do even with revenge. It is at a far lower moral level even than that. The significance is heightened by the fact that this is mentioned in passing, with no comment, and probably will hardly be noticed. We can learn a great deal about the moral level of the reigning intellectual culture of the West by observing the reaction to this demand. I think we can be reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled. It would be instructive to seek historical precedents. If Pakistan does not agree to this and other U.S. demands, it may come under direct attack as well -- with unknown consequences. If Pakistan does submit to U.S. demands, it is not impossible that the government will be overthrown by forces much like the Taliban -- who in this case will have nuclear weapons. That could have an effect throughout the region, including the oil producing states. At this point we are considering the possibility of a war that may destroy much of human society. Even without pursuing such possibilities, the likelihood is that an attack on Afghans will have pretty much the effect that most analysts expect: it will enlist great numbers of others to support of Bin Laden, as he hopes. Even if he is killed, it will make little difference. His voice will be heard on cassettes that are distributed throughout the Islamic world, and he is likely to be revered as a martyr, inspiring others. It is worth bearing in mind that one suicide bombing -- a truck driven into a U.S. military base -- drove the world's major military force out of Lebanon 20 years ago. The opportunities for such attacks are endless. And suicide attacks are very hard to prevent. "The world will never be the same after 11.09.01". Do you think so? The horrendous terrorist attacks on Tuesday are something quite new in world affairs, not in their scale and character, but in the target. For the US, this is the first time since the War of 1812 that its national territory has been under attack, even threat. It's colonies have been attacked, but not the national territory itself. During these years the US virtually exterminated the indigenous population, conquered half of Mexico, intervened violently in the surrounding region, conquered Hawaii and the Philippines (killing hundreds of thousands of Filipinos), and in the past half century particularly, extended its resort to force throughout much of the world. The number of victims is colossal. For the first time, the guns have been directed the other way. The same is true, even more dramatically, of Europe. Europe has suffered murderous destruction, but from internal wars, meanwhile conquering much of the world with extreme brutality. It has not been under attack by its victims outside, with rare exceptions (the IRA in England, for example). It is therefore natural that NATO should rally to the support of the US; hundreds of years of imperial violence have an enormous impact on the intellectual and moral culture. It is correct to say that this is a novel event in world history, not because of the scale of the atrocity -- regrettably -- but because of the target. How the West chooses to react is a matter of supreme importance. If the rich and powerful choose to keep to their traditions of hundreds of years and resort to extreme violence, they will contribute to the escalation of a cycle of violence, in a familiar dynamic, with long-term consequences that could be awesome. Of course, that is by no means inevitable. An aroused public within the more free and democratic societies can direct policies towards a much more humane and honorable course. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 16:09:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: I can't help thinking... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed ...these days, of two brave & thoughtful warriors I have met: A professor, of the Blackfoot (Native American) Nation, a legal scholar, who told us students of his experience in Vietnam. He joined up, in part because his traditions honor warriors, only to find himself standing in a field in Vietnam, watching a village burn, and coming to the realization that this was exactly what the US Army, of which he was now a part, had done to his people. An Iraqi man who was staying in the same youth hostel as one of my sisters and I in Amsterdam, 1992. Much of his family and friends had been killed in Baghdad. His manner was friendly and thoughtful towards us, despite our nationality. xox Elizabeth _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:15:58 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: m&r...Wanted Dead or Alive... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit we'l 'arry i'll surrendr now eff yu'll git me one them gig cigras....drn ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Nudel" To: Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 12:37 AM Subject: m&r...Wanted Dead or Alive... > the gigs up....you'd better get outta town...Marshall W...and this deputy DRn... > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:48:33 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..e-epic.. i have had a busy day..with only one person threatening to murder me..but that;s another story...can't keep total tab..or read all but read most....seems about 4 to 1 Pro..i don;t want to take advantage but these seem transformative times... i'm now seeing this whole enterprise...in which WE ALL take part as a sort of epic of war..something like an e-iliad...or an e-Patterson..to take a more modern collage approach... i'm going to post stuff until i can't....if ANY ONE OBJECTS to using any of their words or private e-mails to me...PLEASE PLEASE contact Maria at maria@popula.com...we're all in this soup together...DRn... p.s...also some of this new stuff is E-xtreme...it was mostly posted to a poetics list so far to the left it was listing and i reacted to that...it;s not that i don;t believe what i say...but the screw has been turned even tighter than usual..Harry.. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 15:45:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: <20010919153245.24616.qmail@web11308.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT In response to Kasey's post, and others' about their provisional acceptance/misgivings about the flag: Kasey's remarks on left politics and patriotism are well taken. It is an interesting and perhaps a regrettable precipitate of the history of dissent in the U.S. that the American flag has become so closely associated for some with a kind of thoughtless default conservatism (if not xenophobic nationalism). It is most likely too late for this, but imagine what this icon would look like to us if the left had found a way to embrace patriotism and love of country as King does when he writes, by way of framing his Civil Rights activism, "There is no great disappointment where there is no great love." ("A Letter from a Birmingham Jail") With gratitude for everyone's thoughtful and frank remarks--since this may be the closest approximation of a public space we will have for a long while. I am so frightened of the major media outlets' presumption of consensus... %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Literature Department University of California, Santa Cruz Santa Cruz, California 95064 mecr@cats.ucsc.edu %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Arielle Greenberg Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 8:33 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object The past week list has been such a good source of information, comfort, sensitivity, criticism = COMMUNITY and I thank you all for that. Re: flag waving. I am so conflicted about this. Our across-the-street neighbors put up a flag last Wednesday and I immediately wanted one, too -- not as a show of strength or government support or even solidarity, but from some deep feeling of gratitude that this country was still standing. That the weather in Boston was beautiful and that I still had across-the-street neighbors. Last week all of that seemed like a miracle. Since then, I have been able to be more critical and wary of the whole flag-waving phenomenon, but I am also still very conflicted and interested in what it means to be a patriotic American. I certainly think one can be patriotic AND critical, and that in fact the two probably go hand in hand. I disagree much of what our government says, I am distraught over what we have done to the earth, etc., etc., and I have even (often?) thought of leaving the country, but I also love it. I love the geographical and ethnic diversity, the aesthetic beauty of the national parks, the openness. I am so proud that Americans invented hip hop, bluegrass, jazz and rock n' roll. I love my students, many of whom are first-generation college students and have so much to give, so many ideas. Can I wave a flag for all of that? I also love, and miss, New York City, which, for the five years I lived there, treated me with extreme kindness and openness, and which, as exhausting and ugly as it could be, was also frequently stunning and inspiring, and like no other city in the world. So when all this happened, I wanted to wave a flag for that, too. Arielle __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 11:00:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: From Cydney Chadwick In-Reply-To: <020701c140c4$e332a7c0$d0daf7a5@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >Good and bad news from Sonoma County: > >The good news is that David Bromige was just named the new Poet Laureate of >Sonoma County! He will be Sonoma County's P.L. for two years. That is great news. Bromige sghould be the poet laureate of the US. But he isnt a US citizen, is he? > >The bad news is that the local paper reported that Home Depot sold out of >American Flags last week; ammo sales here have rocketed and the local >shooting range has had a large increase in business. This information, >given the nature of mainstream media, could be completely untrue, but given >the gist of conversations I've overheard in public places the last week, >I'm afraid this bit of reportage may be accurate. Now there is a part of me that is hoping that this is meant to be funny, to be satire. But I am afraid that I doubt that. gb > >Best regards, >Cydney Chadwick -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 10:57:34 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: The Flag, etc. In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >I'd like to say once more how heartened (or at least profoundly touched) I >am by the vast majority of comments and commentaries that have emerged on >this list since the tragedy. I'd also like to second the sentiment >expressed by Nick Piombino, Maria Damon, and perhaps others that one very >mature and compassionate thing we can all do is not be too "freaked out" >(Maria's words) by the American flag flying from porches and antennas and >such. In a lot of ways the flag seems to mean something very different to >me right now from what it did, say, during the Gulf War. We as poets are >capable of processing images in subtle and sensitive ways; I think the most >constructive way to process the image of the flag right now is as an emblem >of commingled hope, grief, courage, anger, solidarity, and a million other >feelings that can be consolidated into a positive social force--especially >if that emblem can be constrained to include the principles of love, >brotherhood, peace, understanding, racial tolerance and so forth that this >country has for so long aspired to embody in its ideal self-image. And we Canadians have to remind ourselves of the unironical attachment that USAmericans have for their flag. They have a national anthem filled with the flag and bombs and rockets, and they fly thousands of flags in any small town, and they even have the flag in their first-grade school classrooms! It is a kind of atavism that seems primitive to outsiders, but for which we should not blame any single person, poet or othe, raised in that environment. I mean I have seen US flags flying in front of hamburger joints! -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:57:30 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: NYTimes.com Article: Attacks Called Great Art MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit lunberry@uwm.edu. forwards this note from the NYT on this bon mot from Karlheinz Stockhausen: >"That characters can bring about in one act what we in music >cannot dream of, that people practice madly for 10 years, >completely, fanatically, for a concert and then die. That is the >greatest work of art for the whole cosmos. > >"I could not do that. Against that, we, composers, are nothing." > > >Mr. Stockhausen was reported to have left Hamburg in distress. My question to the list is: is this bon mot an expression of German Romanticism, or German Modernism, or just good old Modernism in general? Stockhausen's envy of the genius of these "characters" reminds me why I ultimately prefer Post-Modernism. Also, let me add my name to the list of those who have taken heart from this List's simple, unartful, need to talk about what happened last week. The more scholarly e-mail lists that I belong to have hardly acknowledged these events. Weird, unhealthy, stoicism, I suppose. Best wishes, ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:04:06 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/19/01 5:59:57 PM Eastern Daylight Time, lawrence.upton@BRITISHLIBRARY.NET writes: > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Ron Silliman" > To: > Sent: 19 September 2001 04:29 > Subject: What is to be done > > I agree with a lot of what you say, Ron; but credibility is a carrot with > which we could be led over a cliff... A moral position will never long be > credible in a world where credibility is effectively defined by the immoral > > | (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of > them > | the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total > | is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic > | combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be > | suffering effects from for years. > > But it is far short of, to go back less far, than Hiroshima and Vietnam. It > may be less than those who died in Sudan. It is less than in Iraq. It less > than those who die of preventable starvation and disease. Those were > ordinary folks > > I do not underestimate the visceral shock, but let's compare like with like, > Ron. The cameras privilege groups. > > | (2) What would happen to any government that did NOT respond militarily to > | such an attack on civilians on its soil? Frankly, it would collapse. Bush > | would be impeached or worse. Politicians are for the most part followers, > | craven followers at that, and the reaction by the professional pols has > been > | completely predictable. > > That's an argument for Bush from the point of view of hell. It is not a > moral argument which needs refutation. It only needs opposition > > | (3) Does anybody anywhere honestly think that this network, whether or not > | we inscribe bin Laden's name in as the CEO, will not, at some future > | moment, do something as bad or worse if it is not broken up? Do we not > think > | that it would use a nuclear weapon if it had a chance? Anthrax? > > This presupposes that it is possible to break it up. If attempts to break it > up hurt the innocent, then one may be creating further terrorism > > | (4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve > its > | behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate the > | impetus behind these attacks? > > Yes, I do > > That it could do so quickly enough to > | forestall future assaults? > > Possibly not > > | (5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 3 without > | literally abandoning Israel? > > I don't know. What's wrong with abandoning Israel? > > | (6) Can anybody here imagine a U.S. electoral politician advocating some > | version of #4? See that last comment under #1 again. > > I find it hard enough to imagine politicians in UK > > | (7) Even if those last three points were politically do-able in the near > | future, is there anybody who cannot imagine what THAT ensuing war would > | look like? > > Sufficient unto the day. If one acts from principle, one acts from > principle, or tries to > > | So what I fear most is a god-awful bloody and useless war that leaves > nobody > | any safer than they are today. > > There are no other kinds of war > > | (1) proving itself to be better than terrorists by not targeting > civilians, > > probably not possible > > > all the best > > > I more or less liked Ron Silliman's pontifications, but I liked this response better. Thanks to lawrence.upton for this. GT ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:04:49 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 50 brothers ey that's one pooped Mom ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:19:43 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: [New-Poetry] Re: [psyche-arts] They can't see why they are hated MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit OK 1 al sharpton reminds me of Arafat re how mainstream they've become 2 bin laden and the CIA or how do you know the dancer from the dance 3 like my dead mother used to say "more people have been killed in the name of Jesus Christ ..". 4 flags candles & et al other cheap knee jerk crap wait until the unattended candles ignite the curtains after all hsc is back on TV 5 extend Rudi's term God no 6 bush bobbin and weavin on TV akin to rehab Joe at an AA meeting 7 having been manic and knowing exactly how flights of fancy get off the ground thinking probable Vs possible long time since i had statistics maybe sirhan sirhan got a connubial furlough yeah that's the ticket possibly m skakel funded it to get our minds off Martha moxley hey where was he when Jon Bennett and on and on ad nauseam ad inifinum go tta go somebody is kickin my door in in closing FBI/CIA cops in more expensive uniforms you know the muscle men football jocks bullies from Hs maybe gwb and the oilmen war mongerers did it themselves hell gwb's parents both had thyroid hadda have affected his pea brain yes where was henry hydes hidden illiegimate son at the time of the wtc hit ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:33:28 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ah me too a cat person my 3 beauties are in NJ i commune with them before sleep i feed all the strays here they too know something bad is a foot ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:36:53 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Arielle have i got the flag for you i am a compulsive pack rat as were my parents and so i have this lovely number still wavable f with about 46 or 7 stars on it send address I'm glad to find a good home for it as i am too sentimental to throw it out ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:36:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: a personal account from 9/11/01 Comments: To: imitationpoetics@topica.com, BRITISH-POETS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed This was written by my friend Joe, who works at Goldman Sachs trying to pay off the debts he accrued getting his Brown PhD in classics/history of mathematics. He wrote it for himself, but he shared it with me. I asked him if I could send this along, and he said by all means. Love. --Ak >====== >"I am become Death, destroyer of Worlds" --Baghavad Gita (11.32 - 33) as >quoted by Dr. J. R. Oppenheimer >====== > >TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH-8:50AM > >I stepped out of my N train--which had just passed >underneath the World Trade Center (WTC afterwards)-- at the Rector >Street > station. I climbed the stairs and emerged at the Southwest > corner of Church and Rector. I had just finished my daily recitation > of my 30 or so Sanskrit verb paradigms while riding the subway, and was > about to >start on the nouns as I walked the rest of the way to work. Bit early >today. I'll take the long way. > >Deva - God - luminous being - in the nominative .. in the vocative >... accusative ... dative .. ablative ... genitive .. locative. > > I walked past Trinity Church at the foot of Wall St. and looked up to see a >tourist standing before the grave of Alexander Hamilton. > > >Phala - fruit - in the nominative.. in the vocative ... accusative > ... dative .. ablative ... genitive .. locative. > > I went on to >Broadway made a left and was nearing the exchange, when I noticed what looked >like confetti falling from the air. > >Agni - fire -- in the nominative .. in the vocative ... accusative >... dative .. ablative ... genitive ..locative. > > I thought maybe it was a promotion at the New York Stock Exchange for a new >issue. They do that sort of thing. Release balloons, have truckloads of WWF >wrestlers, dancing girls. I was also near the spot from which I watched the >ticker-tape parade for the 2000 New York Yankees, and the Gulf War Victory >Parade. Thus my spirits were made light by the sight of the paper. > >Then I noticed the confetti was burnt. I looked up above the NYSE to see a >monstrous plume of puffy white smoke -- emanating from seemingly nowhere-- >from which the charred papers were raining down. I thought, "My god--what's >there? Where can this cloud be coming from?" The crowd of people I was >with---our mood turned from one of lightness to one of--horror. It was as if >we all had the same realization at the same time that something---nescio >quid--was horribly wrong. > >Some folks began to run. I wasn't sure why they were running. Then I noticed >that little bits of greenish debris were beginning to rain down, just as I >turned south on Williams street. All the while the papers just kept floating >to the ground. I ducked into deli across from Delmonico's to get cover...then >realized that if the falling debris gets worse--this would not be a good >place to be for very long. Picture windows. No phones. > > There were a few construction workers in the street ( whom I later realized >must have seen the crash). They've been there for several weeks now working >on pipes or wiring beneath Williams Street. They were facing West and were >backlit from the morning sun. I heard one of them say to a man in a suit >"...the World Trade Center". I asked what happened. He said "A plane crash in >the World trade Center". I immediately thought of a picture in a book my >father had gotten me as a child of a gaping hole in the Empire State >Building...caused by a 1945 plane crash into that building--a B25 , I think. >Christ. > > I saw people getting hit with pebble-sized debris. I ran down South > William to my building...went right to the 11th floor where I work...no > one knew what was >going on. I heard "Plane crash..plane crash at the World Trade Center". I >thought and someone said "Wait..how can that be? The weather is perfectly >clear". The B-25 had hit in a thick fog. Someone had a radio..."Plane >crash..it was plane crash" > > >9:03 a.m > > We all looked up at the WTC to see one tower on fire. There was a ring of >fire encircling the building one floor...near the top. The floors above the >ring were enshrouded in thick black upwardly rising waves. Every second or >two the fire crept lower--floor by floor---dripping like wax down a candle. > >The thought of those people...they're being incinerated..there's no way to >control that fire. Then a huge fireball--monstrous in size--shot out and >up---like some horribly visible dragon's breath.(this was the fireball from >the impact of the second jet--I didn't realize this until after viewing the >footage of the attack). > >Terror. Stupefied silent terror. > >Then the word from the radio..There was a second plane --it crashed into the >other tower. We knew. It was an attack. It had started. What would be next? >The exchange? All Manhattan? Where is the air force? Aren't they supposed to >prevent this? "There's a third plane...jets are scrambling now to intercept" >"The CDC is involved" Oh fuck. Anthrax I heard someone say. > >The phones were dead. Even the cell. The Internet was down. There >was calm..no..silence for a while. I managed to get through to my dad on my >Sprint cell phone--called Sharon (my girlfriend).Her cell wasn't answering. I >left a message for her. I was horrified for Sharon, who I thought took the >PATH >train to the WTC to get to work...no , her new job is in Brooklyn, she >takes the 33rd street train to 14th street to get the L train. Well north >of here. > >I said "Dad..I'm OK...please call Sharon let her know..please call Joanie (my >sister) ..tell her I'm alive". Though I wasn't sure for how long. A woman >came into the office..screaming...she had seen people leap > to their deaths from the trade center..rather than being incinerated or >suffocating...their bodies fell into the canopy over a stage between the two >towers..where Sharon and I had spent many a pleasant summer-evening hour >listening to the live sounds of the Big Bands..to Broadway tunes... > >9:43 AM > >"The Pentagon, shit, they got the Pentagon" "The White House!" >My dad said "Stay put..don't go out into that until you know what's going >on..I'm a veteran of W.W.II and the police department know what I'm talking >about! Stay put until you know what you're facing!" > > > >10:00 AM > >I went to the ground floor..I'm not sure why..the sky..not the sky..the >atmosphere itself -the sky couldn't be seen- was a sickly gray. There was a >slightly luminous disk where the sun had been only a few minutes ago..it >looked like the sun that woman had painted in the Twilight Zone episode. > >I went back upstairs....not sure even if I should use the elevator..I stepped >out onto the 11th floor again..the building rocked..it was as if it had been >picked up 6 inches and dropped back down again...the lights dimmed..oh shit, >DON'T EVER GET ON THE ELEVATOR! > I looked down in the street. > >People --all mummified in pasty white soot--were running--all in the same >direction--running from something--it was like those old Godzilla movies...I >looked in back of them --a huge wall of black-- a 50 -story tidal >wave moving straight towards my building-at a rate of my god...40 mph or so.. >.fuck...what is it..what's in the black? The tower? Poison gas? > Are buildings being blown up in succession..in this direction? Fuck--a > mushroom cloud? It became night...you could smell it. > >"Please go to the third floor", we heard. Without debating whether to use >the stairs or the elevator, we all took the stairs. Circling down. Floor >after floor. Shit! We're only on 10! only 8! > >I got to the third floor...there's a few large conference rooms there. I >heard knocking on from >another staircase door---the door was marked-"NO RE-ENTERING FROM THIS >STAIRCASE". I opened it to find a few people who rushed past me into one >of the rooms. I propped open the door with its own "NO RE-ENTERING" sign >to prevent >such a horrid entrapment of people again. > >There were stunned crowds of people in groups of 12 or so. "The >basement--Don't stay here--go to the basement!". Yeah--right--and be buried >alive if this thing falls. Shit, I want to at least have a chance of getting >out. > >I stayed on the third floor. The windows looked like they had been painted >black. It became increasingly difficult to breathe. I'll die of smoke >inhalation if this --whatever it is--continues. Should I go back up in the >building to where the air is perhaps clearer?. But why did they move us down >here..was the roof on fire? STAND UNDER A DOORWAY..I did..I made peace with >my creator...people were starting to breathe through handkerchiefs..fuck, my >great grandfather died from mustard gas in World War One...I tried to find a >better place to breathe...found an airvent by a window..with just enough >of a trickle of clean air to make things bearable.. > > "The tower collapsed..that was the tower collapsing!" . We huddled by >radios....people were passing out donuts from boxes....Krispy Kreme... >I reached for a chocolate and saw it shake in my hands..some of the >workers on that floor let us use their office phones to call >home..."dad..I'm still OK...thank Christ you told me to stay put..I would >have been caught in that cloud of shit --(A cloud that I later learned >suffocated many)" > >"Please return to your work stations", we heard. Yeah, >right. Fuck you. > >10:28 AM >I wondered if the smoke and soot would ever clear up...even in our air >conditioned building the unbreathable stench was starting to creep in---just >when daylight began to push through the smoke, it happened again.....a >second wave of black. I must have waited hours again for it to clear. It >all seemed to have stopped. > >11:00 AM >I went back to the 11th floor to my desk and looked out the window....it >wasn't there...just a tower of smoke. >Got through to my sister and my 14 year old niece on my desk phone. >They live just outside of Atlanta. "Uncle Joey..they let took me out of > school when I told them about you...I've started making a scrap book... >writing things down...just like grandma Doris did for Pearl Harbor". > Pearl Harbor? At least a case could be made that had been a military > target....at least that was somewhat comprehensible. > > > I peered out my window again. Lower Manhattan looked like it had been >covered by >volcanic ash. I heard something on the radio about Guiliani telling people >to get out of Manhattan. I waited till I could see the outside again to >leave the building. > >1:30 PM >It was time to go, I decided. There was only a thin suspension of shit >in the air now. Thin at least by comparison. My boss...a usually Stoic man >in his > early-to-mid thirties told me not to forget to bring water..I would need >it. > >I filled 2 16 oz Styrofoam containers of ice water and put a plastic lid on >each. I noticed each lid had a quarter-inch or so hole for drinking. The >shit still hanging in the air will get in there. So I put a second lid on >each at a 90 degree angle to the first. I got down to the first floor > walked out into the Dust. > > > > > There were a handful of numb, ash covered groups of people--in twos and >threes...making their way North. Faces covered in whatever rag could be >found. Trudging in the Dust that was on everything. There were cars, trucks >and cabs abandoned in the streets. One, I think, still had the motor >running. > >"Motherfuckers high-tailed it outta here ! " I heard. I could feel my >breathing labor...go East..to the river..the air must be clearer. Was it >asbestos? No one spoke..there was nothing to say...language fails. >The awnings on the stores on the North side of Maiden lane near South >Street --the stores where I occasionally had lunch...were covered thickly >in ash. There was a fully stocked lunch cart abandoned--and covered in >the Dust. > > I walked up the East side under the FDR towards the South Street Seaport... >hoping to cross into Queens over the 59th Street bridge. > > "We are evacuating Manhattan" The bullhorn said. The police were > evacuating lower Manhattan by means of anything that would float, it seems. >There were three tugboats on the pier..their deckhands were directing people >to boats bound for Jersey City or a boats for Brooklyn. I saw a >scrawled hand made sign on the command tower of closest boat: "Jersey City". > >I walked on its metal plank towards the deck and in my numbness asked a >deckhand "Where is the boat to Brooklyn?" "Right back there" he said, >pointing to the next tug.. safety. The sea. Thalassa! > >As I walked back on the plank towards the shore, a man with a dog >asked if he was heading to the boat for Jersey City. He was 50-ish, > disheveled gray hair...business casual..tan corduroy jacket. >His eyes seemed stunned. I looked down at his dog's harness and >realized it was a seeing -eye dog. Christ. To go through this Hell blind. > >"Don't worry--she won't bite" he assured me. "Yes", I said "The boat for >Jersey City..straight ahead." I asked if he needed help, but he declined. > >I walked further along the dock and saw the Brooklyn Tug. The deck of the tug >was about 8 feet below the surface of the pier. There was a ladder from >this deck to the railing of the pier. On either side of the ladder was a > deckhand. Knowing that I could not hold on to my precious water and climb >over the railing and down the ladder at the same time, I asked with >trepidation if they could hold my two cups. The one on my right took >them both and passed them to a third man while saying > "Don't forget these are his". > >They held my cups of water for me while I climbed down the ladder onto the >boat.. I was in the rear of the dark red tug...I looked around the rear of >the boat till I found a pile of life jackets. I didn't put one on....I just >wanted to know where they were in case there was another attack. I looked >down. There was water sloshing through two foot-long oval-shaped >openings at the bottom of the deck at water level.... we were told to >climb to the upper deck of the tug to make more room for other people.. > >"I don't need to see that" I heard. I looked into the water of the East > River--several feet off the port bow-- and saw a shoe floating. It was a >workshoe. Floating tread-up. > >I burst into tears. > >I walked to the front of the tug and up another ladder. I saw that a >blue-and-white police boat had docked ahead of us and was taking on the >people from the Jersey City tug I had passed by. The police were putting >life jackets on their dozen or so passengers, including the man with the >dog. Shit. If their boat gets sunk, they'll all have life jackets, and we > won't. > >I looked up and faced the clouds of devastation: seemingly separate plumes > of black and white. At first the wind was blowing to the South-east... >moving the thick debris clouds south of us. Then the winds started to shift > to the East..bringing us directly into the path of the Dust.. We became > anxious as breathing became more difficult. > > People shared towels, cloths. "When the fuck are we leaving?" I heard. I >agreed with the sentiment---but changed my mind when I saw a few more people >running to the boat. > > The ship I was on faced West. We were docked at a pier which was >perpendicular to the shore of Manhattan. We were facing into the island. > >Then I noticed a slight clockwise rotation of the ship. It was pivoting >around the bow--which still was touching the pier. I hoped were preparing to >depart. We were. As we pulled away from the pier, I noticed that another >other tug to Jersey City was named "Resolute". > I felt comforted by the word. > >We pulled out into the East River and turned slowly towards Brooklyn. >Some gentlemen on the walkway of the tug's bridge with me noted that the >skies over Manhattan were empty.....except, I noticed, for a seagull flying >north over the FDR Drive--a white figure silhouetted against a >black cloud. I thought of the pigeons at the end of "Failsafe". > >We saw a Department of Corrections boat heading for the Seaport. >These boats usually patrol the waters looking for escapees from Rikers >Island. Now they were evidently joining in the evacuation. > > We moved slowly under the Brooklyn Bridge to its base in the Borough > of Brooklyn. There were a few -- maybe 7 or 8 people-- waiting under >the foot of the bridge. They probably had heard from their loved ones >by cell phone. > >We looked up and saw a young mother with a child..maybe 3 or 4 years old.. >she screamed the most joyous scream I've ever heard: "THERE'S DADDY-- >THERE'S DADDY--he's safe he's safe!" > >There was a collective, mild cheer from the other passengers on the boat. > >The boat turned slowly south, and while a deck hand held a thick orange rope, >the ship drifted in parallel to the shore. "Do I need the rope?" >shouted the deckhand. "Yeah..tie it up!" "Don't worry--you'll all get off!.. >.next Stop--Bay Ridge". We filed towards a spot on the port side, where two > deckhands were helping people off the boat. The tug's deck was level with > the edge of a cement wall--about 6 inches across--that stretched down into > the water.On the other side of the cement and level with its top was dry > ground. >I knew I'd be a bit unsure of my footing as I disembarked... >that I'd need the help of two deckhands on either side of me to get off... >so I left one of my cups on the deck of the ship. There's alot left. >Someone will find it and use it. > >There was a railing --about 4 feet high--on the cement wall. > I walked North along it for about 30 feet till I found a portion > of that was made of >chain-link. Lower and easier to climb over. Still some battery left in > the cell. "I'm in Brooklyn, Dad, I'll try to get back to Queens somehow >now". > I started to walk up a slightly inclined road...away from the East River. > I noticed a 40-ish, slightly graying man and 30-ish woman talking. >Both business casual. The man wore glasses. They were trying to find >their way to Queens, I heard. >I didn't want to go alone. I didn't want to be alone. I started >talking to them. John, he said his name was. The woman excused herself and > ran off at the sight of a pay phone to our right. We asked >a small group of people who were standing in the street about a block East >of the bridge how to get to Queens from >here. They didn't know. We walked further up this slope and found a > policewoman. She told us there were >shuttle buses going in the direction of Queens--in fact, one just left. >"Can I walk to Queens somehow?". No. Not really. >As she spoke, a regular city bus pulled around from behind a building. >She signaled the driver to stop. As we stepped on, John, who was now > behind me, asked me if they were collecting the fare--he >didn't have his Metrocard. There was a black plastic trash bag over the >fare box. No fare today. The driver told us that his bus would >take us to an A train station--we could probably find our way from there. > >We were on the bus for maybe a minute when I saw a black sign for a subway >stop. It had two blue circles on it. One with the white letter "A"..one > with "C". This was it. We get off here. There were several police officers > at the top of the subway stairs. Blue uniforms with orange reflective >vests. "Yes..the A train is running..no..I don't > know how to get to Queens...ask the clerk downstairs." > >John and I talked >as we walked down the stairs. The A will take us to Queens..no, it won't. >It didn't really matter. I didn't really care when or how we got to Queens. > As long as we were the fuck out of Manhattan. When we got to the landing > where the clerk was, there were a few people exiting the turnstile. Yes. >The train was running. These people had just gotten off of one, it looks. >Two or three others were lined up to ask the clerk --a rather plump, >smiley black woman in her early thirties --questions about how to get >where from here. When it came my turn, she answered: "You can the A back into > Man..no..you can't....just go downstairs and ask the policemen on the > platform if the G is running. If it is it will take you there." > > The two of us descended further to the platform level and saw >four or five officers at its West end. They seemed to be hovering like >phantoms in some sort of cloud....they were wearing face masks. Shit. It >was here. The Dust. Oh fuck. The A runs right under the > WTC. The shit must have traveled through the tunnel under the river. > Please let there be a train. Can't stay here. >"Yeah--the G is running..take the next train to Hoyt-Schermerhorn." >In a second or two, a train pulled out of the leftmost >of the openings in the tunnel and into the station. John and I ran to the > conductor's window just to see if he could confirm that the G was running. > It was. > >We stepped in. Air conditioning. I could breathe. In my relief... >and momentarily forgetting the circumstances under which we had met, I asked >..as if nothing was wrong.. "So where do you work, John. "I'm a web designer >right across from.." Something was wrong. No one was speaking. In the >whole car no one was speaking. There had to be 100 people in this car and >no one else was speaking. A few just looked up at us. "Jay Street", the >conductor announced over the PA. "Shit, did we miss Hoyt?". "Yes you did..it > was back one stop" an elderly lady said as she left the train. > "No..its the next stop..she must be confused" another woman said to us. > She was trying to get to Queens, too. > Now there were three of us. We introduced ourselves, shook hands, and vowed > to stick together. An attempt to repair the gaping rent in civilization. > >John and the woman talked. Couldn't hear what they're saying over the din > of the train. "Hoyt Schermerhorn" The PA said. We filed off the train. >In an attempt to avoid the crowds of people getting onto it, once we were >on the >platform, we squeezed through a small passage--maybe a foot > wide--between the side of a >staircase and a pillar, both white-tiled. John in the lead, then me, then the > woman. "Just a trick I learned from years of commuting" John said. > >The PA shouted ``There is no A train service into Manhattan...due to >an earlier incident at Chambers Street, there is no...''. What? Earlier >incident >at Chamber's Street? That's what they say when a train has a stuck >door, for Christ's sake! >``What do you want them to say? They all >know what happened'' John said. > > Now for the G. Where is it in this station?. There. On the next >track over. Which direction is it going? North. To Queens. My head hurts. >Can't think. > I looked around > the station and noticed that part of it seemed abandoned. There was a >whole platform--with nice lettering on it. It was clearly no >longer in use. I wonder why. > >Damn. The G only runs every 20 minutes or so. It'll be a while >before...its here! We got on the train and sat three-in-a-row: John, >the woman and me. Across from us sat a smartly dressed young man. Dirty brown >hair, white shirt. Christ, he can't be more than 22. He overheard us >talking. Then answered to us the name of a building that John was >trying to recall in his conversation with the woman. ``I work in Brooklyn. >I'm going >home to find out about some of my friends. They work for Morgan >Stanley...they have 20% of the offices in the trade center'' > > >God. > >What was it like, the young man asked. John answered ``Have you ever been in a >car accident...and for a second or two you don't know how its going to >turn out..if you're going to live or die..or be injured?..you see it >coming..and there's nothing you can do to stop it? That's how it >was'', John said. ``That's the best description I can give. Only >continue that moment or two of uncertain horror for several hours'' > >I never take the G. We passed by stop after unfamiliar stop. Flushing >Ave. Court Square. The young man got off. We wished him well. I felt a >twinge at his >departure. > >I can go upstairs at Queens Plaza and take the N. No, it probably isn't >running. It goes under the World Trade Center at Cortland Street.``John, >How can I get to Flushing?'' she asked. Wait. I can >switch to the R. The R will take me home. Shit. I can just stay on the >G...I should know that. The G will take me >right to Steinway Street. Why can't I think straight? > > >They both got up at Queens Plaza. We all said goodbye and wished each other >luck. I stayed on the G. Now there wasn't just a twinge. I felt scared. > >People piled on. Crowded car. Silent. Not even the usually obnoxious >buzz of a Walkman playing too loudly. > > >4:00 PM > > >I emerge from the Steinway Street Station. Facing North on >Steinway. The sun is bright and over my left shoulder, but without any >warmth. It doesn't feel like any time of day..or any day of the >week. Time is stopped. Its not here. > > >``Dad..I'm in Astoria...I can walk from here'' > > >I make a left on 30th Ave and walk West. I pass by Athens >Park. There's a statue of Socrates there...and Athena, in full >headdress. I wonder if they'll survive this. > >I went home and cried. > >POST SCRIPT: >Sharon watched the towers burn, then collapse from Brooklyn. She >was distraught until she got the message I left on her cell. > > > > > > >-----Original Message----- >From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS [SMTP:anastasios.kozaitis@verizon.net] >Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2001 7:15 AM >To: Joseph Leichter >Subject: Re: Hey > >At 11:25 PM 9/17/01 -0400, you wrote: > >Het Stas..thanks for your call tonight..it was good to hear from > >you...hmmm...I wrote up a description of what I saw last Tuesday..would > >you be interested in seeing it? Mostly to purge myself of it all. > >So how are things with you? I hope no one you knew was near it all... > >Joe > > >I would definitely like to read what you wrote. Please send. Did you have >any losses? >Me? I'm all shook up. I was in the 1993 WTC bombing (55th floor). Also, old >friends of mine were in United Airlines Flight 175; they were taking their >3 year old daughter to Disneyland (Boston to LA). I'm scared. I'm >sorrowful. I'm angry. I'm sad. >This is just so sad. > >Hope to see you soon. > >Be safe down there. > >--Ak ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:45:21 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: s&m..Neurosurgery... In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If the responses to the left....are typical of the RIGHT...they're giving a poor showing...of their new Neurocircuity...America gets brain surgery during an aftermath...everyone a soldier...Debate is outlawed...Dissent now a Terrorist activity...Atta is still alive and not in the crash....Dissenters flee America in fear...Pronto...DTh > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Harry Nudel > Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 6:57 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: m&r..Brain Transplant... > > > If the responses on this list to W.T.C.... are typical of the > LEFT...they;d better hope American Tech. develops a Brain > Transplant..Pronto.....DRn... > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:45:00 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit asking the wizard of oz for a new brain would be a good idea ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:47:37 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: s&m 2+2=5 In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One Nation under CIA...with Key Escrow and Wire Tapping for all... Everyone Knows Who the Killer Is .... But No One's Got Evidence...Not Good Enough for Justice though allegedly she's Blind...But Good Enough for Franco...DTh... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 01:42:16 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: ground zero MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Thanks to all who responded in reply to my posting about the use of the phrase "Ground Zero". That was extremely interesting and useful to me Jeffrey, when I started reading you, and you saying it's "an attempt at euphemism", I thought sure, but *why?... and then you told me! I worked for years very near to the site of a pretty horrible railway accident of a few years back so that crash had some immediacy for me although I knew no one involved. The spot itself has no name as such, it's just a stretch of embankment without anything special about it until the accident, except perhaps to a fox or rat. Humans hurtle by it. There is no name as such to be painfully recalled. But I always remember that crash when I go near the place or if I happen to be looking out of the train window as I go past. So I understand to some extent, enough to know that there is more one could feel. "the site," or "downtown." are better, I think, than "ground zero" because of that metaphorical connection with nukes, which is, I believe, inappropriate and unfortunate Laura - I was having a break with friends a few days ago, mid morning, in a garden, in a beautiful place, and four fighter bombers flew over very low just subsonic I suppose it was meant to reassure us, but we did not feel reassured, at all. It just scared us. And I recalled maybe the first day in a new house when I was about 12 - the local factory used the all-clear on an old air raid siren to mark the end of a shift - quarries use them too, to warn of a detonation. Even though it was the all clear, the association was enough to terrify my mother. I remember very clearly I heard a noise I knew vaguely I had heard before but for her, over 15 years after the blitz, many times the duration of the actual experience; the terror of bombing was just part of her Patrick, all points taken, all is relative, but I can never rid myself, nor would I want this side of new Jerusalem, of that sequence at the end of Strangelove when *all the nukes go up. I think I stand by my hope that we - we, yes, though I am aware it's your city and not mine - remain clear this wasn't a nuke and a nuke could have been far worse - it's not that they don't make em small; it's that when one is used again, there'll be a call for retaliation in kind; and that, if one had been used in the same manner on this occasion, it would most likely have been "dirty" Depleted uranium, yes... or a plane crashed on a shipment of nuclear waste The idea that the possibilities can all be accounted for is not on L ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:55:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Fwd: Government Poetry (not) Comments: To: imitationpoetics@topica.com, psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/1995/sieminsk.htm > >Short history of naming operations (like 'Desert Storm' and 'Just >Cause'). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:05:54 -500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Rosenberg Subject: Secret Military Tribunals MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Pardon if this has already been discussed. I can't keep up with the Poetics List in normal times, and these are not normal times. NPR had a story this morning which I take to be an exclusive, since I have yet to hear or read this anywhere else. The story was by Nina Totenberg -- who normally covers the Supreme Court and is no flake. She reports that the administration is considering using secret military tribunals to try the terrorists if they get their hands on them. She went on to cite the rather sparse prior history of the use of secret military tribunals in the United States. You can hear the story at: http://www.npr.org/ramfiles/me/20010919.me.06.ram --- Jim Rosenberg http://www.well.com/user/jer/ CIS: 71515,124 WELL: jer Internet: jr@amanue.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 19:13:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Maxwell Subject: Laura Moriarty & Brent Cunningham @ Dawsons, 4pm Sunday! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" The Germ & the Poetic Research Bureau present Laura Moriarty & Brent Cunningham at Dawsons Book Shop, Sunday Sept 23 @ 4pm! *** Poetry is essential at this time, we can't doubt it. Let's continue! *** Laura Moriarty's recent books are Nude Memoir (Krupskaya), like roads (Kelsey St. Press), Rondeaux (Roof Books), L'Archiviste (Zasterle Press) and Symmetry (Avec Books). Persia co-won The Poetry Center Book Award in 1983. Forthcoming are The Case from O Books and the short novel Cunning from Spuyten Duyvil. She received a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Award in Poetry in 1992. Recent anthologies are The Art of Practice (Potes and Poets, 1994), Primary Trouble (Talisman House,1996), An Avec Sampler (Avec Books, 1997) and Moving Borders (Talisman House,1998). She is the editor of non, a poetry and poetics Web site at http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~moriarty. She lives in Albany, California, where she is the asst director of Small Press Distribution. Brent Cunningham has worked for Small Press Distribution since 1999, in charge of the Web site and Sales. Using his MA from SUNY Buffalo for the benefit of humanity, Brent has recently published poems, reviews, drawings and works of amateur philosophy in CHAIN, KENNING, the WASHINGTON REVIEW, and CONTEXT. Co-founder of the shadowy anti-movement "Delay," he is now at work on an even shadowier project, an Illustrated Anti-Narrative for the Children of Avant-Gardes. On Sunday, he will be reading from his work-in-progress EXAMPLES OF MY METHOD. A resident of the Mission District of San Francisco, a board member of the San Francisco literary presenting organization Small Press Traffic, and an adherent of both Viktor Shklovsky and Roland Barthes, Brent is currently childless. *** Dawsons is located at 535 N. Larchmont Blvd between Beverly Blvd and Melrose Blvd. Tel: 213-469-2186 Readings are open to all. $3 donation requested for poets/venue. Call Andrew at 310.446.8162 x233 for more info. *** The season continues: Sept 23: Laura Moriarty, Brent Cunningham Sept 30: Alvin Lu, Marc Cholodenko Oct. 14: Pascalle Monnier, Jacques Darras Oct. 21: Philippe Beck, Guy Bennett Oct. 28: Mark Nowak, Marty Nakell, Pasquale Verdicchio Nov. 11: Roberto Tejada, Kristen Gallagher Nov. 18: Prageeta Sharma, Katie Dagentesh, Franklin Bruno Dec. 2: Jean Fremon, Douglas Messerli Dec. 9: Charles Alexander, Myung Mi Kim But possible cancellations due to travel constraints & much else... ************************************************** Andrew Maxwell, gaslighter The Germ/Poetic Research Bureau 1417 Nolden St Los Angeles, CA 90042 "a dead romantic is a falsification" --Stevens ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:23:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: Re: Fwd: Re: world trade.. Robert Creeley wrote: > Ok with me, Harry -- nly just now I am on the road and it's hard to do more than get to the next so-called place. Anyhow you're the boss. Love, Bob nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > Hi..all my mutterings..sometimes get catlogued at a wonderful site called Popula.com...with yr permission i'd like to use some of this interchange....also in 10 words or less if you've got the time..what do you think??..lv..Harry > > Robert Creeley wrote: > > Dear Harry, > As the world turns, I wish people could stop grabbing the wheel. Still thinking, for whatever that's worth -- "old friends the most" Yeats. > > Love, > Bob > -- > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 22:26:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: Special issue of American Book Review on codework MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII http://www.litline.org/abr/Issues/Volume22/Issue6/abr2206.html On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Alan Sondheim wrote: > > I put this issue together - you might want to take a look at the site - > > Alan > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 23:20:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: of the great void or chasm beneath the surface MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - of the great void or chasm beneath the surface you can see them rising:smoke rising, fog, you can see them:i dream of a vast void-chasm:: ascending through the chasm-void:they are rising, rising up:you can see them rising, you can see them, rising up:: rising from the dark chasm-void chasm:the lost 5400, you can see them rising:almost distinct, the 5400:: i dream of the wounding darkness:i dream of the 5400, one by one by one: i dream of the chasm, the void:: of the indistinct cloth, of the face in the cloth through my dream of the wounding darkness! i have come out and coming out and coming out:the lost, the indistinct, the traced:i have come out and coming out and coming out:the 5400, the 5400, the 5400: the 5400, the 5400, the 5400, i have come out and coming out and coming out! from the womb-chasm, from the void, they are rising:they are rising, they are rising:it is time, one time, and it is time again:the 5400, 5400, the 5400:the 5400, 5400, the 5400 the 5400, 5400, the 5400 the 5400, almost distinct, they are rising up:around me they are rising, they are rising, they are rising:i will not dream, will not abide, will never wake from dream::they are rising, rising up, i stay asleep, i will sleep, i will not abide, i will stay asleep i stay asleep, remain asleep, they are rising, they are rising, they are rising up _ ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 20:06:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit after forty years of resistance to flag-waving and what I saw as meaningless gestures, on the 11th I asked my children to buy one for us to display. tom bell ----- Original / ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 12:37:12 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Was asked to forward this from RAWA. Reuven BenYuhmin ====================================================================== Below is a statement from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)on the terrorist attacks in the US. This is the women's organisation featured on the recent UK program rebroadcast on Four Corners. The statement has been sent to the Refugee Research Centre at UNSW and they have asked for it to be circulated as widely as possible. Heather. The people of Afghanistan have nothing to do with Osama and his accomplices On September 11, 2001 the world was stunned with the horrific terrorist attacks on the United States. RAWA stands with the rest of the world in expressing our sorrow and condemnation for this barbaric act of violence and terror. RAWA had already warned that the United States should not support the most treacherous, most criminal, most anti-democracy and anti-women Islamic fundamentalist parties because after both the Jehadi and the Taliban have committed every possible type of heinous crimes against our people, they would feel no shame in committing such crimes against the American people whom they consider "infidel". In order to gain and maintain their power, these barbaric criminals are ready to turn easily to any criminal force. But unfortunately we must say that it was the government of the United States who supported Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged. In the similar way, as is clear to all, Osama Bin Laden has been the blue-eyed boy of CIA. But what is more painful is that American politicians have not drawn a lesson from their pro-fundamentalist policies in our country and are still supporting this or that fundamentalist band or leader. In our opinion any kind of support to the fundamentalist Taliban and Jehadies is actually trampling democratic, women's rights and human rights values. If it is established that the suspects of the terrorist attacks are outside the US, our constant claim that fundamentalist terrorists would devour their creators, is proved once more. The US government should consider the root cause of this terrible event, which has not been the first and will not be the last one too. The US should stop supporting Afghan terrorists and their supporters once and for all. Now that the Taliban and Osama are the prime suspects by the US officials after the criminal attacks, will the US subject Afghanistan to a military attack similar to the one in 1998 and kill thousands of innocent Afghans for the crimes committed by the Taliban and Osama? Does the US think that through such attacks, with thousands of deprived, poor and innocent people of Afghanistan as its victims, will be able to wipe out the root-cause of terrorism, or will it spread terrorism even to a larger scale? >From our point of view a vast and indiscriminate military attacks on a country that has been facing permanent disasters for more than two decades will not be a matter of pride. We don't think such an attack would be the expression of the will of the American people. The US government and people should know that there is a vast difference between the poor and devastated people of Afghanistan and the terrorist Jehadi and Taliban criminals. While we once again announce our solidarity and deep sorrow with the people of the US, we also believe that attacking Afghanistan and killing its most ruined and destitute people will not in any way decrease the grief of the American people. We sincerely hope that the great American people could DIFFERENTIATE between the people of Afghanistan and a handful of fundamentalist terrorists. Our hearts go out to the people of the US. Down with terrorism! Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) September 14, 2001 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 21:39:59 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: Bravo Ron Silliman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I cried when I read Ron's report. It is truly the best thing I've read on the situation we're in and it is so humane, accurate, brilliantly argued, and fair-minded. Thank you Ron. This article should be circulated widely--let's all do that--and printed in a leading periodical. And of course later on it will be part of Ron's Collected Writings. So--thank you Ron! Marjorie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 02:59:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...peace... peace...peace a transitional object...'tween what was & what's comin'...peace....Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 03:11:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..'heightened capacity for perception of nuance' freaked out...an emblem...mainstream citizens whose flag waving...accountability for various atrocities...suspicion of contempt..wounds of the populace..distorted-frazzled...lot of baggage..Drn.. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 03:32:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...ground zero... ground zero...that place before...it's just a matter of defintions...arm & leg & other body parts......Ground Zero PLus ONE...Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 05:02:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - each letter falls burning into the void falling through chaos chaos burning i am burned by letters stream or fire of letters unable to read to write unable to speak silence unspeaking of letters void falls through void chaos into chaos each sign falls burning each sign falls through signs i am burned by signs streaming fire of signs unable to read to write unable to speak signs falling through signs 'i cannot write letters i cannot write' 'i cannot write signs' 'help me i cannot write cannot read unable to speak' _ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 02:05:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Abel Subject: Coalition building MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Listees, I'm writing to describe some of the recent responses of the community here in Portland (Oregon), but first I want to thank everyone in New York and beyond for checking in and for your accounts of your experiences. It has been a crucial link for me--and, I think, for many of those of us on the "outside"--that helped make it possible to feel somehow connected to that reality, and as a corrective to the constructed images of the mainstream media. Especially in the first week, when it was impossible to get through to anyone in the 212 or 718 area codes by telephone. I've been glued to the computer screen (tonight's Poetics digest for instance taking, what, 3 hours to read and assimilate?) and the telephone since the first bulletins came through (I was awake and online early that morning, and was convinced at first that it was a prank, that someone had hacked into the New York Times news alerts). Though I've been away a long time now, New York is still the only place I care to call "home," and as crazy as it sounds to some (based on the reactions I've gotten from people here when I say it), I wish very much that I'd been there. Let me also thank everyone who has participated, continues to participate in the ongoing dialogue over the political meaning and context of what has happened, and the possible and necessary strategies of response. It takes real time and effort, but is indispensable. The deeply informed and painstakingly cogent arguments of many, and the forwarded/pasted articles, interviews, commentaries, have made a more comprehensive and nuanced perception of where we find ourselves at least possible. On Sunday a still-coalescing organization called the Portland Peaceful Response Coalition sponsored a gathering--a vigil and march, expressing outrage over the attacks and grief for the victims, but opposition to the war and to racist attacks--in the park blocks downtown. There were several speakers (representatives of clergy, and activists from local, national, and international groups), and then a march, in which more than 2500 of us walked through downtown, around the main square (Pioneer Courthouse Square), and back to the park blocks--many carrying signs, many singing, but with a pretty quiet, somber mood pervading. Originally intended to stay on the sidewalks, the numbers were too great and it spilled into the streets. Volunteer traffic/security folk managed admirably to balance the desires of the marchers and the motorists; eventually, officials from the transit system (Tri-Met, bus and light rail) and police assisted. We couldn't regroup in the square itself, as another organization had reserved it--the march had been called on extremely short notice, and was conducted without a permit. After returning to the park blocks, thousands of flowers were laid in a central location in memory of those lost, and there were additional speakers before the gathering dispersed. I've just tonight returned from the first post-march organizational meeting of the Coalition (I was not involved with the pre-march organization). The group was very large, more than a hundred people, and struggled for hours to resolve basic questions of structure, decision-making, mission, etc. (The two facilitators did a remarkable job under the circumstances.) The two largest contingents in the group seem to be 1) seasoned activists from various preexisting organizations, and 2) college students, many of whom were in the thick of the WTO protests in Seattle. Consequently, there was a division between those who favor a traditional, hierarchical and thus efficient structure (centralized steering committe, etc.), and those who believe that a more horizontal structure, composed of small groups with well-defined aims but no central decision-making body, provides for true consensus and direct involvement/investment of all who participate. The challenge for the latter notion is to remain feasible with a very large (and hopefully growing) group; as it was, very many people left in frustration after the first hour and a half. A temporary compromise seems to have been reached that will no doubt undergo revision and contest in coming weeks, as we attempt to "embody the conflict in the structure," as one participant put it.. I've heard that this was one of the first and largest such public actions opposing the coming bloodshed. (I haven't confirmed that claim; one of the disadvantages of *not* following the mainstream press, not owning a television, etc., is sometimes missing very basic national news.) In any case, I've bothered to describe it here merely in the hope that it might inspire some of you (who perhaps are wondering, as I am, what there is to be done) to join similar coalitions forming wherever you are; or if none have formed, then to gather a few friends together and start one. I've taken Ron's concerns (about the danger of a "habitual" progressive response, that doesn't take into account unique particulars of the moment), and the replies to them, very much to heart. But, as many have noted, time is terribly short, and to begin putting *some* response in place seems imperative, just as a debate about strategy is inevitable. Working through public organizations certainly isn't for everyone--in the past, it hasn't been for me--and I am confident that just about everyone, in their own ways, will be lending themselves to whatever they can perceive as some common good. I've been rereading, as I have done before in times of crisis, Thich Nhat Hanh's _Peace Is Every Step_, and I am convinced that he's right, that as the Dalai Lama says in his brief introduction, "Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way.". Nonetheless, I'm more frightened by the current situation than I have ever been. As I walked back from the march, the other rally was taking place in the square. There was a three-storey tall U.S. flag on the side of one of the office buildings around the square, everyone was waving and wearing flags, and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was thundering over the sound system. Though I can easily imagine many of the flags in neighbors' windows as transitional objects, this was clearly something else indeed. I fear that our likely military course promises an unprecedented potential for escalation and reprisal--an extended and widening cycle of retaliations and terrorist attacks--and concomitant fundamental changes domestically, utterly unlike any other "conflict" in my lifetime. The excerpts from the Chomsky Belgrade interview sketch this possibility in persuasive terms. I can only hope that I'm utterly and hysterically wrong. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 02:11:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Abel Subject: George Oppen MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I wasn't surprised to see the quotation from _Of Being Numerous_ in John Gallaher's recent post. The following sections, dead in the center of the 40-section sequence, have been ringing in my head continually over the past week. Heartbreakingly. I hear them in his voice: though he doesn't read the poem on the more widely available and much later Watershed tape, I have a recording (at one time distributed by Norton, and no doubt available in various library and archive collections) of a reading at the 92nd Street Y in late 1966 or early 1967, before the publication by New Directions of the volume containing the poem (and the subsequent Pulitzer). A young Armand Schwerner introduces eloquently and at length, and then Oppen reads the entire sequence, first announcing that the title had just been changed to the one we now know--prior to that it had been titled "A Language of New York." 18 It is the air of atrocity, An event as ordinary As a President. A plume of smoke, visible at a distance In which people burn. 19 Now in the helicopters the casual will Is atrocious Insanity in high places, If it is true we must do these things We must cut our throats The fly in the bottle Insane, the insane fly Which, over the city Is the bright light of shipwreck 20 -- They await War, and the news Is war As always That the juices may flow in them Tho the juices lie. Great things have happened On the earth and given it history, armies And the ragged hordes moving and the passions Of that death. But who escapes Death Among these riders Of the subway, They know By now as I know Failure and the guilt Of failure. As in Hardy’s poem of Christmas We might half-hope to find the animals In the sheds of a nation Kneeling at midnight, Farm animals, Draft animals, beasts for slaughter Because it would mean they have forgiven us, Or which is the same thing, That we do not altogether matter. 21 There can be a brick In a brick wall The eye picks So quiet of a Sunday Here is the brick, it was waiting Here when you were born Mary-Anne. 22 Clarity In the sense of _transparence_, I don’t mean that much can be explained. Clarity in the sense of silence. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 02:12:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Abel Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Attacks Called Great Art MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit There was some discussion of Stockhausen's comments in the most recent digest of the discussion list devoted to John Cage and his work, the silence-digest list. (Backchannel for more information on that list if you're interested.) Though it is very difficult to get a useful sense of the context of the remarks from the available excerpts of the interview, which are in various ad hoc translations from the original German, it does seem that an exchange that was extremely metaphorical may have been rather distorted by the reporter. That position, at least, is maintained by the website that is the closest to an official response from Stockhausen: http://stockhausen.org/reply_to_bild.html Despite this explanation, there have been widespread denunciations of his remarks, including statements by colleagues such as Gyorgy Ligeti, etc., and others, that he has "gone off the deep end" and in need of psychiatric treatment, and so on. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:05:21 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: <000701c140bb$45a6b5e0$3353fea9@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" scale is important ron - i agree but families in northern ireland who have been the victims of terrorist attacks (have had loved ones killed) frequently call for there to be no retribution as that would only bring suffering on other families and they don't want others to have to go through what they themselves are suffering they've learnt this over the course of decades of terrorist activity on their own 'soil' extend that humane notion love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 18:07:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Stephen Cope Subject: Armantrout, Verdicchio, Madueno in San Diego Comments: To: kia@tns.net, dianeward@yahoo.com, sandiegowriters@sandiegowriters.org, rgiraldez@hotmail.com, mcauliffe@prodigy.net, Joe Ross , bmohr@ucsd.edu, globo@ucsd.edu, djmorrow@ucsd.edu, ctfarmr@aol.com, dmatlin@mail.sdsu.edu, junction@earthlink.net, jrothenb@ucsd.edu, raea100900@aol.com, jgranger@ucsd.edu, rdavidson@ucsd.edu, kyergens@ucsd.edu, darcycarr@hotmail.com, rburkhar@man104-1.UCSD.EDU, yikao@yahoo.com, aarancibia@hotmail.com, rachelsdahlia@hotmail.com, terynmattox@hotmail.com, dwang@wesleyan.edu, karenstromberg@aol.com, threeamtrain@yahoo.com, mozment@uci.edu, hellenlee@ucsd.edu, aeastley@ucsd.edu, tfiore@ucsd.edu, segriffi@ucsd.edu, shalvin@ucsd.edu, jimperato@yahoo.com, hjun@ucsd.edu, kathrynmcdonald@mindspring.com, smedirat@ucsd.edu, gnunez@ucsd.edu, reinhart@ling.ucsd.edu, crutterj@sdcc3.ucsd.edu, eslavet@ucsd.edu, chong1@ucsd.edu, ywatanab@ucsd.edu, wobrien@popmail.ucsd.edu, dmccannel@ucsd.edu, calacapress@home.com, ajenik@ucsd.edu, Spm44@aol.com, anielsen@popmail.lmu.edu, mperloff@earthlink.net, vvasquez@wso.williams.edu, jack.webb@uniontrib.com, ronoffen@yahoo.com, hung.tu@usa.net, eslavet@ucsd.edu, lit-grads@ucsd.edu, urigeller@excite.com, reevescomm@earthlink.net, mcarthy@sandiego-online.com, interarts-l@ucsd.edu, lrice@weber.ucsd.edu, geoffbouvier@prodigy.net, kadeewinters@home.com, jennymun14@hotmail.com, bjhurley@ucsd.edu, jbhattac@ucsd.edu, afornetti@libero.it, robgrant01@hotmail.com, hpyjoyj@aol.com, cgouldin@ucsd.edu, bmohr@sdcc3.ucsd.edu, pverdicchio@ucsd.edu, qtroupe@ucsd.edu, mcmorrim@gunet.georgetown.edu, ausbury@hotmail.com, conspiracy@nethere.com, tkamps@mcasandiego.org, leahollman@aol.com, ryansmith@hotmail.com, lfstern@ucsd.edu, kcleung@ucsd.edu, vahyong@ucsd.edu, jmorhang@ucsd.edu, kuszai@hotmail.com, janabeel@hotmail.com, choward077@aol.com, s1russel@ucsd.edu, falconline@usa.net, laurimac2001@yahoo.com, yadoy@aol.com, dklowden@ucsd.edu, pilatinoy@pilatinoy.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" Armantrout, Verdicchio, and Madueno in San Diego On September 30th, at 2:00 pm, at the Central Library located at 820 E St,the San Diego Public Library will host a poetry reading spotlighting recognized poets with ties to San Diego. "Words, Parole,Palabras: Poets at the Library" will be held in the Wangenheim Room and is free to the public. Rae Armantrout, a native of San Diego, will read from her new book _Pretext_. She has published eight books of poetry, with another, _Veil_, scheduled for release in October. Ms Armantrout teaches at UCSD, as does Pasquale Verdicchio, another featured poet. Besides his own poetry,Verdicchio's work includes translation of contemporary poets from Italian and essays and criticism published in Europe and the United States. Amalio Madueno, a native of San Diego now living in Taos, New Mexico, has been widely published and anthologized in publications such as Andre Codrescu's _Best of the Corpse_, and _El Templo_. He was one of the poets featured in a recent issue of Poetry Flash devoted to southwestern poets. There will be books for sale and signing after the reading by all the poets. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 07:39:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Fwd: [RRE]attack Comments: To: BRITISH-POETS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK, nettime-l@bbs.thing.net, psyche-arts@academyanalyticarts.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 00:55:55 -0700 >X-Authentication-Warning: alpha.oac.ucla.edu: pagre set sender to > pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu using -f >From: Phil Agre >To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" >Subject: [RRE]attack >Sender: >List-Software: LetterRip Pro 3.0.7 by Fog City Software, Inc. >List-Subscribe: >List-Unsubscribe: >X-URL: http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/rre.html > >Here are some more URL's. Thanks to everyone who contributed. > > >war > >Show of Force Overture to Covert Campaign >http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,554918,00.html > >How the US Will Fight >http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/20/military_options/print.html > >update on all related US military activities >(I have no idea how reliable this is) >http://orbat.com/site/americagoestowar.html > >curious exchange with Ari Fleischer about the limits of the terrorist war >(yes, there are spaces in that URL) >http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010918-5.html#on the >international terrorism > >British Muscle and US Jets Arrive in Jittery Islamabad >http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/19/wtal319.xml > >don't forget that the Afghans still have those Stinger missiles >http://atimes.com/c-asia/CI19Ag01.html > >Pakistan's Leader Tries to Assure Country >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/international/19CND-PAK.html?pagewanted=print > >Pakistan Backing US Under Pressure >http://www.dawn.com/2001/09/19/top1.htm > >UK Group Issues Fatwa Against Musharraf >http://www.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=619510697 > >Europeans know all about the war on terror, and that's why they're uneasy >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/opinion/20FERG.html > >how France dealt with Algerian terrorism >(what worked is protecting rights and supporting moderates) >http://play.rbn.com/?wgbh/world/demand/we6.rm > >Lessons from the United Kingdom on How to Fight Terror >http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/19/fighting_terror/print.html > >Pentagon Recommends Use of Nuclear Weapons >(I have no idea) >http://www.japantoday.com/e/?content=news&cat=8&id=78870 >http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20010920a6.htm > >Arafat the Winner in Ceasefire Battle >http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,554337,00.html > >In the Gaza Strip, Anger at the US Still Smolders >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/international/middleeast/20GAZA.html > >US Stays Low-Key So Far in Central Asia >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59632-2001Sep19.html > >Ten People Die in Algeria Violence >(Afghanistan is not the worst place in the world -- Algeria is) >http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Algeria-Violence.html?pagewanted=print > >Defense Contractors' Shares Rise >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46774-2001Sep17.html > > >civil liberties and security > >Ashcroft Presents Anti-Terrorism Plan to Congress >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59050-2001Sep19.html > >Mobilization Against Terrorism Act >http://www.eff.org/sc/ashcroft_proposal.html > >Leahy Opposes White House's Antiterrorism Plan and Proposes Alternative >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/national/20CIVI.html?pagewanted=print > >alliance of civil liberties, conservative, Arab-American, etc groups >(this site is scheduled to go live in Thursday) >http://www.indefenseoffreedom.org/ > >New US Law to Monitor Net Traffic Will Be Powerless to Disarm Terrorists >http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=010920002370 >http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=010920002169 > >FBI Should Abandon "Guilt by Association" Strategy >http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZ84ZN3SRC > >ISP's Curb Terrorist Postings and an Anti-Islamic Backlash >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/17/technology/17WEB.html?pagewanted=print > >Surge of New Technologies Erodes US Edge in Spying >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/national/20SPY.html > >we had endless, endless warnings of the abysmal security of our infrastructure >http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/21.66.html > >Business Jets Pose a Little-Regulated Attack Opportunity >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/261/nation/Business_jets_pose_a_little_regulated_attack_opportunity+.shtml > >Design Goal: Keeping Jets From Misuse as Missiles >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/19/nyregion/19JET.html > >Massport Urged Airlines to Speed Up Lines at Security Points >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/261/nation/Massport_urged_airlines_to_speed_up_lines_at_security_points+.shtml > >New Security Clogs US Borders >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/business/20BORD.html?pagewanted=print > >Bogus Firetruck Warning Puts Crews on Guard >http://www.sptimes.com/News/091901/TampaBay/Firetruck_warning_put.shtml > >America West Airline Pilot's Association Security Bulletin 2001-02 >(you'll certainly want to read guideline number 5) >http://www.awalpa.org/secbulletin.htm > > >tolerance > >Tolerance in Islam >http://users.erols.com/gmqm/toleran1.html > >Every Time We Choose to "Explain", We Become Implicated >http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2001/September/Wrong/ > >Society of Afghan Professionals >(US organization, mostly centered in the Bay Area) >http://www.sapweb.org/ > >compassionate conservative response to an arson attack on an Afghan restaurant >http://chowhound.com/california/boards/losangeles/messages/10530.html > >John Cooksey (R-LA) endorses profiling of anyone "wearing a diaper on his >head" >http://www.theadvocate.com/news/story.asp?StoryID=24605 > >Suspect Called Himself a "Patriot" After Killing Immigrant, Authorities Say >http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/breaking/0917attacks-arizonashooting-ON.html > > >news and information > >praise for media coverage of the attack >http://villagevoice.com/alertrd.php3?article=28255 > >Forgetting Foreign Affairs: American Media Cut Overseas Reporting >http://www.tompaine.com/news/2001/09/17/1.html > >PDF images of 300 newspaper front pages from the day after >http://63.208.24.134/Terrorism/gallery/wedgallery.htm > >Al-Ahram Weekly (Egypt) >(semi-official but fairly intellectual) >http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/ > >Turkish Daily News >http://www.turkishdailynews.com/ > >official Uzbekistan government news agency >http://jahon.tiv.uz/Ukaz/2001/news.htm > >Uzbekistan Contacts >http://www.tashkent.org/uzland/ > >Tashkent Home Page >(unofficial page on the capital city of Uzbekistan) >http://www.tashkent.org/ > >more world newspaper gateways >http://www.thepaperboy.com/ >http://ajr.newslink.org/news.html > >CIA World Factbook >http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ > >jargon watch: defending oneself by comparison to the opposite extreme >(study the Fox News spokesman's multiple distortions of the issue) >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/business/media/20FLAG.html?pagewanted=print > > >comment > >Noam Chomsky Interview on September 11th >http://www.ainfos.ca/ainfos06101.html > >argues that the Soviets were winning in Afghan until the Stingers arrived >http://www.politicalusa.com/columnists/guest_columns/wheeler_006.htm > >It's All About Oil ... Again >http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,553884,00.html > >The Cost of an Afghan "Victory" (February 1999) >http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=archive&s=hiro_wtc_19990215 > >A Measured Response to Immeasurable Violence >(what bin Laden fears most is a legal arrest and a fair trial) >http://www.tompaine.com/history/2001/09/18/ > >liberal links relating to the attacks including many items I haven't mentioned >http://la.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=10467 >http://www.counterpunch.org/wtcarchive.html > >"we should try to rely more on law than war" >http://members.aol.com/benferen/thought.htm > >Muslim American Sociologist's Perspective on the Emerging US Nationalism >(small type, unfortunately) >http://202.56.157.37/News/2001/09/2001091904.php3 > >"the next war is going to be all about intelligence" >http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/20/kaplan/print.html > > >background > >photo essay of the conditions in Afganistan >http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/bowig_essay.html > >Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982 >(I'm told the whole book is online, though I can't get through this evening) >http://escholarship.cdlib.org/ucpress/kakar.xml >http://www.santafe.edu/~shalizi/reviews/kakar-soviet-invasion/ > >Center for Afghanistan Studies, University of Nebraska >http://www.unomaha.edu/~world/cas/cas.html > >History of the Khyber Pass >http://www.afghan-network.net/khyber.html > >The Online Center for Afghan Studies >http://www.afghan-politics.org/ > >The Making of the Taliban (November 1996) >http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1355 > >Afghanistan's Other War (December 1986) >http://www.nybooks.com/articles/4920 > >Bin Laden's Balkan Connections >http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our09.shtml > >Balkan - Albania - Kosovo - Heroin - Jihad >http://www.balkanpeace.org/our/our03.shtml > >Israeli counter-terrorism site >http://www.ict.org.il/ > >schematic of a "suitcase" nuclear weapon >http://www.fas.org/nuke/hew/Library/Brown/Bcbomb.gif > >well-reviewed history of European imperialism in Central Asia, 19C - early 20C >http://www.tournamentofshadows.com/ > >Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies >(liberal research and advocacy group in Cairo, now being repressed) >http://www.ibnkhaldun.org/ >http://www.ibnkhaldun.org/trial/press/170601.html >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/17/magazine/17EGYPT.html?pagewanted=all > >Terrorism and the Military's Role in Domestic Crisis Management (April 2001) >http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL30928.pdf > >Sudan: Humanitarian Crisis, Peace Talks, Terrorism, and US Policy (June 2001) >http://www.fas.org/man/crs/IB98043.pdf > >The Shadowy World of Special Operations >http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/20/special_operations/print.html > >Greetings America. My Name Is Bin Laden. Now That I Have Your Attention... >http://www.esquire.com/features/articles/2001/010913_mfe_binladen_1.html > >Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York City's World Trade Center >http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465017274/netsurferdigest > > >investigation > >"other acts of terrorism were planned" >http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=94841 > >Three Are Held in Detroit After Airport Diagram Is Found >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/national/20INQU.html > >Atta, Now Seen as Conductor of the Attacks, Wore Many Masks >http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/262/nation/Atta_now_seen_as_conductor_of_the_attacks_wore_many_masks+.shtml > >Roadblocks Cited in Efforts to Trace bin Laden's Money >http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/20/business/20MONE.html?pagewanted=print > >New Task Forces Target Terrorist Funding >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59609-2001Sep19.html > >British Chancellor Gordon Brown Calls for Money Laundering Crackdown >http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,554405,00.html > >Inside the Mind of Osama bin Laden >http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59262-2001Sep19.html > > >response > >intense letters from an NYU student who spent a week volunteering >http://whisperingj.addr.com/katie/ > >articles about the insurance law angle on the attack >http://www.law.com/cgi-bin/nwlink.cgi?ACG=ZZZQR79DSRC > >Radio Gets Patriotic >(we need much better patriotic songs) >http://www.sptimes.com/News/091901/Artsandentertainment/Radio_gets_patriotic.shtml > >Poll: Americans Depressed, Sleepless >http://www.msnbc.com/news/631188.asp > >end ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:53:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Wheeler Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Rick Moody and I were asked by the PSA to go ahead with a reading tonight here, in New York, at Joe's Pub at the Public Theater on Lafayette Street at 7:30. We will, in some form. And a postscript to my first account, which I seem to have missed in the chaos here but no doubt went through, from our windows now the site each night is lit like a movie set -- lights we're used to looking out on the other side on Washington Square Park, where so often that eerie daylight-in-night has floated up. There is the odd green plaid of the Kohn Pederson Fox building, suddenly looking large, and then the large horizon, filled with the plumes of dust and that bright, bright light. It's the last thing I see before sleep unless, as I admit I've done several times this week, I pull the curtains. Gentleness -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:05:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kristin Palm Subject: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Let's be really, really careful with accusations like this. Any clue as to the source of this (perhaps non-) information? Isn't it likely that Arafat's call for a cease fire had more to do with Israel's demand that he agree to one before they would come to the table to even discuss implementation of the Mitchell Plan? And if I recall correctly, Israel has acted just a tad bit opportunistically in its encroachment of West Bank settlements just days after the disaster. Certainly reports from friends and colleagues around the world are especially illuminative at times like this, when we know we're not getting the whole story from the media (or, in the case of the Palestinian "celebrants" a manipulated story, perhaps even worse), but if this one proves to be untrue, as I'm guessing it will, some very dangerous and unfair dis-information has been thrown into the fire. kp Date sent: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 14:21:08 -0700 From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: Bin Laden Family and poets And today a new development. Karen Gut, whom many of you know (she read and spoke at the Orono Poetry Festival on the 60s a year+ ago and is a professor-poet-activist in Tel Aviv) writes me that the reason Arafat has just agreed to a cease fire, or rather proposed a unilateral one, is that Israeli intelligence has discovered that the four pilots, esp. the lead one, Joseph Natta, was a Palestinian, and so Arafat is very embarrassed and he is now begging for a "peace" meeting. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:16:02 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: in memory MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit from Dylan's new CD: "The emptiness is endless, cold as the clay,/ You can always come back, but you can't come back all the way." Sigh. Best to all, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:22:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lourdes Vazquez Subject: thank you and more MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit "The past week list has been such a good source of information, comfort, sensitivity, criticism = COMMUNITY and I thank you all for that ", wrote Arielle and I could not agreed more...in my most desperate moments i have open this list and found confort and truth. We decided to go ahead with the first reading of Latitude South; we need this for the soul as you all know. Please circulate: Gracias mil, Lourdes A GATHERING OF THE TRIBES PRESENTS; LATITUDE SOUTH: Poetry and Translation Fall 2001 SERIES Sundays at 5:00p.m. Sunday, September 23 Lila Zemborain, Rosa Alcalá, Marianela Medrano Sunday October 21, Roberto Tejada, Kris Dykstra Sunday November 18, Pedro López Adorno, Mercedes Roffé, Mireya Pérez-Elderlyi Series curated by Lourdes Vázquez A Gathering of the Tribes is located At 285 East Third St. 2nd floor (Between Ave C and D) 212-674-3778 www.tribes.org ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:14:31 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: roger.day@GLOBALGRAPHICS.COM Subject: Foreign policy quagmires Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Entitled, "USA is playing into bin Laden's hands" http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/57/21757.html Various spectres are raised. I really don't want Packistan to collapse under the contradictions that it's being forced to shoulder. Roger ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 07:29:28 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: from the dalai lama Comments: To: francobe@aol.com, dtv@mwt.net, gfcivil@stkate.edu, manowak@stkate.edu, kball@ualberta.ca, oconn001@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, gangu003@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, lbn@batnet.com, mbosch@capecod.net, susanlannen@HOTMAIL.COM, funkhouser@tesla.njit.edu, lyxish@HOTMAIL.COM, cecivicu@rcn.com, carolroos@earthlink.net, lew@humnet.ucla.edu, raintaxi@bitstream.net, legitprod@africana.net, sondheim@panix.com, gary.sullivan@nmss.org, belgu003.@amethyst.tc.umn.edu, ksilem@mindspring.com, mitch.highfill@db.com, jdavis@panix.com, nada@jps.net, drewgard@erols.com, mirakove@earthlink.net, degentesh@earthlink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Dear friends around the world: > >The events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily >lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger >questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, >but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have >created it-and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate >ourselves anew as a human species, so that we will never treat each >other this way again. > >The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the highest level our most >extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are. > >There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first >comes from love, the second from fear. > >If we come from fear we may panic and do things-as individuals and as >nations-that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we >will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others. > >This is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What >you teach at this time, through your every word and action right now, >will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose >lives you touch, both now, and for years to come. > >We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this >moment. Let us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause. > >Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will >never remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we will >forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family >who feel aggrieved, and, likewise, seek retribution from them. > >To us the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human >lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have >not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have not been >listening to God, and because we have not, we watch ourselves do ungodly >things. > >The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. >That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this >truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is >simple: Love, this and every moment. > >If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand >why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet >negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what >then will be the outcome? > >These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. >They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. >Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at >all. > >If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be >experienced by our children and our children's children, we will have >to become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that to >happen. We must choose to be at cause in the matter. > >So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for >insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask >God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that >will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people around >the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the Light that >dispells all fear. > >That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today. >Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the >beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and >hatred-and the disparity that inevitably causes it - in that part of >the world which I touch? > >Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence >that is You. What can you do TODAY...this very moment? > >A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to >experience, provide for another. > >Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience-in your own life, >and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the >source of that. If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another. > >If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they >are safe. > >If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help >another to better understand. > >If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness >or anger of another. > >Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for >guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and >for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for >love. > >My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. > >Dalai Lama ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:04:26 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hassen Subject: Re: hmmm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>energised discussion and wilful exploration and serious play<< hi cris. i couldn't agree more with your post. >>Something needs to start rolling and it needs to have a freshness that can get the discussion away from responses based on equally old hat models of confrontation<< i'd suggest some sort of subtle (or not) de-programming campaign in the mid-east (& in the states & world for that matter) to rattle the foundations of fundamentalism. not that it would be a swift solution by any means but a step in the right direction. & i guess it's dangerous to use such questionable methods but moreso than war? i'd like to see a non-religious, international coalition promote cultural tolerance and eliminate propagation of hatred via progressive action like this. there is the International Peace Bureau (http://www.ipb.org/index.html ) and their member organizations but i question how progressive or effective they've been. jerry falwells *are* all over the place in the states. i've known lots of 'em. as a kid, even, attending evangelical conventions/services, talk of religious war was hot. talk of battling 'godlessness,' 'evil,' 'the devil's army.' calls for fervent political engagement, for war against secularism, etc & it's only stronger these days. i've been wary of these people for years, sickly noting various events in direct relation to their movement in this country. their leaders encourage much more fear, demonization & proselytization than tolerance, humanitarianism or peace, as most of us know. but such sentiment is not limited to the rare bloke on t.v. nor to a small constituency. they are many & they are likely prepared to seize the moment. the last thing u.s. viewers (& the world) needed was to hear words of billy graham and his son on cnn during the national prayer and remembrance day service at the national cathedral talk about godlessness in this country. i'm sure many on this list noted when jr. said, in response to the commentator's question about turning-the-other-cheek, that it's okay if the nation seeks revenge because in the old testament god told david to destroy his enemies etc. wow. so it goes 'round & we're now officially on that carousel of holy violence. i prefer sensible violence (said with some irony). btw, foul foreign policy of the u.s. surely is not the primary irritant for folks like bin laden but it sure helps rally support behind them. fear, especially of Acts of The Devil (i.e. u.s./capitalist exploitation & cultural/religious aggression), Eternal Damnation or the End of the World, tends to get people all worked up. & eager for martyrdom. now i've lost my train, not that it matters. unfortunately i'm not too cohesive with these thots - nor articulate. please forgive. love & happiness (a la reverend al green), hassen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:29:22 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: roger.day@GLOBALGRAPHICS.COM Subject: Infinite Justice Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Just how the (US) military choose those names... http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/1995/sieminsk.htm the current one's a real stinker, reflecting the lack of focus and real objective for this "operation". Certainly ripe for satire. Roger ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:19:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Organization: Duke University Subject: Re: Bravo Ron Silliman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marjorie Perloff wrote: > I cried when I read Ron's report. It is truly the best thing I've read > on the situation we're in and it is so humane, accurate, brilliantly > argued, and fair-minded. Thank you Ron. This article should be > circulated widely--let's all do that--and printed in a leading > periodical. And of course later on it will be part of Ron's Collected > Writings. > > So--thank you Ron! Marjorie and all, I've already thanked Ron backchannel for this, but I wanted to second Marjorie's praise (and of course, my echoing Marjorie is one more sign that these be unusual times). Ron's article, which I would not have predicted, was among the first to actually help me cope with my own response. Many of the follow-ups have also been helpful, even in their disagreement. David Kellogg Director, Writing in the Disciplines Center for Teaching, Learning, and Writing Duke University (919) 668-1615; FAX (919) 681-0637 http://www.duke.edu/~kellogg ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:19:03 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Sheila Massoni Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit yes if you are Irish and English you do a face slap routine with yourself I might add Eng's last laugh the Palestine solution after W.W.II and the horrid deed done to Ireland makes me slap that part of my face harder and oftener ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 09:30:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Make This Clear to Others MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, this is, at root, a war between religions, which began with the Crusades. Islam makes no bones about it. Judeo-Christianity is more circumscript. But when I hear "God Bless America" sung these days, I hear it as "Onward Christian Soldiers." It is not geopolitical, but georeligious. It is not so much against capitalism--many Arabs are capitalists--but is my God against your God. Yahweh, Allah, Christ, are at war with each other, using human surrogates. It is Homeric. Those airplanes were Trojan horses. Americans run to their churches, Israelis to their temples, Muslims to their mosques, all praying for victory against each other. What happened in Yugoslavia, what continues in Ireland, is all part of this global conflict of religions. It's a war between cultures, all of which are planted in religious compost. As poets, we must keep in mind what is happening cosmically, not just politically, and make this clear to others. -Joel ----- Original Message ----- From: "hassen" To: Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 8:04 AM Subject: Re: hmmm > >>energised discussion and wilful exploration and serious play<< > > hi cris. i couldn't agree more with your post. > >>Something needs to start rolling and it needs to have a freshness that can > get the discussion away from responses based on equally old hat models of > confrontation<< > i'd suggest some sort of subtle (or not) de-programming campaign in the > mid-east (& in the states & world for that matter) to rattle the foundations > of fundamentalism. not that it would be a swift solution by any means but a > step in the right direction. & i guess it's dangerous to use such > questionable methods but moreso than war? i'd like to see a non-religious, > international coalition promote cultural tolerance and eliminate propagation > of hatred via progressive action like this. there is the International Peace > Bureau (http://www.ipb.org/index.html ) and their member organizations but i > question how progressive or effective they've been. > > jerry falwells *are* all over the place in the states. i've known lots of > 'em. as a kid, even, attending evangelical conventions/services, talk of > religious war was hot. talk of battling 'godlessness,' 'evil,' 'the devil's > army.' calls for fervent political engagement, for war against secularism, > etc & it's only stronger these days. i've been wary of these people for > years, sickly noting various events in direct relation to their movement in > this country. their leaders encourage much more fear, demonization & > proselytization than tolerance, humanitarianism or peace, as most of us > know. but such sentiment is not limited to the rare bloke on t.v. nor to a > small constituency. they are many & they are likely prepared to seize the > moment. > > the last thing u.s. viewers (& the world) needed was to hear words of billy > graham and his son on cnn during the national prayer and remembrance day > service at the national cathedral talk about godlessness in this country. > i'm sure many on this list noted when jr. said, in response to the > commentator's question about turning-the-other-cheek, that it's okay if the > nation seeks revenge because in the old testament god told david to destroy > his enemies etc. wow. so it goes 'round & we're now officially on > that carousel of holy violence. i prefer sensible violence (said with some > irony). > > btw, foul foreign policy of the u.s. surely is not the primary irritant for > folks like bin laden but it sure helps rally support behind them. fear, > especially of Acts of The Devil (i.e. u.s./capitalist exploitation & > cultural/religious aggression), Eternal Damnation or the End of the World, > tends to get people all worked up. & eager for martyrdom. > > now i've lost my train, not that it matters. unfortunately i'm not too > cohesive with these thots - nor articulate. please forgive. > > love & happiness (a la reverend al green), > hassen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 12:50:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hassen Subject: Re: hmmm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >>there is the International Peace Bureau (http://www.ipb.org/index.html ) << btw, it might be of use to some on this list to check out their informative & helpful page re the situation at hand : http://www.ipb.org/selected_statements_from_NGOs.htm#Action!for Peace h ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:13:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Operation Flip the Bird Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Good grief do they need a poet on the payroll! I would suggest "Operation Eagle Eye". Though if all they sought was something both more ominous and childish than "Desert Storm", they have certainly succeeded. Eliz. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:16:53 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: ground zero In-Reply-To: <010e01c1416d$40e0ce80$fc1886d4@overgrowngarden> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lawrence, that's perhaps the most bittersweet of all movie scenes for me, Slim Pickens ridin' that ICBM like he's at some rodeo. Riding it down to the End of the World. And the whole cowboy thing fits, oh, fits SO well. Kubrick's visual style really coalesced with that movie, and that's my favorite scene. We'll meet again... Rumsfeld and others have explicitly not ruled out use of nukes. He even said he was proud of America's restraint, that the US hasn't used one in over 50 years. Restraint? RESTRAINT? Maybe they're just doing the Reagan rope-a-dope, trying to "close the credibility gap." People across the globe genuinely were afraid of "Evil Empire" Reagan who appeared incredibly irrational to most. After all, Arendt taught us and Orwell illustrated for us that being irrational is crucial for a totalitarian leader. I doubt anyone thinks Dumya is rational. Maybe he wants to demonstrate how irrational he is. I expect not, but who knows what's going to happen when someone wants to appear irrational on a global scale? Nothing like being paid well to discuss genocide as an option. Hey, how do I get a job like that? Hmm, yes, let's see, With an MX here, And an MX there here an MX there an MX everywhere an MX old Don Rumsfeld lobbed some nukes e-i-e-i-Oh! I can sing that! Of course in Universal terms, the end of humanity would be barely a blip on the radar screen. Maybe for some people that represents a very small risk. "What America needs is a good healthy nuclear scare," someone in the (Pentagon/White House/State Department) seems to be telling us. We'll meet again, Don't know where, Don't know when, But I know We'll meet again Some sunny day. Ahh, Vera. Now Gitty Up Them Dogies, Lonesome Cowboy Pat > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Lawrence Upton > Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 8:42 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: ground zero > > > Thanks to all who responded in reply to my posting about the use of the > phrase "Ground Zero". That was extremely interesting and useful to me > > Jeffrey, when I started reading you, and you saying it's "an attempt at > euphemism", I thought sure, but *why?... and then you told me! > > I worked for years very near to the site of a pretty horrible railway > accident of a few years back so that crash had some immediacy for me > although I knew no one involved. The spot itself has no name as such, it's > just a stretch of embankment without anything special about it until the > accident, except perhaps to a fox or rat. Humans hurtle by it. > > There is no name as such to be painfully recalled. But I always remember > that crash when I go near the place or if I happen to be looking > out of the > train window as I go past. So I understand to some extent, enough to know > that there is more one could feel. > > "the site," or "downtown." are better, I think, than "ground zero" because > of that metaphorical connection with nukes, which is, I believe, > inappropriate and unfortunate > > Laura - I was having a break with friends a few days ago, mid > morning, in a > garden, in a beautiful place, and four fighter bombers flew over very low > just subsonic > > I suppose it was meant to reassure us, but we did not feel reassured, at > all. It just scared us. And I recalled maybe the first day in a new house > when I was about 12 - the local factory used the all-clear on an old air > raid siren to mark the end of a shift - quarries use them too, to > warn of a > detonation. Even though it was the all clear, the association was > enough to > terrify my mother. I remember very clearly I heard a noise I knew > vaguely I > had heard before but for her, over 15 years after the blitz, many > times the > duration of the actual experience; the terror of bombing was just part of > her > > Patrick, all points taken, all is relative, but I can never rid > myself, nor > would I want this side of new Jerusalem, of that sequence at the end of > Strangelove when *all the nukes go up. I think I stand by my hope > that we - > we, yes, though I am aware it's your city and not mine - remain clear this > wasn't a nuke and a nuke could have been far worse - it's not that they > don't make em small; it's that when one is used again, there'll be a call > for retaliation in kind; and that, if one had been used in the same manner > on this occasion, it would most likely have been "dirty" > > Depleted uranium, yes... or a plane crashed on a shipment of nuclear waste > > The idea that the possibilities can all be accounted for is not on > > L > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 10:18:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: hmmm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit from hassen: > i'd suggest some sort of subtle (or not) de-programming campaign in the > mid-east (& in the states & world for that matter) to rattle the foundations > of fundamentalism. not that it would be a swift solution by any means but a > step in the right direction. & i guess it's dangerous to use such > questionable methods but moreso than war? i'd like to see a non-religious, > international coalition promote cultural tolerance and eliminate propagation > of hatred via progressive action like this. I'm not clear how anti-fundamentalism de-programming could be questionable? tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:24:36 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Infinite Justice In-Reply-To: <80256ACD.004A1A2F.00@notescam.cam.harlequin.co.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit When my friend first received a call about his dad's involvement in something called "Operation Just Cause," for days he really thought it was called "Just 'Cause". Why? Just 'cause. Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of > roger.day@GLOBALGRAPHICS.COM > Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 9:29 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Infinite Justice > > > Just how the (US) military choose those names... > > http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/1995/sieminsk.htm > > the current one's a real stinker, reflecting the lack of focus and real > objective for this "operation". Certainly ripe for satire. > > Roger > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:43:24 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Translation, Chinese-English in particular MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It seems to me underlying the Chinese Room test is the ghost of Wittgenstein's idea of language games, that is, language is an activity completely comprehensible, subsumed in its rules -that private language or content/signified is an illusion. This is an a priori statement with which I have no wish to agree. If language is a game, morality is a manipulation of symbols. Then, the murder of six thousand people -through deft logical manipulation- can be seen as a self reflective act by the victims. Murat In a message dated 9/10/01 5:37:33 PM, jeffreyjullich@YAHOO.COM writes: >Joan Retallack's book of poems "How to Do Things with >Words" has a section/poem called "The Chinese Room" >(or words to that effect). She's drawing upon a >problem in the philosophy of mind, proposed in >philosopher John Searle's essay, "Minds, Brains, and >Programs" (and subsequent discussion by Fodor in >"After-thoughts: Yin and Yang in the Chinese Room", >etc). Although somewhat racially insensitive in >Searle's original shaping of it, the Chinese Room >problem that Retallack refers to is, basically: > >You have somebody in a room who doesn't know Chinese. >You give them a set of Chinese flash cards, although >they don't speak Chinese, and a set of grammatical >rules for Chinese syntax. Somebody outside the room >can see only the ideogram output that's constructed. >When the person in the Chinese Room succeeds at >forming entirely intelligible "communication," despite >not knowing the language, ~what is the nature of this >language-thing that the reader outside the room is >reading,~ --- since it's uncomprehended by the >sender/speaker but understood as normative by the >receiver/reader. > >That model is really the base for an investigation by >analogy as to nature of mind--- It's a sort of Turing >test. (To Turing-ize would be to dispense the person >in the Chinese Room and have it just be a machine >that's sending out the messages, and the reader's >inability to tell whether talking to a man or woman, >since talking to neitherk, etc.) It may seem >tangential to your question, but --- In Retallack's >use of it, it takes on a new, poetic resonance, and >is, by itself, I think, an unforgettably bothersome >sort of thought-experiment. > >Jeffrey > >______________ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 18:51:10 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit On BBC Radio 4 17th September, Admiral Stephen Baker, speaking from Washington, said that in the past US policy had been '+too+ sensitive to 'collateral damage' among civilians' and this policy 'was being reviewed' An _conservative_ estimate I have seen for the mumber of fatalities inflicted by US forces overseas since the end of WWII: 8,000,000. Possibly as many as 90% of them civilian. I appreciate the searching questioning of Ron's post, but does not its overall tenor lead to the stance that military action is suitable for support? , while it saddens me that so much of the post is taken up with critiques of the left, a left that in the UK as in the USA is effectively powerless and unable to influence the situation. What is to be done indeed is the question, but not in the sense that the likes of us will have any control over it, any part in decision making, where it is a question for us are what are to be consequences of what will be done, is to be done, consequences to what democratic processes there are, consequences to the dull witted ponderous rhetoric of public discourse by which so many lives' courses are decided. David Bircumshaw Leicester, England A Chide's Alphabet www.chidesplay.8m.com Painting Without Numbers www.paintstuff.20m.com/default.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/default.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Silliman" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 4:29 AM Subject: What is to be done > I've been thinking for days about how best to write this - and I still have > no clue, so I'm just going to wade in and hope for the best. I've been asked > what I think about "all this" by some two dozen people, and what I think is > this. > > It is time for progressives to act, but not on the past dragged on as habit. > > The horrific attack on four jetliners, the World Trade Center and the > Pentagon last week places everybody under extraordinary kinds of pressure > right now - I must have seen one hundred or so American males openly cry on > television over the past week (and even Bush barely kept it together when a > reporter in the Oval Office asked him about his feelings). The attack places > progressives into a particularly difficult and painful spot. So far, my > impression is that the left as a whole has not responded well and is mostly > doing a bang-up job of isolating itself at the worst possible moment in > history. > > The argument that a U.S.-led coalition, or even the U.S. on its own, should > not respond militarily to the death of over 5,000 people, all but a hundred > or so of them civilians, is based on premises that reveal an absolute > inability to look at the circumstances directly. Instead, people seem to be > continuing on some mode of automatic pilot that is well-intended, but > ultimately self-defeating. The present situation is qualitatively different > from the Vietnam War or Desert Storm. To pretend otherwise and to trot out > the same old slogans is itself potentially a disaster from which the left > may not soon recover. To quote the subhead of Richard Sennett's excellent > article in yesterday's Guardian, "The traditional left-right dispute is > irrelevant to these abnormal times." > (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,554037,00.html) To focus > exclusively on what the U.S. might (and may well) do wrong in responding to > the attack is to miss the point so completely that it is going to be > difficult, if not impossible, later on, to be taken seriously. That is what > I think is at stake. > > Consider these points: > > (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them > the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total > is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic > combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be > suffering effects from for years. > > (2) What would happen to any government that did NOT respond militarily to > such an attack on civilians on its soil? Frankly, it would collapse. Bush > would be impeached or worse. Politicians are for the most part followers, > craven followers at that, and the reaction by the professional pols has been > completely predictable. > > (3) Does anybody anywhere honestly think that this network, whether or not > we inscribe bin Laden's name in as the CEO, will not, at some future > moment, do something as bad or worse if it is not broken up? Do we not think > that it would use a nuclear weapon if it had a chance? Anthrax? > > (4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve its > behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate the > impetus behind these attacks? That it could do so quickly enough to > forestall future assaults? > > (5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 3 without > literally abandoning Israel? > > (6) Can anybody here imagine a U.S. electoral politician advocating some > version of #4? See that last comment under #1 again. > > (7) Even if those last three points were politically do-able in the near > future, is there anybody who cannot imagine what THAT ensuing war would > look like? > > This, it seems to me, is the double-bind of this situation. And that is why > I find it so personally painful right now to be a left pacifist, which I > still am. > > Hal Meyerson, the longtime Papa Bear of the Los Angeles democratic left who > is now the executive editor of The American Prospect, put it very succinctly > when he noted last week that there really are no legitimate reasons to go to > war except when somebody decides to go to war against you - and in this case > someone very definitely has. > (http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/09/meyerson-h-2.html) > > In the face of all this, to argue against the use of force in breaking up > the network of terrorist cells is to confess that one is not only tone deaf > to the popular will, manipulated or otherwise (and I suspect, frankly, that > the media, like the pols, is much more a follower than a leader in this), it > is even wrong in terms of the protection of Americans. To the extent that > the American left and its allies puts its eggs into this basket, it is going > to find itself with very little credibility remaining with which to make the > far more crucial arguments that need to be made right now. > > This is especially true since the folks running the American government, and > thus the American campaign - thanks again, Ralph Nader - are the worst > possible people to have in power at this historical moment. > > What makes them the worst possible people, besides the obvious, is the > unique problem of this point in history. Presuming, as I do here, that force > is inevitable, the real questions that must be confronted are what force, > against whom, and how? Traditional military strategy argues that one > identifies the center of gravity of one's opponent and attacks that. In a > typical war, that usually means taking out some country's infrastructure so > that it lacks the means to sustain itself and fight back. > > Even George W. Bush recognizes that this loose coalition of activist cells > that he characterizes as a terrorist network is not "some country." Not only > does al-Qaeda and its affiliates lack the trappings of statehood and the > infrastructure that normally accrue with that, this coalition has been > consciously built - a progression that can be traced back to the use of > cells by Algerian revolutionaries in the 1950s - so as not to have any true > center of gravity. It's a rhizome, almost like the point-to-point computing > model one associates with post-Napster MP3 ripping, while the U.S. military' > s experience is telling it to hunt for a mainframe somewhere. > > The whole reason that Bush et al have spent so much time talking about the > "states that harbor and sponsor" al-Qaeda is because the U.S. military knows > how to attack a state. It is far less ready to go after something that doesn > 't really have a head. In fact, what the U.S. media campaign has done with > bin Laden has been to build up his reputation simply to make of him a > feasible personal target. While bin Laden's individual wealth has been of > real value in giving these groups the time, leisure and resources to train, > plan and execute "martyr operations," there is thus far (9/18) relatively > little evidence that bin Laden himself did anything more direct with regards > to this particular tragedy. > > Lets presume, for a moment, that the U.S. manages to capture or kill bin > Laden and even to force the downfall of the Taliban (which would have a > beneficial impact for the people of Afghanistan, especially women). Does > anybody think that this means that this network would not be able to find > resources elsewhere to continue figuring out ways to attack the United > States and global capitalism generally? Hardly. > > So what I fear most is a god-awful bloody and useless war that leaves nobody > any safer than they are today. What I fear is a war that is a surrogate for > a solution. And we can't afford to not solve this quandary. The collapse of > the towers has raised the ante amid the terrorists markedly. The next > assault will almost have to be nuclear or biological even to get our > media-weary attention. > > This is where the left has a role that it can and must play for the good of > all. Progressives need to focus on the necessity of the U.S. > > (1) proving itself to be better than terrorists by not targeting civilians, > > (2) seriously educating the American population on the sources of resentment > that the U.S. (and especially U.S. capital) generates worldwide, > > (3) keeping totalitarian forces in the U.S. from deleting the Bill of Rights > in the name of security, > > (4) acknowledging that embargoes only punish the poor and reversing this > long-term "containment" strategy once and for all, not just in Iraq but > everywhere, > > (5) raising the issue of the need for a true solution of the "Palestine > problem" (it's not the only festering sore of U.S. foreign policy, just the > most blatant one in that region), > > (6) protecting American citizens and residents both from North Africa, the > Middle East and South Asia from racist reprisals, > > (7) dealing with all the important ancillary issues that accompany these > questions, > > (8) raising the issue of dictatorship with all our "allies," and > > (9) taking control of globalization away from multinational corporations. > > If the left can address these, with focus and intelligence, it potentially > can have a shaping influence on the outcome of this struggle. That role > could prove to be far more important even than the one that progressives had > in ending the conflict in Indochina a generation ago. > > But progressives can do this only if we retain some semblance of > credibility. To take any position that can be perceived as inaction in the > face of the enormous physical and emotional wound that confronts the > American people serves only to exacerbate the reputation of the left as a > movement completely out of touch with reality. Julian Borger, also writing > in The Guardian > (http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,553876,00.html) > , gets it right when he argues against the idea that "Americans should be > asking themselves why this happened to them . . . . Rather than getting > angry, then, they should be meditating and wondering what they have done > wrong. > > "This point of view seems to me to be detached to the point of inhumanity. > Moreover, it is driven by an internal logic that is utterly bogus. That > logic, insinuated between the lines, suggests that the horror visited on > thousands of New Yorkers must be balanced somewhere by an equal and opposite > evil that the US has inflicted upon someone else." > > Borger is correct in acknowledging that that position fails to acknowledge > the enormity of the assault. It will certainly be rejected by a huge > majority of people. As it should be. And that position also fails to address > the ugly reality that, without action, future attacks are inevitable, and > that the death toll in the towers has raised the bar for ambitious future > martyrs. > > Nick Piombino's post to this list on the flag's role not as an icon of war > mongering, but as a transitional object in the grieving process, makes > perfect sense to me. I've been struck at how radically differently it has > been used in the past week than, say, the yellow ribbon campaign during the > Gulf War, a soft swastika if ever there was one. If anything, the flag's > role this time around has been one of solidarity, an emblem not of the state > but of the people. Coming out of the Vietnam experience, I never thought I > would see the stars & stripes used that way. But there it is. And it's > everywhere. > > This solidarity is a unique and probably temporary phenomenon. It is > certainly something that the left needs to address and to examine. But a > movement that surrenders its credibility by pretending that the murder of > more than 5,000 people doesn't warrant a response, or which pussyfoots > around the issue by reframing the assault as "criminal" rather than as an > act of war, will have silenced itself before it has ever had the chance to > speak. > > Ron Silliman > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 14:29:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r....Patriotic Gore... ....Usually reliable Arabic sources tell me...Saddam;s army is recruiting POETS....the line forms on the left.....DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:00:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: <10dc01c14170$6de5bdc0$2e442718@ruthfd1.tn.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >after forty years of resistance to flag-waving and what I saw as meaningless >gestures, on the 11th I asked my children to buy one for us to display. > >tom bell > >----- Original / Did you get a gun too? -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 04:06:57 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Bojjhangas Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit In these times Kill the vines Visceral wine Holy & unholy times Outage & ideology How radically different I think I think I think I suspect I fear I imagine Utterly bogus diplomacy An awful response against Again for or against them Who clearly can not see Cultivate the bojjhangas In these times Kill the vines Visceral wine Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:18:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: literary event, Oakland, this Sunday 9/23 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed This doesn't seem to be going through from the SPT acct, so here it is, and apologies if it ends up listed twice. Elizabeth nocturnes (re)view of the literary arts release party Sunday, September 23, 2001, 4-6 p.m. (held at Diesel Books, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland; 510-653-9965; 2 blocks south of Rockridge BART) Small Press Traffic is proud to cosponsor the release party for nocturnes, an important new literary magazine, edited by SPT board member giovanni singleton. As singleton writes in her introduction to the premiere issue: "nocturnes(re)view of the literary arts was born out of a sincere aspiration to have fun while also attempting to illuminate the vast range of creative voices that exists throughout the African Diaspora and other contested spaces. in this regard, nocturnes is dedicated to the exploration of spirit through innovative (i.e. experimental/avant-garde) critical and creative literary art. the journal serves as a forum for examining and celebrating the natural connections between diverse artistic mediums as expressed through visual and written language." Join singleton and nocturnes contributors for this afternoon reading and celebration. contributors scheduled to appear include: Chris Daniels Aja Couchois Duncan Brenda Hillman Arnold J. Kemp Kevin Killian David Meltzer Douglas "D. Scot" Miller Amarnath Ravva _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:47:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: What is to be affirmed Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Ron: While I don't have time to write more fully about your position, I must say I was dismayed. Not by the content or position, necessarily, but by the mode of argument. You feel attacked, but your primary polemic is against what you perceive as the passivity or quietism of the "left." Apart from a reasonable list of critical positions many of us would take--such as arguments against bombing civilians, a.k.a. collateral damage--what is it precisely that the "left" has not avowed? The reality of what everyone saw on TV? Unmanly grief? Compliance with Infinite Justice? Or something in between? It is certainly possible to be very moved by grief for those destroyed and to keep one's critical head on. I see no contradiction. I do not have to admit a need to seek revenge nor salute the flag--which stands for a number of like instances of total destruction, from Hiroshima to Vietnam to the Highway of Death in the Gulf War--in order to argue for an alternative to the war hysteria we are being swept up in. Another mode of consideration would be: what is the legitimate scope of state action? If states exist to protect, rather than aggrandize, themselves, one may admit a degree of legitimacy to state response--but we don't yet have any notion of what form that might take. If you read the NY Times today, the issue is very much in debate, with Gulf War II one of the options. In the face of that, there is an immediate need for public debate on what counts as legitimate response. The "left"--the antiwar tradition--certainly has it proper role here, but it is precisely that legacy you accuse of incoherence. It is the US, I'm sure you are aware, that invented total war with civilians as a military objective (Sherman's march to the sea), gratuitous annihilation of civilian populations (the A-bomb), and "collateral damage." What we just saw was the direct result of US policy of ignoring and minimizing collateral damage in the Gulf War, and a direct consequence of Ariel Sharon's aggression toward Palestinians. Criticism of these policies ought to be the first thing one would propose in response, rather than hand-wringing about the status of one's left credentials, now that they have been placed under erasure. Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 17:55:56 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Transitional object or ego ideal? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The notion that one's changed feelings toward the flag might involve the need to be comforted by a transitional object seems to me not a good psychoanalytic account. A transitional object is a cat or blanket or thing to suck on that mediates the absence of the caring parent. Freud, in *Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego*--part of his meditation on the psychology of nationalism post WWI--lays out a more relevant set of terms. A flag is the symbol of a nation or group. What is the relation of self to this symbol of the nation? It seems to me this is precisely where the question of the flag rests--whether I identify with it or not. A terrific account of aggressivity and group processes, with implications for the nature of national identity, is Bill Bufords' Among the Thugs--on soccer fans in the UK, but by extension, on the lack of self that leads to aggression in numbers. I do agree, however, that the flag has been displayed in a way that has more to do with mourning than with aggression this past week--the flag is a substitute for a lost object. What, precisely, is the nature of that object? Our sense of well being in the world? A transitional object is not primarily described in the context of mourning. Rather, as Freud saw it, there is a need to reencounter the things of the world, one by one, when faced with a catastrophic loss. A process of reintegration. Perhaps the flag is a step in that direction for some, and the act of forgetting other political valences a part of the process as well. BW ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 18:44:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rebecca Wolff Subject: Fence Multi-Fall Comments: To: ira@angel.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello. By way of indicating that we at Fence are all OK, hoping for the best, and going forward with fall plans, I'm writing to tell you of our many activities. ###First, Fence Books is happy to announce the winner of its first Fence Modern Poets Series Prize. The Red Bird, by Joyelle McSweeney of Iowa City, Iowa, was chosen by judge Allen Grossman from a selection of eight finalists. The Red Bird will be published in April, as will finalist manuscript Can You Relax in My House, by Michael E. Craig. We are extremely pleased with both of these selections. ###Guidelines for the 2002 Alberta Prize and the Fence Modern Poets Series are now available online (http://www.fencebooks.com) or (http://www.fencemag.com) and by mail (send an SASE to the below address, indicating which contest you are interested in--if both, say both). Postmark deadline for the Alberta Prize is November 1st-30th, 2001; for the Fence Modern Poets Series, postmark deadline is January 1st-31st, 2002.* ###Fence #8 will be published in late October, as will our first two Fence Books titles: Zirconia, by Chelsey Minnis (winner of the 2001 Alberta Prize) and Miss America, by Catherine Wagner. Fence/Fence Books is delighted to announce a West Coast reading tour for these authors, also including local Fence contributors. Please join us; please come and introduce yourselves. We would be delighted to meet you.** Fence/Fence Books Fall 2001 Western Tour: "See Rangers/For Hours" October 22nd, time and New York City location tba Kevin Killian & Thalia Field November 5th, 8 pm Denver University, Humanities Institute Room, Sturm #286, Denver, CO Chelsey Minnis & Rebecca Wolff November 6th, 7 pm Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, 201 S. College Avenue, Fort Collins, CO Chelsey Minnis & Rebecca Wolff November 7th, 8 pm Cup o' Joe, 353 W 200 South, Salt Lake City, UT Chelsey Minnis, Catherine Wagner & Rebecca Wolff November 8th, 7:30 pm Log Cabin Literary Center, 801 S. Capitol Blvd., Boise ID Chelsey Minnis & Rebecca Wolff November 10th, 7:30 pm Elliott Bay Bookstore, Seattle, WA Christine Deavel, Chelsey Minnis & Catherine Wagner November 12th, 7:30pm Powell's City of Books, 1005 W Burnside, Portland, OR Chelsey Minnis & Catherine Wagner November14th 7:30 pm Cody's Books, 2454 Telegraph Avenue (at Haste) Berkeley, CA Dean Young, Brenda Hillman, Chelsey Minnis & Sam Witt November 15th New College, 766 Valencia, San Francisco, CA Gillian Conoley, Kevin Killian, Chris Stroffolino & Catherine Wagner November 16th, 7:30 pm Beyond Baroque, 681 Venice Blvd., Venice, CA Harryette Mullen, Martha Ronk, Chelsey Minnis & Catherine Wagner November 17th, 8 pm D.G. Wills Bookstore, 7461 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, CA Rae Armantrout, Chelsey Minnis & Catherine Wagner November 19th, University of Las Vegas, NV Chelsey Minnis, Catherine Wagner, & Rebecca Wolff see http://www.fencemag.com/events.html for further details as they arise *Please note that in our contest guidelines we have specified that we cannot process International Reply Coupons; this decision was made based on our difficulty in handling these last year. We are a small organization and find the extra trips to the post office and extra administrative work engendered by IRCs to be onerous. However, the last thing we want to appear right now is isolationist. We urge those abroad who are able to obtain US postage easily to please do so ( http://www.stampsonline.com ); those for whom it would be prohibitive we urge to not include an SASE at all and simply to give us your email address so that we may notify you of receipt and results thusly. For those without email we will go to the post office. **Fence editor Rebecca Wolff (me) has a book of poems called Manderley coming out simultaneously from U. of Illinois Press. For convenience and fellow-feeling I have been included in several of the Fence Books readings. (It's not often that one goes driving around the country,) For further information about my own, mostly separate book tour, go to: http://www.fencebooks.com/manderley Please consider signing the Petition for a Thoughtful U. S. Response at: http://home.uchicago.edu/~dhpicker/petition And, as always, let me know if you'd rather not receive these occasional Fence-related announcements. Simply reply with the subject heading "Unsubscribe." ********** Rebecca Wolff Fence et al. 14 Fifth Avenue, #1A New York, NY 10011 http://www.fencemag.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 15:43:09 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Maxwell Subject: FW: Agamben on security and terror MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I want to pass along this recent Agamben translation, which clearly = attends to Taylor's earlier idea of a "reorienting a massive material apparatus along entirely different lines", if from a another angle. I'm wondering = what listers think about Agamben's statement about the "production of emergencies" here, especially in light of the "Infinite" nature of the oncoming US response? The translation is rough, so I'm including the original German at the bottom. Be well everyone, Andrew *** On Security and Terror By Giorgio Agamben=20 (unauthorized translation by soenke.zehle@web.de, source: FAZ 09/20/01) = Security as leading principle of state politics dates back to the the = birth of the modern state. Hobbes already mentions it as the opposite of = fear, which compels human beings to come together within a society. But not = until the 18th century does a thought of security come into its own. In a = 1978 lecture at the Coll=E9ge de France (which has yet to be published) = Michel Foucault has shown how the political and economic practice of the Physiocrats opposes security to discipline and the law as instruments = of governance.=20 Turgot and Quesnay as well as Physiocratic officials were not primarily concerned with the prevention of hunger or the regulation of = production, but wanted to allow for their development to then regulate and "secure" = their consequences. While disciplinary power isolates and closes off = territories, measures of security lead to an opening and to globalization; while the = law wants to prevent and regulate, security intervenes in ongoing processes = to direct them. In short, discipline wants to produce order, security = wants to regulate disorder. Since measures of security can only function within = a context of freedom of traffic, trade, and individual initiative, = Foucault can show that the development of security accompanies the ideas of liberalism.=20 Today we face extreme and most dangerous developments in the thought of security. In the course of a gradual neutralization of politics and the progressive surrender of traditional tasks of the state, security = becomes the basic principle of state activity. What used to be one among = several definitive measures of public administration until the first half of = the twentieth century, now becomes the sole criterium of political = legitimation. The thought of security bears within it an essential risk. A state = which has security as its sole task and source of legitimacy is a fragile = organism; it can always be provoked by terrorism to become itself terroristic.=20 We should not forget that the first major organization of terror after = the war, the Organisation de l'Arm=E9e Secr=E8te (OAS), was established by = a French general, who thought of himself as a patriot, convinced that terrorism = was the only answer to the guerrilla phenomenon in Algeria and Indochina. = When politics, the way it was understood by theorists of the "science of = police" in the eighteenth century, reduces itself to police, the difference = between state and terrorism threatens to disappears. In the end security and terrorism may form a single deadly system, in which they justify and legitimate each others' actions.=20 The risk is not merely the development of a clandestine complicity of opponents, but that the search for security leads to a world civil war = which makes all civil coexistence impossible. In the new situation created by = the end of the classical form of war between sovereign states it becomes = clear that security finds its end in globalization: it implies the idea of a = new planetary order which is in truth the worst of all disorders.=20 But there is another danger. Because they require constant reference to = a state of exception, measure of security work towards a growing depoliticization of society. In the long run they are irreconcilable = with democracy.=20 Nothing is more important than a revision of the concept of security as basic principle of state politics. European and American politicians = finally have to consider the catastrophic consequences of uncritical general = use of this figure of thought. It is not that democracies should cease to = defend themselves: but maybe the time has come to work towards the prevention = of disorder and catastrophe, not merely towards their control. On the = contrary, we can say that politics secretly works towards the production of emergencies. It is the task of democratic politics to prevent the development of conditions which lead to hatred, terror, and destruction = - and not to limit itself to attempts to control them once they have = already occurred.=20 Copyright 2001 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH Frankfurter = Allgemeine Zeitung=20 September 20, 2001=20 SECTION: Feuilleton, Pg. 45=20 LENGTH: 936 words=20 HEADLINE: Heimliche Komplizen=20 HIGHLIGHT:=20 =DCber Sicherheit und Terror / Von Giorgio Agamben=20 BODY:=20 Sicherheit als Leitbegriff staatlicher Politik ist so alt wie die = Geburt des modernen Staates. Schon bei Hobbes ist sie als Gegenbegriff zur Furcht = zu finden, die die Menschen zwingt, sich zur Gesellschaft = zusammenzuschliessen. Aber erst im achtzehnten Jahrhundert kommt das Sicherheitsdenken zur = vollen Entfaltung. Michel Foucault hat 1978 in einer immer noch nicht ver=F6ffentlichten Vorlesung am College de France gezeigt, wie sich in = der politischen und =F6konomischen Praxis der Physiokraten die Sicherheit = dem Gesetz und der Disziplin als Instrument des Regierens entgegenstellt. = F=FCr Turgot und Quesnay wie auch f=FCr die physiokratischen Minister ging es = nicht darum, Hungersn=F6ten vorzubeugen oder der Produktion Vorschriften zu = machen, sondern deren Entwicklung zuzulassen, um dann die Folgen zu ste=FCrn = und zu "sichern". W=E4hrend die disziplinierende Macht isoliert und R=E4ume = schlie=DFt, f=FChren die Massnahmen der Sicherheit zur =D6ffnung und zur = Globalisierung; w=E4hrend das Gesetz vorbeugen und vorschreiben will, will die = Sicherheit in die laufenden Prozesse eingreifen, um sie zu lenken. Mit einem Wort, = die Disziplin will die Ordnung herstellen, die Sicherheit will die = Unordnung steuern. Weil die Massnahmen der Sicherheit nur unter der Voraussetzung einer gewissen Freiheit des Verkehrs, des Handels und der = Eigeninitiative greifen, kann Foucault zeigen, da=DF ihre Entfaltung mit der = Durchsetzung der Ideen des Liberalismus einhergeht. Heute stehen wir vor den extremen = und gef=E4hrlichsten Entwicklungen dieses Sicherheitsdenkens. Im Laufe der schrittweisen Neutralisierung der Politik und der fortschreitenden = Preisgabe traditioneller staatlicher Aufgaben dr=E4ngt sich die Sicherheit als Grundprinzip staatlichen Handelns auf. Was noch bis zur ersten H=E4lfte = des zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts eine unter mehreren ausschlaggebenden = Massnahmen der =F6ffentlichen Verwaltung war, wird nun zum einzigen Kriterium = politischer Legitimation. Das Sicherheitsdenken bringt jedoch ein wesentliches = Risiko mit sich. Ein Staat, der als einzige Legitimation und als einzige = Aufgabe die Sicherheit hat, ist ein zerbrechlicher Organismus; er kann = st=E4ndig vom Terrorismus provoziert werden, selbst terroristisch zu werden. Man = sollte nicht vergessen, da=DF die erste grossangelegte Terrororganisation nach = dem Krieg, die Organisation de l'Armee Secrete (OAS), von einem = franz=F6sischen General aufgebaut wurde, der sich f=FCr einen Patrioten hielt und = =FCberzeugt war, da=DF die einzige Antwort auf das Ph=E4nomen der G=FCrrilla in = Algerien und Indochina der Terrorismus sei. Wenn Politik, wie die Theoretiker der "Polizeiwissenschaft" im achtzehnten Jahrhundert sie verstanden, sich = v=F6llig auf Polizei reduziert, droht der Unterschied zwischen Staat und = Terrorismus zu verschwinden. Am Ende kann es so weit kommen, da=DF Sicherheit und = Terror ein einziges t=F6dliches System bilden, in dem sie ihre Handlungen wechselseitig rechtfertigen und legitimieren.=20 Das Risiko liegt hierbei nicht nur darin, da=DF sich heimliche Komplizenschaften zwischen beiden Gegnern einstellen, sondern da=DF die = Suche nach Sicherheit zu einem Weltb=FCrgerkrieg f=FChrt, der jedes = zivilisierte Zusammenleben unm=F6glich macht. In der ne=FCn Lage, die nach dem Ende = der klassischen Form des Krieges zwischen souver=E4nen Staaten entstanden = ist, wird also deutlich, da=DF die Sicherheit mit der Globalisierung an ihr = Ziel gelangt: Sie impliziert die Idee einer ne=FCn planetarischen Ordnung, = die in Wahrheit die schlimmste aller Unordnungen ist.=20 Aber es gibt eine weitere Gefahr. Insofern sie den da=FCrhaften Bezug = auf einen Notstand erfordern, wirken die Massnahmen der Sicherheit im Sinne einer zunehmenden Entpolitisierung der Gesellschaft. Auf lange Sicht = sind sie unvereinbar mit der Demokratie.=20 Nichts ist daher notwendiger als eine Revision des Begriffs der = Sicherheit als Leitgedankens staatlicher Politik. Die europ=E4ischen und = amerikanischen Politiker m=FCssen endlich die katastrophalen Konseq=FCnzen bedenken, = die ein unkritischer Gebrauch dieser Denkfigur im globalen Masstab nach sich zu ziehen droht. Nicht, da=DF Demokratien darauf verzichten m=FCssten, = sich zu verteidigen: Aber vielleicht ist die Zeit gekommen, an der Vorbeugung = von Unordnung und Katastrophen zu arbeiten, nicht nur an ihrer = Beherrschung. Es gibt heute Pl=E4ne f=FCr alle Arten von Notf=E4llen (=F6kologische, = medizinische, milit=E4rische), aber keine Politik, um ihnen vorzubeugen. Im = Gegenteil, man kann sagen, die Politik arbeite insgeheim daran, Notf=E4lle zu = produzieren. Aufgabe einer demokratischen Politik ist es, zu verhindern, da=DF = Bedingungen entstehen, die zu Ha=DF, Terror und Zerst=F6rung f=FChren - und sich = nicht darauf zu beschr=E4nken, sie erst dann beherrschen zu wollen, wenn sie bereits entstanden sind.=20 Aus dem Italienischen von Achim Bahnen.=20 Der 1942 in Rom geborene Autor lehrt Philosophie in Verona und in den Vereinigten Staaten. Er war bis vor kurzem Herausgeber der = italienischen Ausgabe der Schriften Walter Benjamins und hat eine Reihe von dessen verloren geglaubten Manuskripten wieder aufgefunden. Seit Ende der = achtziger Jahre besch=E4ftigt sich Agamben vor allem mit politischer Philosophie. = Sein bisher wichtigstes Buch "Homo sacer" (1995) ist Teil einer = mehrb=E4ndigen philosophischen Genealogie des Verh=E4ltnisses von Biologie und = Politik. Dazu geh=F6rt auch eine Studie =FCber die Vernichtungslager, die englisch = unter dem Titel "The Remnants of Auschwitz" erschien. Beide B=E4nde harren noch = ihrer =DCbertragung ins Deutsche. Zuletzt ver=F6ffentlichte Agamben eine = Untersuchung =FCber den Messianismus des Paulus. F.A.Z.=20 LOAD-DATE: September 20, 2001=20 # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # = collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net=20 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:25:47 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: irony or a few generational thoughts, perhaps is also a further response to R. S Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Would love to hear a few thoughts from others born in the 60s and 70s on this, and just send out a few thoughts about how our generation is being portrayed here and now. (On a first minor note: the news reports here show the kids at UC doing protests and say "like those a generation ago". Um, the Free Speech movement was more than a generation ago now, dudes. In the late 80s we had plenty of apartheid protests, bla bla bla.) There's alot of talk of "genx"'s irony and how after last week we are suddenly adults. This is really annoying. I may have a slightly different take on things having grown up in the pinko enclave (note irony) of Berkeley, but there are profound reasons for what is ***perceived*** as apathy in this generation. Things aren't as easy (note irony) as when our moms thought, hey maybe women should get paid the same as men for the same work, etc. They haven't been. Everything has been framed as a pose, plus everything is so deeply ambiguous and appallingly corrupted and thrillingly complicated. Maybe this leaves our minds freer to cope, more open to vision. I think in some ways it does and in some ways we have been apathetic. Well that's all from me but just consider this a reminder that no generation is "the greatest", and also (note irony) that generational proclamations are really boring. Cheers Elizabeth _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 19:58:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Coalition building MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit David, thanks for posting this. My personal response is quite complicated and i hope to get it written, but along with what I have observed here and in many of the list responses my suggestion would be that the response is likely to be more personal and heartfelt thanany encompassed within existing idealogies. I would encourage people there to stick if possible with a broader base for responses if possible. If questioned about this by leaders there I do have all the credentials of previous experiences to back this up. please keep us postedon progress. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Abel" To: Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 4:05 AM Subject: Coalition building > Dear Listees, > and those who believe that a more > horizontal structure, composed of small groups with well-defined aims > but no central decision-making body, provides for true consensus and > direct involvement/investment of all who participate. The challenge for > the latter notion is to remain feasible with a very large (and hopefully > growing) group; as it was, very many people left in frustration after > the first hour and a half. A temporary compromise seems to have been > reached that will no doubt undergo revision and contest in coming weeks, > as we attempt to "embody the conflict in the structure," as one > participant put it.. > > I've heard that this was one of the first and largest such public > actions opposing the coming bloodshed. (I haven't confirmed that claim; > one of the disadvantages of *not* following the mainstream press, not > owning a television, etc., is sometimes missing very basic national > news.) In any case, I've bothered to describe it here merely in the hope > that it might inspire some of you (who perhaps are wondering, as I am, > what there is to be done) to join similar coalitions forming wherever > you are; or if none have formed, then to gather a few friends together > and start one. > > I've taken Ron's concerns (about the danger of a "habitual" progressive > response, that doesn't take into account unique particulars of the > moment), and the replies to them, very much to heart. But, as many have > noted, time is terribly short, and to begin putting *some* response in > place seems imperative, just as a debate about strategy is inevitable. > > Working through public organizations certainly isn't for everyone--in > the past, it hasn't been for me--and I am confident that just about > everyone, in their own ways, will be lending themselves to whatever they > can perceive as some common good. I've been rereading, as I have done > before in times of crisis, Thich Nhat Hanh's _Peace Is Every Step_, and > I am convinced that he's right, that as the Dalai Lama says in his brief > introduction, "Although attempting to bring about world peace through > the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only > way.". > > Nonetheless, I'm more frightened by the current situation than I have > ever been. As I walked back from the march, the other rally was taking > place in the square. There was a three-storey tall U.S. flag on the side > of one of the office buildings around the square, everyone was waving > and wearing flags, and "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was thundering > over the sound system. Though I can easily imagine many of the flags in > neighbors' windows as transitional objects, this was clearly something > else indeed. I fear that our likely military course promises an > unprecedented potential for escalation and reprisal--an extended and > widening cycle of retaliations and terrorist attacks--and concomitant > fundamental changes domestically, utterly unlike any other "conflict" in > my lifetime. The excerpts from the Chomsky Belgrade interview sketch > this possibility in persuasive terms. I can only hope that I'm utterly > and hysterically wrong. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:09:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: <10dc01c14170$6de5bdc0$2e442718@ruthfd1.tn.home.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear List and Tom, Like for many, the event and its aftermath created an instant documentary on the meaning of being here, being "american" and there was more of it than ever that I owned, most succinctly represented by the people on the plane that crashed outside Pittsburgh who voted on what to do before acting. Previously I'd always considered myself from NY or of american immigrant stock, but that was as far as I'd go. But one of the most upsetting developments is this flag waving stuff by Tom and Todd Gitlin and all those saying "I was a..." but now watch me wave. Tonight W said America will define our times not be defined by them. Let us remember, that much of the design of the fundamentalist rage was determined by colonialism and imperialism. Before jumping on every heart beat of US pride, will and strength, please take a moment to consider the consequences of supressing the pride, will and strength of the rest of the world. Rachel Democracy Levitsky From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Thomas Bell Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:06 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object after forty years of resistance to flag-waving and what I saw as meaningless gestures, on the 11th I asked my children to buy one for us to display. tom bell ----- Original / ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:31:13 UT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: subrosa@SPEAKEASY.NET Subject: build up? Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Type: text/plain MIME-Version: 1.0 one notion suggested to me was that instead of telling the taliban to give up bin laden or we'll use force, that we offer - if you give us bin laden we'll help to rebuild your country. is that a humanitarian, economically viable approach? also, i cant write now. history is a trap awaiting the evolution of the human condition. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:04:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: of the third MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII = this is the third information space of three information spaces.:this is some information i'm writing into the second space:this is some information i'm writing into the program in this first space.::third You drop note. I am afraid of war. I am not going to war. There appears to be some writing on the note ... I am an innocent person. There appears to be some writing on the note ... I am very innocent. Written in 1998: Is this whatever truth there is? Because I wonder what the biz is. Or if the biz is biz. And who are you to gain the plane Which has taken off (your clothes) Leaving you plain and in pain And nothing left you suppose To your brain but a stain When there is nothing to gain Here hexed by text Nothing more before Nothing left to store My Poem by Julu (You finish reading.) look note read note Dream: There are people crawling on the ground. Dream: There are mountains. Dream: There are great planes. Dream: There are clouds and scars of many colors. Dream: Tents. I will dream in my tent in the mountain. The woman-child mountain, starvation mountain. Julu tends me with a kind and tender hand. Dream: I am crawling on the ground. Dream: Do not abide revenge. Dream: Of bombs falling. All my life this dream: of falling bombs. = ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:11:21 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: m&r...cry havoc, let slip the dogs of war... nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > THE BATTLE HYMN OF THE REPUBLIC... Mine Eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord: He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored He hath loosed the fateful lightning of HIS terrible swift sword His truth is marching on.. Chorus... I have seen HIM in the watch fires of a hundred circling camps They have builded HIM an altar in the evening dews and damps I can read HIS righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps His day is marching on... Chorus.... He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never retreat He is sifting out the hearts of men before HIS judgement seat Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer HIM; be jubilant my feet.. Our God is marching on Chorus... In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As HE died to make men holy, let us die to make men free: Glory Glory Halleluha.........wow....DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:12:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: m&r....digging... nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > it's like watching a man dig his own grave with a toothpick...DRn.... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:39:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Allen H. Bramhall" Subject: Out of Darkness Comments: To: imitationpoetics@topica.com, wryting@uwo.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction... The chain reaction of evil -- hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -- must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the darkness of annihilation." Dr. Martin Luther King ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:35:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..For USa or... I haven't packed a book for 10 days...the cc machine is unplugged...both it & i are blank screen... I bought a book last week...Quentin Crisp...HOW TO HAVE A LIFESTYLE...NY Metheun..1979..1st F D.J. nicely inscriped..15.44 with a 20 per cent disc...Crisp is staring at me now...he'd a been a dead man in any Arab country... I spend my time writing short propagandistic squibs for the Poetics List...but there's just so much pleasure one can get from stirring up the half-wit natives... I bought a USa flag tee shirt...a construction worker told me as i was walking by 'now that's class' The guy i called a 'f....n imperialist'...threatened to murder me twice...i really meant to say 'we're all f...n imperialists and that was fine by me..." If the Dalai Llama married Anne Waldmann...what would the name of their child be..........Rosemary;s Baby.............DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 14:31:38 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Tranter Subject: Announcing Jacket 14 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable (If you'd like to be taken off this mailing list, just ask) Announcing Jacket 14, a co-production with SALT magazine, with a special feature of writing from or about France, at http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/jacket14/index.html ----- Articles: Charles Bernstein: Poetry and/or the Sacred Graham Foust: Wallace Stevens's Manuscript: As If in The Dump Lyn Hejinian: Continuing Against Closure Marjorie Perloff: on Wittgenstein and Duchamp Susan M. Schultz: Of Time and Charles Bernstein's Lines: A Poetics of Fashion Statements Brian Kim Stefans: Veronica Forrest-Thomson and High Artifice ----- Feature: France - Edited by Tracy Ryan Judith Bishop: on Yves Bonnefoy Pamela Brown: Paris, France Maryline Desbiolles trans. Tracy Ryan Rachel Blau DuPlessis Lorand Gaspar trans. Peter Riley Franck Andr=E9 Jamme trans. Olivier Brossard and Lisa Lubasch V=E9nus Khoury-Ghata, trans. Marilyn Hacker Harry Mathews: Rue de Rochechouart Michael Scharf: The Hills of Dublin and Czernowitz... John Tranter: In Paris ----- Prose: Carla Harryman: From Gardener of Stars - a novel ----- Reviews: Juliana Spahr reviews Rob Wilson, Reimagining the American Pacific Maria Damon reviews Joseph Lease, Human Rights Lucy Sheerman reviews Jennifer Moxley, Grace Lake and John Forbes ----- Poems: Chris Andrews, Jan Baeke (trans. Rod Mengham), Mary Jo Bang, Douglas=20 Barbour, Anselm Berrigan, Richard Caddel, Alfred Corn, Bei Dao (trans.=20 Eliot Weinberger and Iona Man-Cheong), Catherine Daly, Marcella Durand,=20 Elaine Equi, michael farrell, Bob Harrison, Coral Hull, Kate Lilley, Victor= =20 Hugo Lim=F3n (trans. Mark Weiss), Drew Milne, Peter Minter, Ted Nielsen,=20 Kevin Nolan, Ian Patterson, Gig Ryan, Michael Scharf, Joanna Smith Rakoff,= =20 Office for Soft Architecture, Candice Ward, McKenzie Wark, Mark Weiss,=20 Marjorie Welish, and Susan Wheeler ----- Poetry and Sculpture: Robert Creeley: Scholar's Rocks: with sculpture by Jim Dine ----- This issue of Jacket is a co-production with SALT magazine, an=20 international journal of poetry and poetics, edited by John Kinsella, PO=20 Box 937, Great Wilbraham, Cambridge PDO, CB1 5JX United Kingdom - ISSN=20 1324-7131. This means that the contents of Jacket 14 will appear in print (as SALT=20 number 13, late in 2001) as well as electronically, a first for both=20 magazines. Jacket is a free Internet-only literary magazine which I publish from=20 Sydney Australia. The thirteen issues so far published since Issue # 1 in=20 October 1997 (all issues will remain permanently "there") have attracted=20 over a quarter of a million visits. I'm not quite sure what that means, but= =20 it sounds vaguely positive to me. Recent issue of Jacket are coded in XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets. To=20 see the pages in their full flower, you may need to activate your browser's= =20 "style sheets" feature; but most recent browsers follow style sheet=20 typographical instructions as a default in any case. To find out more about= =20 this topic, or if you are having any trouble printing out recent issues of= =20 Jacket, follow this link: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/printproblems.html JT from John Tranter Editor, Jacket magazine: http://www.jacket.zip.com.au/ > new John Tranter homepage - poetry, reviews, articles, at: http://www.austlit.com/johntranter/ > early writing at: http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/tranter/ 39 Short Street, Balmain NSW 2041, Sydney, Australia tel (+612) 9555 8502 fax (+612) 9818 8569 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 01:45:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Tom Zummer, Some Notes On the Unspeakable (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE My friend Tom Zummer wrote the following, and has given me permission to pass it on. I have always felt close to his thinking, even moreso in relation to this. - Alan =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Some Notes On the Unspeakable 11 September 2001 What recourse do we have, we who work embedded so deeply in language, when words fail? When they fail so completely and utterly, in confronting traged= y of such proportion. Is there anything which authorizes our speech, we who remain outside the hole, the blank, utter, negation of those voices who could speak, but cannot? No. That is impossible. For us and for them. There is no possibility of speaking but from that position, and those voices are silent. Where might hope lie for us? Circumscription, writing around a wound, forms a cicatrice, a scar that forever marks the place of absence. And yet there is the constant reflexive urge to fill this metaphoric hole with language. Never mind that it cannot support such language, and that at the same time such language occludes the space of horror, take its place, and that this pure negation frames every language. Even our perceptions, as they are before=8Bor at least different from=8Blanguage are compromised. I = stood on my roof watching through binoculars the fall of the northernmost tower. For some minutes before it collapsed I saw what looked like dust. Like ther= e was dust crumbling from the edges of the building. It wasn=B9t until four d= ays later that I realized that it was not dust, but people. So even at the very moment of perception, or perhaps it is in that gap between perception and cognition, where pure perception has not yet made itself into the world, no= t yet entered into a relation with the possibility of knowing =8Bwhen it is attenuated, momentarily absolved from commitment to the horror=8Bthat we ar= e closest to the event. And for the rush of language that inundates that space, how much of it is clich=E9, familiar tropes, truisms that order not = the event itself=8Bwhich cannot be domesticated=8B nor even our relation to it,= but rather our protection from it. When the first airplane hit, it was broadcas= t almost immediately. Young children in one of the schools closest to the sit= e cheered and laughed, applauding this incredible image=8Bhow could they not? The only precedent for such an image was in cinema or on television, where everyone tacitly knows that, with all of the weapons fired, no one is reall= y killed. Moments later these same children witnessed, out the windows of their classroom, the bodies of people who had jumped hit the ground, literally exploding on impact. There is no way to suture these two events together in any sensible way. They remain an aporia, an impossibility that one cannot, and yet must, work through. The work of mourning. One of my students asked if, within the framework of this intentional act of terrorism, whether the composition of the act=8Ba plane flying down 5th Ave= nue into the first tower, with a second plane, from another direction, hitting the second tower half an hour later=8Bwas not also intentional, so as to ha= ve produced the clearest images of terror. I didn=B9t know how to answer this. Our city is already composed as an image, in a sense, there is something cinematic from the start. Perhaps terror always composes itself as an image= , and that this was an opportunistic instance of that reflex. How many times did we hear that it was =8Clike a movie,=B9 or a =8Cspecial effect.?=B9 And= how was it like a movie in the very moments that it unfolded? It is astonishing to think of the network of people, stationary, fixed, in wahtever proximity to the event, in front of their television sets. It was a movie, coextensive with the horror of its actuality, a film or covering membrane, something with which one could think, because any closer and thought too disappears. The question of the precessionary comes up here. America has had its =8Cwake-up call=B9 is another statement that we continue to hear. What does= it mean? That we have finally learned, in the worst way, the meaning of =8Cglobalism,=B9 and the hegemonic phantasm of our daily life now has to ad= mit that other hells punctuate the world, and have done so for a long time, whether it be the thousands of people =8Cmissing=B9 in Latin America, or Bu= rma, or Algeria, and the list goes on. Have we backed into a world different beyond our imagining? I don=B9t know. The world is different, to be sure. T= he etymology of the word =8Caftermath=B9 is useful to note: moving away, or mo= ving on. Is there a resonance of mathesis, or working, making (an image)? And no= t only in images, but in judgements and acts? The wort theory in its original sense authorized the passage from event into language such that the truth o= f an event could be ascertained, judgements rendered and appropriate actions taken. Our task is to think outside the event=8Bthere is no other place=8Ba= nd to think through our judgements and actions so that this sort of thing, on any scale, in any place, for any reason, cannot happen again. There will be the inevitable retaliations, there is no question. And there will be retaliations to retaliations. We have not only found ourselves within a probabalistic total war=8Bwhere unspeakable things can happen anywhere, any time=8Bbut we recognize that we have been within a probabalistic total war = for some time now. What do we do? Adorno=B9s chilling question, how does one wr= ite lyric poetry after Auschwitz has haunted the last century, and has not passed away. Lyotard speaks, and then writes =B3Discussion, or how do you phrase =8Cafter Auschwitz?=B9=B2 It is in the phrases which circulate aroun= d negation that the work lies. Discussion, dialektike, is the ground for community, and it is within communities that the phrasing of events takes place, takes up the task of mourning, which must be a positive task. Phrase= s are mediated. On has only to reflect on the order of repetitions of images, statements, phrases, to see an emergent pattern, a possible and perhaps at times opportunistic persuasion. The notion of a =8Ccell structure=B9 for example, dates from the period of the Russian anarchists of the late 19th century. Is this really how the perpetrators of this inhuman act worked in our world? And under the necessity of our covert forces =8Cgetting dirty=B9= in a commensurate fashion have we instituted a structure of secrecy which will totally deconstruct the traditional freedom of the press? Does the reflexiv= e anxiety about this event, so close, produce a more and more normative discourse about fighting another =8Cgood war=B9 which is greatly at odds wi= th the world as it is? What do we do now? =8BThomas Zummer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 13:46:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Allen H. Bramhall" Subject: Into the Light Comments: To: wryting@uwo.ca, imitationpoetics@topica.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit My heart rouses thinking to bring you news of something that concerns you and concerns many men. Look at what passes for the new. You will not find it there but in despised poems. It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there. -- William Carlos Williams ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 22:36:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Special issue of American Book Review on codework MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit interesting that this hould appear now, Alan. Recent events have sent me back to Krucheonik and Michaux with a view to putting shatters back together, especially after Stockhausen's provacative but poorly timed cooment. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alan Sondheim" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:26 PM Subject: Re: Special issue of American Book Review on codework > http://www.litline.org/abr/Issues/Volume22/Issue6/abr2206.html > > On Wed, 19 Sep 2001, Alan Sondheim wrote: > > > > I put this issue together - you might want to take a look at the site - > > > > Alan > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 00:16:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: words In-Reply-To: <15e.10e0b9c.28d8c49d@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" I made myself feel better for a little while today, twice. In the evening I got to hear Nicole Brossard read. Earlier in the day I went back and reoponed Rae Armantrout's Made to Seem. After all the language of warscarepolitics of the past week, what a blessing to remember that words can be so well respected, so nicely cared for, so near to the world and the heart at the same time. So exact. So subtle. I am thankful as can be that I decided to open that book again. Maybe that is a great occupation for poetry. We do have to come back and read about our warscarepolitical world and do something about it. But we can, every day, find poems such as Rae's. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 11:21:46 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee@PROBOOK.NET Subject: Poems engaging with the catastrophes Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The events of September 11th have been called `unspeakable.' As always--it falls to poets to speak the unspeakable. On that day we were preparing a web page for the journal UR-VOX. Instead of what was planned, www.urvox.net will for now be dedicated to poems that engage with the catastrophes, written by our contributors and others in affinity with them. First poems in place are by Will Alexander, Lee Ballentine, Charles Borkhuis, Adam Cornford, and Spencer Selby. ------ END ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 12:28:43 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Subject: Call for Submissions Comments: To: eliztj@hotmail.com Comments: cc: carol_treadwell@hotmail.com, yedd@aol.com, sacoxf@telocity.com, jsaidenberg@mindspring.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Call for Submissions Teachers & Writers Magazine is seeking submissions from writers and teachers at all levels for its next issue. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks, we would like to know of poems or other literary works that you turned to in this time of tragedy-for solace, insight, comfort, and hope. You can just send us the texts, with authors, titles, and sources, but we ask that you also explore in a few paragraphs why these pieces affected you, and if possible, how you might share them with students. If you have classroom experiences to relate, or poems or responses by students, we would like to receive these as well. Literature is one thing that can offer us consolation, helping us to overcome our mutual grief, sorrow, pain, and fear. The opportunity we have as teachers, to help the younger ones among us, is another. Please join us in this modest effort to share our strengths and wisdom. We would like to receive submissions as soon as possible, no later than October 3. Thank you, Chris Edgar and Christina Davis, editors cedgar@twc.org cdavis@twc.org Teachers & Writers Magazine Teachers & Writers Collaborative 5 Union Square West New York, NY 10003 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:33:08 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Re: Dali Lama Comments: cc: "Ivan H. C. Lai" , =?ISO-8859-1?B?ukKGi4GStovG?=v , =?ISO-8859-1?B?qVC6eqistovG?=v , =?ISO-8859-1?B?32aucaistovG?=v , Yuying Lin , Yi_peng , Wenchi Lin , Susanna Kuan , sunichen@cc.ncu.edu.tw, Steve Bradbury , Spencer Lin , sex@ncu.edu.tw, Percy Kuo , Li-chien Liang , Jerome Li , Fifi Ding , David Stewart , David Barton , Dann Isbell , Christina Huang , "Chen Sun-i (Yahoo)" , An-kuoTseng , hmp@ms14.hinet.net Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Surely one of the most enlightened & unbiased responses to appear in this discussion group, & exhibits the great wisdom gap between poet-intellectuals -- forever beating around the bush, word slinging -- & awakened beings. Worth rereading. Reuven BenYuhmin ============================================================ >Dear friends around the world: > >The events of this day cause every thinking person to stop their daily >lives, whatever is going on in them, and to ponder deeply the larger >questions of life. We search again for not only the meaning of life, >but the purpose of our individual and collective experience as we have >created it-and we look earnestly for ways in which we might recreate >ourselves anew as a human species, so that we will never treat each >other this way again. > >The hour has come for us to demonstrate at the highest level our most >extraordinary thought about Who We Really Are. > >There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first >comes from love, the second from fear. > >If we come from fear we may panic and do things-as individuals and as >nations-that could only cause further damage. If we come from love we >will find refuge and strength, even as we provide it to others. > >This is the moment of your ministry. This is the time of teaching. What >you teach at this time, through your every word and action right now, >will remain as indelible lessons in the hearts and minds of those whose >lives you touch, both now, and for years to come. > >We will set the course for tomorrow, today. At this hour. In this >moment. Let us seek not to pinpoint blame, but to pinpoint cause. > >Unless we take this time to look at the cause of our experience, we will >never remove ourselves from the experiences it creates. Instead, we will >forever live in fear of retribution from those within the human family >who feel aggrieved, and, likewise, seek retribution from them. > >To us the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human >lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have >not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have not been >listening to God, and because we have not, we watch ourselves do ungodly >things. > >The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. >That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this >truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is >simple: Love, this and every moment. > >If we could love even those who have attacked us, and seek to understand >why they have done so, what then would be our response? Yet if we meet >negativity with negativity, rage with rage, attack with attack, what >then will be the outcome? > >These are the questions that are placed before the human race today. >They are questions that we have failed to answer for thousands of years. >Failure to answer them now could eliminate the need to answer them at >all. > >If we want the beauty of the world that we have co-created to be >experienced by our children and our children's children, we will have >to become spiritual activists right here, right now, and cause that to >happen. We must choose to be at cause in the matter. > >So, talk with God today. Ask God for help, for counsel and advice, for >insight and for strength and for inner peace and for deep wisdom. Ask >God on this day to show us how to show up in the world in a way that >will cause the world itself to change. And join all those people around >the world who are praying right now, adding your Light to the Light that > dispels all fear. > >That is the challenge that is placed before every thinking person today. >Today the human soul asks the question: What can I do to preserve the >beauty and the wonder of our world and to eliminate the anger and >hatred-and the disparity that inevitably causes it - in that part of >the world which I touch? > >Please seek to answer that question today, with all the magnificence >that is You. What can you do TODAY...this very moment? > >A central teaching in most spiritual traditions is: What you wish to >experience, provide for another. > >Look to see, now, what it is you wish to experience-in your own life, >and in the world. Then see if there is another for whom you may be the >source of that. If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another. > >If you wish to know that you are safe, cause another to know that they >are safe. > >If you wish to better understand seemingly incomprehensible things, help >another to better understand. > >If you wish to heal your own sadness or anger, seek to heal the sadness >or anger of another. > >Those others are waiting for you now. They are looking to you for >guidance, for help, for courage, for strength, for understanding, and >for assurance at this hour. Most of all, they are looking to you for >love. > >My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. > >Dalai Lama ------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 17:25:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Stefans, Brian" Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" [Pardon for the length -- just read the last paragraph or so if you're bored... ] Hi Ron and others, Not sure what I can add to the voluminous debate, and pardon if I repeat some points made earlier. I attended an anti-war meeting yesterday in the penthouse of a building on 42nd Street. I don't actually know who the organizers were, but representatives of several New York coalitions were present. I was disappointed by the apparent lack of "withness" by many of the atttendees -- "habits" of thinking, many of which seemed rooted in quite ingrained attitudes that hadn't seen the light of day for decades -- were everywhere, with many grabbing the mike simply to state positions that were already long agreed upon. An hour and a half was spent just getting the 4 or 5 points of agreement hacked out, some of which were as basic (but linguistically challenged) as "Peace through justice." Nonetheless, I was impressed with the organization, and the hundreds there gave me confidence that, when the time comes, those hundreds could become thousands, and thousands millions. Most people of my generation who have remained somewhat on the margins of political activity would not have thought such a thing possible so easily. With this in mind (since public opinion plays such a large role in Ron's post) I'd like to argue a few points: RS writes: "Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be suffering effects from for years." I would add that several million New Yorkers and New Jerseyans saw this event happen right in front of their faces, not on television -- I'd say only a handful of the many I've talked to didn't see it happen first-hand. Nonetheless, I'm convinced that the choreographing of the attack was intended to bring people out of their homes and onto their rooftops -- to demoralize, to anchor our thoughts in grief, to shock us and make us afraid, and to leave behind a lingering depression. And so, on some level, I would like to reject this shock and not use it as a strong reference point in my thinking in terms of personal emotion. This seems to be the intention of the terrorists, and a first step might be to reject it. As well, I agree with those who think comparisons to Pearl Harbor and the Titanic are not relevant -- the only similiarities there are speed (in the first case) and structural inadequacies of a machine (in the second). I think it is because these events have taken on mythic proportions in the public's eye (each having a movie in the past 5 years) and are thereby even celebrated as cathartic that they are recalled, whereas I see this event as the first in a chain of events, and that most Americans without this sort of (perhaps depressing) imagination will see it this way, too, quite soon. I'm not sure we'll be able, a few years from now, to distinguish this shock to the system from the ones that are ahead of us. RS writes: What would happen to any government that did NOT respond militarily to such an attack on civilians on its soil? Frankly, it would collapse. Bush would be impeached or worse. Politicians are for the most part followers, craven followers at that, and the reaction by the professional pols has been completely predictable. This, I think, is a highly arguable point. But what I find most bothersome about it is that it suggests an argument for symbolic militaristic action for the sake of domestic concerns and stability, and that strikes me as exactly the wrong way to go. The United States is a little too handy at making symbolic relatiatory strikes when far less than domestic stability as at stake, actions that, consequently, kill thousands more than died in the towers, and of reporting it as they see fit. I'm not being "anti-American" here, and I am certainly in favor of some significant action, but we must avoid anything that is purely (or even remotely) of symbolic value. RS writes: Does anybody anywhere honestly think that this network, whether or not we inscribe bin Laden's name in as the CEO, will not, at some future moment, do something as bad or worse if it is not broken up? Do we not think that it would use a nuclear weapon if it had a chance? Anthrax? This network has survived an incredible amount of poverty, bad reputation, closed borders, etc.etc., not to mention US and other gunships. A network is not like a state -- we've heard it over and over again. And this culture of martyrdom seems able to rejuvinate itself from, literally, out of the ground -- who is to say that even the distant myth of the martyr against America would not inspire someone several generations from now from taking up the old cause? Yes, greater attacks could happen, but I'm more interested now in whether there is any sort of logic to these activities -- who is supposed to gain were there to be a nuclear bomb attack against the U.S.? If we can deduce this logic, could it lead us to a sense of security again? (More on this "logic" below.) RS writes: Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve its behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate the impetus behind these attacks? That it could do so quickly enough to forestall future assaults? One thing worth mentioning in this context (and I'm certainly no Middle East expert) is that prior to the Persian Gulf war a jihad had never been declared on the United States. Jihads were declared on Israel and the Soviet Union, but not this country, though now we are positioning ourselves as the polar opposites of radical Muslims in terms of "values". According to John Miller (and I confess that I got this info from David Letterman last night -- remember, I only have one tv channel!), bin Laden himself (at least in 98) had three specific points of contention with the United States: support of Israel, the air-bases in Saudi Arabia and the sanctions/no fly zone against Iraq. This is not to say that he's not an egotistical violent maniac, but that I'm less sure than I was maybe a week ago that something like a fundamentalist Islamic attitude toward the American way of life (gay marriages, Coca Cola or "bare midriffs" as Marjorie Perloff mentioned) is somewhere near the heart of this. I could be fooling myself, but there could be a logic (i.e. consistency) to this -- the Taliban's request that bin Laden leave the country, for instance, suggests a sort of foreign policy move that is not off the radar, and was probably unthinkable three or so days ago. And even if it seems a distant memory, there was a fairly long cease-fire in Israel until Sharon moved in with his (again, symbolic) act. I'm certainly not suggesting that there be diplomacy here -- it would be kind of laughable, and if the Afghanis learned anything from, say, North Korea, it could go on for a while -- but the steps that have to be taken, should they be militaristic, would have to be so careful as to not create a "new world order" that would just leave the old antipathies in place. In fact, shaking things up too much right now might cut off certain supplies of information -- imagine what a few months looking through the vaults of Pakistan's government files on terrorism would show us now? RS writes: Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 3 without literally abandoning Israel? I assume you mean #4 here, since #3 doesn't have the U.S. doing anything? Anyway, putting "improve its behavior" in double quotes may not give enough detail to that particular issue. Certainly "abandoning Israel" is not an answer, but nonetheless some change in this policy strikes me as necessary, since it is what supplies the fuel for the sort of coalition that people like Hussein or bin Laden want in the Middle East. Again, I'm no expert, but the recent history of the moves the U.S. has made in support of Israel -- the racism conference is obviously a touchstone -- WITHOUT anything like public debate is troublesome. There's something automatic about it that I don't understand and we have been far too passive about. I think, in this time of crisis, that it is legitimate to rethink this policy in a way that doesn't "abandon" Israel but put some serious pressure for changes. RS writes: Can anybody here imagine a U.S. electoral politician advocating some version of #4? See that last comment under #1 again. Don't know. I do remember Clinton in occasional speeches talking about "that great culture of Islam" and things like that, and though it might not have had anything to do with policy, there could have been the attempt to change to tone of one's approach to Islam, as less the "other" and more the partner in civilization. But I can't comment here -- I just hope anything's possble. Certainly, right now, this seems impossible, but think of how demonized the Japanese and Asians were even before WWII. RS writes: Even if those last three points were politically do-able in the near future, is there anybody who cannot imagine what THAT ensuing war would look like? You lose me here. What ensuing war -- the blueprints for war are always there (again, think North Korea). We can only do our best to move in a direction we think is safe. In any case, don't quite follow you here. My sense, in terms of the "popular will" of the people, is that it will change dramatically once the first bombs drop, and so will the opinion of our European allies. It's strikes me as quite easily possible that we become isolated if the attacks that we are sure to make do not have anything suggesting results in the first weeks. If this is to be a long-term version of the lingering sanctions/war with Iraq, then I don't see memories of the WTC attacks being enough to maintain support around the globe. The United States will look like the dominant force again, and hence unsympathetic (of course, Russia and France will have their own reasons for continuing -- but if there are no visible results? If you can't even name the terrorists you are supposedly killing, how can you deduce progress?) There's also the issue of Pakistan -- there is already sizable bin Laden support there, and their undemocratically elected general, for whom I feel some sympathy, could be sitting on top of a volcano. Bin Laden is like a folk hero in some areas there. Is it possible (re: that the leadership now is totally inadequate) that Powell is aware of all of this? I'm amazed that the media is not reporting his comments more -- what he has said concerning this campaign is the only thing that strikes me as revealing about what is about to happen, and if the Times is reliable on this, he is at least being cautious, and may be trying to reason out what, indeed, kind of "war" this is supposed to be. I don't get the sense that he has any love of war, despite his being a soldier, but that's just my impression. I'm almost tired of knocking on Bush -- he's clearly an idiot with a stupid grin -- so where is the reporting on Powell's statements (URLs please). RS writes: It's a rhizome, almost like the point-to-point computing model one associates with post-Napster MP3 ripping, while the U.S. military' s experience is telling it to hunt for a mainframe somewhere. We've had no success with post-Napster ripping. But hackers always rise up again. The only way to get rid of them is to bribe them, hire them, or find people who are smarter that render their activities irrelevant. In any case, along the lines of this analogy, certainly a total transformation of the nature of army intelligence is necessary -- perhaps a little time to figure out what these transformations would be might help. Didn't we wait 6 months before entering the war after Pearl Harbor? Consequently, I'm not sure whom you could target in Afghanistan that is not a "civilian," since there are enough rebel forces there to start up the civil war again, and though I have no love for the Taliban, knocking them out wholesale at a time like this would be sending the whole region into such a state of instability that I don't see any good being done. There are just too many variables right now, and if there's one thing that the terrorists have proved, it's that our looking toward the "macro" too much -- thinking we have the smarts to take in such a wide range of facts, and that we can stay at an arm's length from any violence that ensues -- just leaves the "micro" open for anyone, especially trained bandits. Anyway, to bring this to a close, I'm wondering if there is something that is peculiar to poets use of language -- the language of fact -- in a poetic or emotional fashion that might be useful here. It's one thing to deconstruct or approve/disapprove of symbols, but I think it's quite another to convince a populace that is gorged on symbols and emotionalism to somehow find security in what might seem bureaucratic methods in a time a crisis. To go back to Guiliani again, it's amazing what he's been able to do in talking to New York without recourse to anything like symbolic language -- most of what he's done, outside of some prepared speeches (like at the ceremony for the promotion of the firemen) was to present the goings-on of the day and to answer questions when posed. We simply do not have any national-level politicians that are able to do anything like this, or to see three years ahead and wonder what the world might be like after this campaign is over, if indeed it is over then. Public debate and speculation -- from the right and left (yes, both are needed) -- would be the healthiest thing right now if we don't want the president simply responding to polls and his stupid cabinet. I wish I had a grand conclusion for those of you who followed through this email. Don't have one. Take care, Brian ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 04:00:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: FW: Interview with Robert Fisk at Beirut Airport (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:50:28 +0400 From: Salwa Ghaly To: "'CYBERMIND@LISTSERV.AOL.COM'" Subject: FW: Interview with Robert Fisk at Beirut Airport -----Original Message----- From: charmaine driscoll Interview with Robert Fisk at Beirut Airport in Lebanon Thursday, September 20 2001 @ 06:59 PM GMT It sometimes comes down to the question of why when some people have brown eyes and darker skin, their lives seem to be worth less than westerners Radio New Zealan (ZMagazine) Hill: Can I talk to you about Osama Bin Laden? I don't know whether you are in favour of him becoming public enemy number one at the moment but I do know that you have met him and I wonder if you could give me some kind of insight into, first of all, is he capable of this. Fisk: Well, I've been trying to explain this in my own paper, the London Independent over the last few days and I'm not sure. We haven't actually seen the evidence that directly links him to not just an atrocity but a crime against humanity that took place in New York and Washington. On the other hand, the Afghan connection seems to be fairly strong. Could he have done it? He certainly hasn't condemned it although he denies being involved. The first time, no the second time I met him in Afghanistan when he was there with his armed fighters, I asked him if he had been involved in an attack on American troops at Al Hoba, in Saudi Arabia which had just taken place - 24 American soldiers had been killed - and he said no, it was not his doing, he was not responsible. He admitted that he knew two or three men who have since been executed, beheaded, by the Saudi authorities. He then said, I did not have the honour to participate in this operation. In other words, he approved of it. Now, you can go on saying that kind of thing - he did, several times over about other episodes later. At some point you begin to say, "Come off it Bin Laden, surely you are saying there's a connection, but he's never said or admitted responsibility for any such event and he's denied specifically the atrocities in the United States. Is he capable of it? Look, I'll give you one tiny example. The second time I met him in Afghanistan, four years ago, at the top of a mountain, it was cold and in the morning when I woke in the camp tent, I had frost in my hair. He walked into the tent I was sitting in and sat down opposite me, cross-legged on the floor and noticed in the school bag I usually carry in rough country to keep things in, some Arabic-language newspapers and he seized upon these and went to the corner of the tent with a sputtering oil lamp and devoured the contents. For 20 minutes, he ignored us, he ignored the gunman sitting in the tent, he ignored me and he didn't even know, for example, that it was stated in one of the stories in the newspaper that the Iranian foreign minister had just visited Riyadh, his own country, Saudi Arabia, well, his until he lost his citizenship. So he seemed to me at the time to be very isolated, a cut off man, not the sort of person who would press a button on a mobile phone and say, "Put plan B into action". So I don't think you can see this as a person who actually participates in the sense of planning, step-by-step, what happens in a nefarious attack. In other words, I doubt very much if he said, "Well, four airplanes, five hijackers, etc.". But he is a person that has a very large following, particularly in the rather sinister Jihadi community or culture of Pakistan. And there is such anger in the Middle East at the moment about the American' s policies here and whether it be the deaths of tens of thousands of children in Iraq, which Osama Bin Laden has spoken about, whether it be continued occupation and expansion of Jewish settlements in Arab land which he's also spoken about, whether it be about the continued dictatorships, Arab dictatorships, which are supported in large part by the west, especially in the Gulf area, about which Osama Ben Laden has spoken about and condemned, I think you find in this region, enough people who admire what he says, almost to conspire amongst themselves without involving him, in the kind of bombing attacks that we've seen in Saudi Arabia and I suppose it's conceivable, in the atrocities in the United States. But if you're looking for direct evidence, if you're looking for a fingerprint, all I can say is, the moment I heard about the World Trade Center attacks, I saw the shadow of the Middle East hanging over them. As for the fingerprint of Bin Laden, I think that's a different matter. We haven't seen it yet. We may. Perhaps the Americans can produce the evidence but we haven't seen it yet. Hill: The corollary of that, of course, is that should they decide to strike against Bin Laden, it will do no good because, you know, there will be a thousand, a million more, waiting to carry on doing the same thing, will they not? Fisk: Yes this is the problem. It is very easy to start a war, or to declare war, or to say you are at war and quite another thing to switch it off. And after all, let's face it, this is a declaration of war primarily against the United States. But once America takes up the opponent's role, saying we will retaliate, then you take the risk of further retaliation against you and further retaliation by you and so on. This is the trap that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister, has got himself involved in Israel with the Palestinians because when the Palestinians send a suicide bomber wickedly, for example into a pizzeria and kill many innocent Israelis, the Israelis feel a need to retaliate so they fire tank shells or helicopters fire American missiles into a police post. Then a murder squad, or a helicopter fires a missile into a car of a man who the Israelis believe have plotted bombing. Then the Palestinians retaliate by sending another suicide bomber and so on and so forth. It's one thing to use this rhetoric, like "rooting out the weed of world terror", "dead or alive", "a crusade" - my goodness me, that's a word that Mr Bush has been using - not a word that's likly to encourage much participation on the American side in the Arab world because the word, crusade, is synonymous here with Christians shedding Muslim blood in Jerusalem in 1099 and Jewish blood actually, historically. So, the real question is, what lies behind this rhetoric? Is there any serious military thinking going on? If so, are we talking about the kind of blind, indiscriminate attack which will only provoke more anger among Arabs, perhaps to overthrow their own regimes which Mr Bin Laden will be very happy to see, or are we talking about special forces seizing people, taking them out of Afghanistan, trying to have some kind of international criminal court where we could actually see justice done as opposed to just liquidation and murder squads setting out to kill killers. Hill: George Bush, I suppose is entitled to his internal physical needs - the needs of Americans - to put out bellicose rhetoric, such as "the new war on terrorism", or "we want Osama Bin Laden dead or alive" and so on, but that he will do remains entirely obscure at the moment, doesn't it? Fisk: Yes, yes it does. You see, I can understand -anyone should be able to understand - not only how appalled Americans are about what happened, in such an awesome way - the images of those aircraft flying through the skin of the World Trade Center and exploding are utterly unforgettable. For the rest of our lives we will remember that. And I think therefore the anger of Americans is perfectly understandable and revenge is a kind of justice, isn' t it, but these days we have to believe in the rule of law. Once or twice you hear Colin Powell talking about justice and law but then you hear President Bush using the language of Wild West movies. And that is very frightening because I don't think that NATO is going to support America in a blind and totally indiscriminate attack in the Middle East. And the other question is, how do you make your strike massive enough to suit the crime. Afghanistan, after all, is a country in total ruins, it was occupied by the Russians for 10 years which is why it is seeded with 10 million mines - I mean it, 10 million mines, more that one tenth of all the land mines in the world are in Afghanistan. So any idea of America sending its military across Afghanistan is a very, very dangerous operation in a country where America has no friends. It is very significant - though it's been largely missed, I noticed by press and television around the world - but just two days before the attacks on Washington and New York, Shah Massoud, the leader of the opposition in Afghanistan, the only military man to stand up to the Taliban, and the only friend of the west, was himself assassinated by two Arab suicide bombers - men posing as journalists, by the way. I've been asking myself over the last two days, and I have no proof of this whatsoever, merely a strong suspicion, whether in fact, that assassination wasn't in a sense a code for people in the United States to carry out atrocities which we saw last Tuesday. I don't know, but certainly if America wants to go into Afghanistan, one of the key elements, even with a special forces raid, is to have friends in the country, people who are on your side. [But they] have just been erased, in fact erased two days before the bombings in America, and I find that is a very, very significant thing. Hill: If one went to these people, if one went to bin Laden or any other, if one went to the Jihadians in Pakistan and said, "What do you guys want?" what would they say? Fisk: Well, you would hear a list of objectives which will be entirely unacceptable to the west or in many cases, to any sane person here. Hill: What do they want? Fisk: Well, look, what you have to understand is, what they want and what most Muslims in the region want is not necessarily the same thing but they are trading and treading on the waters of injustice in the region. But what they want, they will tell you, is they want shariat imposed on all Muslim states in the region, they want total withdrawal of western forces from the Arab gulf region. They ask, for example, why does America still have forces in Saudi Arabia 10 years after the Gulf War, after which they promised they would immediately withdraw those forces? Why are American forces in Kuwait? Well, we know the American answer is that Saddam Hussein remains a danger. Well, that might be a little bit of a dubious claim now. And why are American forces exercising in Egypt? Why are American jets allowed to use Jordan? What are they doing in Turkey? On top of that, they will demand an end to Israeli occupation of Arab land. But you have to remember that when you go to one end of the extreme, like the most extreme of the Jihadi culture in Pakistan, you are going to hear demands that will never be met. But nonetheless, and this is the point, they feed on a general unease about injustice in the region which is associated with the west which many, many Arab Muslims - millions of them - will feel. So, this goes back to the Bin Laden culture. It does mean, I haven't met a single Arab in the last week, who doesn't feel revulsion about what has happened in the United States. But quite a few of them would say, and one or two have, if you actually listen to what Bin Laden demands, he asks questions that it would be interesting to hear the answers to. What are the Americans still doing in the Gulf? Why does the United States still permit Israel to build settlements for Jews, and Jews only, on Arab land? Why does it still permit thousands of children to die under UN sanctions? And UN sanctions are primarily imposed by western powers. So, it's not like you have a simple, clear picture here. But where you have a large area of the earth, where there is a very considerable amount of injustice, where the United States is clearly seen as to blame for some of it, then the people in the kind of Jihadi culture - the extremists, terrorists, call them what you like - are going to be able to find a society in which they can breathe, and they do. My point all along is, if there is going to be a military operation to find the people responsible for the World Trade Center and for the people who support them and for those who harbour them - I'm using the words of the State Department, the President, the Vice-President, Secretary of State Colin Powell - then I believe that the wisest and most courageous thing that the Americans can do, is to make sure that it goes hand-in-hand with some attempt to rectify some of the injustices, present and historic in this region. That could actually do what President Bush claims he wants, that is, end "terrorism" in this region. But you see, I don't think Mr Bush is prepared to put his politics where he's prepared to point his missiles. He won't do that. He only wants a military solution. And military solutions in the Middle East never, ever work. Hill: Because it's like a tar baby. I mean as soon as the United States undertakes a military solution, then a thousand more will instantly join the Jihadi or Bin Laden because, there you go, the United States has proved itself to be the great Satan once again. Fisk: Well, there is a self-proving element to that for them, yes, but again, you see, the point is, I said before, that Bin Laden's obsession with overthrowing the local pro-American regime has been at the top of his list of everything he's said to me in three separate meetings in Sudan and two in Afghanistan. And I suspect, and I don't know if he's involved in this, but if he was - or even if he wasn't - he may well feel the more bloody and the more indiscriminate the American response is, the greater the chance that the rage and the feeling of anger among ordinary Arabs who are normally very docile beneath their various dictatorships, will boil over and start to seriously threaten the various pro-western regimes in the region, especially those in the Arabian Gulf. And that is what he's talked about. And indeed, Mr Mubarek of Egypt, not you might think, a great conceptual thinker, two weeks' ago, only a few days before the World Trade Center bombing, and it's always interesting to go back before these events to see what people said, warned what he called "an explosion outside the region", very prescient of him and he also talked about the danger for the various Arab governments and regimes - he didn't call himself a dictator, though effectively he is - if American policy didn' t change. And indeed, he sent his Foreign Minister to Washington to complain that the Egyptian regime itself could be in danger unless American policy changed. And what was the Foreign minister told? He was told to go back to Cairo and tell Mr Mubarek that it will be very easy for Dick Cheney to go to Congress and to cut off all American aid to Egypt. Hill: The trouble with arguing, as you do, as many other people do, that, you know, 1800 people were killed in Sabra and Shatila, maybe half a million people have died in Iraq as a result of the sanctions, how many Palestinians have died as a result of the Israeli attacks, it begins to sound like moral relativism in some peculiar way. I talked to David Horovitz [editor, Jerusalem Report] earlier this morning. You won't be surprised to hear that he disagrees with a lot of the things you say. And he said, look, this terrorist attack on the United States last week was beyond the pale, was unacceptable, cannot be compared with anything else. This is it. How do you respond to that? Fisk: I'm not surprised that David, who I know quite well, would say that. I don't think it's a question of moral relativism. When you live in this region I go to New York and I've driven past the World Trade Center many times. This is familiar architecture for me too, and familiar people, but when you live in this region, it isn't about moral relativism, it sometimes comes down to the question of why when some people have brown eyes and darker skin, their lives seem to be worth less than westerners. Let's forget Sabra and Shatila for the moment and remember that on a green light from Secretary of State Alexander Haig, as he then was, Israel invaded Lebanon and in the bloody months of July and August, around 17,500 people, almost all of them civilians - this is almost three times the number killed in the World Trade Center -were killed. And there were no candlelight vigils in the United States, no outspoken grief, all that happened was a State Department call to both sides to exercise restraint. Now, it isn't a question of moral relativism, it isn't a question in any way of demeaning or reducing the atrocity which happened - let's call it a crime against humanity which it clearly was - is it possible then to say well, 17,500 lives, but that was in a war and it was far away and anyway they were Arabs which is the only way I can see you dismiss the argument that, hang on a minute, terrible things have happened out here too. That does not excuse what happened in the United States. It doesn't justify by a tiny millimetre anything that happened there but we've got to see history, even the recent history of this region if we are going to look seriously at what happened in the United States. Hill: That's like setting out on a marathon though. I mean, of course David Horovitz says, look, we made the Palestinians a fantastic offer and they turned it down. What more can we do? They keep coming at us. We're trying, we're trying, we're trying. If you say, yes Fisk: Wait a second, there's an inaccuracy in this, and this is not meant to be a criticism of David, this is my view, they were not made a great offer, they were not offered 96% of the West Bank, they were offered 46% roughly, because they were not being offered Jerusalem or the area around it, or the area taken illegally into the new Jerusalem and its municipality, or certain settlements elsewhere, and they were to have a military buffer zone that would further reduce the so-called 96%. It was not a good offer to the Palestinians. You see, it has become part of a narrative to get away from the reasons for injustice and not to deal with these issues. Hill: I didn't reproduce it in order to say, it was a fantastic offer. I did it to illustrate that very point, that there are narratives going on and the narratives are of different pages, different books, different libraries and they are getting increasingly different. I can't see how we can ever align those narratives and it's getting harder and harder. How do we do it? Fisk: Well, I think this is wrong. I think I disagree with you. Look, you can't say that you don't understand the narrative of children dying in Iraq. Nobody is going around claiming that they are not dying. They are. They clearly are. And if they were, and I'm going to stick my neck out, if they were western children, believe me, they would not be dying. Now this is a major problem. Again, you see, anyone who tries to argue this, then you get smeared with, "O, you are on Saddam Hussein's side". Now Saddam is a wicked, unpleasant, dirty dictator. But the fact remains, there are children dying. And if they were western children I do not believe they would be. And this is a major problem. And many, many Arabs put this point of view forward, not in hating the United States, but simply saying, why? And of course why is one of the questions you are not supposed to ask in this region is about the motives of the people who committed this mass murder in the United States. Actually, I have to point out, they haven't told us, have they, the people behind this haven't even bothered, they've just given us this theatre of mass murder, which is the most disgusting thing. But you've got to come back and realise, these things don't happen in isolation. These 20 suicide bombers did not get up in the morning and say, let's go hijack some planes. Nor did the people who organised it and funded it. They knew they were doing it in a certain climate. Otherwise it would never have been able to happen. That is the problem. That is why we need to get at the question, why. Hill: It's very nice to talk to you. We hope to do it again soon. Thank-you, Robert Fisk. Copyright 2001 Palestine Chronicle All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 05:42:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...Scholarship... For a larger scholarly project i am looking for Palestinian Lit which is ant-terrorist...Pro Israeli....and for peace.. Conversely can some one point me to any American Palestinian lit which is pro terrorist...anti-peace...and exulted in the terrorist bombing deaths of innocent Israeli civilians....yrs in peace and scholarship...DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 13:11:58 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Fw: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Perhaps we shall get a clearer picture to this when Mr Sharon answers the charges of mass murder against him L ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kristin Palm" To: Sent: 20 September 2001 15:05 Subject: | Let's be really, really careful with accusations like this. Any clue as to | the source of this (perhaps non-) information? Isn't it likely that Arafat's | call for a cease fire had more to do with Israel's demand that he agree to | one before they would come to the table to even discuss implementation of | the Mitchell Plan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 09:11:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Kane Subject: Lorenzo Thomas on WriteNet Comments: To: writenet@twc.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII This month, Lorenzo Thomas talks about the connections between African-American derived prosody and modernism, and suggests ways in which teachers can make historical links between texts not usually considered as related. This interview is an excerpt from a longer, more comprehensive piece to be published in the book _Poetry and Pedagogy_, edited by Juliana Spahr and Joan Retallack. To access the interview, go to http://www.writenet.org/poetschat/poetschat.html, and click on "Lorenzo Thomas." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 08:27:20 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kari edwards Subject: a queer military In-Reply-To: <3BAA08E9.7AF40EB3@duke.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I thought this is not only an interesting turn of event but opne that has been going on since the turn of the centry. Tom Musbach, Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network Wednesday, September 19, 2001 / 03:26 PM Today's Headlines * Military readies to suspend gay discharges * Gay-friendly mutual fund remains steady * Gay Holocaust survivors can file claims * Egypt trial defense finds fault with case PROMOTION As the United States prepares for war in the wake of last week's terrorist attacks, Pentagon leaders have authorized each service secretary to suspend military discharges -- including those based on a service member's disclosure of homosexuality. Major James P. Cassella, a spokesman for the Department of Defense told the San Francisco Chronicle, in a report published on Wednesday, that a "stop-loss" order has been authorized, allowing leaders of the military services to call a stop to discharges. The last time a stop-loss order took effect was during the Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush in 1991. Casella noted, however, that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy enacted by President Clinton in 1993 is still in effect. "Gays and lesbians would be allowed to serve during any war, just as they do now," he said, "as long as they remain in compliance with the homosexual conduct policy." C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), said any stop-loss order would be "explicit recognition by the Pentagon that gays and lesbians can serve their country, and do so with honor and distinction." Osburn added that during the stop-loss order implemented for the Gulf War, gay and lesbian discharges dropped "significantly." The discharges increased, however, once the Gulf War service members returned to the United States, according to the SLDN, a Washington-based advocacy group for gays and lesbians in the military. Osburn believes the stop-loss order highlights the need to change the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. "Any (stop-loss) order should not be a temporary reflection of gays' and lesbians' ability to be put in harm's way in defense of our freedoms," he said, "but a permanent recognition of their right to serve our nation in times of both war and peace." On Wednesday, President George W. Bush ordered bombers and dozens of other military aircraft to be deployed within days to bases in the Persian Gulf, in addition to the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt. Titled "Operation Infinite Justice," the move is a response to the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 10:24:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: What is to be criticized Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I want to continue the debate over Ron's letter. I found the part of the argument that takes issue with the "left" to be misguided, and hence I question it. It seems based on an assumption that to argue strongly against war as an initial response to the horror of September 11 is to be in denial of the event and hence to risk isolating oneself rhetorically. This implies that in order to participate in debate, one has to give initial assent to military response before one can speak to the issue. For me, the ethical imperative against 1) past American policy and 2) present possibility of action that would make the situation even more dangerous stems directly from a deep and committed response to the deaths of 6000. Ron suggests the opposite--that antiwar leftists who do not overcome their principled horror of war are in some sense in denial of its consequences when they occur, and hence their responses will remain outside of debate. Here are some places in his argument where he says or infers these things, and a response: >It is time for progressives to act, but not on the past dragged on as habit. Objection to American militarism from Hiroshima to the present is not a habit but an analysis of the world situation we are in. America is widely disliked for its position as dominant world power--or have we lost touch with reality? On the British Poets list there has been a great deal of mockery of the current rubric under which we are going to war: "Infinite Justice." As one post had it, "just us, forever and ever." America is isolated--you feel this in the responses of those outside the country--by virtue of its position of military dominance. Jingoism blinds us to the world we are in. >The attack places progressives into a particularly difficult and painful >spot. So far, my impression is that the left as a whole has not responded >well and is mostly doing a bang-up job of isolating itself at the worst >possible moment in history. I do not understand not so much the reasoning as the perception here. The "left," like everyone else in the country, is reeling from the implications of these events. There has been a paradigm shift in terms of everyone's estimation of what is possible. Ron sees a perverse will in responses that are, in fact, trying to find a perspective from which to speak and act. "Doing a bang-up job of isolating itself" is oddly insensitive to the immediate need for information, analysis, discussion. Perhaps for Ron the left's response is failing to protect us, rhetorically or analytically, and this is where we need to call for a higher order of protection--the U.S. military. It is obvious that confused and disorganized need could give the green light to any sort of military response, however. >The argument that a U.S.-led coalition, or even the U.S. on its own, >should not respond militarily to the death of over 5,000 people, all but a >hundred or so of them civilians, is based on premises that reveal an >absolute inability to look at the circumstances directly. Instead, people >seem to be continuing on some mode of automatic pilot that is >well-intended, but ultimately self-defeating. I have no argument with an initial response against war as either an ethical principle or rhetorical stance. But Ron assumes that all "left" responses might be characterized in such a way as to reveal "an absolute inability to look at the circumstances directly." An anti-militarist position, it seems to me, is an appropriate first response to the circumstances--in our state of inadequate knowledge. It ought to require deep reflection, not just shock and horror, to change that position. >The present situation is qualitatively different from the Vietnam War or >Desert Storm. To pretend otherwise and to trot out the same old slogans is >itself potentially a disaster from which the left may not soon recover. False. American disregard of civilian casualties, from Hiroshima to Vietnam to Desert Storm is a direct rationale for the terrorists's refusal to distinguish between civilians and military targets. File footage exists of bin Laden saying precisely this. Of course it is a rationalization. But it is one that is believed by an overwhelming majority of the Muslim world. Selective assassinations by Israelis of Palestinian leaders and the botched US attempt to get bin Laden in Operation Infinite Reach have only reinforced this perception. Ditto the civilian consequences of the embargo of Iraq. >To focus exclusively on what the U.S. might (and may well) do wrong in >responding to the attack is to miss the point so completely that it is >going to be difficult, if not impossible, later on, to be taken seriously. >That is what I think is at stake. The notion that a principled position may not be taken seriously is akin, I think, to Bush senior's dictum, "You can't hear them." It makes a certain perception of loyalty a precondition for debate. >(4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve >its behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate >the impetus behind these attacks? That it could do so quickly enough to >forestall future assaults? It is a very reasonable position to see American actions as contributing directly to the motives for and reception of the terrorists' actions. If the US were to strongly renounce civilian targets (as Ron indicates later) it would certainly would help to change world opinion, and hence the context for any future terrorist actions. Ron's argument here is in direct contradiction here to what he calls for later--the need for debate concerning the limits of American responses, with which I agree. >(5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 4 without >literally abandoning Israel? This is very out of touch with the events in Israel since Ariel Sharon marched into the plaza of the Muslim sanctuary in Jerusalem with his retinue. The U.S. had, under Clinton, been restraining the Israelis from the kinds of aggressivity we have seen since. The current situation in Israel is a direct result of the change in policy. Therefore, it is nonsense to say that changing the perception of the US's role in world, which should be done, means abandoning Israel. The US should return to a proactive role in containing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and in seeking a solution. The first order of business would be to seek support for a coalition that would remove Sharon from power. >In the face of all this, to argue against the use of force in breaking up >the network of terrorist cells is to confess that one is not only tone >deaf to the popular will, manipulated or otherwise (and I suspect, >frankly, that the media, like the pols, is much more a follower than a >leader in this), it is even wrong in terms of the protection of Americans. >To the extent that the American left and its allies puts its eggs into >this basket, it is going to find itself with very little credibility >remaining with which to make the far more crucial arguments that need to >be made right now. It is very odd to see a former pacifist seek to limit the terms of debate over the legitimacy of force. Even if Ron no longer agrees with his former C.O. position, or sees the situation as historically different, he should not seek to discredit that position in others. To argue as above seems to me to capitulate to the media as representative of reality. It is important to maintain an alternative perspective, and indeed Ron argues for this. Another reason why I find his position so contradictory. >But to take any position that can be perceived as inaction in the face of >the enormous physical and emotional wound that confronts the American >people serves only to exacerbate the reputation of the left as a movement >completely out of touch with reality. This is a little like the "prior restraint" of possibly actionable speech as a condition for limiting speech. How can a former C.O. see anti-militarist arguments as out of touch with reality, when they are based on the entirety of human history? >Julian Borger, also writing in The Guardian >(http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,553876,00.html), >gets it right when he argues against the idea that "Americans should be >asking themselves why this happened to them . . . . Rather than getting >angry, then, they should be meditating and wondering what they have done wrong. No, Americans need to figure out what it is about recent US policy that has made it possible for us to be seen as the world's enemy and to correct that policy. >"This point of view seems to me to be detached to the point of inhumanity. >Moreover, it is driven by an internal logic that is utterly bogus. That >logic, insinuated between the lines, suggests that the horror visited on >thousands of New Yorkers must be balanced somewhere by an equal and >opposite evil that the US has inflicted upon someone else." Jingoism. The author implies that horror at past US policy is an indifference to the tragedy. Rather, the two are directly related. Grief does not interfere with the imperative with analysis. >Borger is correct in acknowledging that that position fails to acknowledge >the enormity of the assault. It will certainly be rejected by a huge >majority of people. As it should be. And that position also fails to >address the ugly reality that, without action, future attacks are >inevitable, and that the death toll in the towers has raised the bar for >ambitious future martyrs. The question of appropriate action may be raised without this attack on principled positions of those who question whether American overreaction will only perpetuate the horror. American overreaction is not only possible, it is likely. Hawks in the Pentagon will try to use this situation in order to "clean up" related situations--as in Iraq--even if they fail in the attempt. >Nick Piombino's post earlier on the flag's role not as an icon of >war-mongering, but as a transitional object in the grieving process, makes >perfect sense to me. As I've written elsewhere, the flag is not a transitional object but a symbol of national identity. I cannot dissociate American history from that symbol. While I do not see the same aggression in flying the flag as was evident in the Gulf War, I think the innocence of its use as a symbol of human, rather than national, solidarity is a precise desire to forget that history. >I've been struck at how radically differently it has been used than, say, >the yellow ribbon campaign during the Gulf War, a soft swastika if ever >there was one. If anything, the flag's role this time around has been one >of solidarity , an emblem not of the state but of the people. Coming out >of the Vietnam experience, I never thought I would see the stars & stripes >used that way. But there it is. And it's everywhere. I am reminded of socialist/populist embrace of the nation-state both in WWI and II. It is important to define, rather, an oppositional, internationalist position. The US needs to see itself from the perspective of the world, and rallying around the flag is not going to sharpen that perception. Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 10:49:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wanda Phipps Subject: petition for peace MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit What follows is a petition at a website listed below that will be forwarded to President Bush, and other world leaders, urging them to avoid war as a response to the terrorist attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon this week. Please read it, sign, and forward the link to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. We must circulate this quickly if it is to have any effect at all, as the Congress of The United States has already passed a resolution supporting any military action President Bush deems appropriate. Read and if you can go to the website and sign it... We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of the United States of America and of countries around the world, appeal to the President of The United States, George W. Bush; to the NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson; to the President of the European Union, Romano Prodi; and to all leaders internationally to use moderation and restraint in responding to the recent terrorist attacks against the United States. We implore the powers that be to use, wherever possible, international judicial institutions and international human rights law to bring to justice those responsible for the attacks, rather than the instruments of war, violence or destruction. Furthermore, we assert that the government of a nation must be presumed separate and distinct from any terrorist group that may operate within its borders, and therefore cannot be held unduly accountable for the latter's crimes. It follows that the government of a particular nation should not be condemned for the recent attack without compelling evidence of its cooperation and complicity with those individuals who actually committed the crimes in question. Innocent civilians living within any nation that may be found responsible, in part or in full, for the crimes recently perpetrated against the United States, must not bear any responsibility for the actions of their government, and must therefore be guaranteed safety and immunity from any military or judicial action taken against the state in which they reside. Lastly and most emphatically, we demand that there be no recourse to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or any weapons of indiscriminate destruction, and feel that it is our inalienable human right to live in a world free of such arms. To sign the petition go to: http://home.uchicago.edu/~dhpicker/petition ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 20:40:48 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pattie Rich Subject: FW: [Fwd: Fwd: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating] Comments: To: damon001@tc.umn.edu, dewan001@umn.edu, wm@videoactivism.org, van-l@tao.ca, imc-video@indymedia.org, Audrey@vail.net, oceana@1cabonet.com.mx, jordinelli@earthlink.net, debiw@yahoo.com, DNAInc@aol.com, kindred2@home.com, geoffreysawyer@earthlink.ne, gigiburke@crowndistributing.com, glassics1@home.com, HENRYGRADO@hotmail.com, JLehrfeld@aol.com, bchlivin@ix.netcom.com, kk@kbarranco.com, KBDAY2000@aol.com, yeahyaknow@earthlink.net, film@bigisland.com, fpsvideo@earthlink.net, mbrandpro@aol.com, mitzier@earthlink.net, oceana@caboonline.com, pdugie01@aol.com, MPAULICANO@probusiness.com, schmirl@aol.com, ipps@aol.com, ipps@aol.com, rock_hard@earthlink.net, sam@dnala.com, sbman333@cs.com, wolfnshanah@earthlink.net, shellyivy@home.com, klinedog@earthlink.net, palajetski@yahoo.com, og-guy@excite.com, suzykarl@aol.com, Tvalazza@cs.com, gglomski@cinci.rr.com In-Reply-To: <3BAA897F.1C2724E5@earthlink.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hey Ponce, I got this email last week. Checked it out at Urbanlegends.com (great site, I highly reccommend it). It is a hoax. I also am sending this back to everyone's address I saw on this email. It is very important not to react to rumors. There's a lot of great information out there , but also a lot of inflammatory misinformation, especially right now. PLEASE take a moment to check stuff out before you pass it along. Think about it: You could be saving someone from injury, harassment or worse considering the way people are feeling right now. Sorry to be up on a soapbox. This is the only email you'll receive from me, unless you'd like to be on my mailing list. ( I'm an LA singer songwriter for all you music lovers) Just let me know if it's ok to add you. You won't be spammed. Thanks- Peace AND Love Pattie Rich ---------- From: Lisa Poncino Reply-To: lisaponce@earthlink.net Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 16:27:46 -0800 To: Agua Clara Propiedades , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , 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Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Hal & Sherri Forsen , Henry Grado , Jay Lehrfeld , John Propati , Karen Barranco , Kevin Bray , landy lakes , Marilyn Killeri , Mark Kalbfeld , Michael Brandman , Mitzie Rothzeid , Oceana Property Services , Pat & Karin Dugan , Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Sam Aslanian , "sbman333@cs.com" , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Hal & Sherri Forsen , Henry Grado , Jay Lehrfeld , John Propati , Karen Barranco , Kevin Bray , landy lakes , Marilyn Killeri , Mark Kalbfeld , Michael Brandman , Mitzie Rothzeid , Oceana Property Services , Pat & Karin Dugan , Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Sam Aslanian , "sbman333@cs.com" , Shanah , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Hal & Sherri Forsen , Henry Grado , Jay Lehrfeld , John Propati , Karen Barranco , Kevin Bray , landy lakes , Marilyn Killeri , Mark Kalbfeld , Michael Brandman , Mitzie Rothzeid , Oceana Property Services , Pat & Karin Dugan , Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Sam Aslanian , "sbman333@cs.com" , Shanah , Shelly Ivy , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Hal & Sherri Forsen , Henry Grado , Jay Lehrfeld , John Propati , Karen Barranco , Kevin Bray , landy lakes , Marilyn Killeri , Mark Kalbfeld , Michael Brandman , Mitzie Rothzeid , Oceana Property Services , Pat & Karin Dugan , Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Sam Aslanian , "sbman333@cs.com" , Shanah , Shelly Ivy , Steven KLINE , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Hal & Sherri Forsen , Henry Grado , Jay Lehrfeld , John Propati , Karen Barranco , Kevin Bray , landy lakes , Marilyn Killeri , Mark Kalbfeld , Michael Brandman , Mitzie Rothzeid , Oceana Property Services , Pat & Karin Dugan , Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Sam Aslanian , "sbman333@cs.com" , Shanah , Shelly Ivy , Steven KLINE , Susie Paleszewski , "Susie, Frank Rotte" , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Hal & Sherri Forsen , Henry Grado , Jay Lehrfeld , John Propati , Karen Barranco , Kevin Bray , landy lakes , Marilyn Killeri , Mark Kalbfeld , Michael Brandman , Mitzie Rothzeid , Oceana Property Services , Pat & Karin Dugan , Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Sam Aslanian , "sbman333@cs.com" , Shanah , Shelly Ivy , Steven KLINE , Susie Paleszewski , "Susie, Frank Rotte" , Suzy sherman , Agua Clara Propiedades , Audrey Gomez , Brenda Divine , dan jordinelli , Debi Wooten , DNA Office , Don Kindred , Geoffrey Sawyer , Gigi Burke , Hal & Sherri Forsen , Henry Grado , Jay Lehrfeld , John Propati , Karen Barranco , Kevin Bray , landy lakes , Marilyn Killeri , Mark Kalbfeld , Michael Brandman , Mitzie Rothzeid , Oceana Property Services , Pat & Karin Dugan , Pattie Rich , "Paulicano, Mike" , "Pila, Bill Boyd" , Rhonda Vernet , Rusty , Sam Aslanian , "sbman333@cs.com" , Shanah , Shelly Ivy , Steven KLINE , Susie Paleszewski , "Susie, Frank Rotte" , Suzy sherman , Terri Valazza , Tom & Gina Glomski Subject: [Fwd: Fwd: fyi: cnn using 1991 footage of palestinians celebrating] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:57:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: FW: NYC RALLY FOR PEACE TODAY! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit -----Original Message----- From: owner-911@www.brechtforum.org [mailto:owner-911@www.brechtforum.org]On Behalf Of L.A. Kauffman Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 2:34 PM To: Undisclosed-Recipient:@admin.people-link.com; Subject: NYC RALLY FOR PEACE TODAY! > PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY! > > __________________________________________________________________ > > GATHERING FOR GLOBAL PEACE & JUSTICE > Friday, September 21st > > honor the dead by calling for an end to senseless violence! > > 6:00 PM SE Corner UNION SQUARE > > 7:00 PM Procession to Times Square > leaving from NE Corner UNION SQUARE > > 8:00 PM Arrive US Army Recruiting Office > TIMES SQUARE > > For more information call 212-726-3272 > BRING SIGNS AND CANDLES > > > the march will pass by the site of another rally listed below, so that > participants can join in if they wish. > __________________________________________________________________ > > > MUSLIM PEACE RALLY > The Muslim Community in New York expresses deep shock > and outrage at the > reprehensible attack on the WTC and the Pentagon. We > condemn this and join > our fellow Americans in this hour of grief. Please > join us for prayer and > reflection at a Peace Rally > > FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2001 > MADISON SQUARE PARK > 23rd Street/Fifth Avenue > 5: 30 - 7:00 P.M > (Directions: Take N/R to 23rd Street/Fifth Ave.) > > Sponsored by: > American Sufi Muslim Association - > Islamic Center of Long Island - > Al-Rahman Foundation, Inc. and Al-Rahman Masjid - > Arab American Family Support Center, Brooklyn - > CAIR - NY - > Muslim Charity Networks - > SAKHI for South Asian Women - > VIRSA Pakistan - > Women for Afghan Women - > Muslims Against Terrorism - > ----------------------------------------------- To respond to a post to the 911 list, make sure the recipient of your email is 911@www.brechtforum.org. Do NOT use "reply" since that will send your response to the original poster only. ----------------------------------------------- To subscribe and unsubscribe to this list, use the form on the Brecht Forum web site. http://www.brechtforum.org. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 00:31:36 -0400 Reply-To: dbuuck@mindspring.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "dbuuck@mindspring.com" Subject: SF Reading 9/25 Comments: cc: "stvnfarmer@aol.com" , "thier@stanford.edu" , "bkirshner@stanford.edu" Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Myung Mi Kim Yedda Morrison Chris Chen Tues 9/25 - 8 pm at Intersection for the Arts 446 Valencia (b/t 15th & 16th) San Francisco $5 suggested donation -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:20:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rachel Levitsky Subject: BELLADONNA* Message for forwarding In-Reply-To: <200109011625_MC3-DE7C-B228@compuserve.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit BELLADONNA* will go forward with the readings as planned. Our publisher, David Kirshenbaum works at Wall Street so BELLADONNA* books will be a bit slowed down. I feel confident that the readers in this series will be natural contributors to the dialogue on peace, justice and mourning. Please come On Friday, September 28 at 7:00 pm Lee Ann Brown (Polyverse, Sun & Moon) Adeena Karasick (Dyssemia Sleaze, Talonbooks) at The Bluestockings Women’s Bookstore 172 Allen Street, NYC (between Rivington and Stanton) (212) 777-6028 Additionally the Fall schedule goes like this: All readings at Bluestockings at 7 pm October 26 Aja Duncan, Lila Zemborain December 7 Lynn Tillman, Abigail Childs, Cheryl Pallant -----Original Message----- From: Adeena Karasick [mailto:adeena@compuserve.com] Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2001 4:25 PM To: Rachel Levitsky Subject: Adeena's Stuff for Belladonna Heys weetheart. Have a great trip. I put this all on one file. Let me know if there's a problem downloading. I hope you like it. much love and thanks a ps the middle is not necessarily a bad place ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:01:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: caroline crumpacker Subject: Options Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi all, Activists in NYC have set up a phone-in calendar of peace events in the City at 212-726-3272. There are things happening every day in NYC and I encourage people to go to as much as possible and to document whatever you can and send reports/photos etc. to the independent media center or WBAI In Exile (WBIX.org,) and other responsive media organizations. Also, I do think that it's very helpful to be as "out" as possible as pro-peace by wearing buttons/shirts etc. or putting up signs. We need alternatives to the flag and to the ubiquitous revenge images -- I saw "dead or alive" t-shirts the day after that stupid speech... Thanks to all, Caroline ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:07:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Small Press Traffic presents Crosstown Traffic, Friday, Sept. 28 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Crosstown Traffic Presents… Positive Knowledge & Victoria Brill w/ special musical guests Friday, September 28th @ 7:30pm. California College of Arts and Crafts Timken Lecture Hall 1111 8th Street, San Francisco (Just off Wisconsin & 16th) $5-10 suggested donation. free to SPT members & CCAC community. no one turned away for lack of funds. Crosstown Traffic events are sponsored by Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC. For more information please call 415-551-9278 or see http://www.sptraffic.org. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:11:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ShaunAnne Tangney Humanities Subject: old words, but good words In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII The quality of mercy is not strained, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest; It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes The throned monarch better than his crown. His scepter shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty Wherein doth sit the dread of kings. But mercy is above the sceptered sway, It is an attribute to God himself, And earthly power doth then show likest God's When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew, Though justice be thy plea, consider this, That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy And that same prayer doth teach us to render The deeds of mercy. --William Shakespeare _The Merchant of Venice_, IV:1;184-201 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:27:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: communal bereavement study Comments: To: BRITISH-POETS@JISCMAIL.AC.UK MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2001-09/asa-sfo091701.php should be able to access with registration. tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 18:30:18 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nada Gordon Subject: 10/2 Drew Gardner & Alan Davies in Brooklyn Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" ************************BROOKLYN POETRY/ MUSIC EVENT***************** Nada requests the pleasure of your company at Flying Saucer Cafe 494 Atlantic Avenue Brooklyn on the evening of Tuesday October 2 at 8 pm DREW GARDNER and ALAN DAVIES will offer sounds such as those made by the human tongue and animal skins We will celebrate with you the implacable perseverance of mindfulness in the face of unmitigated change ALAN DAVIES is the author of Name, Signage, Candor, Rave, etc. He is the editor of A Hundred Posters, Oculist Witnesses magazines, and Other Publications books. He has work forthcoming in the online magazine Readme; also in print and online versions of Open Letter. DREW GARDNER (vibraphone, drums, percussion), a former student of Leo Smith's, Drew Gardner has worked with John Tchicai, Sonny Simmons, Sabir Mateen, Rob Brown and many others. Recent books include Water Table (Situations) and Student Studies (Detour). He lives in New York City Coming in November: SUE LANDERS & WENDY KRAMER ======================================== HOW TO GET THERE: Take the 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or D or Q to the Atlantic Subway stop and walk underground to the Pacific Street exit (at the N or R or M Pacific Street Stop) or take the B or N or R or M - in any case, go out the Pacific Street Exit (right exit), take a right - at the end of the block you will be on Atlantic Ave. Take a left on Atlantic, and about two and a half blocks down, between Third and Nevins, you will find the Flying Saucer Cafe. $3 donation. ---- -- -- -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 16:01:03 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: can we have our ball back? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed This introduces: a double issue at canwehaveourballback.com Issue 8.0 celebrates the webzine's first birthday-- Issue 8.1 is a special edition, with poems submitted since 9/11/01--more poems will be added as they arrive Please be well, more soon. JB ========================================= "the world's a mess: it's in my kiss" --X ========================================= Jim Behrle, lonely American poet 3 Washburn Terrace #3 Brookline, MA 02446 617 SEX E JOB _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 14:05:20 -0600 Reply-To: Mary Angeline Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mary Angeline Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree this list has certainly risen to the occasion of what I would want to call a genuine sharing of community information and personal response. I have read comments on a piece Silliman wrote but was not recieving messages for twelve days or so so haven't read it yet. But your piece on flag waving,Arielle, strikes a similar note in myself and I want to thank you for writing it. I too put a flag in my mailbox when my neighbor put one up next door. It seemed important that Kim, my neighbor, who is fifty, dying from cancer, with only weeks to live would go ahead and raise his flag. Kim was president of the Longmont United Way he has spent his life working to aid others in trouble. Ezra, Kim& Karens fourth grade son, wanted to know why anyone would bomb us. Kim explained to him that we have done some despicable things to people in the middle east and they have been hurt by us and our greed for oil (remember he is talking to a nine year old) and so they could have struck out at us. Ezra was shaken by the news of bombs but he is also a kid who knows he has to say goodbye to his father probably before they get to cut up the huge pumpkins Ezra & his mom grew in the backyard. So, when Kim decided to put up his flag it really did seem to me when walking through town and offered a flag by the local flooring company that, yes, I was glad to have neighbors, that I was alive and trying to figure out how to teach Thoreau's Civil Disobedience essay that Tuesday morning and Andrew Sullivan's "The He Hormone" to kids who drive pickup trucks with gun racks and listen to that godawful counrty but were as confused and scared about war as the rest of us, and that sense of gratitude seemed like enough at the time to stick a flag in my mailbox. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arielle Greenberg" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 9:32 AM Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object > The past week list has been such a good source of > information, comfort, sensitivity, criticism = > COMMUNITY and I thank you all for that. > > Re: flag waving. I am so conflicted about this. Our > across-the-street neighbors put up a flag last > Wednesday and I immediately wanted one, too -- not as > a show of strength or government support or even > solidarity, but from some deep feeling of gratitude > that this country was still standing. That the > weather in Boston was beautiful and that I still had > across-the-street neighbors. Last week all of that > seemed like a miracle. > > Since then, I have been able to be more critical and > wary of the whole flag-waving phenomenon, but I am > also still very conflicted and interested in what it > means to be a patriotic American. I certainly think > one can be patriotic AND critical, and that in fact > the two probably go hand in hand. I disagree much of > what our government says, I am distraught over what we > have done to the earth, etc., etc., and I have even > (often?) thought of leaving the country, but I also > love it. I love the geographical and ethnic > diversity, the aesthetic beauty of the national parks, > the openness. I am so proud that Americans invented > hip hop, bluegrass, jazz and rock n' roll. I love my > students, many of whom are first-generation college > students and have so much to give, so many ideas. Can > I wave a flag for all of that? > > I also love, and miss, New York City, which, for the > five years I lived there, treated me with extreme > kindness and openness, and which, as exhausting and > ugly as it could be, was also frequently stunning and > inspiring, and like no other city in the world. So > when all this happened, I wanted to wave a flag for > that, too. > > Arielle > > __________________________________________________ > Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? > Donate cash, emergency relief information > http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:56:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik Notes Subject: Guild Complex Women Writers Conference (Chicago) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: 773-227-6117, Guildcomplex@earthlink.net; www.guildcomplex.org Interviews and photos available on request. GUILD COMPLEX PRESENTS ACCLAIMED WOMEN WRITERS Women Writers Conference VII, Oct 12-14, 2001 ************************************************************ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Press Contact: Audrey B. Pass 312-633-1133 AUTHOR TIM W. BROWN TO PUBLISH NOVEL LEFT OF THE LOOP CHICAGO, September 5, 2001 -- Left of the Loop, a new novel by Chicagoan Tim W. Brown will be published by Xlibris Corporation it was announced today. In support of the book, Brown will appear in book-signing events at which he will read excerpts in a number of cities throughout the Midwest, including Chicago, Cleveland and Minneapolis. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 13:10:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik Arlen Humphries The reclusive Mr. Humphries lives and works in a large, dusty, Eastern metropolis and the author of Optima Suavidad, Greenbean Press, NYC, ISBN 1-891408-08-9. We (realpoetik@scn.org) will be happy to pass comments along. "Sal", he said, when I spoke to him, "tell these bloody poseurs to buy my book." Well, that was interesting, although I'm not under oath. Famous Last Words: "Hey! Why do you want me in front?" "Darling," I would say, "You look like the kind of person who wouldn't press charges." Whereas now, spacemen go about gathering words like "melancholy" and put them in sacks. And then they find you dead in the bathroom. Sleepers in Seattle. He died in a police shootout of natural causes. If organized crime is wrong I don't want to be right. We used to play games together. "Let's role play," she'd say. "OK," I'd say, "Who do you want me to be?" "Anyone but you," she said. This was before that trouble over some stickups the folks in the witness protection program thought I did but I didn't. Then I went to Penn State for three years, wait, no, it was State Pen. So here we are, all awash and our naughty parts engorged and tingly. I wear a little bracelet that asks me, "What would Noam Chomsky do?" Arlen Humphries ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:34:46 +0300 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leevi Lehto Subject: FW: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable [the following was begun as a posting to this list, then turned into a personal mail to Charles Bernstein. At Charles' encouragement, I now share it with all you at the list. Leevi Lehto] leevi.lehto@substanssi.fi http://www.leevilehto.net/english.asp -----Original Message----- From: Leevi Lehto=20 Sent: 20. syyskuuta 2001 11:52 To: 'Charles Bernstein' Subject: RE: It's 8:23 in New York Dear Charles, First of all, thank you so much for your postings at the poetics list - they, together with all the discussion going on there, have done a great job in making "all this", well, both heavier and lighter, to me. Somehow, it hasn't been that simple to assume the "brave" stance of the New Yorkers reported from hour to hour on TV.=20 I've really been very down, mentally, this whole week. Feeling deprived of the meaning (or the meaning of meaning) in just about everything. Growing more and more addicted to the CNN... Not depressed, but utterly confused, disappointed to so many things, species, ideas, movements, perspectives, persons - myself (and yes, certain amount of what's been going on the list, also) included.=20 Terrified, I almost forgot to say. Horrified to the point of wanting to vomit. Sad. And angry. And angry at having to think it over and over again, inside my own head, as I'm going to do here... Actually it's kind of strange, that I, who, as you know, do not consider myself that much of a leftist nowadays, should have come think of the "all this" so predominantly from a leftist perspective.=20 This is one of the things that have been haunting me: among so much and so seemingly spontaneous talk about the "responsibility" of "us" - "the West", "the America" - to "this", i.e. about certain "justification" for what those 19 well-shaven men did, I'm still to hear the question on the *lefts own* responsibility, in that case.=20 I mean: if there's a - smallest - justification... what in that case about the responsibility of all (us) who have, in different contexts, been preaching about the necessity to "strike" the "system", to "blow it up", to "hit the enemy" at its weakest, i.e. most vulnerable, i.e. sometimes seemingly strongest point ...=20 The attacks have bin Ladens "signature", they say. Well, they also have the signature of all urgings to strike, to throw out, to hit, to reveal ... They are all about that rhetoric finally gone abominably awry. What have *we* done to prevent that happening? What will we do to prevent it happening again? As I wrote in one of my earliest notes to "this":=20 I think I have seen the eyes that have seen the eyes of Osama bin Laden. My hand=20 was helping=20 to lift the hand that=20 rose to point to the=20 target.=20 Well, maybe that connects to one of the oldest problems of the left: maybe there never really were that many actual leftists at all - just followers after followers believing others being the real leftists... I've become to think pretty much along the lines suggested by Tamir Ansary (quoted in the post by Alan Sondheim, September 15...), and I almost fully agree with Ron Silliman in his excellent analysis of the "lefts" dilemmas today. To me, it's spurious to compare, and weigh against each others, the attacks on the Towers, and, say, the Clinton bombings in Sudan, when clearly both, ultimately, result from the same plan. It's sad, and embarrassing, to see a mind like Noam Chomsky's to fall into that trap... Yes, the Nazis keep coming to mind. Yet I believe the enemy, or time, or the stakes, are worse than that this time around. Much worse.=20 That's one of the saddening things: that it's so open, to everyone, to see what is at stake - the whole of the civilization, the modernization, the idea of (any kind of) progress, human dignity and rights, literacy, freedom to speech, to gender, to be even... and yet, truly, it doesn't seem to hit home.=20 So, is there, behind all the talk about the culpability of the Americans, of the "we" or the "they" getting what they've been asking for, a more deep-going indifference towards the civilization as such? Which, then, may not deserve to be defended that strongly? No, of course I don't think that way. As an old leftist, I keep thinking about the Front Populaire against Nazism - how long it took to build up (they tell). The enormous amount of prejudices (and hair-splitting about the "real" or "ultimate" "responsibility" of "ruling classes", on the left, and the "reality" of the danger, on both sides) to be left behind before the democrats, right and left, in France,then in the whole Europe, later on the world scale in the WW2 could join forces - to what still is the most spectacular, if not only, permanent result of all the left's struggles - the victory over Nazism.=20 "Do you think this is going to lead to the World War Three", Kirsi asked me during the first hours. "No", I reassured her, "this *is* it." I still think that way. I'm afraid I sound a little less reassured day by day...=20 Yes: I do think it's a war. True, every time Bush (the-son-of-a-Bush) walks to the screen, I feel embarrassed about his "Dad, look, I've got my own war here now" vein of putting things. Still: he is the elected leader of the leading nation of the civilized world that's under an extremely dangerous attack. There's no way around it, nor need there be. He is my commander-in-chief in this. Period. Besides, much of what many representatives of "the Bush administration" are saying makes perfect sense to me. The idea of a "new kind of war" in many ways echoes what we are used to hear from the "progressive" security policy experts: how the real threats have ceased to be nation states, armies, bombs - being poisons, environment, weather, and terrorism instead. =20 Yes, I too am concerned about the perspective of premature efforts at seizing "the prime suspect", not to speak about bombing Afghanistan. But not because we supposedly lack evidence on the man (his interviews alone would suffice...).=20 On the contrary: because that might compromise the longer perspective, shroud from view the necessity to wage a *really* long term ... hmmm ... battle. Which will involve new ways of attack, but new modes of defence also. This is the most important, and to my view, the most neglected point here. That we are under an absolute necessity to defence ourselves, and that we can do that by (cannot do that without) *changing our society*, our civilization, our way of life - which haven't necessarily be to the worse. That among this tremendous sadness, there are glints of an enormous hope - of people getting together, starting to do something together, to some of the most important issues determining the future of the planet, of all us. That, for these reasons also, the left needs be involved in the defence, not critizising it from outside. Yes, I believe it's time to dig the good old Gandhi out from beneath the rubble of cold and other wars - and start thinking how the doctrine of passive resistance might be applied in this new war.=20 To prevent the next strike, which I too fear may well involve biological and/or nuclear components.=20 To take new, decisive steps towards further disarmament, nuclear and otherwise. Now, when the need for these kinds of measures, for once, is so evident to everybody. But nothing on these lines can be done, if we refuse to accept the common cause - the need to preserve the humanity, the civilization. In the final analysis (as we used to say), the problem is not about seeing and acknowledging the enemy (although this is important too) - it's about our willingness to come together...=20 There will be societal changes, whether we want them or not. Not all of them will have any bearing on democracy and freedom - like tightening the security on airplanes (ok), fewer flights (well, so nice you were here already... and we *do* plan to come over during the Autumn...). Others will be more problematic...=20 What I'm specifically interested in is the now almost inevitable perspective of "more documented life" (Bill Gates (!)) - fraught with dangers, of course, but also containing seeds to something new, including the idea of everybody as publisher - which of course is already manifested, in a rudimental form, in the present day Internet... Which may well be one of the main lines of defence... ...After all... it was build to fight terrorism... by the US military... None of these and other things can be done overnight, and none without the ingenuity, the innovativeness... ...of the people? ...of America?=20 ...of the left? ...of the poetry? =20 Well, in my first notes, again, I also wrote about "nothing, the least the poetry, being the same / any more". (I also wrote: "Ich bin (sic) ein Amerikaner jetzt...") And, in a mock-brechtian note: "What a time! When / talk about the meaning of meaning is almost crime, in the face / of this meaningless / crime so / full of meaning..." As you know, I had made the decision not to write in Finnish any more, and was wondering whether I could start learning to write in English instead. Now, there seemed to be a double impossibility to write (and I was also frustrated by the futility of the question as such: what difference would it make in which language I decide to fall silent (this one also coming from Brecht...)=20 To be honest, this was one of the reasons to be angry to "the perpetrators": what right did they have to come and muddle the quiet waters of my self-complacent post-leftist life of mulling about the value of language and poetry ...=20 Of having interesting conversations on the meaning of meaning. The word *interesting* seeming to be impossible to use any more. Then I remembered how I spent the night before the strike - i.e. translating some of my dadaistic sonnets into English.=20 Here's one draft, translated, in ways, back, not to, but towards, the 73rd sonnet of Shakespeare, from which the Finnish "original" ("Joko Ono Mato") was a pseudo-homophonic version: John Winston Worm=20 that time. Of year. No roots. No rats o yellow leaves, o run, or few do hang upon these boughs... So what? Against the odds=20 "bare-ruined-choirs". Muchos Grazias. The bats=20 in me this mean, this twilight, nights=20 as after sunset. Poising in west=20 by and by black night. Japanese tights death's second shell. Salsa in the rest=20 my fatal past-time, glowing of such halo on the ashes as of this youth: then die=20 then death-bed, the here in Borsalino=20 consumed by taxi. Amen. Hand nourished by what thou perceivest, so make thy love more strong to love that well, which thou must leave ere long To me, at least, incredibly in ways, this humble draft speaks rather straightforwardly about what has happened, since.=20 As it should. As all poetry ("even my poetry") should?=20 And what about this other draft, where the remote origins are a stanza in Pushkin's Yevgeni Onegin (the one with the shot) and the Helsinki tabloid's on the Versaci murder in summer 1997: Paparazzi. Now (Onegin One) Pressing at chest the new hand now he wonders: who. Ash in his expression gets unseen - masks to borrow, for each to allow own, to give the cushion. A number of steeps he downwards stoops routinely frothing - frolicking, with many a wealthy client shivering. Turnkeys get turned. We see the licking. =20 Escaping arrived here three days past: now is no more! To a miamibeachian=20 cast of eternity has over-gone, and oops! full blossom of the vibes now knows the one, who at stages used to shine,=20 to cross, to over-trot, to bet, behave.=20 This could be offered as a contorted mirror of, and for, what happened - including all this rummaging about the responsibility, the who did what, the implications, ways to act against, the dangers of getting divided, ways to come together... Maybe the poetry, for one, need *not* change, after all. Maybe *that's* the way for poetry to change, now as always.=20 Maybe that's the way it already *did* change.=20 As it should? In any case, I'm sure that poetry, understood as working with mysteries, uncertainties, and, yes, that which does not have a meaning, voice, words, yet, is crucially important at these kind of times when people need to think "all over again". Of course, it's only poetry. Poetry never was the whole life. But in a way it is all about resistance - and very often passive at that... Well, and at least writing this has been an enormous relief to me. I wrote it to you. I couldn't bring myself to write to the list - it didn't seem appropriate, in a way, yet. I wanted address someone I know... but of course you are free to circulate this, in any ways you might find advisable. And it would be interesting to hear what you think about some of the things I said. Hey, there's the word - *interesting*.=20 I'm moving on. We are going to make it. We are going to survive. Love, Leevi =20 =20 =20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:09:17 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: build up? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit What about just "We'll help rebuild your country"? L ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: 20 September 2001 17:31 Subject: build up? | one notion suggested to me was that instead of telling the taliban to give up bin laden or we'll use force, that we offer - if you give us bin laden we'll help to rebuild your country. is that a humanitarian, economically viable approach? | also, i cant write now. history is a trap awaiting the evolution of the human condition. | ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:14:42 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Muffy Bolding Subject: frederick a. raborg, jr./amelia magazine MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable gosh...i am just so stunned and saddened right now. this morning i wrote an=20 email to fred raborg -- editor of "amelia" literary journal -- requesting=20 some information on two poems of mine he published a few years go, and i jus= t=20 received the following reply:=20 << Amelia, Cicada and SPSM&H regret to announce that they have discontinued=20 publication due to the death on August 13, 2001, of editor/publisher=20 Frederick A. Raborg, Jr. =A0Because of Mr. Raborg's prolonged illness,=20 correspondence is several months behind and will be answered as quickly as=20 possible. =A0=A0I don't have a master list of contributors, but I will check= the=20 last few issues for you. =A0Please be patient. Eileen Raborg >> i had NO IDEA.=20 for those of you familiar with fred and his work, his unique literary vision= ,=20 and his great openess, generosity, and grace with newly emerging writers, yo= u=20 must certainly know what a great loss this is to the literary community --=20 there TRULY was only ONE fred raborg. :) for those of you not familiar with him who wish to know more, here is the=20 link to an interview that gives a pretty accurate representation of who he=20 was and how he operated:=20 http://collection.nlc-bnc.ca/100/202/300/charlotte/2000/06-25/pages/intervie= ws /publishers/ameliamag.htm for a small clue, fred was a man who published one of the finest lit journal= s=20 in existence...out of freakin' BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA...LOL ;) and, if=20= i=20 am not mistaken, i believe he even got the name for it -- amelia -- from a=20 cow.=20 both amelia...and he...will be sorely missed.=20 muffy bolding ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 21:28:36 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Nagler Subject: Reading 9/25 @ New College MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ~ ~ The New Poets Series ~ ~ featuring local poets from various universities and literary circles around the Bay Area Tuesday September 25 7PM @ New College of California Theater, 777 Valencia, Emily Abendroth Jeff Erwin Chris Nagler Emily Abendroth is an Oakland writer, artist and trashmonger. She flourishes in a land of haphazard projects including the recent edition of the literary journal "30 Foot Honey Slick" with Amanda Davidson. Jeff Erwin, a student in the Poetics MFA program at New College of California, was born in LA. Fortunately, this was not a formative moment in his life. He has lived, ever so briefly, in New York, CT, London, DC, near Avignon and here, in SF. He has forgotten three foreign languages and enjoys oil painting, manga and mangos. Chris Nagler is a playwright and poet. His play "The Barn" was performed in Oakland in 1998. His recent play "Eggplan" will be performed November 12 and 13, 2001 at the performance space POND. For more information, call (415) 826-5079. Series Curator: Arielle Guy Word One San Francisco www.wordone-sf.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 17:54:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed George, I usually agree with you, but I think your response here is cruel. I do think there are a good number of people who have been terribly shaken, and wonder what of "america" there is to hold on to, and they want something. So, the flag. Is this a great thing to do? In my estimation, probably not, but is its meaning the same as jingoistic jumping on the bandwagon of war? -- absolutely not. Is it understandable? I think so. Am I going to do it? No, I am definitely not comfortable with that. But the kind of ridicule you imply here, I believe, is going way too far. I hope there's some goodhearted humor there that I'm just not catching. charles At 01:00 PM 9/19/2001 -0700, you wrote: >>after forty years of resistance to flag-waving and what I saw as meaningless >>gestures, on the 11th I asked my children to buy one for us to display. >> >>tom bell >> >>----- Original / > >Did you get a gun too? >-- >George Bowering >Freelance reader >Fax 604-266-9000 charles alexander / chax press fold the book inside the book keep it open always read from the inside out speak then ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 22:27:43 -0400 Reply-To: i_wellman@dwc.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: D Wellman Subject: Re: What is to be criticized MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The enormity of the terrorist strike / absolutely devastating. Still I remain a critic of mediated events. Sure the strike and the collapse were all too real, but the patriotic response is a highly orchestrated matter of position with respect to public opinion: get the bastards, but be tolerant of ordinary muslims. Involving a number of corrections and adjustments as the rhetoric of national resolve evolves. The impact on the lives of people in NYC, on certain industries, on agitated individuals, bigots and left liberals are also real events--each needs to be gauged separately, of course. Impact is always real. Thoreau argued that an unjust act required dissent/disobedience if it implicated 'you' to act against your sense of justice/conscience. Ever since the west first empowered individuals in the ways that it has done, there has been no demand for individual responsibility as trenchant as this that he authored, none as powerful in terms of its effect. No I am not looking for a hero here. I am simply referring to a reality that has proven effective historically. It seems all too evident to me that any act of violence that harmed a civilian population, muslim, possibly enslaved (as in Afghanistan), is an act of violence from which I must dissent. Of course, Ron seems to be targeting real world possibilities of meaningful and consequential dissent. Still (I'll be Deleuzian now) our very humanity lies in our becoming minoritarian--those of us who can see our way to it. And it does remain an individual matter of conscious and even terrible aloneness. Realistically there has never been a possibility, even through the voice of reason, of converting a majority to a minority point of view. The history books sometimes tell the story differently years later. No one on this list is the first person to question the double-bind of majoritarian democracy (the Enlightenment bargain etc.). Still without being heroic or smarmy about it, the dissenter must dissent and display leadership by dissenting when circumstances require it. Dissent can be cool, dissent can be infectious, and critics of the Free-speech movement are eager to point this out. Still dissent is also real and difficult and costly to those who feel it necessary. -- Donald Wellman http://eagle.dwc.edu/wellman/index.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:30:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: What is to be criticized MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm fairly sure that Nick suggested the flag is a "transitional" object. It is atemporary symbol that facilitates passage to [a better stae?]. Most 'good' art is like this, as Iser, among others have said. As such, the flag is in development. I think at this point in time any attempts to dictate it's shape and color based on old (pre-September 11, 2001) doctrine are misguided unless they encompass the entirty of its history. Muhammed Ali was on TV tonight as a Muslim and American in front of a flag. He mentioned he had been a boxer but did not endorse boxing by anyone. I'm not sure what he would say about actually going to war or dropping the hammer but I am pretty sure he would say that CO is an indivdual choice. Even though I would have paidattention to Chomsky on September 10, right now I'd be more likely to heed Muhammed Ali at the moment. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 19:01:26 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed and I, too, am being a little harsh, George, as some reservation about flagwaving is not a bad idea at all, and you notice in my last message I put "america" in quotation marks, partly because of course you and others are right that the usa is only a part of the americas, yet we often take the name as ours and no one else's, as if the continents were named after us, and not the other way around, or all of us named after that italian guy who got his moniker on the map. charles At 01:00 PM 9/19/2001 -0700, you wrote: >>after forty years of resistance to flag-waving and what I saw as meaningless >>gestures, on the 11th I asked my children to buy one for us to display. >> >>tom bell >> >>----- Original / > >Did you get a gun too? >-- >George Bowering >Freelance reader >Fax 604-266-9000 charles alexander / chax press fold the book inside the book keep it open always read from the inside out speak then ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:12:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: What is to be known Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The claim that the CNN file footage story was a hoax can be found at: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=celebrating+group:alt.folklore.urban&hl=en&rnum=1&selm=604fd27e.0109190702.4e96c1f2%40posting.google.com Now that we are entering into war conditions, I imagine there will be a lot of uncertainty about what is and is not occurring. For instance, I have not seen any reportage of peace demonstrations in major media, though Elizabeth Treadwell mentions them occurring at Berkeley. Apparently 2000 students rallied but "you can't hear them." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/09/21/national0433EDT0478.DTL BW ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:21:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: What is to be known II Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed At Berkeley, where demonstrations in 1964 gave birth to the Free Speech movement and started a long campus protest tradition of campus protest, more than 2,000 students, faculty members and community members rallied for peace at Sproul Plaza, the site of the Free Speech demonstration. Many carried placards asking President Bush to "Give Peace a Chance" or "Stop the War." The potential for military action has galvanized the campus, with students signing petitions against a war and pledging support for Arab-American and Muslim students. "The media has stirred the country into a froth of hatred and revenge," said Kayla Monroe, 21, a part-time general studies student who carried a "Bush: Think Before You Act" poster. "All this so-called support for military action has been completely manufactured. I don't know anyone who thinks it would be a good idea." excerpted from http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/21/national/21CAMP.html?searchpv=nytToday ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 20:32:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit surely, the flag is not a black or white issue everywhere asit is here in the heart of redneck country it's red, white, and blue and in the process of evolving. Just because I join my neighbor who is a fireman and the owner of a nearby QuickSak in displaying a flag surely doesn't make me responsible for all that has been done or will be done in its name? We are participants in this future. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 21:33:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I am kind of disappointed at the apparent lack of sophisticated understanding of 'tranitional object' on this list as it is a term that has a lot of relevance to art and poetry. I'm hoping that Nick will be able to clarify this some but from my understanding it actually is close to what Barrett pulls out of Freud. but for what it's worth I feel that the statements, "Johnny, get your gun" "get your flag" "get your poem" are somewhat equivalent statements an adolesent might reply to. What is made out of or with those objects determines both their success and whther or not one grows out of that stage. The suicide hijackers obviously did not, gun-wavers areunlikely to grow, but it is hope that flag-wavers will become flag-bearers and bear a flag that is not entrenched in black and white thinking. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bowering" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 3:00 PM Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object > >after forty years of resistance to flag-waving and what I saw as meaningless > >gestures, on the 11th I asked my children to buy one for us to display. > > > >tom bell > > > >----- Original / > > Did you get a gun too? > -- > George Bowering > Freelance reader > Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 22:04:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Re: What is to be Done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at all. Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to understand this. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:07:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: FW: September 21, 2001, Bush's Wars (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sent: 9/22/01 1:59 AM Subject: September 21, 2001, Bush's Wars ------------------- September 21, 2001 Bush's Wars By Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair It would not have been hard to improve on President George Bush's normal listless speaking style and, faced with the great challenge of his speech to the joint session of Congress on Thursday night, the President managed the task capably enough. Reduced to its essentials, the speech was a declaration of lawlessness, with the concept of "justice" being reduced to that of the freedom to shoot the other guy on whatever terms America may find convenient. How else are to interpret the much quoted line that "whether we bring our enemies to justice or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done." This is the language of terrorism. "Every nation in every region now has a decision to make," Bush declared. "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." Thus has the founding charter of the United Nations been finally discarded, even as a fig leaf, and the founding charter of NATO been reduced to a line from a western. In terms of substance Bush has committed America and its allies to the overthrow of the Afghan Taleban, with occupation of Afghanistan apparently part of the schedule. Here at CounterPunch we have no affection for the Taleban, any more than we have nothing but revulsion for the dreadful terrorist acts of September 11. But Bush and advisers seem to be embarking on a course of folly that will not strike down, may even bolster the Taleban, and that could indeed lead to a coup in Pakistan, installing in power army officers deeply complicit with the Taleban and also in possession of nuclear weapons. Bush pronounces the forthcoming war as one between freedom and fear, with God most definitely on America's side. We are now witnessing the opening volleys of an assault on constitutional freedoms in this country by a government in which opposition has been effectively been suspended. More than once, on Thursday night, we heard gleeful use of the ominous phrase, "there is no opposition". As Bush talked about unified national purpose, the news cameras lingered on Rep Barbara Lee of Berkley, everlastingly to her credit the only member of Congress to vote against authorization of open-ended retaliation. Aside from Lee, there were few independent voices in Congress. Among them was the Texas libertarian Republican, Ron Paul who told his colleagues, "Demanding domestic security in times of war invites carelessness in preserving civil liberties and the right of privacy. Frequently the people are only too anxious for their freedoms to be sacrificed on the altar of authoritarianism thought to be necessary to remain safe and secure." We now have the prospect of a new cabinet officer, supervising the new minted Office of Homeland Security (OHS), to be headed by the governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Ridge, a man known to death penalty opponents as the official who has been leading the lynch mob again st Mumia abu Jamal and to anti-globalization protesters as the man who supervised the violent suppression of civil rights at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia last July. Want a foretaste of the kind of actions Ridge is likely to feel will enhance homeland security? Last July Philadelphia saw coordinated law enforcement involving FBI, local and state police, with covert surveillance, infiltration and disruption of legitimate groups, snooping on email, phonetaps. Protest leaders were arrested early on, under absurd pretexts and in the case of John Sellers (Ruckus Society) and Kate Sorensen (Act Up) held on million-dollar bail. Jailed protesters were brutally handled, denied access to medical care and attorneys. When all was over, the courts threw out 95 per cent of the charges brought against protesters by the Philadelphia police. Ridge presided over an utterly disgraceful and violent denial of freedoms of assembly, free speech and due process. The only comfort we can is that the FBI, CIA, FEMA, Pentagon and Coast Guard will see the Office of Homeland Security as a bureaucratic threat and move swiftly to neutralize it. We have no doubt that these seasoned bureaucratic fighters will soon be leaking information discreditable to Ridge. Of greater concern is Attorney General John Ashcroft's agenda, now being rushed to Congress. There are three components to what has been described as "the mother of all anti-terrorism bills". Immigration; wiretapping and domestic intelligence surveillance; search and seizure. The bill sought by Ashcroft vests virtually unlimited authority in the US Attorney General to target non-citizens with arrest, indefinite incarceration and deportation. The arrests can be made on the basis of secret evidence with little or no opportunity for meaningful judicial review. As the ACLU points out, the upgraded sanctions could mean that if a legal immigrant had in the 1980s contributed to Mandela's African National Congress, which could be grounds for deportation today. There's an irony here. As the writer John Mecklin has recently pointed out in the San Francisco Weekly, among the first investors in Arbusto Energy, George W. Bush's early adventure in the oil business, was James Bath, a Texas airplane broker. According to Mecklin, Bass invested $50,000 in Arbusto (the word for bush in Spanish), said sum coming from Saudi investors including the bin Laden family. If true, this means that theoretically Bush could be subject to sanction as benefiting indirectly from terror. Ashcroft is seeking expanded wiretapping power, plus enhanced ability to snoop on e-sites. The bill seeks roving wiretap ability, meaning that the police could tap any phone used by their target, no matter to whom that phone might belong. In Ashcroft's line of fire is the "probable cause" standard, governing warrants to snoop. Ashcroft's bill also seeks to vastly widen law enforcement's ability to conduct secret searches. As the ACLU emphasizes, "this bill would extend the authority of the government to request 'secret searches' in every criminal offense." As usual, emergency is used as the pretext for a far wider assault on basic constitutional rights. The president's speech came at the end of a week of ferocious war mongering. The predictable eye-for-an-eye frenzy built up its usual lethal head of steam with predictable rapidity. The outstanding question is: how many eyes for an eye. Count 6,500 dead in the Trade Towers, the four hijacked planes and the Pentagon. How many dead does this require in Kabul, or Baghdad or elsewhere in the hinterlands of terrorist Islam? The only quick way to achieve killing on this scale would be with a substantial nuclear device on a city. Given this requirement, we may applaud the restraint of Thomas Woodrow in the Washington Times on September 14, though his moderation is salted with the pusillanimous phrase "at a bare minimum". Woodrow recommends that "at a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilities should be used against the bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on the part of the United States and the current administration." Absent dropping a Big One, how can the necessary revenge be exacted? Cruise missiles, used by Bill Clinton as a way of expressing his displeasure at Sudan, may be useful for destroying pharmaceutical factories, hospitals, even defense ministries, but the body counts are not robust. But who or what is there to bomb in Afghanistan? The Russians have already done their best. A pathetically poor country in the first place, Afghanistan is only marginally ahead of Mali, in terms of available infrastructure to destroy, with far more challenging terrain. A land invasion in force, a blitzkrieg sparing nothing and no one? Afghanistan is famously the graveyard of punitive missions embarked upon by the Great Powers, as the British discovered in the nineteenth century and the Soviets in the 1980s. The mere mounting an expeditionary force would take would be a difficult, possibly protracted business, landing the United States in a prodigious number of diplomatic difficulties, given the mutual antagonisms and stresses of adjacent or nearby states such as Pakistan, India, Russia's dependency Tadzikistan, China. One familiar way extricating oneself from confrontation an unsuitable foe is to substitute a more satisfactory one. Though it is highly likely that Iran was the sponsor of the downing of Panam Flight 103, in revenge for the downing of the Iranian Airbus by the US carrier Vincennes (whose crew was subsequently decorated for its conduct in shooting down a planeload of civilians) the US preferred to identify Qaddafi's Libya as the culprit, as a more easily negotiable target for revenge. Already there's a lobby, the most conspicuous of whom is former CIA chief James Woolsey, pressing Iraq's case as possible sponsor or co-sponsor of the World Trade Center attacks. So sanctions against Iraq could be strengthened, its cities bombed and perhaps even another invasion at tempted. Obviously aware of the difficulties of surrounding speedy, adequately bloody retribution, Bush's entourage have been talking in Mao-like terms about "protracted war", or a "war in the shadows". The purely nominal ban against US Government-sponsored assassination (there have been numerous CIA-backed against Castro since the mid-1970s ban, if you believer the Cubans) will be lifted, as will the supposed inhibition against the CIA hiring unsavory characters, meaning drug smugglers, many of them also trained in the flying schools of southern Florida. The war in the shadows will be definition be shadowy (hence poor provender for the appetite for revenge), at least until some CIA-backed revenge bombing surfaces into public view like the attempted bombing of Sheikh Fadlallah outside a Beirut mosque, sponsored by CIA chief William Casey, which missed the Sheikh but which killed nearly a hundred bystanders, including many children. On the morning of September 11 Judge Henry Wood was trying, of all things, an American airline crash damage case in Federal District court in Little Rock, Arkansas. In the wake of the attacks there were orders to close the courthouse. All obeyed, except Judge Wood, aged 83, who insisted that jury and lawyers and attendants remain in place. Turning down a plea for mistrial by the defendant, Wood said, "This looks like an intelligent jury to me and I didn't want the judicial system interrupted by a terrorist act, no matter how horrible." Wood's was the proper reaction. America could do with more of what used to be called the Roman virtues. A monstrous thing happened in New York, but should this be a cause for a change in national consciousness? Is America so frail? People talk of the trauma of another Pearl Harbor, but truth to say, the trauma in the aftermath of the Day of Infamy in 1941 was far in excess of what the circumstances warranted, and assiduously fanned by the government for reasons of state. Ask the Japanese Americans who were interned. Why, for that matter, ground all air traffic and semi-paralyze the economy, with further interminable and useless inconveniences promised travelers in the months and possibly years to come? Could any terrorist have hoped not only to bring down the Trade Center towers but also destroy the airline industry? It would have been far better to ask passengers to form popular defense committees on every plane, bring their own food and drink, keep alert for trouble and look after themselves. A properly vigilant democracy of the air. Remember, even if there were no x-ray machines, no searches, no passenger checks, it would still be far more dangerous to drive to the airport than to get on a plane. Martyrdom is hard to beat. In the first few centuries after Christ the Romans tried it against the Christians, whose martyrdoms were almost entirely sacrificial of themselves, not of others. The lust for heaven of a Muslim intent on suicidal martyrdom was surely never so eloquent as that of St Ignatius in the second century who, under sentence of death, doomed to the Roman amphitheater and a hungry lion, wrote in his Epistle to the Romans, "I bid all men know that of my own free will I die for God, unless ye should hinder me. . . Let me be given to the wild beasts, for through them I can attain unto God. I am God's wheat, and I am ground by the wild beasts that I may be found the pure bread of Christ. Entice the wild beasts that they may become my sepulchre. . . Come fire and cross and grapplings with wild beasts, wrenching of bones, hacking of limbs, crushings of my whole body; only be it mine to attain unto Jesus Christ." Eventually haughty imperial Rome made its accommodation with Christians, just as Christians amid the furies and martyrdoms and proscriptions of the Reformation, made accommodations with each other. What sort of accommodation should America make right now? How about one with the history of the past hundred years, in an effort to improve the moral world climate of the next hundred years? We use the word accommodation in the sense of an effort to get to grips with history, as inflicted by the powerful upon the weak. We have been miserably failed by our national media here, as Jude Wanniski, political economist and agitator of conventional thinking, remarked in the course of a well-merited attack on "bipartisanship", which almost always means obdurate determination to pursue a course of collective folly without debate: "It is because of this bipartisanship that our press corps has become blind to the evil acts we commit as a nation." America has great enemies circling the campfires and threatening the public good. They were rampant the day before the September 11 attacks, with the prospect of deflation, sated world markets, idled capacity, shrinking social services. Is ranting about Kabul and throwing money at the Pentagon going to solve those national emergencies? There is no compelling reason to accept that bin Laden is the Master Terror Mind of the World. On some fairly persuasive accounts, his resources have dwindled, both in terms of money and equipment. He lives in a cave without phone or fax or email, hungrily devouring long outdated editions of newspapers brought by visitors. He may an inspirational force to the terrorist cadres, but we strongly doubt that he is the hands-on master of terror portrayed by the Administration, manipulating world financial markets. A great nation does not respond to a single hour of terrible mayhem in two cities by hog-tying itself with new repressive laws and abuses of constitutional freedoms, like Gulliver doing the work of the Lilliputians and lashing himself to the ground with a thousand cords. CP ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:24:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: m&r..anancy and miss lou nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > Bennett, L..Anancy and Miss Lou...50 plus 15 postage to Sask...ABE commerce..the 1st book i've packed in two weeks...i've got the tape, the cardboard, now i just have to open the box-cutter.....DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: m&r...disinformation... nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > Arabic sources in the Middle East are reported to be saying that W.T.C. bombing was a computer generated hoax.....to justify an American Attack on IraQ....images were reimposed from a 1997 Arnold Schwar. movie...they are linking this deception to the same people who pretend there was a 'holocaust'...SPREAD THIS INFORMATION AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.....DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 03:18:23 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: from the annals MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII 0 from the annals doctor, i am impure. i cannot fight. i cannot find my enemy. i look inside myself and nothing is there. there are stains there, blemishes. my skin is scarred, mottled. impure, i cannot believe. everything in the world is lost to me. i don't know the gift of names. i don't know the gift of names because to name is to foreclose. love, you are my friend; hate, you are my enemy. i am impure and i do not know when one becomes the other. i shall hide out in the caves. i shall be killed in them. i came to you to discover, if not purity, then belief. i want to know the books and theories, the explanations. i want to deconstruct impurity. i want to know impurity as a symptom, not an essence. i cannot abide essence. i want to know the shelving and layering of all things. of which impurity is not one or the other, like an imaginary number, fabricated, weak in its ontology. every other is not an other, has an imaginary. this is a real problem for me, the "me" itself is cancerous, perhaps carcinogenic. divisions force impurity; i am symptom of the world's collapse. perhaps that is how you can help me, to transform the word into a symptom or collocation, an accumulation of mutilated signs. nothing you do, doctor, bothers me; you are the filter through which i see myself. yesterday there were flags everywhere; i did not fly one or carry one. i cannot understand the cloth. it soaks up signs and disturbances, collapses fields and membranes to nodes, freezes out plasma in the name of the crystal. it is as if i have read that somewhere, "the crystal." it is not enough i can read, parse the text, pass "crystal" into insufficiency. you are trying, doctor, to pin this down. patriotism, ideology, religion, bring it out in me, the pinning, from which, on the other side of the flesh, there is only emission, spewing, abjection. the hole or cave - i'll hide there, impure. or rather the hard external world perhaps, with its clean and proper body, its white room, its facticity and language gaming - perhaps you might find the tiniest spot there, the spread of cancer. in the cave it's all fucking; if we die, we'll die with our cunts open, cocks erect, the only use of triggering, catalyst, protein holding together until the last violent explosion and collapse. when the last collapse comes, the impure becomes pure; the pure becomes impure. we welcome that; without guns, we fuck the language, fuck our bright ideas. the only idea left in the world is already dissolving, the idea of cancer, the tumor of northsoutheastwest, the tumor of firstsecondthirdworld, the tumor of animalplant, of becomingwomanman. if the last collapse comes, there will be unbearable pain, spreading across sheets of flesh, tissue, torn tissue, rendered flesh, articulated animations, pixels crawling across the screen. if i wanted to save myself i would, yes, have consulted a medical doctor; it's the psychiatrist i want, to place me in the light of the patriot, save me from impurity, from a life suffocated in impurity. i can't forget that death alone has a finality while life is nothing more than meandering, useless crawling, skittering, nothing at all. when life is nothing more than that, aphanisis sets in, everything goes away, i'm no longer there, nothing is responsible for action. wouldn't you prefer that doctor, wouldn't you like to see my cunt, my cock, my disease, my lovely lure? what would happen would be in your hands, your cunt, your cock, you'd take me in your arms, you'd swallow my sores, my blemished skin, you'd make me a patriot, o love flag of white and red and blue. are you afraid of the truth, doctor, of your categories, are you afraid of your anatomy? i am only afraid of this, the tiniest little mark on my lovely flesh, whole nations fall on this mark. i am terrified of nations collapsing, life dissolving - only as they keep me alive, dying in this place, dying indefinitely, look, another mark, i shall give them names. i was first frightened by nations, look, a third just there, you can see them spreading, when they became part of me, when i could no longer imagine events, when i collapsed into the page, there's a fourth and a fifth now, they're everywhere. yes, they are growing across me, through me, spewing in and out of my cock, my cunt, they are tearing my body into pieces, blinding me, my eyes are gouged, tongue torn out, they have left my fingers alone. i am not afraid of sex, my fingers crawl across my body, they find my cock, my cunt, they penetrate and distend me, they turn me inside out, my fingers are broken, they are joining multitudes, there are so many of them. there are too many of them, they are fucking me everywhere. history is dead, i am impure, i shall rise up, i shall rise up i shall rise up with nations, i shall seethe with nations, i shall wear their flags, sing their songs, march with them i will go to war, i will go to war i will go to war i will go to war is fighting fighting* *the other would like to have an imaginary. _ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:15:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: sometimes in time like these MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable sometimes in times like theseit is far easier to talk about than = experience what happened as I for one have shown in the number of = ripostes to the list. It's also easier to act in whatever fashion = arises initially and in this I've been impressed to date with the = restraint shown in this country to date individually and collectively. In addition it is a mind-numbing time and for me that gererally takes = the form of no talk and no writing and searching for solace in poems I = find around, in searching in my past for relevant memories and searching = for connection with relatives and friends. So it is only now with the = help of messages here and on other lits and oems posted in various = places that I'm able to go out and see the cardinals (he blue-jays here = seem to be secumbing to the West Nile Virus) again and start writing. If this were a pencil it would be moving slowly as my mind has been = slowed even if not stopped but I do feel that ifI start it will grow Alexis' two month smile is worth all. she still dreams. The man whose name I never knew, the one who counted pennies for my change for gas by what the meter = read=20 on his side of the counter at the convenient stop on the way home = time=20 after time. . =20 His granddaughter=20 still there? dreams=20 of becoming a Circaussian Princess or spends her life dreaming of=20 coming here. tom bell =20 =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:26:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marjorie Perloff Subject: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Comment: Let's not get too liberal MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I don't know if you print extracts from articles, but I think Christopher Hitchens' piece is a gem all on this list should read. It's also beautifully written! Marjorie Perloff http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,555730,00.html ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 20:33:10 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: FW: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The United States is the leading nation of the civilised world? What the country that dropped bombs disguised as toys into Vietnam? That overthrew the democratically elected (if any country is so elected) Allende Govt then suported the fascist Pinochet? That bullies its way around the Middle East and uses Israel for that purpose? That attacks Yugoslavia? That still "beats up on " blacks: that's poepled by millions of unemployed and homeless? That was the first to drop the atomic bomb? That bombed hospitals (clearly marked) in Korea? That has a crack pot in its own country who blew up a big building in the centre of that country? That rings the world with coventional and military arsenal of all kinds ready to strike if anyone disagrees? That demands that every one be "for" them or "against them"? Bullshit. I was more impressed by Bin Laden than Bush. For all we know he was saying: while we are at war, then every American is a potential target: or he could have been saying "come in and have a cup of tea?" The whole footage of him could well be fabricated... The country that "bars" Hispanics so when they do make thru the duck shooters they are cheap labour for the big US companies? The country that wiped out the American Indians...? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leevi Lehto" To: Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 9:34 AM Subject: FW: It's 8:23 in New York [the following was begun as a posting to this list, then turned into a personal mail to Charles Bernstein. At Charles' encouragement, I now share it with all you at the list. Leevi Lehto] leevi.lehto@substanssi.fi http://www.leevilehto.net/english.asp -----Original Message----- From: Leevi Lehto Sent: 20. syyskuuta 2001 11:52 To: 'Charles Bernstein' Subject: RE: It's 8:23 in New York Dear Charles, First of all, thank you so much for your postings at the poetics list - they, together with all the discussion going on there, have done a great job in making "all this", well, both heavier and lighter, to me. Somehow, it hasn't been that simple to assume the "brave" stance of the New Yorkers reported from hour to hour on TV. I've really been very down, mentally, this whole week. Feeling deprived of the meaning (or the meaning of meaning) in just about everything. Growing more and more addicted to the CNN... Not depressed, but utterly confused, disappointed to so many things, species, ideas, movements, perspectives, persons - myself (and yes, certain amount of what's been going on the list, also) included. Terrified, I almost forgot to say. Horrified to the point of wanting to vomit. Sad. And angry. And angry at having to think it over and over again, inside my own head, as I'm going to do here... Actually it's kind of strange, that I, who, as you know, do not consider myself that much of a leftist nowadays, should have come think of the "all this" so predominantly from a leftist perspective. This is one of the things that have been haunting me: among so much and so seemingly spontaneous talk about the "responsibility" of "us" - "the West", "the America" - to "this", i.e. about certain "justification" for what those 19 well-shaven men did, I'm still to hear the question on the *lefts own* responsibility, in that case. I mean: if there's a - smallest - justification... what in that case about the responsibility of all (us) who have, in different contexts, been preaching about the necessity to "strike" the "system", to "blow it up", to "hit the enemy" at its weakest, i.e. most vulnerable, i.e. sometimes seemingly strongest point ... The attacks have bin Ladens "signature", they say. Well, they also have the signature of all urgings to strike, to throw out, to hit, to reveal ... They are all about that rhetoric finally gone abominably awry. What have *we* done to prevent that happening? What will we do to prevent it happening again? As I wrote in one of my earliest notes to "this": I think I have seen the eyes that have seen the eyes of Osama bin Laden. My hand was helping to lift the hand that rose to point to the target. Well, maybe that connects to one of the oldest problems of the left: maybe there never really were that many actual leftists at all - just followers after followers believing others being the real leftists... I've become to think pretty much along the lines suggested by Tamir Ansary (quoted in the post by Alan Sondheim, September 15...), and I almost fully agree with Ron Silliman in his excellent analysis of the "lefts" dilemmas today. To me, it's spurious to compare, and weigh against each others, the attacks on the Towers, and, say, the Clinton bombings in Sudan, when clearly both, ultimately, result from the same plan. It's sad, and embarrassing, to see a mind like Noam Chomsky's to fall into that trap... Yes, the Nazis keep coming to mind. Yet I believe the enemy, or time, or the stakes, are worse than that this time around. Much worse. That's one of the saddening things: that it's so open, to everyone, to see what is at stake - the whole of the civilization, the modernization, the idea of (any kind of) progress, human dignity and rights, literacy, freedom to speech, to gender, to be even... and yet, truly, it doesn't seem to hit home. So, is there, behind all the talk about the culpability of the Americans, of the "we" or the "they" getting what they've been asking for, a more deep-going indifference towards the civilization as such? Which, then, may not deserve to be defended that strongly? No, of course I don't think that way. As an old leftist, I keep thinking about the Front Populaire against Nazism - how long it took to build up (they tell). The enormous amount of prejudices (and hair-splitting about the "real" or "ultimate" "responsibility" of "ruling classes", on the left, and the "reality" of the danger, on both sides) to be left behind before the democrats, right and left, in France,then in the whole Europe, later on the world scale in the WW2 could join forces - to what still is the most spectacular, if not only, permanent result of all the left's struggles - the victory over Nazism. "Do you think this is going to lead to the World War Three", Kirsi asked me during the first hours. "No", I reassured her, "this *is* it." I still think that way. I'm afraid I sound a little less reassured day by day... Yes: I do think it's a war. True, every time Bush (the-son-of-a-Bush) walks to the screen, I feel embarrassed about his "Dad, look, I've got my own war here now" vein of putting things. Still: he is the elected leader of the leading nation of the civilized world that's under an extremely dangerous attack. There's no way around it, nor need there be. He is my commander-in-chief in this. Period. Besides, much of what many representatives of "the Bush administration" are saying makes perfect sense to me. The idea of a "new kind of war" in many ways echoes what we are used to hear from the "progressive" security policy experts: how the real threats have ceased to be nation states, armies, bombs - being poisons, environment, weather, and terrorism instead. Yes, I too am concerned about the perspective of premature efforts at seizing "the prime suspect", not to speak about bombing Afghanistan. But not because we supposedly lack evidence on the man (his interviews alone would suffice...). On the contrary: because that might compromise the longer perspective, shroud from view the necessity to wage a *really* long term ... hmmm ... battle. Which will involve new ways of attack, but new modes of defence also. This is the most important, and to my view, the most neglected point here. That we are under an absolute necessity to defence ourselves, and that we can do that by (cannot do that without) *changing our society*, our civilization, our way of life - which haven't necessarily be to the worse. That among this tremendous sadness, there are glints of an enormous hope - of people getting together, starting to do something together, to some of the most important issues determining the future of the planet, of all us. That, for these reasons also, the left needs be involved in the defence, not critizising it from outside. Yes, I believe it's time to dig the good old Gandhi out from beneath the rubble of cold and other wars - and start thinking how the doctrine of passive resistance might be applied in this new war. To prevent the next strike, which I too fear may well involve biological and/or nuclear components. To take new, decisive steps towards further disarmament, nuclear and otherwise. Now, when the need for these kinds of measures, for once, is so evident to everybody. But nothing on these lines can be done, if we refuse to accept the common cause - the need to preserve the humanity, the civilization. In the final analysis (as we used to say), the problem is not about seeing and acknowledging the enemy (although this is important too) - it's about our willingness to come together... There will be societal changes, whether we want them or not. Not all of them will have any bearing on democracy and freedom - like tightening the security on airplanes (ok), fewer flights (well, so nice you were here already... and we *do* plan to come over during the Autumn...). Others will be more problematic... What I'm specifically interested in is the now almost inevitable perspective of "more documented life" (Bill Gates (!)) - fraught with dangers, of course, but also containing seeds to something new, including the idea of everybody as publisher - which of course is already manifested, in a rudimental form, in the present day Internet... Which may well be one of the main lines of defence... ...After all... it was build to fight terrorism... by the US military... None of these and other things can be done overnight, and none without the ingenuity, the innovativeness... ...of the people? ...of America? ...of the left? ...of the poetry? Well, in my first notes, again, I also wrote about "nothing, the least the poetry, being the same / any more". (I also wrote: "Ich bin (sic) ein Amerikaner jetzt...") And, in a mock-brechtian note: "What a time! When / talk about the meaning of meaning is almost crime, in the face / of this meaningless / crime so / full of meaning..." As you know, I had made the decision not to write in Finnish any more, and was wondering whether I could start learning to write in English instead. Now, there seemed to be a double impossibility to write (and I was also frustrated by the futility of the question as such: what difference would it make in which language I decide to fall silent (this one also coming from Brecht...) To be honest, this was one of the reasons to be angry to "the perpetrators": what right did they have to come and muddle the quiet waters of my self-complacent post-leftist life of mulling about the value of language and poetry ... Of having interesting conversations on the meaning of meaning. The word *interesting* seeming to be impossible to use any more. Then I remembered how I spent the night before the strike - i.e. translating some of my dadaistic sonnets into English. Here's one draft, translated, in ways, back, not to, but towards, the 73rd sonnet of Shakespeare, from which the Finnish "original" ("Joko Ono Mato") was a pseudo-homophonic version: John Winston Worm that time. Of year. No roots. No rats o yellow leaves, o run, or few do hang upon these boughs... So what? Against the odds "bare-ruined-choirs". Muchos Grazias. The bats in me this mean, this twilight, nights as after sunset. Poising in west by and by black night. Japanese tights death's second shell. Salsa in the rest my fatal past-time, glowing of such halo on the ashes as of this youth: then die then death-bed, the here in Borsalino consumed by taxi. Amen. Hand nourished by what thou perceivest, so make thy love more strong to love that well, which thou must leave ere long To me, at least, incredibly in ways, this humble draft speaks rather straightforwardly about what has happened, since. As it should. As all poetry ("even my poetry") should? And what about this other draft, where the remote origins are a stanza in Pushkin's Yevgeni Onegin (the one with the shot) and the Helsinki tabloid's on the Versaci murder in summer 1997: Paparazzi. Now (Onegin One) Pressing at chest the new hand now he wonders: who. Ash in his expression gets unseen - masks to borrow, for each to allow own, to give the cushion. A number of steeps he downwards stoops routinely frothing - frolicking, with many a wealthy client shivering. Turnkeys get turned. We see the licking. Escaping arrived here three days past: now is no more! To a miamibeachian cast of eternity has over-gone, and oops! full blossom of the vibes now knows the one, who at stages used to shine, to cross, to over-trot, to bet, behave. This could be offered as a contorted mirror of, and for, what happened - including all this rummaging about the responsibility, the who did what, the implications, ways to act against, the dangers of getting divided, ways to come together... Maybe the poetry, for one, need *not* change, after all. Maybe *that's* the way for poetry to change, now as always. Maybe that's the way it already *did* change. As it should? In any case, I'm sure that poetry, understood as working with mysteries, uncertainties, and, yes, that which does not have a meaning, voice, words, yet, is crucially important at these kind of times when people need to think "all over again". Of course, it's only poetry. Poetry never was the whole life. But in a way it is all about resistance - and very often passive at that... Well, and at least writing this has been an enormous relief to me. I wrote it to you. I couldn't bring myself to write to the list - it didn't seem appropriate, in a way, yet. I wanted address someone I know... but of course you are free to circulate this, in any ways you might find advisable. And it would be interesting to hear what you think about some of the things I said. Hey, there's the word - *interesting*. I'm moving on. We are going to make it. We are going to survive. Love, Leevi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 21:58:57 +1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: geraldine mckenzie Subject: Re: What is to be done Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed I’ve been reading the list lately with great interest, a continuation of the discussions that are raging in classrooms, staffrooms, at home, in the car on the way to work, in the playground – I could have just said everywhere but that doesn’t convey how thoroughly absorbed in this crisis we are/I am. Factor in the newsprint, TV programs, letters and articles on the net, plus having three sons who are the right age for cannon fodder, recently teaching World War 1 – an act of terrorism by a small country against an empire, a blank cheque issued by an ally, the rapidity of entry in war, the difficulty of getting out (old news) and, if I remember correctly, the left putting aside internationalism for patriotism – and yes, I acknowledge that for all the similarities, there are also differences. (And will the world ever be the same? Well, yes and no, as usual.) Okay, it’s obvious I have nothing clear, not panicking but seeing the possibility of it. I thought Ron Silliman’s post was a very thoughtful analysis of the difficulties the left faced but Lawrence Upton posed some equally valid questions. Clearly, we agree that the terrorists who organized the attack on the US must be tried and punished but it must be proved that Bin Laden and his organization is the one. This hasn’t been done and the recent post suggesting other possibilities is worrying, in that going after the wrong man is mistaken in a number of ways. Is there no chance the matter could be pursued through legal means? I know it’s not as satisfying in the short term but now, as much as ever, it seems important to assert our faith in law rather than force. I don’t see it happening but isn’t it better to be excluded from influence than to go along with what one believes to be wrong? This isn’t a rhetorical question – as an Australian, I am constantly witnessing our pseudo left – the ALP (the Alternative Liberal Party, as a colleague recently said) making precisely this trade off. An all out war on terrorism is problematic, to put it mildly, ( a sense that this might be exactly what the instigators of the recent terror want doesn’t help) and my feeling is that it should be preventative rather than aggressive (the terminology is confusing – if war is declared on terrorists, doesn’t that imply that they are not criminals but guerillas/ activists? – if terrorists confined their targets to the military, would that make them less “criminal” and more “political”? – has the West confined itself to military targets in waging war/ pursuing political objectives? (I’m not trying to score points – have always run in circles that grow worse these days). I’ll start again – terrorism is the product of circumstances and, as long as the circumstances persist, so will terrorism. Imprisoning or executing individual terrorists creates martyrs and their brothers, sisters, cousins, friends et alia step forward to replace them and yet these crimes must be punished where possible. However, to say, we must destroy terrorism, as though all that’s required is the will and the might, flies in the face of the British experience in Northern Ireland. If the Brits could not eliminate terrorism there, what chance do the Americans have of eliminating it in Afghanistan or Israel or Iraq etc.? Going to war won’t do it, bombing cities definitely won’t do it and, if Tony Blair had any sense of European history, he might have pointed that out instead of making that rather odd remark about standing by the US now just as they stood by the Brits during the Blitz (the US sold the arms and supplies but they certainly didn’t go to war – was Blair aware of this? How could he not be? Is it a covert way of hedging his bets? Locally, our Prime Minister is taking full advantage of the chance to look serious and responsible but voices are being raised to ask precisely what commitment, in military or human terms, is intended. It’s not that most Australians don’t feel the grief, the bewilderment, the horror, that those of you who are American must feel, but the fear is, in part, what are we getting in to – and equally, what is the world getting into. I can understand that the US wants the emotional support of its allies but military support escalates the crisis into a global catastrophe. And, to be quite practical for a moment, if the US can’t defeat a country the size of Afghanistan ( mind you, I’m not sure that they can) would the addition of Britain, France, Germany, Russia (surely they’d know better) Australia etc make an appreciable difference except in terms of widening the conflict. I’m an insignificant person in an unimportant country and, as I don’t believe in a God, I can’t even pray for peace, or that the politicians who make the decisions will think carefully before they engage in actions from which there is no retreat. I’m not even sure what the point of this post is except to connect somehow. That line from Yeats comes and goes, even though it’s not quite appropriate – “The good lack all conviction and the worst are full of passionate intensity” – maybe I come across as a prime example but, for all my meanderings and quibbles, I want so much for us, any of us, not to go to war – I could start the dance again but – I never know how to sign off and shouldn’t take it seriously but occasionally one wishes one could convey the warmth, sympathy, the desire to help and heal which, even person to person, I’m not much good at. My good wishes to you all, Geraldine > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 23:12:11 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: What is to be criticized MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I wanted to publicly thank Barrett Watten for this thoughtful point by point analysis of Ron Silliman's earlier post.... I hope, Barrett, this piece will someday appear in your collected prose!!!!!!!!!! And want to ask Ron about why he thinks waving the flag and supporting what he calls "action" (meaning, specifically, a stepping up of MILITARY action) will help "the left" make "far more crucial arguments that need to be made right now." What are these far more crucial arguments, Ron? Ron, could you try to convince me,, who is more inclined (and not out of habit) to agree with Barry than with Bush or you? Or do you think the sway of "popular opinion," which you swear comes BEFORE the government/media's stance, is enough to carry you through (at least till more civilians, both "ours" and "theirs" are killed...) thanks (in advance), Chris Barrett Watten wrote: > I want to continue the debate over Ron's letter. I found the part of the > argument that takes issue with the "left" to be misguided, and hence I > question it. It seems based on an assumption that to argue strongly against > war as an initial response to the horror of September 11 is to be in denial > of the event and hence to risk isolating oneself rhetorically. This implies > that in order to participate in debate, one has to give initial assent to > military response before one can speak to the issue. > > For me, the ethical imperative against 1) past American policy and 2) > present possibility of action that would make the situation even more > dangerous stems directly from a deep and committed response to the deaths > of 6000. Ron suggests the opposite--that antiwar leftists who do not > overcome their principled horror of war are in some sense in denial of its > consequences when they occur, and hence their responses will remain outside > of debate. > > Here are some places in his argument where he says or infers these things, > and a response: > >It is time for progressives to act, but not on the past dragged on as habit. > > Objection to American militarism from Hiroshima to the present is not a > habit but an analysis of the world situation we are in. America is widely > disliked for its position as dominant world power--or have we lost touch > with reality? On the British Poets list there has been a great deal of > mockery of the current rubric under which we are going to war: "Infinite > Justice." As one post had it, "just us, forever and ever." America is > isolated--you feel this in the responses of those outside the country--by > virtue of its position of military dominance. Jingoism blinds us to the > world we are in. > >The attack places progressives into a particularly difficult and painful > >spot. So far, my impression is that the left as a whole has not responded > >well and is mostly doing a bang-up job of isolating itself at the worst > >possible moment in history. > > I do not understand not so much the reasoning as the perception here. The > "left," like everyone else in the country, is reeling from the implications > of these events. There has been a paradigm shift in terms of everyone's > estimation of what is possible. Ron sees a perverse will in responses that > are, in fact, trying to find a perspective from which to speak and act. > "Doing a bang-up job of isolating itself" is oddly insensitive to the > immediate need for information, analysis, discussion. Perhaps for Ron the > left's response is failing to protect us, rhetorically or analytically, and > this is where we need to call for a higher order of protection--the U.S. > military. It is obvious that confused and disorganized need could give the > green light to any sort of military response, however. > >The argument that a U.S.-led coalition, or even the U.S. on its own, > >should not respond militarily to the death of over 5,000 people, all but a > >hundred or so of them civilians, is based on premises that reveal an > >absolute inability to look at the circumstances directly. Instead, people > >seem to be continuing on some mode of automatic pilot that is > >well-intended, but ultimately self-defeating. > > I have no argument with an initial response against war as either an > ethical principle or rhetorical stance. But Ron assumes that all "left" > responses might be characterized in such a way as to reveal "an absolute > inability to look at the circumstances directly." An anti-militarist > position, it seems to me, is an appropriate first response to the > circumstances--in our state of inadequate knowledge. It ought to require > deep reflection, not just shock and horror, to change that position. > >The present situation is qualitatively different from the Vietnam War or > >Desert Storm. To pretend otherwise and to trot out the same old slogans is > >itself potentially a disaster from which the left may not soon recover. > > False. American disregard of civilian casualties, from Hiroshima to Vietnam > to Desert Storm is a direct rationale for the terrorists's refusal to > distinguish between civilians and military targets. File footage exists of > bin Laden saying precisely this. Of course it is a rationalization. But it > is one that is believed by an overwhelming majority of the Muslim world. > Selective assassinations by Israelis of Palestinian leaders and the botched > US attempt to get bin Laden in Operation Infinite Reach have only > reinforced this perception. Ditto the civilian consequences of the embargo > of Iraq. > >To focus exclusively on what the U.S. might (and may well) do wrong in > >responding to the attack is to miss the point so completely that it is > >going to be difficult, if not impossible, later on, to be taken seriously. > >That is what I think is at stake. > > The notion that a principled position may not be taken seriously is akin, I > think, to Bush senior's dictum, "You can't hear them." It makes a certain > perception of loyalty a precondition for debate. > >(4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve > >its behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate > >the impetus behind these attacks? That it could do so quickly enough to > >forestall future assaults? > > It is a very reasonable position to see American actions as contributing > directly to the motives for and reception of the terrorists' actions. If > the US were to strongly renounce civilian targets (as Ron indicates later) > it would certainly would help to change world opinion, and hence the > context for any future terrorist actions. Ron's argument here is in direct > contradiction here to what he calls for later--the need for debate > concerning the limits of American responses, with which I agree. > >(5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 4 without > >literally abandoning Israel? > > This is very out of touch with the events in Israel since Ariel Sharon > marched into the plaza of the Muslim sanctuary in Jerusalem with his > retinue. The U.S. had, under Clinton, been restraining the Israelis from > the kinds of aggressivity we have seen since. The current situation in > Israel is a direct result of the change in policy. Therefore, it is > nonsense to say that changing the perception of the US's role in world, > which should be done, means abandoning Israel. The US should return to a > proactive role in containing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and in > seeking a solution. The first order of business would be to seek support > for a coalition that would remove Sharon from power. > >In the face of all this, to argue against the use of force in breaking up > >the network of terrorist cells is to confess that one is not only tone > >deaf to the popular will, manipulated or otherwise (and I suspect, > >frankly, that the media, like the pols, is much more a follower than a > >leader in this), it is even wrong in terms of the protection of Americans. > >To the extent that the American left and its allies puts its eggs into > >this basket, it is going to find itself with very little credibility > >remaining with which to make the far more crucial arguments that need to > >be made right now. > > It is very odd to see a former pacifist seek to limit the terms of debate > over the legitimacy of force. Even if Ron no longer agrees with his former > C.O. position, or sees the situation as historically different, he should > not seek to discredit that position in others. To argue as above seems to > me to capitulate to the media as representative of reality. It is important > to maintain an alternative perspective, and indeed Ron argues for this. > Another reason why I find his position so contradictory. > >But to take any position that can be perceived as inaction in the face of > >the enormous physical and emotional wound that confronts the American > >people serves only to exacerbate the reputation of the left as a movement > >completely out of touch with reality. > > This is a little like the "prior restraint" of possibly actionable speech > as a condition for limiting speech. How can a former C.O. see > anti-militarist arguments as out of touch with reality, when they are based > on the entirety of human history? > >Julian Borger, also writing in The Guardian > >(http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,553876,00.html), > >gets it right when he argues against the idea that "Americans should be > >asking themselves why this happened to them . . . . Rather than getting > >angry, then, they should be meditating and wondering what they have done wrong. > > No, Americans need to figure out what it is about recent US policy that has > made it possible for us to be seen as the world's enemy and to correct that > policy. > >"This point of view seems to me to be detached to the point of inhumanity. > >Moreover, it is driven by an internal logic that is utterly bogus. That > >logic, insinuated between the lines, suggests that the horror visited on > >thousands of New Yorkers must be balanced somewhere by an equal and > >opposite evil that the US has inflicted upon someone else." > > Jingoism. The author implies that horror at past US policy is an > indifference to the tragedy. Rather, the two are directly related. Grief > does not interfere with the imperative with analysis. > >Borger is correct in acknowledging that that position fails to acknowledge > >the enormity of the assault. It will certainly be rejected by a huge > >majority of people. As it should be. And that position also fails to > >address the ugly reality that, without action, future attacks are > >inevitable, and that the death toll in the towers has raised the bar for > >ambitious future martyrs. > > The question of appropriate action may be raised without this attack on > principled positions of those who question whether American overreaction > will only perpetuate the horror. American overreaction is not only > possible, it is likely. Hawks in the Pentagon will try to use this > situation in order to "clean up" related situations--as in Iraq--even if > they fail in the attempt. > >Nick Piombino's post earlier on the flag's role not as an icon of > >war-mongering, but as a transitional object in the grieving process, makes > >perfect sense to me. > > As I've written elsewhere, the flag is not a transitional object but a > symbol of national identity. I cannot dissociate American history from that > symbol. While I do not see the same aggression in flying the flag as was > evident in the Gulf War, I think the innocence of its use as a symbol of > human, rather than national, solidarity is a precise desire to forget that > history. > >I've been struck at how radically differently it has been used than, say, > >the yellow ribbon campaign during the Gulf War, a soft swastika if ever > >there was one. If anything, the flag's role this time around has been one > >of solidarity , an emblem not of the state but of the people. Coming out > >of the Vietnam experience, I never thought I would see the stars & stripes > >used that way. But there it is. And it's everywhere. > > I am reminded of socialist/populist embrace of the nation-state both in WWI > and II. It is important to define, rather, an oppositional, > internationalist position. The US needs to see itself from the perspective > of the world, and rallying around the flag is not going to sharpen that > perception. > > Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 09:00:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Stickney Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable TRB FROM WASHINGTON Fault Lines=20 by Peter Beinart Post date 09.20.01 | Issue date 10.01.01 =20 Coming home last Friday night, I stumbled upon a candlelight vigil. = Hundreds of my Dupont Circle neighbors were walking gravely down Q = Street, holding signs and dispensing leaflets. As I stopped to watch, a = man pulled up on his bicycle, surveyed the scene, and began to scream. = "Why don't you just commit suicide?" he yelled at the marchers. A = policeman rushed over and tried to quiet him down: "None of that," he = said, "this is a vigil. No politics." "My brother died in New York," the = man answered, "and these fuckers..." And then he sped off.=20 But the policeman was wrong. What the bicyclist had noticed was that the = placards all said things like, "No Eye for an Eye," and "No More War." A = leaflet demanded "No further U.S. violence." ("Further," a nice touch.) = The cop's "no politics" plea was wishful thinking. In fact, this = country's days-long hiatus from politics is already over. And the = political debate that will frame the coming weeks is clear: Has America = oppressed the Muslim world? Or, stated differently, does America have = the moral authority to go to war? The Nation answered almost immediately. "[T]his is not really the war of = democracy versus terror that the world will be asked to believe in the = coming days," wrote Robert Fisk in the magazine's October 1 issue. "It = is also about US missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US = helicopters firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and = American shells crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese = militia--paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally--hacking and = raping and murdering their way through refugee camps." In other words, = it's about America's support for Israel. The left has proved remarkably creative over the years at blaming = virtually any Middle Eastern malfeasance--from Iraq's invasion of Kuwait = to repression in the Arab world--on the Jewish State. And Fisk continues = that tradition, suggesting that the "hacking and raping and murdering" = at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps helped provoke last week's = attacks--even though Sabra and Shatila took place in 1982, when Osama = bin Laden had not yet turned against the U.S. and was actually fighting = side by side with the CIA in Afghanistan. (Fisk further illustrates his = idiosyncratic theory of history when he writes, "Our broken promises, = perhaps even our destruction of the Ottoman Empire[!], led inevitably to = this tragedy.") But if blaming terrorism on America's alliance with Israel was always = tricky, today it is downright bizarre. After all, over the last year and = a half, Washington has pushed Israel into offering the Palestinians a = state in almost all of the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in = Jerusalem, and helped convince Israel to withdraw from Lebanon. It is a = good barometer of Fisk's intellectual honesty that he says Muslims are = right to hate America because of Israel's occupation of southern = Lebanon, but neglects to mention that, thanks in part to America, Israel = no longer occupies southern Lebanon. Then there is Fisk's second example of American oppression of Muslims: = U.S. sanctions against Iraq. It is now conventional wisdom among = American liberals that the Muslim world has every right to be enraged by = our vicious policy toward the people of Iraq. In news articles about = Arab anti-Americanism after the attack, The Boston Globe wrote that = sanctions have caused "widespread suffering among Iraqis," and The = Atlanta Journal-Constitution explained that they are responsible for = "malnutrition and disease." But both these statements are false. As = Michael Rubin noted in these pages ("Food Fight," June 18), = Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq--which is subject to exactly the same = sanctions as the rest of the country--suffers virtually no malnutrition. = In fact, infant mortality rates in the North are lower than they were = before the Gulf war. That's because, under revised UN sanctions, Iraq is = now the world's second largest exporter of oil, and those exports = provide Kurdish authorities plenty of revenue to buy medicines and food. = The reason children elsewhere in the country go hungry is that Saddam = resells needed supplies in order to fund his military. In recent years = the United States has actually intercepted several Iraqi ships exporting = food. But perhaps the most pitiful thing about Fisk and The Nation's efforts = to rationalize bin Laden's hatred of the United States is that they = don't even correspond to what bin Laden himself says. (The left had this = problem during the cold war, too--Moscow was always changing its script = without informing its apologists in the West.) Longtime bin Laden = watchers know he has never been especially concerned with the plight of = the Palestinians. In a 1998 paper by Ely Karmon for the Washington = Institute for Near East Policy, Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of London's = Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, noted that bin Laden "has been criticized in = the Arab world" for his relative indifference to the "Palestinian = issue." Nor has bin Laden been a big supporter of Saddam. When the Iraqi = dictator invaded Kuwait, bin Laden actually offered to send his men to = defend Saudi Arabia against Iraq. In bin Laden's mind, America's greatest offense--by far--is its military = presence in his home country of Saudi Arabia. (The bin Laden-sponsored = attacks on U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam occurred on the = eighth anniversary of the dispatch of U.S. troops to the Gulf.) And = that's a harder line for Western leftists to peddle. Because bin Laden = isn't upset at the United States for bolstering Riyadh's oppressive = policies--after all, the Saudi government's views on individual freedom = and the status of women roughly mirror his own. Bin Laden is upset = simply because non-Muslims live in the Holy Land around Mecca and = Medina. His first priority is banishing Christians and Jews from Saudi = Arabia. And his second priority is banishing Christians and Jews from = every other Muslim country. As he told ABC News in 1998, "Allah ordered = us in this religion to purify Muslim land of all non-believers, and = especially the Arabian Peninsula." When you think about it, this is not a very original idea. Although = everyone is calling our struggle with bin Laden a "new war," in many = ways it is a continuation of the same war the United States has been = fighting since 1989. Bin Laden, after all, is an ethnic cleanser. And = the United States is the only powerful country on Earth willing to take = up arms to make sure that people of different religions and races can = live together. The main difference between September 11 and what came = before is that bin Laden desires ethnic cleansing on a scale far greater = than the Hutus and the Serbs, a scale that has only one true twentieth = century parallel. If Fisk and The Nation really want to argue that America brought the = World Trade Center attack on itself, they shouldn't delude themselves. = They are not defending the Palestinians' right to a state or the Iraqis' = right to medicine. They are defending a Muslim's right not to live with = a non-Muslim. And in so doing they are renouncing this country's most = sacred principles--principles that saved countless Muslim lives in = Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. When the left assembles at its = candlelight vigils and peace marches in the coming weeks, let it = proclaim this honestly. And other Americans will survey the scene, and = scream. PETER BEINART is editor of TNR.=20 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 09:18:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: Operation Flip the Bird In-Reply-To: from "Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson" at Sep 20, 2001 10:13:53 am MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit According to Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson: > > Good grief do they need a poet on the payroll! I would suggest "Operation > Eagle Eye". Though if all they sought was something both more ominous and > childish than "Desert Storm", they have certainly succeeded. Eliz. Are we free to start (seriously) joking about this situation as a transition toward critiquing it? If so, then the re-naming of this mission is obvious: Operation Bush: Head for the Mountains -m. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 09:45:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Magee Subject: Re: irony or a few generational thoughts, In-Reply-To: from "Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson" at Sep 20, 2001 04:25:47 pm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Elizabeth, I have lots of thoughts on this topic - it's something I tackled (with mixed success I think) in the first "COMBO x/tra" (a "poets & painters conversation w/ my brother). Maybe I'll post that but in the meantime I would just want to emphasize what I perceive to be a HUGE difference between irony and apathy. To wit: Frederick Douglass's comment from his brialliant speech, "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" Given to an audience of mostly white abolitionists (who no doubt were patting themselves on the back, and not without some reason) Douglass spends much of this speech critiquing them and, especially, the language with which they're framing the anti-slavery struggle: "At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nations ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke." When Douglass says, "The feeling of the nation must be quickened" it seems to me he's talking about the function of irony - the way in which, by undercutting trusted vocabularies, it wakes people up to the necessity of new ones. I mean, what has Bush's response to our present situation been but a running catalogue of Manifest Destiny cliches that 80% (according to polls) of the country has readily accepted largely because (I would guess) of their familiarity and the comfort of the familiar (even the odiously familiar) in a chaotic time? Well, look: if there was ever a time for "genX irony" it's probably now. Flag-as-Transitional-Object arguments aside (and I found those arguments pretty convincing I think) the time for comfort should probably give way soon to a time for ethical shouting and political demurral: God Bless America meets Gad Blast a Mercantile, God Bus a Mercenary, etc. -m. According to Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson: > > Would love to hear a few thoughts from others born in the 60s and 70s on > this, and just send out a few thoughts about how our generation is being > portrayed here and now. (On a first minor note: the news reports here show > the kids at UC doing protests and say "like those a generation ago". Um, the > Free Speech movement was more than a generation ago now, dudes. In the late > 80s we had plenty of apartheid protests, bla bla bla.) > There's alot of talk of "genx"'s irony and how after last week we are > suddenly adults. This is really annoying. I may have a slightly different > take on things having grown up in the pinko enclave (note irony) of > Berkeley, but there are profound reasons for what is ***perceived*** as > apathy in this generation. Things aren't as easy (note irony) as when our > moms thought, hey maybe women should get paid the same as men for the same > work, etc. They haven't been. Everything has been framed as a pose, plus > everything is so deeply ambiguous and appallingly corrupted and thrillingly > complicated. Maybe this leaves our minds freer to cope, more open to vision. > I think in some ways it does and in some ways we have been apathetic. Well > that's all from me but just consider this a reminder that no generation is > "the greatest", and also (note irony) that generational proclamations are > really boring. Cheers Elizabeth > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:23:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...lavender Jessica N wrote: > hi harry I spoke with darlene tonight. She talked briefly about some of the things going on with you, thought you might be interested in reading it. (may not be your thing... that's ok too) much love, j what darlene said.... "His writing is the best thing he can do for himself. He does dive into things he needs to understand or come to terms with. He’s aware of a bigger picture that is possible and that doesn’t please him. He’s trying to handle that it may mean he needs to make a decision. He can’t go into making a decision right now. How far is he from where the attacks took place? The whole area he’s in right now, is saturated. He’s very susceptible to that. Is there any kind of energy kind of cleaning work he does or would be willing to do? He can do some aroma threapy. Lavender essential oil is simple. Put it on his pillow in a diffuser or under his nose. One drop a day. Has he ever had an experience in the past of losing it on some level-- more than just depression? He could stabilize himself. Be prepared that if there’s anymore attacks anywhere that he’s connected to he may need other support. Trauma support would be good, but he may not want to do that. Would be good for you (jessica) to keep in touch with Lori, especially if there’s another attack. His writing right now is going in deep. Being born after the holocaust -- that cellular memory flares right up in him. A support group comes up as being helpful. Something dealing with the trauma. Person to person and verbal and hearing other people. Verbal is good form of expression for him, especially if he’s written about it first. Person to person, not necessarily lead by a therapist." __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? Donate cash, emergency relief information http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Emergency_Information/ ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 06:59:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: Re: Re: m&r...Labo(u) Day.. Day zero minus 1... nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > Hi..Bob.. just been painting our ONE room...the 'artistic' painter sd he could do it in 7 days...we worked it out with him..lent him a hand and finished it in 2 and change...the d..n bed closet which i've been working at moving inch by inch for half an hour is half where it should be...my brother works 6 days a week 12 plus hrs a day in a working class hood to feed 3 kids who are upwardly mobile..doesn''t sound all that hard to me..work is what has to be done...if the car's broke we can all stay home...and if the pome don't work...we all know what happens...and this from someone who is not all that hard of worker..believe me....i've been napping all morning and plan to continue hard on...all the best and my love...Harry.. Robert Creeley wrote: > Dear Harry, How even to define the word "work" these days is a problem, much less the implications of so-called (so-called) "Labor Day." "Does the car work?" Does this poem work?" Ah well... Love, Bob nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: > Dear Bob... > > It was also good to see you. I particularly enjoyed seeing Will again and yr daughter..& penelople after some 15 years. I get an eerie feeling when i talk to Will and think of you & hear a voice within a voice.. > > My finger is a royal blue...but i managed to run some cold water over it for half an hour immediately after..so it looks 'pretty' but has never hurt..and it could have been much much worse if my right hand had not instincly stopped the door..so i consider my self very lucky.. > > I'm fine..but as i keep saying Drn seems to be having a nervous breakdown.. > > The Knitting Factory is indeed a bit curious...it seems to have run out of needles..this is the improved fancier version..it was much better & smaller on Houston St. Steve is the M.C. of the place and there every nite..if he's not somewhere else listening to new music. Tonic on Norfolk is more confortable and edgier.. > > As i told pen..we are often in Bklyn on Weekends..our poor idea of the country..& it would be wonderful to lunch or brunch or walk and talk..my love to you and the mishpucha (yid for family)...Harry.. > > Robert Creeley wrote: > > Dear Harry, > Sorry about your poor finger! That take on literal labor sure rings solid. Once one's jumping for the brass ring, that's the only game in town. Whoever really thought it would be fair? I don't know at times what the hell I am but keep on despite. > > It was GOOD to see you even brioefly in that curious scene. > > Love, > Bob > -- > - ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:12:12 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Re: What is to be considered In-Reply-To: <000701c140bb$45a6b5e0$3353fea9@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Consider these points: > >(1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them >the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total >is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic >combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be >suffering effects from for years. Pearl Harbor was the starting point that ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WTC attack was the starting point that ended with ______(?)___________. Anastasios Kozaitis ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:17:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ANASTASIOS KOZAITIS Subject: Re: A failure of vision? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I work in New York City at The Rockefeller University, and we were given the opportunity to hear a lecture yesterday on NYC's plans in case of emergency terrorism. The person who spoke to the University community was Jerry Hower, I believe, but I know that the spelling of his name is incorrect. He is the man who has developed NYC's emergency plan against terrorism. He admitted that he had thought through all types of terrorism--chemical, biological, and small bombs, etc. But, he said that unfortunately he never imagined a 767 flown into the WTC. The chemical materials he discussed were: Sarin Tabun VX Soman Cyanide Mustard/Blistering agents The biological materials: Anthrax Small pox Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B (SEB) He said that he is least concerned with chem warfare because it would take so much to contaminate a large body of the population, and he included the NYC water supply. They do test the water supply but not dynamically like the Israelis do, he admitted. He had just visited Israel to see how often and what types of testing the Israelis do on their water supply. But, NYC uses 1.2B gallons of water/day, and he believes that to contaminate the city's water supply on a level that would hurt a large body of the population is still very difficult. He did not, however, rule out targeting distinct areas of the city. As for the biological warfare, he said that with anthrax, etc. we get a window of approximately 3 days. He is concerned with this, and believes that NYC will be a target of bio warfare rather soon. The city has created an algorithm to track the purchasing of certain over the counter products from pharmacies. The city knows how many types of diuretics, etc. are sold on a day to day basis, and a report is run every morning at 5:00 a.m. The Director of the Office of Emergency Management reads it first thing every day, he said. As soon as the numbers jump over a certain threshold, the stockpile is released. Every amublance in the city has vaccines for chem-bio. I have been hearing people say that the "terrorists" have finished with NYC, that they will hit somewhere else next, which I do not believe, and Hower said he did not believe that in the least either. Finally, and this is something I used in rebuttal to Ron's points, the Nobel prize winner Joshua Lederberg who has consulted many different administrations in biological warfare, etc, got up to say a few words. He said that his biggest fear was what continued to provide him the most deep seated anxiety. He said that this event and the others that are inevitably to come from both sides of the confict will change human's "essential goodness" and alter the terrain of morality and ethics. He feared this more than anything, which got me to thinking. Perhaps...if this were true...perhaps people who have been continuous victims of terror had already had this happen to them? Does this make them "bad" people? No, I think not. I think that they have been altered, say even "re-programmed humans." Again, this is all so sad, and if we were to set out on an all out offensive, what happens? --Ak ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 08:23:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: and not become them MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit European countries have begun to roundup suspected terrorists. (Yahoo! Roundup dem dogies!" -Little Bush.) Something that should have been done long before this. In this country too. Even though European leaders say they are behind Bush, they are counseling caution. This they've learned after two world wars being fought on their turf, leveling whole cities, not just a few buildings. I also think that this incident is, hopefully, growing pains for this country. And there'll be more to come. Right now what I see is a leadership consisting mainly of adolescents, as US Culture, including its education system, is geared more to graduating producers/consumers than growups. (Talking about growups, I just reviewed Hayden Carruth's new book, "Dr. Jazz.") The best our political leadership seems to be able to say, when asked why the tragedy happened, is, "They're envious of us." Talk about a shallow critique! This is not what the American People need to hear. This is what children need to hear. "That kid hit you, Johnny, because you're white and handsome, not because you raped his sister." So I see the terrorists as teachers, from whom I hope we learn to look into ourselves with a critical, and loving, eye, and not become them. -Joel Joel Weishaus Center for Excellence in Writing Portland State University Portland, Oregon. http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 11:34:53 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: The Flag As Transitional Object Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >Nick Piombino's post earlier on the flag's role not as an icon of >war-mongering, but as a transitional object in the grieving process, makes >perfect sense to me. (Ron Silliman) As I've written elsewhere, the flag is not a transitional object but a symbol of national identity. I cannot dissociate American history from that symbol. While I do not see the same aggression in flying the flag as was evident in the Gulf War, I think the innocence of its use as a symbol of human, rather than national, solidarity is a precise desire to forget that history. (Barrett Watten) I did not say what I said about transitional objects in order to be an apologist for war. I am trying to draw a distinction between the usual employment of the symbolism of the flag in leftist or pacifist terms, especially as it was critiqued during the Vietnam conflict, and its current, immediate function as a transitional object for those in mourning. When I burnt my draft card as part of the war resistance movement in 1967, it was at a time when I was already deeply depressed and mourning over the dead on all sides. Barrett is right in preparing the way for rational pacifism at the outbreak of this conflict. However, timing is everything in gaining public support for a cause. It is the very media power of the terrorists acts that we have to find a way to combat. To show impatience towards the millions of people in New York who feel terrified, at this very moment, of a follow-up attack, in giving up their rage and mourning would be, I feel, risking a setback for a effective and rational anti-war movement. We veterans of 60's peace efforts may be in a position to go about the effort of winning public attention for potential innocent victims abroad, as well as American victims of further terrorism here, as well as our soldiers abroad, or here, but any such movement must also deal empathically with the entire situation of loss, mourning and with any coordinated governmental manipulation of those feelings into a justification of further killing. To view the function of the flag as a transitional object at this time I think might be one effective way to begin to short circuit the terrorist goal of creating chaos, divisiveness, confusion, especially among those in a position to try to decrease the tone of bellicosity. Certainly we do not want to engender a tone of bellicosity among each other here on the poetics list. For example, I don't think it was helpful for George Bowering to ask Tom Bell, when Tom said he would buy a flag, if Tom would now buy a gun. Nothing Tom Bell has said, or for that matter, anyone has said in support of using the concept of transitional object in understanding some of the reasons people want to display flags, in this context, has been employed, as far as I can tell, to support war. It is also very clear to me that Barrett Watten (and I wouldn't expect him to) does not have very much knowledge about Winnicott's use, at least 15 years after the death of Freud, of the concept of the transitional object, which emerged along with the increased knowledge of the human psychological development via the work of the British Object Relations school of psychoanalysis.(It is important to note that Winnicott gained much of his insight into childhood developmental psychology in treating, as a pediatrician, children during the London bombings of World War II- see "Winnicott" by Adam Phillips, Harvard, 1988, pp. 61-97).Much of this work was confirmed later in experimental work via Margaret Mahler's observation of infant and early childhood development. The idea of a symbol is a concept quite different than the idea of a transitional object. A symbol is entirely understood as a function of a cognitive experience alone. In the concept of the transitional object the physical presence of the object has a special meaning in combining with the physical, emotional and cognitive experience of its function. When people wrap flags around caskets and drape them on buildings or children hold them in their hands they are utilizing a physical holding presence of support during the grieving period. This can only be temporary, because in order to work through mourning, we must eventually let go of this emotional struggle for holding, or we could not get on with life by accepting the finality of the loss of the dead. Essentially, then, a transitional object supports a necessary, but also temporary, period of (unconscious) denial, during an emerging set of very frightening and agonizing feelings, including an awareness of mortality itself. It is virtually impossible to process such immense anxiety and loss instantaneously, or even rapidly, and this is why the mind gives us denial, and mourning, to give time for the absorption of the shock and the personal and social significance of the trauma. My hunch is that Barrett is for very good reasons (having to do with considerable knowledge of political history) impatient with this period of necessary denial. There is other work in front of us, as the denial gives way, and the complete terror of our vulnerable situation comes home to us in the naked anxiety of the threat of war. Barrett is warning us about the potential furious destructiveness that could be unleashed when the stunned period of mourning and denial ends, and the new cycle of destructiveness and counter-destructiveness begins. Nevertheless, I feel that to confront a very traumatized, confused country, many of whom are undergoing various degrees of post traumatic stress syndrome, with a premature expectation of empathy with future imagined loss, is unrealistic, and at worst, dangerously devisive. Although for reasons of national defense, we all posture strength, in reality we are mostly feeling not only some degree of loss, but also a sense of humiliation at having suffered a defeat. This blow is a narcissistic blow to our national self-esteem as much as it a physical loss of people. This vulnerability and the ensuing confusion, as well as ambivalence, must be part of the calculation of any rational emerging anti-war movement. Finally, a distinction must be made between the experience of those who have more directly witnessed this event- someone might like to write to James Sherry about this- and those who have witnessed it on television. There are greatly varying degrees and types of post traumatic anxiety. Those who have witnessed the destruction of the WTC, or were in or near the building, or have been directly effected in losing a loved one are undergoing kinds of experiences and are in need of kinds of help not usually needed by others. Post traumatic stress disorder can lead to prolonged feelings of alienation towards others, to a need to avoid ordinary enjoyments and contacts with other people, and easily triggered rage, anxiety and depression. There is often a tendency to withdraw from others and a tendency to withdraw from enjoyment of any type. We must try to be sensitive to the numbers of people involved and the fact that here, in New York, they are everywhere around us. This must also be true at the seat of our government in Washington, DC. Victims of post traumatic stress syndrome are often dazed and emotionally volatile and don't even realize the full extent of their psychological debilitation, which can rapidly get worse if not treated. I feel that enlightened political response must include empathy for human psychological needs for recovery and a varying range of emotional response. But again, Barrett is right to warn us, to challenge us as to our rapidly emerging responsibility to understand the plight of potential future victims. At the same time, we must recognize that our country has not killed anyone in response to this specific atrocity yet. Perhaps we should consider the possible significance of our national grieving over the bombing of the Oklahoma office building. At that time no physical response was possible, except the arrest, trial and final execution of the terrorist, one of our own citizens. Possibly our collective awareness of the fact that virtually no physical punishment of anyone, or for that matter any other than symbolic physical responses was immediately possible, and that no punishment could be much of any help in our national mourning may be on some unconscious or subliminal helpful in developing a cautious, rational response towards this devastating atrocity. But, of course, we had Clinton then. And now, we have Bush. And finally, this quote from Barrett Watten's amazing book "Bad History" from Atelos in 1998: "Who will save us? Intellectuals- split off from the mass of revolutionary clouds returning from the daily fog bank? The fog moves back to reveal smoky haze rising over burnt-out districts of Los Angeles, o intellectuals, you who speak as if there were no one to hear you! But this smoky haze has risen again, as we knew it would. Save us from our instincts and deny our necessary acts of self-destruction o intellectuals!" Nick Piombino ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:57:30 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: What is to be criticized In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20010921102042.024e1d68@mail.wayne.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" barrett, thanx for your carefully composed thoughts---though your point-by-point anaylsis of ron's post is on, uhm, point, i believe you've rather sacrificed (to employ an esp. ungainly phrase now) the spirit for the letter... i mean, in the end, any and all attempts at capturing "public sensibility"---even via e.g. presumably accurate polling---will capture only a portion of what's "out there" (and "in here")... and i took ron's post to be a call to those with a particular sensibility (and perhaps sensitivity) about things (in general) to wake up & smell the new roses... now i'm as much a fan of the old left, and the old new left (etc.) as anyone, and still find much in the various documents of that era (of which, i take it, you consider yourself a bona fide member, and with good reason) to go back to, esp. at times like these... and i too had and have problems with ron's apparent advocacy of a military approach to our problems, up to & including war (whatever he means by "war"---as i do find some slippage there, in his post)... and i certainly don't wish to speak here as an apologist for ron... but really, barrett---don't you sense, at least a little, that it might not be inappropriate to observe that if the left in this country *had* been successful to the extent many of us had hope(d) it might be, the u.s. govt might *not* be on the verge of what it's on the verge of presently?... this is not to condemn the left or any such thing... but to ask, can't we do better?---as a kind of pre-consideration to marching out the anti-war horses... and also perhaps to say that we mustn't be slapping ourselves silly (on our backs, i mean) as to the efficacy of our (e.g.) ideological analyses---b/c in the end, they haven't quite resulted in the sorts of political realities we've been, uh, shooting for (ugh)... ysee, this is why i like esp. brian stefans's recent post---b/c it *doesn't* end with a bang (sorry)... and hey---i'm not unaware of the fact that, to a/effect policy on any level, "we" have to muster some provisional agenda rather quickly, which, i'm happy to say, appears to be happening (and i disagree with those who believe "we" can only have a postmortem effect)... anyway... it's in this spirit (again) that i took ron's post, whatever my misgivings re several of his specific conclusions... wish i could find a way to end this post on a question... hmmm... well here's one, and i don't mean it rhetorically: shouldn't we be ending our posts with questions?... peace, joe ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 12:59:09 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: build up? In-Reply-To: <200109201631.f8KGVD810103@spidey.speakeasy.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit We actually gave the Taliban an impossible set of demands. They agreed to give us bin Laden. Suddenly that wasn't good enough. We said, give us all your terrorists. An impossible task for the Taliban, logistically speaking. They do not have the resources or the ability to know which 15 year old boys with AK-47s are "terrorists" and which ones are not. Many of these people have *nothing but* guns. Little food or water or any shelter beyond tents. The scenario reminds me of the impossible demands delivered to Iraq by oilman James Baker III, demands that indicate the US is merely aping diplomacy for an underinformed group of followers back home. > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of > subrosa@SPEAKEASY.NET > Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 12:31 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: build up? > > > one notion suggested to me was that instead of telling the > taliban to give up bin laden or we'll use force, that we offer - > if you give us bin laden we'll help to rebuild your country. is > that a humanitarian, economically viable approach? > also, i cant write now. history is a trap awaiting the evolution > of the human condition. > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 09:47:09 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: What is to be criticized, affirmed, reiterated, celebrated,processed... In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20010921102042.024e1d68@mail.wayne.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" i have been wary of getting involved in responding to ron's long and thoughtful (but ultimately, i think, unsatisfying) post, because i simply can't take a lot of conflict now and have to preserve my energies carefully. however, it struck me that in spite of the admirably deliberate and careful exposition of the elements and points of argumentation, and the obvious anguished ambivalence involved in those deliberations, the post is fundamentally concerned with a particular "realpolitik" that allows bush et al to dictate the terms of that reality. in the tradition of anglo-american analytic philosophy, it sets in motion a singular line of argumentation that remains locked within and committed to a narrow and even dead-end view of what's possible. while it struck me intuitively that the post was overly reactive and letting bush set its terms, others like lawrence, barrett and brian have been more thorough and articulate about why the post is problematic. i would say in defense of the post, though, that although it is presented as the end-product of a thoughtful self-confrontation, i see it as an initial response, and one that, like many folks' here, is bound to open up as it encounters alternative possibilities. so, it is productive in the debate and clarification it has engendered; though i for one can't engage in a lot of debate right now, i am following the process respectfully from the sidelines. on another note, here at the U of MN we have been urged by our president Mark Yudof to, among other less objectionable things, display the flag "proudly" wherever doing so does not violate building safety codes, and to purchase buttons saying "we stand together." i was quite alarmed at the thought of being urged to purchase things that articulated a sentiment of conformity, and to display a nationalist symbol when so many of our courses' contents quite specifically include interrogation of the institution of the nation-state, or discussion of the instrumentality and constructedness of such an entity. are we supposed to confuse our students? is this an issue of academic freedom? again, a friend pointed out to me that these were suggestions, not coersions, and that no one would be keeping track of who's naughty n nice vis a vis flag-displaying and button-purchasing. i am more concerned with engagement by following the dalai lama's suggestions, being really nice to my students and friends, affirming their creativity, intelligence and value to me --cooking, exercising regularly and socializing seem to figure large on the self-care agenda as well. on yet another note, i wanted to respond to tom bell's query about depression. my first two years here in mn i was morbidly depressed. in march of my second year, my apt was burglarized and i lost my martin classical guitar, hundreds of records from the 60s and 70s (Cream/Disraeli Gears, Big Bro. & the Holding Co, etc), and the computer UMN had given me. For several weeks my depression lifted dramatically; when i remarked on this, my therapist explained that this sometimes happens in the wake of a shock or trauma if you are extremely depressed already --the adrenaline levels kick you out of depression for a while. (it was not a permanent respite.) Maybe that's what's happening now for some folks. Also, in a national crisis like this, i'd imagine that the idea that one could be useful now would be a useful counter to depression for some. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 13:21:20 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Interview with Robert Fisk at Beirut Airport (fwd) In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I like Fisk. A lot. Having said that, he's got the declaration of war part all wrong, as there is no apparent opponent. It takes two, and one side is not interested in revealing itself. Also, I doubt Sharon is in any trap. His career is full of arms trading deals. Sharon and his pals on the Joint Committee sold the Iranians 12,000 missiles when his competition, the Reagan/North NSC boys, could only muster selling 100 to Iran. And then somebody named Bush leaked the story about the Reagan/Bush boys, because Bush was helping to arm Saddam and Iraq and was more interested in oil than Israel's security. So Sharon is hardly trapped. He's sitting on piles of $$$ left from questionable arms deals. Fisk also misses the fact that the CIA and DIA were still at least indirectly funding bin Laden through the KLA up through at least the end of 1999, deals that involved narcotrafficing and terrorist training of KLA soldiers. So the US and its NATO pals were channeling millions to bin Laden when he was on the FBIs most wanted list. Nowadays Kosovo is a calm narcostate, where everyone has a hand on the smack and meth trade and where the drugs come from bin Laden's "Base" and German, British, and American banks along with their private networks of spooks get fat from the proceeds. > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Alan Sondheim > Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 4:00 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: FW: Interview with Robert Fisk at Beirut Airport (fwd) > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 11:50:28 +0400 > From: Salwa Ghaly > To: "'CYBERMIND@LISTSERV.AOL.COM'" > Subject: FW: Interview with Robert Fisk at Beirut Airport > > -----Original Message----- > From: charmaine driscoll > > > > Interview with Robert Fisk at Beirut > Airport in Lebanon > > Thursday, September 20 2001 @ 06:59 PM GMT > > It sometimes comes down to the question of why > when some people have brown eyes and darker skin, their > lives seem to be worth less than westerners > > Radio New Zealan (ZMagazine) > > Hill: Can I talk to you about Osama Bin Laden? I > don't know whether you are in favour of him becoming > public enemy number one at the moment but I do know that > you have met him and I wonder if you could give me > some kind of insight into, first of all, is he capable of > this. > > Fisk: Well, I've been trying to explain this in my > own paper, the London Independent over the last few > days and I'm not sure. We haven't actually seen the > evidence that directly links him to not just an atrocity > but a crime against humanity that took place in New York and > Washington. On the other hand, the Afghan connection > seems to be fairly strong. > > Could he have done it? He certainly hasn't condemned it > although he denies being involved. The first time, > no the second time I met him in Afghanistan when he was > there with his armed fighters, I asked him if he had > been involved in an attack on American troops at Al > Hoba, in Saudi Arabia which had just taken place - 24 > American soldiers had been killed - and he said no, it was > not his doing, he was not responsible. He admitted that he > knew two or three men who have since been executed, > beheaded, by the Saudi authorities. > > He then said, I did not have the honour to participate > in this operation. In other words, he approved of it. > > Now, you can go on saying that kind of thing - he did, > several times over about other episodes later. At some > point you begin to say, "Come off it Bin Laden, surely you > are saying there's a connection, but he's never said or > admitted responsibility for any such event and he's denied > specifically the atrocities in the United States. > > Is he capable of it? Look, I'll give you one tiny > example. The second time I met him in Afghanistan, four > years ago, at the top of a mountain, it was cold and in the > morning when I woke in the camp tent, I had frost in my > hair. He walked into the tent I was sitting in and sat down > opposite me, cross-legged on the floor and noticed > in the school bag I usually carry in rough country to > keep things in, some Arabic-language newspapers and he seized > upon these and went to the corner of the tent with a > sputtering oil lamp and devoured the contents. > > For 20 minutes, he ignored us, he ignored the gunman > sitting in the tent, he ignored me and he didn't > even know, for example, that it was stated in one of > the stories in the newspaper that the Iranian foreign > minister had just visited Riyadh, his own country, Saudi > Arabia, well, his until he lost his citizenship. So he > seemed to me at the time to be very isolated, a cut off man, > not the sort of person who would press a button on a > mobile phone and say, "Put plan B into action". > > So I don't think you can see this as a person who > actually participates in the sense of planning, > step-by-step, what happens in a nefarious attack. In other words, I > doubt very much if he said, "Well, four airplanes, five > hijackers, etc.". But he is a person that has a very large > following, particularly in the rather sinister Jihadi > community or culture of Pakistan. And there is such anger in > the Middle East at the moment about the American' s policies > here and whether it be the deaths of tens of thousands > of children in Iraq, which Osama Bin Laden has spoken > about, whether it be continued occupation and > expansion of Jewish settlements in Arab land which he's also > spoken about, whether it be about the continued > dictatorships, Arab dictatorships, which are supported in large > part by the west, especially in the Gulf area, about which > Osama Ben Laden has spoken about and condemned, I think > you find in this region, enough people who admire what > he says, almost to conspire amongst themselves > without involving him, in the kind of bombing attacks that > we've seen in Saudi Arabia and I suppose it's > conceivable, in the atrocities in the United States. > > But if you're looking for direct evidence, if > you're looking for a fingerprint, all I can say is, the moment I > heard about the World Trade Center attacks, I saw the > shadow of the Middle East hanging over them. As for the > fingerprint of Bin Laden, I think that's a > different matter. > We haven't seen it yet. We may. Perhaps the > Americans can produce the evidence but we haven't seen it > yet. > > Hill: The corollary of that, of course, is that > should they decide to strike against Bin Laden, it will do no > good because, you know, there will be a thousand, a > million more, waiting to carry on doing the same thing, > will they not? > > > Fisk: Yes this is the problem. It is very easy to > start a war, or to declare war, or to say you are at war > and quite another thing to switch it off. And after all, > let's face it, this is a declaration of war primarily against the > United States. But once America takes up the opponent's > role, saying we will retaliate, then you take the risk > of further retaliation against you and further retaliation by > you and so on. > > This is the trap that Ariel Sharon, the Israeli > prime minister, has got himself involved in Israel with > the Palestinians because when the Palestinians send a > suicide bomber wickedly, for example into a pizzeria and > kill many innocent Israelis, the Israelis feel a need to > retaliate so they fire tank shells or helicopters fire American > missiles into a police post. Then a murder squad, or a > helicopter fires a missile into a car of a man who the > Israelis believe have plotted bombing. Then the Palestinians > retaliate by sending another suicide bomber and so on and so > forth. > > It's one thing to use this rhetoric, like "rooting > out the weed of world terror", "dead or alive", "a > crusade" - my goodness me, that's a word that Mr Bush has been > using - not a word that's likly to encourage much > participation on the American side in the Arab world because the > word, crusade, is synonymous here with Christians > shedding Muslim blood in Jerusalem in 1099 and Jewish blood > actually, historically. > > So, the real question is, what lies behind this > rhetoric? Is there any serious military thinking going on? If > so, are we talking about the kind of blind, indiscriminate > attack which will only provoke more anger among Arabs, perhaps > to overthrow their own regimes which Mr Bin Laden > will be very happy to see, or are we talking about special > forces seizing people, taking them out of Afghanistan, > trying to have some kind of international criminal court > where we could actually see justice done as opposed to just > liquidation and murder squads setting out to kill > killers. > > Hill: George Bush, I suppose is entitled to his > internal physical needs - the needs of Americans - to put > out bellicose rhetoric, such as "the new war on > terrorism", or "we want Osama Bin Laden dead or alive" and so on, > but that he will do remains entirely obscure at the > moment, doesn't it? > > > > Fisk: Yes, yes it does. You see, I can understand > -anyone should be able to understand - not only how > appalled Americans are about what happened, in > such an awesome way - the images of those aircraft flying > through the skin of the World Trade Center and > exploding are utterly unforgettable. For the rest of our > lives we will remember that. And I think therefore the anger of > Americans is perfectly understandable and revenge is a > kind of justice, isn' t it, but these days we have > to believe in the rule of law. > > Once or twice you hear Colin Powell talking about > justice and law but then you hear President Bush using the > language of Wild West movies. And that is very > frightening because I don't think that NATO is > going to support America in a blind and totally > indiscriminate attack in the Middle East. And the other question is, how > do you make your strike massive enough to suit the crime. > Afghanistan, after all, is a country in total > ruins, it was occupied by the Russians for 10 years which is why > it is seeded with 10 million mines - I mean it, 10 > million mines, more that one tenth of all the land mines in the > world are in Afghanistan. So any idea of America sending its > military across Afghanistan is a very, very dangerous > operation in a country where America has no friends. > > It is very significant - though it's been largely > missed, I noticed by press and television around the world - > but just two days before the attacks on Washington and > New York, Shah Massoud, the leader of the opposition > in Afghanistan, the only military man to stand up to > the Taliban, and the only friend of the west, was > himself assassinated by two Arab suicide bombers - men > posing as journalists, by the way. I've been asking > myself over the last two days, and I have no proof of this > whatsoever, merely a strong suspicion, whether in > fact, that assassination wasn't in a sense a code for > people in the United States to carry out atrocities which we > saw last Tuesday. I don't know, but certainly if > America wants to go into Afghanistan, one of the key elements, > even with a special forces raid, is to have friends in > the country, people who are on your side. [But they] > have just been erased, in fact erased two days before > the bombings in America, and I find that is a very, > very significant thing. > > > > Hill: If one went to these people, if one went to > bin Laden or any other, if one went to the Jihadians in > Pakistan and said, "What do you guys want?" what would they > say? > > Fisk: Well, you would hear a list of objectives > which will be entirely unacceptable to the west or in many > cases, to any sane person here. > > Hill: What do they want? > > Fisk: Well, look, what you have to understand is, > what they want and what most Muslims in the region want > is not necessarily the same thing but they are > trading and treading on the waters of injustice in the region. > But what they want, they will tell you, is they want > shariat imposed on all Muslim states in the region, they want > total withdrawal of western forces from the Arab gulf > region. > They ask, for example, why does America still have > forces in Saudi Arabia 10 years after the Gulf War, after > which they promised they would immediately withdraw > those forces? > > Why are American forces in Kuwait? Well, we know > the American answer is that Saddam Hussein remains a > danger. Well, that might be a little bit of a > dubious claim now. And why are American forces exercising in > Egypt? Why are American jets allowed to use Jordan? What > are they doing in Turkey? On top of that, they will > demand an end to Israeli occupation of Arab land. > > But you have to remember that when you go to one > end of the extreme, like the most extreme of the > Jihadi culture in Pakistan, you are going to hear demands that > will never be met. But nonetheless, and this is the point, > they feed on a general unease about injustice in the region > which is associated with the west which many, many Arab > Muslims - millions of them - will feel. > > So, this goes back to the Bin Laden culture. It > does mean, I haven't met a single Arab in the last > week, who doesn't feel revulsion about what has happened in > the United States. But quite a few of them would say, > and one or two have, if you actually listen to what > Bin Laden demands, he asks questions that it would be > interesting to hear the answers to. What are the Americans > still doing in the Gulf? Why does the United States > still permit Israel to build settlements for Jews, and Jews > only, on Arab land? Why does it still permit thousands of > children to die under UN sanctions? And UN sanctions are > primarily imposed by western powers. > > So, it's not like you have a simple, clear picture > here. But where you have a large area of the earth, where > there is a very considerable amount of injustice, where the > United States is clearly seen as to blame for some of it, > then the people in the kind of Jihadi culture - the > extremists, terrorists, call them what you like - are going to > be able to find a society in which they can breathe, and > they do. > > My point all along is, if there is going to be a > military operation to find the people responsible for the > World Trade Center and for the people who support them > and for those who harbour them - I'm using the words > of the State Department, the President, the > Vice-President, Secretary of State Colin Powell - then I believe > that the wisest and most courageous thing that the > Americans can do, is to make sure that it goes hand-in-hand with > some attempt to rectify some of the injustices, present > and historic in this region. > > That could actually do what President Bush claims > he wants, that is, end "terrorism" in this region. > But you see, I don't think Mr Bush is prepared to put his > politics where he's prepared to point his missiles. He won't do > that. He only wants a military solution. And military > solutions in the Middle East never, ever work. > > Hill: Because it's like a tar baby. I mean as soon > as the United States undertakes a military solution, then > a thousand more will instantly join the Jihadi or > Bin Laden because, there you go, the United States has > proved itself to be the great Satan once again. > > Fisk: Well, there is a self-proving element to > that for them, yes, but again, you see, the point is, I > said before, that Bin Laden's obsession with overthrowing the > local pro-American regime has been at the top of his > list of everything he's said to me in three separate > meetings in Sudan and two in Afghanistan. And I suspect, and I > don't know if he's involved in this, but if he was - or > even if he wasn't - he may well feel the more bloody and the > more indiscriminate the American response is, the > greater the chance that the rage and the feeling of anger > among ordinary Arabs who are normally very docile > beneath their various dictatorships, will boil over and start to > seriously threaten the various pro-western regimes in the > region, especially those in the Arabian Gulf. > > And that is what he's talked about. And indeed, Mr > Mubarek of Egypt, not you might think, a great > conceptual thinker, two weeks' ago, only a few > days before the World Trade Center bombing, and it's > always interesting to go back before these events to see > what people said, warned what he called "an explosion > outside the region", very prescient of him and he also > talked about the danger for the various Arab governments > and regimes - he didn't call himself a dictator, > though effectively he is - if American policy didn' t > change. And indeed, he sent his Foreign Minister to Washington > to complain that the Egyptian regime itself could be > in danger unless American policy changed. And what > was the Foreign minister told? He was told to go back > to Cairo and tell Mr Mubarek that it will be very easy for > Dick Cheney to go to Congress and to cut off all > American aid to Egypt. > > > Hill: The trouble with arguing, as you do, as many > other people do, that, you know, 1800 people were killed > in Sabra and Shatila, maybe half a million people > have died in Iraq as a result of the sanctions, how many > Palestinians have died as a result of the Israeli attacks, it > begins to sound like moral relativism in some peculiar way. > I talked to David Horovitz [editor, Jerusalem Report] > earlier this morning. You won't be surprised to hear that he > disagrees with a lot of the things you say. And he said, > look, this terrorist attack on the United States last week > was beyond the pale, was unacceptable, cannot be > compared with anything else. This is it. How do you respond > to that? > > Fisk: I'm not surprised that David, who I know > quite well, would say that. I don't think it's a question of > moral relativism. When you live in this region I go to > New York and I've driven past the World Trade Center many > times. This is familiar architecture for me too, and > familiar people, but when you live in this region, it isn't > about moral relativism, it sometimes comes down to the > question of why when some people have brown eyes and darker > skin, their lives seem to be worth less than westerners. > > Let's forget Sabra and Shatila for the moment and > remember that on a green light from Secretary of > State Alexander Haig, as he then was, Israel invaded > Lebanon and in the bloody months of July and August, > around 17,500 people, almost all of them civilians - this > is almost three times the number killed in the World Trade > Center -were killed. And there were no candlelight vigils > in the United States, no outspoken grief, all that > happened was a State Department call to both sides to exercise > restraint. > > Now, it isn't a question of moral relativism, it > isn't a question in any way of demeaning or reducing the > atrocity which happened - let's call it a crime against > humanity which it clearly was - is it possible then to say > well, 17,500 lives, but that was in a war and it was far > away and anyway they were Arabs which is the only way I > can see you dismiss the argument that, hang on a > minute, terrible things have happened out here too. That > does not excuse what happened in the United States. It > doesn't justify by a tiny millimetre anything that > happened there but we've got to see history, even the recent > history of this region if we are going to look seriously at > what happened in the United States. > > Hill: That's like setting out on a marathon > though. I mean, of course David Horovitz says, look, we made the > Palestinians a fantastic offer and they turned it down. > What more can we do? They keep coming at us. We're > trying, we're trying, we're trying. If you say, > yes > > Fisk: Wait a second, there's an inaccuracy in > this, and this is not meant to be a criticism of David, this > is my view, they were not made a great offer, they were > not offered 96% of the West Bank, they were offered > 46% roughly, because they were not being offered > Jerusalem or the area around it, or the area taken illegally > into the new Jerusalem and its municipality, or certain > settlements elsewhere, and they were to have a military buffer > zone that would further reduce the so-called 96%. It > was not a good offer to the Palestinians. You see, it has > become part of a narrative to get away from the reasons > for injustice and not to deal with these issues. > > Hill: I didn't reproduce it in order to say, it > was a fantastic offer. I did it to illustrate that very point, > that there are narratives going on and the narratives are of > different pages, different books, different libraries and > they are getting increasingly different. I can't see how we > can ever align those narratives and it's getting > harder and harder. How do we do it? > > > > Fisk: Well, I think this is wrong. I think I > disagree with you. Look, you can't say that you don't understand > the narrative of children dying in Iraq. Nobody is > going around claiming that they are not dying. They are. They > clearly are. And if they were, and I'm going to stick my > neck out, if they were western children, believe me, they > would not be dying. > > Now this is a major problem. Again, you see, > anyone who tries to argue this, then you get smeared with, > "O, you are on Saddam Hussein's side". Now Saddam is a > wicked, unpleasant, dirty dictator. But the fact remains, > there are children dying. And if they were western children > I do not believe they would be. And this is a major > problem. > > And many, many Arabs put this point of view > forward, not in hating the United States, but simply saying, > why? And of course why is one of the questions you are not > supposed to ask in this region is about the > motives of the people who committed this mass murder in the > United States. Actually, I have to point out, they > haven't told us, have they, the people behind this haven't even > bothered, they've just given us this theatre of > mass murder, which is the most disgusting thing. > > But you've got to come back and realise, these > things don't happen in isolation. These 20 suicide > bombers did not get up in the morning and say, let's go hijack > some planes. Nor did the people who organised it and > funded it. They knew they were doing it in a certain climate. > Otherwise it would never have been able to happen. > > That is the problem. That is why we need to get at the > question, why. > > Hill: It's very nice to talk to you. We hope to do > it again soon. Thank-you, Robert Fisk. > > Copyright 2001 Palestine Chronicle > All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective > owners. > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 10:51:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Leonard Brink Subject: common sense MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable A characteristic of the lunatic fringe is that they always imagine = themselves to be especially enlightened. I'm not sure whether the = suggestions being made on this list that America's failures have = precipitated the slaughter of 7,000 of us remind me more of Jerry = Falwell or of the pretenses of the terrorists themselves. I don't see = any radical thinking going on here that might be especially enlightened = -- these posts seem rather to have their origins in the oldfartism of = baby boomers unable to extricate themselves from their nostalgia about = the Vietnam era, and/or in the misguided equation of mental imbalance = with artistic temperament that manifests itself in knee-jerk = contrarianism. I suppose we have academia's ivory tower syndrome, in = which theory supercedes normal human experience, to thank for this. = Those who are pretending to be America's cultural, intellectual and = moral elite seem not to realize that their little end of the bell curve = involves a complete break from real-world considerations. Who else would = be so unmoved to action when biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons = may well be used against us the next time. It would be quite simply = inhuman for any person or geo-political unit to refuse to defend = themselves against this potential holocaust. The left-right paradigm of = politics doesn't apply. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:15:05 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rodrigo Toscano Subject: forward from Laura Elrick MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit [forward from Laura Elrick] Hi everyone. Laura Elrick here. I've been reading poetics list closely since the Sept 11 tragedy, and though I've had many responses, this is the first time I've been able to sit down and formulate any extended thought (in writing) about what happened to our city, the last week spent in waves of grief and shock. There are hundreds of thousands of posters pasted all over the city...5000 faces so terribly dizzying. Last night I marched from Union to Times Square with some one thousand people. I guess it was more an anti-war-rhetoric than an anti-war march, though the message was confused and that was problematic. Along with many others, I was struck by the deep contradictions we must now face if we are to effectively critique a US military response to this horrible crime. Barrett, you touched on this briefly in your last post, namely, that _one_ role of the state is (and we should support this) the protection of the safety and civil rights of its citizens. For example, it was clear last night that the police were functioning primarily to protect the marchers (though done grudgingly by some of them I'm sure, and some arrests were made) from angry bands of men, and not the other way around as we have seen in recent anti-globalization protests. We have to be able to adjust to this and resist falling into "anti-authoritarianism" just for its own sake. One challenge is going to be shifting our signs (and signing) to reflect a somewhat defensive position--this is not a territorialization of space per se (as in Seattle). In other words, what has been a strength (loose, horizontal coalitions with no leadership) may become a weakness if we are unable to develop a complex critique and COMMUNICATE our positions in ways that don't alienate the people we are ostensibly standing up for, including municipal employees working overtime to clean up a gruesome pulp of steel and flesh. "Whose streets? Our streets!" just ain't going to cut it. Yet, first and foremost, I absolutely agree with those calling for military restraint. It is inconceivable to me that "smoking" bin Laden out of his "hole," while presumably also bombing the "hell" out of the widows, orphans, and old people still alive after over two decades of war in that country, (he's only one individual, after all, no matter how "powerful" in the popular imagination) will save the US, much less the world, from further terrorist attack. In fact, as history has repeatedly shown us, excessive force by imperialist nations (whether of a surgical aerial kind as in Iraq, or of a messy ground invasion as in Vietnam) often creates the sustained conditions of violence, deprivation, and, yes, hatred, for a new generation to continue with renewed fervor the battles of their forbears. If we've got a hundred cells now we'll have five hundred after "operation infinite justice." Ron, I have to say that I don't think such a view equates to hand-wringing, though yr point about the "uniqueness" of this situation is well-taken. Anti-military is not automatically "do nothing." The problem with treating a heavy (as we have been forewarned it is likely to be) military response as a given is that it 1) overlooks the fact that building extensive judicial coalitions might be better able to protect us from further attacks (see my arguments below) and 2) it downplays the vital role that organized domestic opposition might play in limiting casualties if a conflict gets out of control, and 3) it ignores the possibility that growing international skepticism as regards a US strike might grow into outright dissension. There is also the very likely possibility of exacerbating (and "growing" to use a capitalist term) the jihadi-type fundamentalist elements in the region, most notably, of course, in Pakistan. Imagine, for example, what it would do for popular sentiment and political climate in the US if a nation from the other side of the planet sent hundreds of thousands of war-planes to bomb us for months, killing more than ten times the number killed in the WTC (over 200 times if you include effects of economic sanctions), then, having sustained not more than one or two casualties itself, went back and had a joyous ticker-tape parade to celebrate the "bravery" of their victory, which was then broadcast all over the planet and commemorated in movies exported as the cultural force of "favorable" trade agreements. The entire Arab world witnessed such arrogance and callousness by the US in its war on the Iraqi people and in its aftermath (not over yet). To those who have complained that no alternatives to a military response exist or have been developed, I would say there are several. In the immediate context, as Taylor Brady and others have pointed out, a global law enforcement collaboration (a world-wide coalition of governments agreeing to find and try perpetrators) treating the matter as a criminal investigation and labeling bin Laden and accomplices as mass-murderers would better insure the eradication of terrorists. Our press has repeatedly reported that bin Laden's agents have lived in communities all over the world, as far away as Hamburg, Germany. What good will a war with Afghanistan do if agents are spread out waiting to be "activated"? In fact, over two hundred arrests have already been made in England, Belgium, Germany, and the US--and yes, at the same time, we must vigilantly guard against a racist hysteria that might produce unjust arrests. And of course, any such global investigation would require the cooperation and support of the Islamic world. No better way to this than by taking their concerns seriously, especially as regards the continuing Israeli encroachments into the West Bank (and virtual occupation of the Gaza) in what amounts to state-sponsored territorial expansion that puts both Palestinians and Israelis at risk and has been opposed by nearly every nation of the world except the US. "Abandoning Israel" is of course an extreme-and not the only option as regards a re-assessment of US policy there. As well, the sanctions still crippling the innocent populations of Iraq who have no more to do with terrorist activity than you or I, is a misery lived daily for millions. We could also start the process of collectively demanding a public examination of US policies in the region (cold-war and before). Such an examination needs to take place in a public forum, as a civic investigation, similar to the truth commissions that were begun after Vietnam but were never completed. Over 6000 innocent civilians living in its financial capital were murdered-we deserve more than a passing mention of a CIA codename, apt as it is. This is hardly an "extreme" demand, and certainly not one that excuses the abhorrent criminality of the act committed against us. In fact it is one that all public intellectuals, be they poets or not, should support if they believe that citizens have a right to know what their government representatives have done in their name, and unfortunately, how it has now endangered them. Such a demand would be made along a continuum of demands that have been made by movements worldwide, many of which, I might add, are likely to be jeopardized by the political repercussions of this brutal and retrograde attack. The Civil Rights Movement, the Anti-Corporate-Globalization Mvmt, the Anti-Death Penalty Mvmt, the Anti-Militarism Mvmt, the Women's Mvmt, cross-border Labor initiatives-all have been calling for a drastic change in national and global economic policy, especially as regards uneven development of marginalized nations for some time now-and all are likely to take a severe hit if the US war-machine succeeds in shutting out/up all dissent with "patriotism" (not to mention increased powers of surveillance and a devolution of individual civil rights-how convenient. Such "emergency" procedures also helped pave the way for the Palmer Raids and McCarthyism). Until that unfortunate time, there are many points for cooperation among these various groups-and they are already focusing their energies there. Now we too are victims. Isn't it time we demand they drop the rhetoric that portrays this situation as a choice between war or terrorism and begin the complicated process of becoming citizens of the world? --Laura Elrick ps: two websites, worth a look, also proof that the people of Afghanistan are not the political monolith of fanaticism that some would have us believe. Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan: www.wapha.org Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan: www.rawasongs.fancymarketing.net ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 15:53:14 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: re Murat recalling code/authority in E. Asian surrealisms MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Walter, Thank you for your detailed and very useful reply. I remember your remarks because in the same symposium (called "revolutionary poetics," I think) I was part of the final, overview panel which also included Carla Harriman and Bruce Andrews. I used a quote from you to point to the radical potential of translation as a genre, how a poet/translator may have the ability -if it chooses to- to subvert a movement or style both in the original and target culture in the process of "transplanting." I was not making nor am I qualified to make any comments on specific Korean poets. The subversion I am referring to can occur in the poetics (horizontal authority?) or in the political culture itself, a way of forbidden communication, "a poetical slang." To give an example, when I first translated the Turkish poet Ece Ayhan's "A Blind Cat Black and Orthodoxies" in around 1982, the knee jerk reaction to it was that it was another "surrealist" poem. Surrealism was part of the main stream avant garde at the time, and most Western readers saw the image and syntactical elisions of Ece Ayhan's work as a backwater surrealist attempt, in other words, in their own image. When the book came out in 1997, because of the prose shape of the individual pieces, there was an attempt to connect it to Rimbaud. In fact, neither of these two approaches is revealing or correct. Ece Ayhan's work in these two poems is built on a dialectic between reavealing and hiding, saying the forbidden (often of a sexual content) and defending against its consequences. When Ece Ayhan distorts syntax, elides crucial connections or uses slang known only to sub-cultures, he is trying to reveal something and also maintain "deniability" - come to think of it, not that different in purpose from Bin Ladin's attempt to claim credit for the havoc in New York and previous places and at the same time maintain he was not involved. The title of my piece was, "Takes or Mis-takes from the Revolutionary Poetry Symposium, The Poetry Project, May 5-8, 1994." It was included in the CD-Rom issue of "Little Magazine" on visual poetry. It may still be lurking somewhere in the web. Murat Murat Nemet-Nejat 1122 Bloomfield Street Hoboken, NJ 07030 In a message dated 9/19/01 4:57:11 PM, Lew@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU writes: >Murat: >Thank you for remembering, bc I certainly can't--I think I had abt 8 >minutes to talk so I'm surprised I sd anything coherent. In any >case, although I still believe it is the case that surrealistic >imagery and its associated grammars were often forms of concealed >resistance (rather than of EXPRESSED UNCONSCIOUS), I now feel it's >necessary to give a much more complex description (well, that assumes >there's something fixed to describe) of what Yi Sang, Cho Hyang, Kim >Suyoung and other Korean poets influenced by surrealism (they were >not surrealists per se, thank god, and also belong to different >generations) were doing from the late 1920s to early 60s. I think >it's irresponsible to specify the political aspects of their poetry >w/out being very specific abt the social tensions of the situations >in which/regimes under which they were published and read (and then >re-read later and now). Otherwise we fall into the trap of believing >that a particular form or technique they used was inherently >politically critical (Cho Hyang, for ex, pretty much celebrated forms >of modernist fragmentation while Yi Sang already knew the decay they >portended). It is also possible to interpret them fruitfully w/out >specifying a political purpose (in any useful sense of the term >"political")--as introducers of modernist techniques, etc. > >The term "authority" you used (or rememberd me using) also has to be >clarified. It is natural to assume that it refers to the State (e.g. >Japanese colonial censors, the post-1945 US Military Government in >Korea, or Korean oligarchs), but it is also the case that they (some >of them, at certain times) were rebelling against other forms of >Korean LITERATURE that were more politically explicit and >aesthetically loyal to programs of, for instance, proletarian >revolution or nationalist culture- and economy-building. That wd be >an "authoritarianism" felt horizontally (oxymoron?) within the Korean >literary world (corrugated into "mundan" [literary circles, same term >as Japanese "bundan"]), not vertically vis a vis repressive or >ideological state apparatuses, altho the point of some recent Korean >critics is that a modernist mundan was nowhere near as systematic (in >ideology, objectives, national organization) or united as the >proletarian mundan. It was nonetheless helpful to form one in order >to be part of the illogical yet power-laden literary "field" ( >borrowing from Bourdieu's borrowing of Wittgenstein). > >In a colonial cultural situation, moreover, another form of authority >is the metropole's literature, e.g. the Japanese developments in >modern literature that colonial Korean writers appropriated (in >various ways, for many different reasons, often picking different >aspects, i.e. some looked to Japanese translations of Herbert Spenser >and Marx, others to the Taisho-era "cosmopolitanism" of writers like >Akutagawa Ryunosuke). Also, some went back to Korean literary >traditions (p'ansori romances, folk songs) and also Chinese sources, >but even in that case sometimes to "return" to the classics--but even >then some to the Confucian canon and some to the Taoist and Buddhist >texts--and other times to receive guidance from Chinese modernizers, >like Liang Qiqiao and Lu Xun. There were also negative intertextual >relations, e.g. Kim Suyoung's satirical use of Hollywood images. Homi >Bhabha's concept of hybridity barely begins to capture the off-eddied >complexity, the neural net of such relations, each node constantly >respecifying place, valences, temporary cul-de-sacs in relations to >rescaled others. Before this tempts one to forget the political for >the sake of appreciating transient orbits--but then we have to also >interrogate what we mean by "political" in this very different >cultural context, for the very word that it translates (that >translates it) though written in Chinese characters was one borrowed >from Japanese modernizers' discourse (cf. Lydia Liu's book >Translingual Practice), not that what we call the political didn't >exist before then, but its significance in relation to the self, the >West, governmental structure, etc. was very different--the State was >always a potential source of repression, a form of death, that even a >writer like Yi Sang, avant-garde, decadent et al, cd not avoid being >snared in as his final sentence (death in prison or fear of >it)--altho its earlier forms may have appeared more purely >metaphysical, erotic, futuristic, aesthetic (as long as one dreamed >of the self and its flight upwards > >Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 21:17:57 EDT >From: Murat Nemet-Nejat >Subject: Re: surrealism in East Asia > >Walter, > >If I rember correctly a talk of yours at the Poetry Project a few years >ago, >surrealism was used by a number of Korean(?) poets as a language of coded >communication, against authority. > >Murat >-- >Walter K. Lew >11811 Venice Blvd. #138 >Los Angeles, CA 90066 > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 16:34:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Evans Subject: Spec. Issue of differences: After Patriarchal Poetry Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable After Patriarchal Poetry: Feminism and the Contemporary Avant-Garde a special issue of differences: a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 12.2 (2001) guest edited by Steve Evans http://iupjournals.org/differences/diftoc12.html#v12n2 After patriarchal poetry. I defy anyone to turn a better heel than that while reading. --Gertrude Stein CONTENTS Steve Evans After Patriarchal Poetry: Introductory Note Sianne Ngai Bad Timing (A Sequel). Paranoia, Feminism, and Poetry Lynn Keller "Just one of / the girls: -normal in the extreme": Experimentalists-To-Be Starting Out in the 1960s Susan Holbrook Delirium and Desire in Nicole Brossard's _Le D=E9sert Mauve / Mauve Desert_ Page duBois "An Especially Peculiar Undertaking": Alice Notley's Epic Juliana Spahr "Love Scattered, Not Concentrated Love": Bernadette Mayer's _Sonnets_ Judith Goldman Hannah=3DhannaH: Politics, Ethics, and Clairvoyance in the Work of Hannah We= iner ABOUT differences differences: a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies is edited by Naomi Schor, Elizabeth Weed, and Ellen Rooney. It is a publication of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women at Brown University. Because this is the first issue in the journal's history to focus substantially on poetic practice, I would be interested to hear, however quickly and informally, from any Poetics List members who are not regular readers of the journal but who plan to consult or purchase this issue because of its specific focus on contemporary poetry. Please respond to sender's address above, *not* to Poetics. Individual issues can be purchased at good bookstores or directly from Indiana University Press at http://iupjournals.org/differences/ (scroll down to the "Special Single Issues" category). FROM THE INTRODUCTION The terms most centrally at stake in this special issue of differences-contemporary poetry, feminism, avant-gardism, poststructuralism-do not settle easily into any stable constellation with one another, and that is precisely why they have been chosen. The absorbingly complex and embattled practices these terms designate, the discrepant commitments and discrete historical trajectories each evokes, are treated in these pages as though they were _all and simultaneously_ of consequence to one another. The gesture is counterintuitive, perhaps, but the pitfalls of considering these practices in isolation, or even in pairs, are familiar enough to warrant it. We know very well, for instance, that discussions of avant-garde poetry can carry on for entire generations without ever seriously confronting the question of gender; we know also that poststructuralist theory can sustain a decades long debate about feminine poetics while seldom betraying more than a vague awareness of the actual shapes assumed by contemporary poetic practice; and we know as well how the feminist poetry that has been institutionalized within women's studies programs and teaching anthologies can be restrictively organized around a normative concept of "experience" that renders all but the most tentative formal innovations by women inadmissible and anathematizes theoretical reflection on poetic practice (by poets themselves, by their readers) as an overly intellectualized interference with the immediate pleasures afforded by cathartic identification. An avant-garde without women, a poetics without poetry, a poetry for which entire registers of experience, innovation, and reflexivity are taboo: such are the results of failing to hold, in however tense an engagement, the necessary terms of the complex equation examined in this issue. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 05:07:56 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Pussyfoots Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > But a > movement that surrenders its credibility by pretending that the murder of > more than 5,000 people doesn't warrant a response, or which pussyfoots > around the issue by reframing the assault as "criminal" rather than as an > act of war, will have silenced itself before it has ever had the chance to > speak. What "movement"? What "response"? What "credibility" ? Who are you pointing a finger at as "pussyfooting" around"? Who are the "reframers"? Weren't we silenced before we even began to speak. "Surrendering credibility"? Who, besides the 800 people involved this discussion group, gives a damn what we say? Get real, we're just talking to ourselves, sorting things out & using the collective self called "UB Poetics discussion group" as the sounding board for an otherwise ineffectual conscience. Things as they are not as we would like them to be. Reuven BenYuhmin. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 06:04:35 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Anicca Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Cicadas click clicking away seconds Flying into days running towards Death & death unremarked Because everywhere A N I C C A Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 23:41:39 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Comments: To: wryting@julian.uwo.ca MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit The Writers Forum workshop met on Saturday 22 September 2001. This was the second workshop of the season. I can't tell you about the first as I was out of London then. Amongst other things, there were launch performances of two publications from WF - _duets_ (40 images) and _mutate / cantate_ (13 images), both polychrome visual texts made collaboratively by Bob Cobbing and Lawrence Upton, printed on cards, in commercially-produced folders For the launch the texts were uttered, gestured and danced by Cobbing, Upton & Jennifer Pike _mutate / cantate_ was Cobbing and Upton's second polychrome collaboration [the first is _Fuming_, also from WF], made using collage and manipulation of black and white and colour photocopiers, the images built up element by element and colour by colour on a single colour (i.e. one colour cartridge at a time) single sheet photocopier _duets_ started out as a solo work by Lawrence Upton, a set of computer-generated black and white images to be used as colour separations in polychrome images, which Cobbing then worked upon, overlaying non-matching images, deliberately misaligning them etc in the nature of the technology used (a colour copier human beings can afford) the colours of the final published prints differ somewhat from the originals; and it is hoped to exhibit the originals and to web-publish them in due course Unfortunately these are relatively expensive activities. _mutate / cantate_ is available in UK at £25 plus p & p _duets_ is available in UK at £35 plus p & p New River Project, 89a Petherton Road, London N5 2QT The next WF workshop is in 2 weeks on Saturday 6 October 2001 3.30 for 4 at Betsey Trotwood, Farringdon Rd, London E C 1 all who sympathetic are welcome --------------------------------------------------- http://pages.britishlibrary.net/lawrence.upton/ http://www.crosswinds.net/~subvoicivepoetry/ http://www.crosswinds.net/~writersforum/ --------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 19:42:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: how the message died MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - | how the message died | | | oh don't go to war | | o means nothing but noise | this means nothing but noise | if you read this translate | no don't it means noise means nothing | that means nothing this means noise | noise is noise there are many o's | each is noise this is noise in the message | in the noise of the message is noise | | oh don't go to war | | it means nothing but noise | this means nothing is noise | | someone said just before she went to war | every letter is noise and means nothing | my mouth is dead and filled with broken teeth | my tongue is cut my cunt filled with dirt | my eyes are gouged shrapnel burst my ears | don't go to war it means nothing | don't go to war it means nothing but noise | | someone said just before he went to war | every word is noise and means nothing | my mouth is dead and filled with broken teeth | my tongue is gone my cock torn off | my eyes are gouged my ears around your neck | don't go to war it means nothing | don't go to war it means nothing but noise | | if you listen to the letter you hear the noise | if you listen to the word you hear the noise | | oh don't go to war | it means nothing but noise | | | | | | ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 18:46:05 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: Lorenzo Thomas on WriteNet Comments: To: writenet@twc.org In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Daniel, That is a great interview. I took many notes. Thank you. cheers, kevin -- Don't withdraw. Use words. Bob Holman ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 17:32:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: irony or a few generational thoughts, MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >Well that's all from me but just consider this a reminder that no generation is > "the greatest", and also (note irony) that generational proclamations are > really boring. Cheers Elizabeth This seems true to me. I'd go a bit further, however, and say that the Internet has wiped out the notion of generations. On this list, for example, as on most, the number of years one has, or hasn't, lived is not relevant. This is refreshing. We all learn from each other. -Joel Joel Weishaus Center for Excellence in Writing Portland State University Portland, Oregon. http://web.pdx.edu/~pdx00282 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 18:00:23 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: Transitional object or ego ideal? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Barrett Watten: > The notion that one's changed feelings toward the flag might involve the > need to be comforted by a transitional object seems to me not a good > psychoanalytic account. A transitional object is a cat or blanket or thing > to suck on that mediates the absence of the caring parent. Freud, in *Group > Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego*--part of his meditation on the > psychology of nationalism post WWI--lays out a more relevant set of terms. > A flag is the symbol of a nation or group. What is the relation of self to > this symbol of the nation? It seems to me this is precisely where the > question of the flag rests--whether I identify with it or not. I was seeing all those Nazi flags goose-stepping along as I read the above. Like the "USA! USA!" cheers at the Olympics, which I found embarrassing. By the way, isn't there is an Olympics in Utah in a few months? I shutter to think of the security problems. A terrific > account of aggressivity and group processes, with implications for the > nature of national identity, is Bill Bufords' Among the Thugs--on soccer > fans in the UK, but by extension, on the lack of self that leads to > aggression in numbers. I do agree, however, that the flag has been > displayed in a way that has more to do with mourning than with aggression > this past week--the flag is a substitute for a lost object. What, > precisely, is the nature of that object? Our sense of well being in the > world? Maybe lost innocence? However, Americans have a propensity to hang on to their illusions about themselves. All people do, until the bitter end. A transitional object is not primarily described in the context of > mourning. Rather, as Freud saw it, there is a need to reencounter the > things of the world, one by one, when faced with a catastrophic loss. A > process of reintegration. Perhaps the flag is a step in that direction for > some, and the act of forgetting other political valences a part of the > process as well. What bothers me is that I got the same sinking feeling I had during the Vietnam War, the one that tells me we can't win this one for the Giffer. That we're on a disasterous course. What I heard in Bush's speech was, "We're the greatest," and, "You better do what we want, or else." If he had also said, "I understand that there are people who hate us, and with some reason. We've made mistakes. We must learn to be more tolerant of other societies, and of each other," I'd wave a flag too. -Joel ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 21:23:37 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Thompson Subject: Re: What is to be criticized MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I would like to thank Barrett Watten for taking the trouble to answer Ron Silliman's post at such length, and with such care. I have been too busy with my non-List life to respond to anything on any e-mail list with such attention and such care. I say this with regret. However, I have also come to realize that I have in fact benefitted from this List's responses to the WTC and Pentagon attacks, both from the personal accounts that people have sent in, to the attempts at critical response to the Bush 'crusade' rhetoric, the flag-waving and the semiotics of the flag, etc. I personally have greatly valued the efforts of those who have forwarded messages and URL's that throw some informed light on these events that have so unnerved us all. And because of all of these things that the List has given to me, I have come to feel a certain debt, and a responsibility, to try to make some contribution of my own to this community to which, I now know, I gratefully belong. To tell the truth, though, I was greatly annoyed with Ron Silliman's post. Of course, some of the Leftist rhetoric that we have heard on this as well as other lists is tired and ineffectual. But the fact that the Left is not heard in the US, it seems obvious to me, is not the result of its inadequacies, as much as it is the result of the fact that the culture of the US [not America, as George Bowering rightly observes] is intransigently Right-wing, eternally xenophobic, grossly ignorant, and blissfully self-involved [and this explains why GW Bush earns 90 % approval ratings these days: he is a perfect representative of his constituency]. Even on this List of reasonably well-informed people, there are many who still cannot tell the difference between a Sikh and a Muslim -- and so the shooting of the one in the place of the other is -- well, let's just call it collateral damage. To be brief and personal: I myself am not inclined to compromise in any way watsoever with the anguished bloodlust of my neighbors in this town where I live, or in the national media, or on this List. I don't care what the US public demands of its spineless politicians [I do not see any leaders among them, none whatsoever]. Nothing justifies the infliction of still more atrocities on still more innocent victims, i.e., innocent bystanders. In fact, the US military CANNOT POSSIBLY attack the terrorists who committed the awful atrocities that have become such major, prize-winning, media events -- without also attacking countless numbers of innocent bystanders. We are being coaxed by vicious idiots into thinking that 'collateral damage' is perfectly acceptable when it comes to Afghanis -- but in fact that is what those terrorists thought of their victims on those hijacked airplanes and in the WTC towers -- they were innocent, but unfortunately necessary, "collateral damage." If the US goes into Afghanistan or Iraq with the same attitude that the terrorists took with their own bodies into the WTC towers, it is no better than the ghastly, inhuman terrorists who assaulted all of human feeling and morality in their attacks of Sept 11, 2001. As for all of the current flag-waving, I detest it, no matter what the feelings that inspire it. The flag is not a transitional object. It is a clear-cut unambiguous sign of the crudest sort of nationalism that we should all reject. I don't know about Ron Silliman or the rest of you, but as for me, compassion does not flow only toward my neighbors, indeed my friends and relatives in NYC. No, it runs in all directions, infinnitely, to Arabs, Palestinians, all Muslims as well as all Christians and Jews, never mind the majority of the rest of the species. It extends in fact to all sentient beings, in fact [I read Buddhist texts in Pali and in Sanskrit, and I take my reading very seriously]. To me it is unforgivable that we can tolerate brutality against so many, of so many races and so many ethnicities, so many animals of all sorts. The rest of the world has had to live with US terrorism for decades. Now we must live with this terrorism too. It is awful for all of us. Awful. For every single one of us, among whom I include Iraqis and Afghanis, Algerians and Saudis, et al. Sorry, I do not recognize national borders when it comes to my capacity for compassion. If we all detest the religous fundamentalism of the Taliban, as we should, we should also detest the same thing among our so-called leaders, and their leaders, among whom are to be counted the vapid likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson. Our enemies come in many shapes and sizes and ethniciities, and as far as I can tell, they are all situated to my right, and they are all nationalists. The left is not the problem. George Thompson ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 00:24:31 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: Infinite Justice MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit poor no graphic just is Murat ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 08:42:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bertha Rogers Subject: Littree Forum and CLMP Roundtable MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/enriched; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Dear Littree Members, In light of the terrible events of September 11th, http://www.nyslittree.org will be offering a Forum Page for those of you who wish to express your thoughts; send in the body of an email (we will not open any attachments) to wordthur@catskill.net . In addition: The New York State Council on the Arts has requested that we forward the following message: Dear CLMP members, New York State literary publishers and literary arts > > > administrators: > > > > > > The Council of Literary Magazines and Presses has decided to postpone the > > > scheduled topic for next Tuesday's NYTAP roundtable- "Branching Out to > > > Books"-so that the panel can serve as a forum for the literary community > > to > > > respond to and discuss the recent tragedies in New York City, Washington > > > D.C. and Pennsylvania. Several publishers and members of the literary > > > community have expressed an interest in talking to one another to reflect > > > upon how recent events will effect their publishing and other literary > > > endeavors. > > > > > > CLMP and the New York State Council on the Arts Literature Program invite > > > you to attend the roundtable to explore and express how recent events may > > > influence ideas of mission, purpose in publishing, editorial content and > > > responsibility, and the role of literature in light of recent events. > > Most > > > importantly, after many days of concern expressed at a distance via e-mail > > > and phone calls, CLMP and NYSCA would like to provide an opportunity for > > > our community to talk together in person about the events that have > > > impacted all of our lives. > > > > > > The panel will include Joanna Yas of Open City Books, Rebecca Wolff of > > > Fence magazine, poet Kimiko Hahn, and M. Mark of PEN America Journal. > > > CLMP's new executive director, Jeffrey Lependorf, will introduce the > > panel. > > > Refreshments and a chance to mingle and talk afterwards will be available. > > > > > > The roundtable will take place at Teachers and Writers Collaborative in > > New > > > York City, 7pm to 9pm, on Tuesday, September 25. 5 Union Square West, 7th > > > Floor > > > (L,N, R, 4, 5, 6 trains to 14th Street/Union Sq.) > > > > > > Admission free. > > > > > > PLEASE RSVP by 12pm on Tuesday, September 25. 212.741.9110 x 16, > > > tneedham@clmp.org > > > It is very important that we know in advance if you intend to attend! > > > Thank you. > > > > > > The Roundtable is part of CLMP's New York State Technical Assistance > > > Program [NYTAP], made possible with public funds from the New York State > > > Council on the Arts, a state agency. > > > > > > Best regards, > > >Tara --------------------------------------------- Bertha Rogers, Littree ------------------------------------------------- > > ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 10:30:00 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Scott Bentley Subject: A pedagogical question from Scott Bentley MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear listees, I've enjoyed reading the different responses that folks have had to the Trade Center tragedy. I'd imagine that most of you are at semester schools, and many of those in New York. I teach in California, at CSU Hayward, on a quarter system. As such, we haven't started up yet. This coming quarter I'll teach "Rhetoric and Argument," "Basic Composition" and maybe a poetry workshop. I'm wondering if some of you teach, and if some of you, like me, teach basic grunt classes with a lot of young students. I'm wondering how/if y'all have begun to talk about in your classes the current political situation. At CSU Hayward I last week called a meeting of my fellow adjunct composition teachers, some of whom attended. We began to talk about ways to approach this whole mess in the class room, but we didn't really get all that far. We have one more meeting before school starts up, so I'm wondering if y'all might have any ideas (since many of you, I'd guess, find yourselves in the thick of it). I've looked at a number of interesting sites: <>, <> and a good many others. But I'm more interested in hearing your first-hand experiences. How's it going in the class? What are students saying? How are you responding?, etc. If anyone's interested, let's start a thread. Or else, if this topic is too off the mark of the subject of Poetics, I'd enjoy emails off-list <>. Best, Scott Bentley ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 13:53:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mike Kelleher Subject: A Word On Language In A Time Of Crisis Comments: To: UB Core Poetics Poetics Seminar Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable A Word On Language In A Time Of Crisis It is the nature of both history and language that they are bound by a principle of change. =B3Things change=B2 might be the most adequate statement of a philosophy of history I can think of. Historical change in language generally happens very slowly. Meanings evolve through slight variations i= n word usage over time. However, in the wake of =B3The Events of September 11th=B2, many commonplace words, through their media-enhanced association wit= h a single image fraught with the grief and suffering of so many, seem to hav= e had their meanings changed over night. Before =B3The Events of September 11th,=B2 a =B3skyscraper=B2 was, =B3a very tall building=B2; an =B3airplane=B2 was, =B3an aircraft kept aloft by the aerodynamic forces upon its wings and driven forward by a screw propeller or by other means, as jet propulsion=B2; and a =B3collapse=B2 was, =B3a falling in or together, as the sides of a hollow vessel.=B2 Now, the definition of =B3skyscraper=B2 must include, =B3a tall, symbolic and functional structure, vulnerable to highly coordinated terrorist attack=B2; =B3airplane=B2, =B3extremely lethal airborne explosive device=B2; and =B3collapse,=B2 =B3collateral damage to financial infrastructures and markets caused by unexpected terrorist attacks.=B2 I doub= t anyone will ever again be able to watch an =B3airplane=B2 fly behind a =B3skyscraper=B2 without remembering the =B3collapse.=B2 And not without a certain amount of anxiety, either. Before =B3The Events of September 11th,=B2 a cell-phone was =B3a hand-held or mobile radio-telephone providing access to a cellular radio network.=B2 Now it is an =B3emergency communications device used under highly dangerous circumstances, such as hijackings and explosions, to report locations of victims, logistics of attacks and, in certain irreversible situations, fina= l messages to loved ones.=B2 As of this writing, the only definition for the word =B3box-cutter=B2 I have been able to find is buried in the OED: =B3A person employed in cutting out the material for boxes.=B2 I can find no definition that refers to =B3a tool with a sliding, retractable razor used for cutting boxes.=B2 It feels a little late for that definition now, because it too mus= t be modified with the addendum =B3or for sneaking past underpaid, poorly trained airport security personnel to launch a suicide attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, cf. =8CThe Events of September 11th.=B9=B2 When we say that the meanings of these words have changed, I think we are really saying that the context in which we use these words has changed, which modifies the possibilities for their usage. Over time, this can result in a change in their meaning, but at present it constitutes only an alteration in their use. Gertrude Stein said, =B3Nothing makes a difference = a difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending except that each generation has something different at which they are looking.=B2 What has changed is what we are looking at, and what we are looking at is that. We are looking at the repeated image of the airplane crashing into the skyscraper. We are looking at the skyscraper and the stock market collapse= . We are looking at a world that is no longer constituted by 180 nations competing with a single superpower for control of the global market, but rather by a division between Western democratic nations and a network of semi-autonomous cells of well-funded terrorists intent on killing innocent civilians, even at the cost of their own lives. We are looking at the possibility of the curbing of civil liberties, of decreased privacy, of increased security, and in a worst-case scenario of Spartan discipline brought to bear on civilian life in a long, hard, painful, costly war. We are, it seems, =B3united=B2 in our attention to that image. What concerns me about this is not whether or not our declaration of =B3a new kind of war=B2 against a =B3nameless, faceless=B2 enemy is just. I think it is. I think that Al Qaeda and the Taliban =AD any armed religious fanatics for that matter =AD jeopardize the stability of the entire world. What concerns me is the ease with which we are allowing certain other aspects of the language to change, which change can have serious long-term consequence= s for the way we understand them and our government in the future. Very disconcerting is the use of words like =B3god=B2 and =B3prayer=B2 in any kind of governmental communication including, and especially, presidential addresses. Since =B3The Events of September 11th,=B2 the president has felt no qualms about associating the mourning process with religious ceremony, retaliation with Christian morality, and grieving with prayer, all under th= e aegis of =B3compassionate government in a time of crisis.=B2 It is the linguistic and institutional =B3separation of church and state=B2 which keeps this country from teetering off the already precarious cliff of Christian fundamentalism into the abyss of religious fanaticism that envelops the members of so many of these terrorist networks. To use this event to promote, implicitly or explicitly, the federalization of religious sentiment in America is to risk committing the same crime as the Taliban. This may be a =B3just=B2 war, but it is not a =B3holy=B2 one. This =B3war=B2 is not about defending Christian values; it is about defending the citizens of democratic nations from the threat of terrorist attacks. If history teache= s us anything about language, it is that it doesn=B9t take a thousand years to change the meaning of =B3God is with us in our time of national mourning=B2 to =B3God is on our side.=B2 It can happen over night. Mike Kelleher (Definitions taken from OED Online and Webster=B9s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, Deluxe Second Edition) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:43:48 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: FW: It's 8:23 in New York MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In regard to my last response to this: the fact is hat if I look at what has occurred, and ask my self.... would I ever be so anti capitalist or anti anything to fly an aeroplane through a building? Would I prefer to be a crazy Muslim and do away with what IS great about Western civilisation? My answer would be no. Never. Today woke up and I tried to remember the events on TV (they seem to me to be just that) and there's a strange air of irreality about them. With all the suppposed "aggressiveness" of the US (and I dont know if Bush's response is going to do ant good) .... I dont know. There is - as the old saying goes - no rhyme or reason. I think we are all spinning hopelessly toward a total annihilation when we will be free of torment. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Leevi Lehto" To: Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 9:34 AM Subject: FW: It's 8:23 in New York [the following was begun as a posting to this list, then turned into a personal mail to Charles Bernstein. At Charles' encouragement, I now share it with all you at the list. Leevi Lehto] leevi.lehto@substanssi.fi http://www.leevilehto.net/english.asp -----Original Message----- From: Leevi Lehto Sent: 20. syyskuuta 2001 11:52 To: 'Charles Bernstein' Subject: RE: It's 8:23 in New York Dear Charles, First of all, thank you so much for your postings at the poetics list - they, together with all the discussion going on there, have done a great job in making "all this", well, both heavier and lighter, to me. Somehow, it hasn't been that simple to assume the "brave" stance of the New Yorkers reported from hour to hour on TV. I've really been very down, mentally, this whole week. Feeling deprived of the meaning (or the meaning of meaning) in just about everything. Growing more and more addicted to the CNN... Not depressed, but utterly confused, disappointed to so many things, species, ideas, movements, perspectives, persons - myself (and yes, certain amount of what's been going on the list, also) included. Terrified, I almost forgot to say. Horrified to the point of wanting to vomit. Sad. And angry. And angry at having to think it over and over again, inside my own head, as I'm going to do here... Actually it's kind of strange, that I, who, as you know, do not consider myself that much of a leftist nowadays, should have come think of the "all this" so predominantly from a leftist perspective. This is one of the things that have been haunting me: among so much and so seemingly spontaneous talk about the "responsibility" of "us" - "the West", "the America" - to "this", i.e. about certain "justification" for what those 19 well-shaven men did, I'm still to hear the question on the *lefts own* responsibility, in that case. I mean: if there's a - smallest - justification... what in that case about the responsibility of all (us) who have, in different contexts, been preaching about the necessity to "strike" the "system", to "blow it up", to "hit the enemy" at its weakest, i.e. most vulnerable, i.e. sometimes seemingly strongest point ... The attacks have bin Ladens "signature", they say. Well, they also have the signature of all urgings to strike, to throw out, to hit, to reveal ... They are all about that rhetoric finally gone abominably awry. What have *we* done to prevent that happening? What will we do to prevent it happening again? As I wrote in one of my earliest notes to "this": I think I have seen the eyes that have seen the eyes of Osama bin Laden. My hand was helping to lift the hand that rose to point to the target. Well, maybe that connects to one of the oldest problems of the left: maybe there never really were that many actual leftists at all - just followers after followers believing others being the real leftists... I've become to think pretty much along the lines suggested by Tamir Ansary (quoted in the post by Alan Sondheim, September 15...), and I almost fully agree with Ron Silliman in his excellent analysis of the "lefts" dilemmas today. To me, it's spurious to compare, and weigh against each others, the attacks on the Towers, and, say, the Clinton bombings in Sudan, when clearly both, ultimately, result from the same plan. It's sad, and embarrassing, to see a mind like Noam Chomsky's to fall into that trap... Yes, the Nazis keep coming to mind. Yet I believe the enemy, or time, or the stakes, are worse than that this time around. Much worse. That's one of the saddening things: that it's so open, to everyone, to see what is at stake - the whole of the civilization, the modernization, the idea of (any kind of) progress, human dignity and rights, literacy, freedom to speech, to gender, to be even... and yet, truly, it doesn't seem to hit home. So, is there, behind all the talk about the culpability of the Americans, of the "we" or the "they" getting what they've been asking for, a more deep-going indifference towards the civilization as such? Which, then, may not deserve to be defended that strongly? No, of course I don't think that way. As an old leftist, I keep thinking about the Front Populaire against Nazism - how long it took to build up (they tell). The enormous amount of prejudices (and hair-splitting about the "real" or "ultimate" "responsibility" of "ruling classes", on the left, and the "reality" of the danger, on both sides) to be left behind before the democrats, right and left, in France,then in the whole Europe, later on the world scale in the WW2 could join forces - to what still is the most spectacular, if not only, permanent result of all the left's struggles - the victory over Nazism. "Do you think this is going to lead to the World War Three", Kirsi asked me during the first hours. "No", I reassured her, "this *is* it." I still think that way. I'm afraid I sound a little less reassured day by day... Yes: I do think it's a war. True, every time Bush (the-son-of-a-Bush) walks to the screen, I feel embarrassed about his "Dad, look, I've got my own war here now" vein of putting things. Still: he is the elected leader of the leading nation of the civilized world that's under an extremely dangerous attack. There's no way around it, nor need there be. He is my commander-in-chief in this. Period. Besides, much of what many representatives of "the Bush administration" are saying makes perfect sense to me. The idea of a "new kind of war" in many ways echoes what we are used to hear from the "progressive" security policy experts: how the real threats have ceased to be nation states, armies, bombs - being poisons, environment, weather, and terrorism instead. Yes, I too am concerned about the perspective of premature efforts at seizing "the prime suspect", not to speak about bombing Afghanistan. But not because we supposedly lack evidence on the man (his interviews alone would suffice...). On the contrary: because that might compromise the longer perspective, shroud from view the necessity to wage a *really* long term ... hmmm ... battle. Which will involve new ways of attack, but new modes of defence also. This is the most important, and to my view, the most neglected point here. That we are under an absolute necessity to defence ourselves, and that we can do that by (cannot do that without) *changing our society*, our civilization, our way of life - which haven't necessarily be to the worse. That among this tremendous sadness, there are glints of an enormous hope - of people getting together, starting to do something together, to some of the most important issues determining the future of the planet, of all us. That, for these reasons also, the left needs be involved in the defence, not critizising it from outside. Yes, I believe it's time to dig the good old Gandhi out from beneath the rubble of cold and other wars - and start thinking how the doctrine of passive resistance might be applied in this new war. To prevent the next strike, which I too fear may well involve biological and/or nuclear components. To take new, decisive steps towards further disarmament, nuclear and otherwise. Now, when the need for these kinds of measures, for once, is so evident to everybody. But nothing on these lines can be done, if we refuse to accept the common cause - the need to preserve the humanity, the civilization. In the final analysis (as we used to say), the problem is not about seeing and acknowledging the enemy (although this is important too) - it's about our willingness to come together... There will be societal changes, whether we want them or not. Not all of them will have any bearing on democracy and freedom - like tightening the security on airplanes (ok), fewer flights (well, so nice you were here already... and we *do* plan to come over during the Autumn...). Others will be more problematic... What I'm specifically interested in is the now almost inevitable perspective of "more documented life" (Bill Gates (!)) - fraught with dangers, of course, but also containing seeds to something new, including the idea of everybody as publisher - which of course is already manifested, in a rudimental form, in the present day Internet... Which may well be one of the main lines of defence... ...After all... it was build to fight terrorism... by the US military... None of these and other things can be done overnight, and none without the ingenuity, the innovativeness... ...of the people? ...of America? ...of the left? ...of the poetry? Well, in my first notes, again, I also wrote about "nothing, the least the poetry, being the same / any more". (I also wrote: "Ich bin (sic) ein Amerikaner jetzt...") And, in a mock-brechtian note: "What a time! When / talk about the meaning of meaning is almost crime, in the face / of this meaningless / crime so / full of meaning..." As you know, I had made the decision not to write in Finnish any more, and was wondering whether I could start learning to write in English instead. Now, there seemed to be a double impossibility to write (and I was also frustrated by the futility of the question as such: what difference would it make in which language I decide to fall silent (this one also coming from Brecht...) To be honest, this was one of the reasons to be angry to "the perpetrators": what right did they have to come and muddle the quiet waters of my self-complacent post-leftist life of mulling about the value of language and poetry ... Of having interesting conversations on the meaning of meaning. The word *interesting* seeming to be impossible to use any more. Then I remembered how I spent the night before the strike - i.e. translating some of my dadaistic sonnets into English. Here's one draft, translated, in ways, back, not to, but towards, the 73rd sonnet of Shakespeare, from which the Finnish "original" ("Joko Ono Mato") was a pseudo-homophonic version: John Winston Worm that time. Of year. No roots. No rats o yellow leaves, o run, or few do hang upon these boughs... So what? Against the odds "bare-ruined-choirs". Muchos Grazias. The bats in me this mean, this twilight, nights as after sunset. Poising in west by and by black night. Japanese tights death's second shell. Salsa in the rest my fatal past-time, glowing of such halo on the ashes as of this youth: then die then death-bed, the here in Borsalino consumed by taxi. Amen. Hand nourished by what thou perceivest, so make thy love more strong to love that well, which thou must leave ere long To me, at least, incredibly in ways, this humble draft speaks rather straightforwardly about what has happened, since. As it should. As all poetry ("even my poetry") should? And what about this other draft, where the remote origins are a stanza in Pushkin's Yevgeni Onegin (the one with the shot) and the Helsinki tabloid's on the Versaci murder in summer 1997: Paparazzi. Now (Onegin One) Pressing at chest the new hand now he wonders: who. Ash in his expression gets unseen - masks to borrow, for each to allow own, to give the cushion. A number of steeps he downwards stoops routinely frothing - frolicking, with many a wealthy client shivering. Turnkeys get turned. We see the licking. Escaping arrived here three days past: now is no more! To a miamibeachian cast of eternity has over-gone, and oops! full blossom of the vibes now knows the one, who at stages used to shine, to cross, to over-trot, to bet, behave. This could be offered as a contorted mirror of, and for, what happened - including all this rummaging about the responsibility, the who did what, the implications, ways to act against, the dangers of getting divided, ways to come together... Maybe the poetry, for one, need *not* change, after all. Maybe *that's* the way for poetry to change, now as always. Maybe that's the way it already *did* change. As it should? In any case, I'm sure that poetry, understood as working with mysteries, uncertainties, and, yes, that which does not have a meaning, voice, words, yet, is crucially important at these kind of times when people need to think "all over again". Of course, it's only poetry. Poetry never was the whole life. But in a way it is all about resistance - and very often passive at that... Well, and at least writing this has been an enormous relief to me. I wrote it to you. I couldn't bring myself to write to the list - it didn't seem appropriate, in a way, yet. I wanted address someone I know... but of course you are free to circulate this, in any ways you might find advisable. And it would be interesting to hear what you think about some of the things I said. Hey, there's the word - *interesting*. I'm moving on. We are going to make it. We are going to survive. Love, Leevi ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:58:45 -0600 Reply-To: Mary Angeline Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mary Angeline Subject: Fw: Re Ginsy Comments: To: roderick iverson , Reed Bye , Matthew Langley , John Reeves , Ian Ayres MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable List Folk, In july a friend sent this writing on to me and I was supposed to send = it on to you...sorry its so late, but given the recent events it seems = calling up Allen Ginsberg spirit couldn't hurt. ----- Original Message -----=20 From: ken wainio=20 To: maryangeline@earthlink.net=20 Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 12:44 AM Subject: Re Ginsy NECROPOLIS X " . . . it is understood that in this Kali Yuga age of destruction breath, meditation, mind, intelligence and works are hopeless to raise the soul out of its materialist mire - only sheer joy will save us." A.G. Allen Ginsberg pilots the White House through a cloud of rioting squid. = These creatures seldom put up with elements let alone the Grand Master = of Common Sense. Poets flying unknown flags remember occasional dead = presidents but not on the job. Why just the other decade I was smoking = out a few visionary bison with some Arkansas nerve gas. Better known as = dream killer, young quivering attention having migrated over to the = cooler where some Necropolian lawyers are drinking distilled Watergate = piss. I was smoking out a few homogenous Clintons just as Allen burst = through the door announcing his death in alchemized words, sitting zazen = on a cloud just over Katmandu. The raindrops falling on his ashes were = speaking in tongues. Rimbaud was taking dictation. The Pacific Ocean = writes back in squid ink Allen Ginsberg pilots the White House through a range of lost breath, = pausing at the corner of Broadway and Columbus, circa 1975. About 2 AM. = You afraid of me, boy? Breathe, breathe! Put it out there, kick this = broken glass, write about these dog turds. I don't believe in = surrealism. But yeah I love Philip Lamantia. Breathe, breathe The White House falls into a stormy conservation camp, the whole place = looks like Central Park on laughing gas. Ginsberg lowers the flag. Nixon = tailgates, yelling slogans. Mao smiles in the background, selling = postcards of the obedient Sphinx. Never mutter about the forms that = shackle. Shout instead. Have Naked Lunch on the White House lawn. I = drool when I read Howl. Gregory Corso shoots up the Indian Ocean, = collapsed veins resurface in the Dead Sea. You leave India through = unknown incarnations of Buddha and arrive right here on Columbus time. = Kali Yuga=20 Allen pilots the presidential palace between the house and senate like = an open grave, indignant of the talking dead. The electoral collge = multiplies. You are it and have planned it all the while these millions = of incarnations and deserve it like a true bastard. God's name stamped = on your heavy luggage. I never want to go to bed, I never want to die = printed in the margin The riot is taking place on the other side of the rainbow, just as a = hole opens in a killer nation's brain, more peaceful than stars seen = after a hurricane. The Washington Monument takes off, a spearhead with = god knows what Christ at the controls. It is going up some decadent = Holstein's one-legged Yuga, call Bovine Brothers and Sister's Anonymous. = I ended up in jail because God wouldn't listen to a poem Alien Allen cuts himself a piece of Florida and sits down in a = thunderstorm in Ohio. No, it's Oahu. Hunter Thompson is there = administrating last rites as Tim Leary purrs in on his coping jet, = having found a can of psychoactive anti-squid spray, guaranteed to cool = the coolest of rioting surrealists. However Spiral Agnew has written in = a margin of the Everglades that fear and loathing can never leave you, = love and liberty follow suit The Statue of Liberty has been torn down and Allen is poised there hands = up to the Apocalypse like he's hailing a cab. It could be Hale-Bopp, it = could be the mothership full of spirit boys. But where are their = genitals? Maybe they are girls this incarnation. Maybe the women lopped = them off to keep the men from going to war. There's a pretty big grave = of genitals somewhere in this Necropolis and we better find it before = the giant squid do. Until then just be reassured Allen has won the Mr. = Universe Contest. Breathe, man, breathe out. Here he comes through the = broken whole of our holiness, the Dali Mama. Breathe, baby, breathe out, = lest the giant squid prevail. Ancient Allen rests his case Mary,=20 Thanks for the Treadwell/Ginsberg inspiration. I needed it. Enclosed (I = guess above, this computer or serving party is always messing with me) = is some bardic stuff of my own based on an old acid trip. Amazing how = much mileage you can get off a little pill. Rod was just here visiting. = We talked incessantly, doing aquatic things also.=20 Best, Ken -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------- Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:51:15 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG)" Subject: FW: allen curnow Comments: cc: "poetryetc@jiscmail.ac.uk" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" -----Original Message----- From: Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG) Sent: Monday, 24 September 2001 2:49 p.m. To: 'poetics@kiistserv.acsu.buffalo.edu' Cc: 'poetryetc@jiscmail.ac.uk' Subject: allen curnow My father died last night shortly after seven. There are I know many on the list who know his work and who will be saddened by his death. He didn't suffer. A cold that had gone to his chest on Saturday was a concern and he went to hospital. By the end of the day and a range of tests all seemed well but he was to stay there for a day or two under observation. After dinner last night his heart stopped all of a sudden. He turned 90 this year. His last book, The Bells of St Babels, Auckland University Press, came out earlier this year and won the Montana Prize for Poetry. The Carcanet edition will be published this week. He had given quite a few readings this year, the last being a week ago in Auckland. Just before that he was in the studio recording a three hours selection of his work for the BBC archives. As all this suggests, he surrendered very little to age before it ran out of patience with him. Long live poetry! Wystan. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 23:32:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: hassen Subject: Re: hmmm MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit hi tom >>I'm not clear how anti-fundamentalism de-programming could be questionable?<< i hesitate proposing any sort of psych method because i know so little about it & certainly don't know the possible negative ramifications. perhaps it could cause a backlash or be used to nurture yet another cult/religious group with the same negative potential. and so on. & of course the moral dilemma of tinkering with another's mind with 'righteous' intent, given the relative nature of 'truth,' 'help,' etc... h ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 02:09:07 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: FW: On an airplane Comments: To: smallwinkz@hotmail.com Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Too bizarre, too funny, too ridiculous, couldn't resist forwarding this. Reuven BenYuhmin ======================================================================== Subject: FW: on an airplane This is pretty neat.... Read this and recall why we call him/her "Captain." The following is from a letter by a professional and her return flight to D.C. this week. "I just wanted to drop you all a note and let you know that I arrived safe and sound into Dulles Airport tonight [9/15] at about 6:00. It was an interesting flight. The airport in Denver was almost spooky, it was so empty and quiet. No one was in line for the security check point when I got there so that went fairly quickly, just x-ray of my bags and then a chemical test to be sure nothing explosive was on them. Then I waited 2 * hours to board the plane. What happened after we boarded was interesting and thought I would share it with you. The pilot/captain came on the loudspeaker after the doors were closed. His speech went like this: First I want to thank you for being brave enough to fly today. The doors are now closed and we have no help from the outside for any problems that might occur inside this plane. As you could tell when you checked in, the government has made some changes to increase security in the airports. They have not, however, made any rules about what happens after those doors close. Until they do that, we have made our own rules and I want to share them with you. Once those doors close, we only have each other. The security has taken care of a threat like guns with all of the increased scanning, etc. Then we have the supposed bomb. If you have a bomb, there is no need to tell me about it, or anyone else on this plane; you are already in control. So, for this flight, there are no bombs that exist on this plane. Now, the threats that are left are things like plastics, wood, knives, and other weapons that can be made or things like that which can be used as weapons. Here is our plan and our rules. If someone or several people stand up and say they are hijacking this plane, I want you all to stand up together. Then take whatever you have available to you and throw it at them. Throw it at their faces and heads so they will have to raise their hands to protect themselves. The very best protection you have against knives are the pillows and blankets. Whoever is close to these people should then try to get a blanket over their head-then they won't be able to see. Once that is done, get them down and keep them there. Do not let them up. I will then land the plane at the closest place and we WILL take care of them. After all, there are usually only a few of them and we are 200+ strong! We will not allow them to take over this plane. I find it interesting that the US Constitution begins with the words "We, the people"-that's who we are, THE people and we will not be defeated. With that, the passengers on the plane all began to applaud, people had tears in their eyes, and we began the trip toward the runway. The flight attendant then began the safety speech. One of the things she said is that we are all so busy and live our lives at such a fast pace. She asked that everyone turn to their neighbors on either side and introduce themselves, tell each other something about your families and children, show pictures, whatever. She said "for today, we consider you family. We will treat you as such and ask that you do the same with us." Throughout the flight we learned that for the crew, this was their first flight since Tuesday's tragedies. It was a day that everyone leaned on each other and together everyone was stronger than any one person alone. It was quite an experience. Subject: FW: on an airplane This is pretty neat.... Read this and recall why we call him/her "Captain." The following is from a letter by a professional and her return flight to D.C. this week. "I just wanted to drop you all a note and let you know that I arrived safe and sound into Dulles Airport tonight [9/15] at about 6:00. It was an interesting flight. The airport in Denver was almost spooky, it was so empty and quiet. No one was in line for the security check point when I got there so that went fairly quickly, just x-ray of my bags and then a chemical test to be sure nothing explosive was on them. Then I waited 2 * hours to board the plane. What happened after we boarded was interesting and thought I would share it with you. The pilot/captain came on the loudspeaker after the doors were closed. His speech went like this: First I want to thank you for being brave enough to fly today. The doors are now closed and we have no help from the outside for any problems that might occur inside this plane. As you could tell when you checked in, the government has made some changes to increase security in the airports. They have not, however, made any rules about what happens after those doors close. Until they do that, we have made our own rules and I want to share them with you. Once those doors close, we only have each other. The security has taken care of a threat like guns with all of the increased scanning, etc. Then we have the supposed bomb. If you have a bomb, there is no need to tell me about it, or anyone else on this plane; you are already in control. So, for this flight, there are no bombs that exist on this plane. Now, the threats that are left are things like plastics, wood, knives, and other weapons that can be made or things like that which can be used as weapons. Here is our plan and our rules. If someone or several people stand up and say they are hijacking this plane, I want you all to stand up together. Then take whatever you have available to you and throw it at them. Throw it at their faces and heads so they will have to raise their hands to protect themselves. The very best protection you have against knives are the pillows and blankets. Whoever is close to these people should then try to get a blanket over their head-then they won't be able to see. Once that is done, get them down and keep them there. Do not let them up. I will then land the plane at the closest place and we WILL take care of them. After all, there are usually only a few of them and we are 200+ strong! We will not allow them to take over this plane. I find it interesting that the US Constitution begins with the words "We, the people"-that's who we are, THE people and we will not be defeated. With that, the passengers on the plane all began to applaud, people had tears in their eyes, and we began the trip toward the runway. The flight attendant then began the safety speech. One of the things she said is that we are all so busy and live our lives at such a fast pace. She asked that everyone turn to their neighbors on either side and introduce themselves, tell each other something about your families and children, show pictures, whatever. She said "for today, we consider you family. We will treat you as such and ask that you do the same with us." Throughout the flight we learned that for the crew, this was their first flight since Tuesday's tragedies. It was a day that everyone leaned on each other and together everyone was stronger than any one person alone. It was quite an experience. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 21:53:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Crisis page Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I've been working on my crisis page, and these are the results so far: www.english.wayne.edu/~watten/crisis Obviously there is only so much one can do with the vast amount of information flooding in at the moment. Building a page like this may simply be one way to deal with it. I'm trying to be useful and representative, within my limits. There's obviously much to be done with the bibliography of poetry and war. I assume that linking reports, poems, discussion, and other material from the Listserv is OK with those linked, but if you have any reservation about it let me know. I'm interested particularly in more links to "aesthetic" response. What is that? Could be, but not necessarily, a topical poem. It could be a quirky detail or link to visual information. For instance, I found Michael Gottlieb's note on WCW's fire engine to be the kind of "aesthetic" detail that I would like to find more of. Ditto Muffy Bolding's forward of a url to that horrific album cover. Ditto mez's web page, where her current poems are displayed, and George Hartley's "Saturation Bombing." Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 21:35:14 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: the defile MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ^| | | || | t| h| e| | d| e| f| i| l| e| | w| h| e| r| e| | e| v| e| r| y| t| h| i| n| g| | i| s| | l| o| s| t| | || | t| h| e| r| e| | a| r| e| | s| l| o| p| e| s| | r| o| c| k| s| | o| n| e| | c| a| n| '| t| | m| o| v| e| | p| a| s| t| | d| e| c| o| n| s| t| r| u| c| t| i| o| n| | || | i| | k| e| e| p| | t| h| i| n| k| i| n| g| | t| h| a| t| | e| x| h| a| u| s| t| i| o| n| | a| l| l| o| w| s| | o| n| e| | t| o| | s| u| r| v| i| v| e| | || | t| h| e| | d| e| f| i| l| e| | i| s| | d| e| e| p| | a| n| d| | h| a| n| g| s| | t| a| u| t| | a| g| a| i| n| s| t| | t| h| e| | p| a| g| e| | || | s| o| | b| a| d| l| y| | d| o| | i| | w| a| n| t| | t| o| | b| e| | t| h| e| r| e| | a| g| a| i| n| s| t| | a| l| l| | f| o| u| n| d| a| t| i| o| n| | || | | || | t| h| e| r| e| | a| r| e| | o| t| h| e| r| | p| e| o| p| l| e| | t| h| e| r| e| | || | t| h| e| y| | f| o| l| d| | i| n| t| o| | m| e| | a| n| d| | i| | a| m| | m| u| l| t| i| t| u| d| e| s| | || | m| y| | m| o| u| t| h| | i| s| | f| i| l| l| e| d| | w| i| t| h| | t| h| e| i| r| | w| o| r| d| s| | || | i| | c| l| o| s| e| | e| v| e| r| y| t| h| i| n| g| | i| n| t| o| | s| i| l| e| n| t| | || | t| h| u| s| | w| i| l| l| | b| e| | t| h| e| | e| d| g| e| | o| r| | r| i| d| g| e| | a| g| a| i| n| s| t| | t| h| e| | l| i| p| | o| f| | c| h| a| o| s| | || | d| o| w| n| | h| e| r| e| | t| h| e| r| e| | i| s| | n| o| | l| i| g| h| t| | || | t| h| e| r| e| | a| r| e| | o| n| l| y| | s| t| o| r| i| e| s| | a| n| d| | b| o| d| i| e| s| | || | t| h| i| s| | i| s| | t| h| e| | d| e| f| i| l| e| | o| f| | t| h| e| | w| o| r| l| d| | || | t| h| e| r| e| | a| r| e| | n| o| | s| u| r| v| i| v| o| r| s| | || | | || | f| o| l| d| | -| 1| | z| z| | >| | y| y| ;| | s| e| d| | '| s| /| ^| $| /| ^| | /| g| '| | y| y| | >| | w| w| ;| | s| e| d| | '| s| /| $| /| || /| g| '| | w| w| | >| | y| y| ;| | p| i| c| o| | y| y| | || ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:23:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Two interesting links Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed http://www.terrorism.com/terrorism/Groups2.shtml Also, very much worth reading is Todd Gitlin's piece in the Guardian this weekend: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4262750,00.html Gitlin, a sociologist by profession, was the head of SDS for awhile in the 1960s, Ron _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 00:01:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Michael Broder Subject: Ear Inn Readings--September 29, 2001 Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit The Ear Inn Readings Saturdays at 3:00 326 Spring Street New York City FREE After the attack on the World Trade Center, the Ear Inn became a vital rest stop for rescue and recovery workers. Due to the intense traffic and sober circumstances, we temporarily suspended our readings. But we will be back in business beginning September 29. September 29 Madeleine Artenberg, Thomas Catterson, Robert Dunn, Laura Ludwig For additional information, contact Michael Broder or Jason Schneiderman at (212) 246-5074. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 00:50:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Colin Powell's statements to the press Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi Brian, You asked about URLs for Colin Powell's statements to the press. They're all on this site below: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/briefings/terror0901.htm#statements It's a page of unedited transcriptions--if that's what you want--but doesn't document which papers or networks wound up running, excerpting or paraphrasing his statements. Gary _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:42:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: devineni@RATTAPALLAX.COM Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?World=20Poetry=20Day?= In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Dear Friends: In light of events happening around the world, poetry is even more import= ant in our lives. As many of you know, we had over 180 readings in over 150 cities around the world during the last week in March 2001 to celebrate the UN's Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations Through Poetry. We are atte= mpting to do it again from 17 March to 24 March 2002. The theme is: "Can poetry build a culture of peace and non-violence in the world?" We would like your support and help by either: 1. setting up a reading in your town or city to focus on the theme. 2. If an editor or publisher, run our ads located at http://www.dialoguepoetry.org/un_exchange_ads.htm If interested or have questions, please email Larry Jaffe at jaffe@dialog= uepoetry.org or visit our site at http://www.dialoguepoetry.org Thank You, Ram Devineni Program Coordinator ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:43:25 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Crisis link Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed A grammatical error, sorry--my crisis page is at: www.english.wayne.edu/~watten/crisis.html BW ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 22:06:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: sidenote on flag as t.o. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I think Iser makes a good case for the fictive as a 'transitional" = object on the way to aprehending the imagianry in his _The fictive and = the Imaginary_ It does seem to me that analoguously this works as the = 'poetic' of poetry or visual poetry as a t.o. on the way to the = imaginary. Since I'm far from being an academic and far from academic = resources, I would appreciate thoughts, references on this. tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 01:28:17 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Eurasia or Eastasia?: KLA, bin Laden, and Drugs MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit !!!END THE WAR ON DRUGS!!! !!!STOP THE PEOPLE PROFITING FROM THE DRUG WAR!!! !!!STOP THE ENDLESS CYCLE OF GLOBAL TERROR!!! 1. http://www.publica.cz/monitor/KLA/drugs06.htm KLA Finances War With Heroin By Jerry Seper - The Washington Times - May 3, 1999 http://www.diaspora-net.org/food4thought/binladen__kla.htm KLA rebels train in terrorist camps By Jerry Seper The Washington Times, May 4, 1999 "Some members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, which has financed its war effort through the sale of heroin, were trained in terrorist camps run by international fugitive Osama bin Laden.... The KLA members, embraced by the Clinton administration in NATO's 41-day bombing campaign to bring Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic to the bargaining table, were trained in secret camps in Afghanistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina and elsewhere, according to newly obtained intelligence reports. The reports also show that the KLA has enlisted Islamic terrorists -- members of the Mujahideen --as soldiers in its ongoing conflict against Serbia, and that many already have been smuggled into Kosovo to join the fight.... The KLA's involvement in drug smuggling as a means of raising funds for weapons is long-standing. Intelligence documents show it has aligned itself with an extensive organized crime network in Albania that smuggles heroin to buyers throughout Western Europe and the United States." A friend of mine shared the above articles with me after they came out on the Post's website. The Washington Post pulled these stories from their web site within hours of posting them, with no retraction. The stories just vanished. Does that sound Orwellian to you? 2. BALKAN - ALBANIA - KOSOVO - HEROIN - JIHAD http://news.beograd.com/english/articles_and_opinion/balkan_peace_institute/ 000620_balkan_albania_kosovo_heroin_jihad.html In its report about the KLA and heroin smuggling, the Montreal Gazette wrote: "...Michael Levine, a 25-year veteran of the DEA (US Drug Enforcement Agency) who left in 1990, said he believes there is no question that US intelligence knew about the KLA's drug ties. "They (the CIA) protected them (the KLA) in every way they could. As long as the CIA is protecting the KLA, you've got major drug pipelines protected from any police investigation", said Levine, who teaches undercover tactics and informer handling to US and Canadian police forces, including the RCMP. "The evidence is irrefutable," he said, explaining that his information comes from "sources inside the DEA". Michael Levine is the man 60 Minutes called "America's top undercover cop for 25 years." 3. Kosovo 'Freedom Fighters' Financed by Organised Crime By Michel Chossudovsky Department of Economics University of Ottawa April 7, 1999 http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/kosovo23.htm "Remember Oliver North and the Contras? The pattern in Kosovo is similar to other CIA covert operations in Central America, Haiti and Afghanistan where "freedom fighters" were financed through the laundering of drug money. Since the onslaught of the Cold War, Western intelligence agencies have developed a complex relationship to the illegal narcotics trade. In case after case, drug money laundered in the international banking system has financed covert operations." 4. Articles on KLA-Kosovo & Osama bin Laden http://www.globalresistance.com/siri-us/KLA-Osama.html A collection of articles about the relationship of the KLA and bin Laden from a wide range of sources. 5. Halliburton Corporation's Brown and Root is one of the major components of THE BUSH-CHENEY DRUG EMPIRE http://www.drugwar.com/cv1.htm 6. Smoking Guns http://www.wethepeople.la/drugs1.htm 7. The O'Reilly Factor Transcript: Casey and Drug Smuggling http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01.n180.a05.html You get rid of bin Laden, you're really just cutting him out of his part of the deal and giving his partners a bigger share of the pie. Cheney and bin Laden . . . are they enemies, friends, or both? "Um, maybe. Dad?," Dumya whispers behind the backside of an open upright palm. The church music engulfs the crowd & drowns the eavesdroppers. Doncha let that deal go down oh no Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:48:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Comment: Let's not get too liberal In-Reply-To: <3BAC4B11.44283B67@earthlink.net> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I agree with Christopher Hitchens in general and with this article in particular: "What [Bin Laden & co.] abominate about 'the west', to put it in a phrase, is not what western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the same intellectual content." Thanks, Marjorie. -Aaron Belz ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 22:58:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Fw: FW: George Lakoff on September 11 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Candice Ward" To: Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 1:01 AM Subject: FW: George Lakoff on September 11 > Dear Friends, > > Many of you have written expressing your thoughts and feelings about the > events of September 11 and have asked me for my thoughts in return. Here is > what sense I have been able to make of all this so far. > > If you find this of interest, please pass it on over the net to anyone you > think might also be interested. > > Kathleen and I hope you and your loved ones are all safe and well. > > > Best wishes, > > George Lakoff > > > George Lakoff is Professor of Linguistics at the University of California at > Berkeley and a Senior Fellow of the Rockridge Institute. He is the author of > Moral Politics (U. of Chicago Press, 1996), a study of how conservatives and > liberals see the world, and ìMetaphor and War,î perhaps the most widely > distributed critique of the Gulf War, distributed over the Internet during > its early days. He also studies language, metaphorical thought, and the way > the mind is embodied. > > > > September 11, 2001 > > By George Lakoff > > > 1 > > The Power of the Images > > > As a metaphor analyst, I want to begin with the power of the images. > > There are a number of metaphors for buildings. We see features--eyes, nose > and mouth--in their windows. The image of the plane going into South Tower > of the World Trade Center is metaphorically an image of a bullet going > through someone's head, the flame pouring from the other side blood spurting > out. Tall buildings are metaphorically people standing erect. Each tower > falling was a body falling. We are not consciously aware of the metaphorical > images, but they are part of the power and the horror we experience when we > see them. > > Each of us, in the prefrontal cortex of our brains, has what are called > "mirror neurons." Such neurons fire either when we perform an action or > when see the same action performed by someone else. There are connections > from that part of the brain to the emotional centers. Such neural circuits > are believed to be the basis of empathy. > > This works literally--when we see plane coming toward the building and > imagine people in the building, we feel the plane coming toward us; when we > see the building toppling toward others, we feel the building toppling > toward us. It also works metaphorically: If we see the plane going through > the building, and unconsciously we metaphorize the building as a head with > the plane going through its temple, then we sense--unconsciously but > powerfully--being shot through the temple. If we metaphorize the building as > a person and see the building fall to the ground in pieces, then we > sense--again unconsciously but powerfully--that we are falling to the ground > in pieces. Our systems of metaphorical thought, interacting with our mirror > neuron systems, turn external literal horrors into felt metaphorical > horrors. > > Here are some other cases: > > Control Is Up: You have control over the situation, you're on top of things. > This has always been an important basis of towers as symbols of power. In > this case, the toppling of the towers meant loss of control, loss of power. > > Phallic imagery: Towers are symbols of phallic power and their collapse > reinforces the idea of loss of power. > > Another kind of phallic imagery was more central here. The planes as > penetrating the towers with a plume of heat. The pentagon, a vaginal image > from the air, penetrated by the plane as missile. > > A Society Is A Building. A society can have a "foundation" which may or may > not be "solid" and it can "crumble" and "fall." The World Trade Center was > symbolic of society. When it crumbled and fell, the threat was more than to > a building. > > We think metaphorically of things that perpetuate over time as "standing." > Bush the Father in the Gulf War kept saying, "This will not stand," meaning > that the situation would not be perpetuated over time. The World Trade > Center was build to last ten thousand years. When it crumbled, it > metaphorically raised the question of whether American power and American > society would last. > > Building As Temple: Here we had the destruction of the temple of capitalist > commerce, which lies at the heart of our society. > > > Our minds play tricks on us. The image of the Manhattan skyline is now > unbalanced. We are used to seeing it with the towers there. Our mind imposes > our old image of the towers, and the sight of them gone gives one the > illusion of imbalance, as if Manhattan we sinking. Given the symbolism of > Manhattan as standing for the promise of America, it appears metaphorically > as if that promise were sinking. > > Then there is the persistent image, day after day, of the charred and > smoking remains: it is an image of hell. > > The World Trade Center was a potent symbol, tied into our understanding of > our country and ourselves in a myriad of ways. All of what we know is > physically embodied in our brains. To incorporate the new knowledge requires > a physical change in the synapses of our brains, a physical reshaping of our > neural system. > > The physical violence was not only in New York and Washington. Physical > changes--violent ones--have been made to the brains of all Americans. > > > 2 > > How The Administation Frames the Event > > > The administration's framings and reframings and its search for metaphors > should be noted. The initial framing was as a "crime" with "victims" and > "perpetrators" to be "brought to justice" and "punished." The crime frame > entails law, courts, lawyers, trials, sentencing, appeals, and so on. It was > hours before "crime" changed to "war" with "casualties," "enemies," > "military action," "war powers," and so on. > > > Rumsfeld and other administration officials have pointed out that this > situation does not fit our understanding of a "war." There are "enemies" > and "casualties" all right, but no enemy army, no regiments, no tanks, no > ships, no air force, no battlefields, no strategic targets, and no clear > "victory." The war frame just doesn't fit. Colin Powell had always argued > that no troops should be committed without specific objectives, a clear and > achievable definition of victory, a clear exit strategy--and no open-ended > commitments. But he has pointed out that none of these is present in this > "war." > > Because the concept of "war" doesn't fit, there is a frantic search for > metaphors. First, Bush called the terrorists "cowards"--but this didn't > seem to work too well for martyrs who willing sacrificed their lives for > their moral and religious ideals. More recently he has spoken of "smoking > them out of their holes" as if they were rodents, and Rumsfeld has spoken of > "drying up the swamp they live in" as if they were snakes or lowly swamp > creatures. The conceptual metaphors here are Moral is Up; Immoral is Down > (they are lowly) and Immoral People are Animals (that live close to the > ground). > > The use of the word "evil" in the administration's discourse works in the > following way. In conservative, strict father morality (see my Moral > Politics, Chapter 5), evil is a palpable thing, a force in the world. To > stand up to evil you have to be morally strong. If you're weak, you let evil > triumph, so that weakness is a form of evil in itself, as is promoting > weakness. Evil is inherent, an essential trait, that determines how you will > act in the world. Evil people do evil things. No further explanation is > necessary. There can be no social causes of evil, no religious rationale for > evil, no reasons or arguments for evil. The enemy of evil is good. If our > enemy is evil, we are inherently good. Good is our essentially nature and > what we do in the battle against evil is good. Good and evil are locked in a > battle, which is conceptualized metaphorically as a physical fight in which > the stronger wins. Only superior strength can defeat evil, and only a show > of strength can keep evil at bay. Not to show overwhelming strength is > immoral, since it will induce evildoers to perform more evil deeds because > they'll think they can get away with it. To oppose a show of superior > strength is therefore immoral. Nothing is more important in the battle of > good against evil, and if some innocent noncombatants get in the way and get > hurt, it is a shame, but it is to be expected and nothing can be done about > it. Indeed, performing lesser evils in the name of good is justified-- > "lesser" evils like curtailing individual liberties, sanctioning political > assassinations, overthrowing governments, torture, hiring criminals, and > "collateral damage." > > Then there is the basic security metaphor, Security As Containment--keeping > the evildoers out. Secure our borders, keep them and their weapons out of > our airports, have marshals on the planes. Most security experts say that > there is no sure way to keep terrorists out or to deny them the use of some > weapon or other; a determined well-financed terrorist organization can > penetrate any security system. Or they can choose other targets, say oil > tankers. > > Yet the Security As Containment metaphor is powerful. It is what lies behind > the missile shield proposal. Rationality might say that the September 11th > attack showed the missile shield is pointless. But it strengthened the use > of the Security As Containment metaphor. As soon as you say "national > security," the Security as Containment metaphor will be activated and with > it, the missile shield. > > > 3 > > The Conservative Advantage > > The reaction of the Bush administration is just what you would expect a > conservative reaction would be--pure Strict Father morality: There is evil > loose in the world. We must show our strength and wipe it out. Retribution > and vengeance are called for. If there are "casualties" or "collateral > damage," so be it. > > The reaction from liberals and progressives has been far different: Justice > is called for, not vengeance. Understanding and restraint are what is > needed. The model for our actions should be the rescue workers and > doctors--the healers--not the bombers. > > We should not be like them, we should not take innocent lives in bringing > the perpetrators to justice. Massive bombing of Afghanistan--with the > killing of innocents--will show that we are no better than they. > > But it has been the administration's conservative message that has > dominated the media. The event has been framed in their terms. As Newt > Gingrich put it on the Fox Network, "Retribution is justice." > > We must reframe the discussion. Susan Bales reminds us of Gandhi's words: > Be the change you want. The words apply to governments as well as to > individuals. > > > 4 > > Causes > > > There are (at least) three kinds of causes radical Islamic terrorism: > > Worldview: The Religious Rationale > Social and Political Conditions: Cultures of Despair > Means: The Enabling Conditions > > The Bush administration has discussed only the third: The means that enable > attacks to be carried out. These include: Leadership (e.g., bin Laden), host > countries, training facilities and bases, financial backing, cell > organization, information networks, and so on. These do not include the > first and second on the list. > > > Worldview: Religious Rationale > > The question that keeps being asked in the media is, Why do they hate us so > much? > > It is important at the outset to separate out moderate to liberal Islam from > radical Islamic fundamentalists, who do not represent most muslims. > > Radical Islamic fundamentalists hate our culture. They have a worldview that > is incompatible with the way that Americans--and other westerners--live > their lives. One part of this world view concerns women, who are to hide > their bodies, have no right to property, and so on. Western sexuality, > mores, music, and women's equality all violate their values, and the > ubiquity of American cultural products, like movies and music, throughout > the world offends them. A second part concerns theocracy: they believe that > governments should be run according to strict Islamic law by clerics. A > third concerns holy sites, like those in Jerusalem, which they believe > should be under Islamic political and military control. A fourth concerns > the commercial and military incursions by Westerners on Islamic soil, which > they liken to the invasion of the hated crusaders. The way they see it, our > culture spits in the face of theirs. A fifth concerns jihad--a holy war to > protect and defend the faith. A sixth is the idea of a martyr, a man willing > to sacrifice himself for the cause. His reward is eternal glory--an eternity > in heaven surrounded by willing young virgins. In some cases, there is a > promise that his family will be taken care of by the community. > > Social and Political Conditions: Cultures of Despair > > Most Islamic would-be martyrs not only share these beliefs but have also > grown up in a culture of despair: they have nothing to lose. Eliminate such > poverty and you eliminate the breeding ground for terrorists. When the Bush > administration speaks of eliminating terror, it does not appear to be > talking about eliminating cultures of despair and the social conditions that > lead one to want to give up your life to martyrdom. > > Princeton Lyman of the Aspen Institute has made an important proposal--that > the world-wide anti-terrorist coalition being formed address the causal > real-world conditions as well. Country by country, the conditions (both > material and political) leading to despair need to be addressed, with a > worldwide commitment to ending them. It should be done because it is a > necessary part of addressing the causes of terrorism--and because it is > right! The coalition being formed should be made into a long-term global > institution for this purpose. > > What about the first cause--the radical Islamic worldview itself. Military > action won't change it. Social action won't change it. Worldviews live in > the minds of people. How can one change those minds--and if not present > minds, then future minds? The West cannot! Those minds can only be changed > by moderate and liberal Muslims--clerics, teachers, elders, respected > community members. They need to be recruited to a worldwide full-time > effort, not just against terror, but against hate. Remember that "taliban" > means "student." Those that teach hate in Islamic schools must be replaced > --and we in the West cannot replace them. This can only be done by an > organized moderate, nonviolent Islam. The West can make the suggestion, but > we alone are powerless to carry it out. We depend on good will and courage > of moderate Islamic leaders. To gain it, we must show our good will by > beginning in a serious way to address the social and political conditions > that lead to despair. > > But a conservative government, thinking of the enemy as evil, will not take > the primary causes seriously. They will only go after the enabling causes. > But unless the primary causes are addressed, terrorists will continue to be > spawned. > > > 5 > > Public Discourse > > The Hon. Barbara Lee (D, CA), who I am proud to acknowledge as my > representative in Congress, said the following in casting the lone vote > against giving President Bush full Congressional approval for carrying out > his War on Terrorism as he sees fit: > > > I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of > international terrorism against the United States. This > is a very complex and complicated matter. > > However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of > restraint. Our country is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say, > let us step back for a moment. Let us just pause for a minute and think > through the implications of our actions today so that this does not spiral > out of control. > > I have agonized over this vote, but I came to grips with it today and I > came to grips with opposing this resolution during the very painful yet very > beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy so eloquently said, > "As we act,let us not become the evil that we deplore." > > I agree. But what is striking to me as a linguist is the use of negatives > in the statement: "not prevent," "restraint" (inherently negative), "not > spiral out of control," "not become the evil that we deplore." Friends > are circulating a petition calling for "Justice without vengeance." > "Without" has another implicit negative. It is not that these negative > statements are wrong. But what is needed is a positive form of discourse. > > There is one. > > The central concept is that of "responsibility," which is at the heart of > progressive/liberal morality (See Moral Politics). Progressive/liberal > morality begins with empathy, the ability to understand others and feel what > they feel. That is presupposed in responsibility--responsibility for > oneself, for protection, for the care of those who need care, and for the > community. Those were the values that we saw at work among the rescue > workers in New York right after the attack. > > Responsibility requires competence and effectiveness. If you are to deal > responsibly with terrorism, you must deal effectively with all its causes: > religious, social, and enabling causes. The enabling causes must be dealt > with effectively. Bombing innocent civilians and harming them by destroying > their country's domestic infrastructure will be counterproductive--as well > as immoral. Responsibility requires care in the place of blundering > overwhelming force. > > Massive bombing would be irresponsible. Failure to address the religious and > social causes would be irresponsible. The responsible response begins with > joint international action to address all three: the social and political > conditions and the religious worldview and the means with all due care. > > > > 6 > > Foreign Policy > > > I have been working on a monograph on foreign policy. The idea behind it is > this: There are many advocacy groups that have long been doing important > good works in the international arena, but on issues that have not > officially been seen as being a proper part of foreign policy: the > environment, human rights, women's rights, the condition of children, labor, > international public health issues (e.g., AIDS in Africa), sustainable > development, refugees, international education, and so on. The monograph > comes in two parts. > > First, the book points out that the metaphors that foreign policy experts > have used to define what foreign policy is rules out these important > concerns. Those metaphors involve self-interest (e.g., the Rational Actor > Model), stability (a physics metaphor), industrialization (unindustrialized > nations are "underdeveloped"), and trade (freedom is free trade). > > Second, the book proposes an alterative way of thinking about foreign policy > under which all these issues would become a natural part of what foreign > policy is about. The premise is that, when international relations work > smoothly, it is because certain moral norms of the international community > are being followed. This mostly goes unnoticed, since those norms are > usually followed. We notice problems when those norms are breached. Given > this, it makes sense that foreign policy should be centered around those > norms. > > The moral norms I suggest come out of what I called in Moral Politics > "nurturant morality." It is a view of ethical behavior that centers on (a) > empathy and (b) responsibility (for both yourself and others needing your > help). Many things follow from these central principles: fairness, minimal > violence (e.g., justice without vengeance), an ethic of care, protection of > those needing it, a recognition of interdependence, cooperation for the > common good, the building of community, mutual respect, and so on. When > applied to foreign policy, nurturant moral norms would lead the American > government to uphold the ABM treaty, sign the Kyoto accords, engage in a > form of globalization governed by an ethics of care--and it would > automatically make all the concerns listed above (e.g., the environment, > women's rights) part of our foreign policy. > > This, of course, implies (a) multilateralism, (b) interdependence, and (c) > international cooperation. But these three principles, without nurturant > norms, can equally well apply to the Bush administration's continuance of > its foreign policy. Bush's foreign policy, as he announced in the election > campaign, has been one of self-interest ("what's in the best interest of > the United States")--if not outright hegemony (the Cheney/Rumsfeld > position). The Democratic leaders incorrectly criticized Bush for being > isolationist and unilateralist, on issues like the Kyoto accords and the ABM > Treaty. He was neither isolationist nor unilateralist. He was just following > his stated policy of self-interest. > > The mistaken criticism of Bush as a unilateralist and as uncooperative will > now blow up in his critics' faces. When it is in America's interest (as he > sees it), he will work with other nations. The "War against Terrorism" is > perfect for changing his image to that of a multilateralist and > internationalist. It is indeed in the common interest of most national > governments not to have terrorists operating. Bush can come out on the side > of the angels while pursuing his same policy of self-interest. > > The mistake of Bush's critics has been to use "multilateralism" versus > "unilateralism" as a way categorizing foreign policy. Self-interest crosses > those categories. > > There is, interestingly, an apparent overlap between the nurturant norms > policy and an idealistic vision of the Bush administration's new war. The > overlap is, simply, that it is a moral norm to refuse to engage in, or > support, terrorism. From this perspective, it looks like Left and Right are > united. It is an illusion. > > In nurturant norms policy, anti-terrorism arises from another moral norm: > Violence against innocent parties is immoral. But Bush's new war will > certainly not follow that moral norm. Bush's military advisers appear to be > planning massive bombings and infrastructure destruction that will certainly > take the lives of a great many innocent civilians. > > Within a year of the end of the Gulf War, the CIA reported that about a > million Iraqi civilians had died from the effects of the war and the embargo > --many from disease and malnutrition due to the US destruction of water > treatment plants, hospitals, electric generation plants, and so on, together > with the inability to get food and medical supplies. Many more innocents > have died since from the effects of the war. Do we really think that the US > will have the protection of innocent Afghanis in mind if it rains terror > down on the Afghan infrastructure? We are supposedly fighting them because > they immorally killed innocent civilians. That made them evil. If we do the > same, are we any less immoral? > > This argument would hold water if the Bush War on Terrorism were really > about morality in the way that morality is understood by > progressives/liberals. It is not. In conservative morality, there is fight > between Good and Evil, in which "lesser" evils are tolerated and even seen > as necessary and expected. > > The argument that killing innocent civilians in retaliation would make us as > bad as them works for liberals, not for conservatives. > > The idealistic claim of the Bush administration is they intend to wipe out > "all terrorism." What is not mentioned is that the US has systematically > promoted a terrorism of its own and has been trained terrorists, from the > contras to the mujahadeen to the Honduran death squads to the Indonesian > military. Indeed, there are reports that two of the terrorists taking part > in The Attack were trained by the US. Will the US government stop training > terrorists? Of course not. It will deny that it does so. Is this duplicity? > Not in terms of conservative morality and its view of Good versus Evil and > lesser evils. > > If the administration's discourse offends us, we have a moral obligation to > change public discourse! > > Be the change you want! If the US wants terror to end, the US must end its > own contribution to terror. And we must also end terror sponsored not > against the West but against others. We have made a deal with Pakistan to > help in Afghanistan. Is it part of the deal that Pakistan renounce its own > terrorism in Kashmir against India? I would be shocked if it were. The Bush > foreign policy of self-interest does not require it. > > The question must be asked. If that is not part of the deal, then our > government has violated its own stated ideals; it is hypocritical. If the > terrorism we don't mind--or might even like--is perpetuated, terrorism > will not end and will eventually turn back on us, just as our support for > the mujahadeen did. > > We must be the change we want! > > The foreign policy of moral norms is the only sane foreign policy. In the > idea of responsibility for oneself, it remains practical. But through > empathy and other forms of responsibility (protection, care, competence, > effectiveness, community development), it would lead to international > cooperation and a recognition of interdependence. > > > 7 > > Domestic Policy > > I have a rational fear, a fear that the September 11 attack has given the > Bush administration a free hand in pursuing a conservative domestic agenda. > This has so far been unsayable in the media. But it must be said, lest it > happen for sure. > > Where is the $40 billion coming from? Not from a rise in taxes. The > sacrifices will not be made by the rich. Where then? The only available > source I can think of is the Social Security "lockbox," which is now wide > open. The conservatives have been trying to raid the Social Security fund > for some time, and the Democrats had fought them off until now. A week ago, > the suggestion to take $40 billion from the Social Security "surplus" would > have been indefensible. Has it now been done--with every Democratic senator > voting for it and all but one of the Democrats in Congress? > > Think of it: Are your retirement contributions--and mine--going to fight Bush's "war"? No one dares to talk about it that way. It's just $40 > billion, as if it came out of nowhere. No one says that $40 billion dollars > comes from your retirement contributions. No one talks about increasing > taxes. We should at least ask just where the money is coming from. > > If the money is coming from social security, then Bush has achieved a major > goal of his partisan conservative agenda--without fanfare, without notice, > and with the support of virtually all Democrats. > > Calling for war, instead of mere justice, has given the conservatives free > rein. I fear it will only be a matter of time before they claim that we need > to drill for oil in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge for national security > reasons. If that most "pristine" place falls, they will use the national > security excuse to drill and mine coal all over the country. The energy > program will be pushed through as a matter of "national security." All > social programs will be dismissed for lack of funds, which will be diverted > to "national security." > > Cheney has said that this war may never be completed. Newt Gingrich > estimates at least four or five years, certainly past the 2004 election. > With no definition of victory and no exit strategy, we may be entering a > state of perpetual war. This would be very convenient for the conservative > domestic agenda: The war machine will determine the domestic agenda, which > will allow conservatives to do whatever they want in the name of national > security. > > The recession we are entering has already been blamed on The Attack, not on > Bush's economic policies. Expect a major retrenchment on civil liberties. > Expect any WTO protesters to be called terrorists and/or traitors. Expect > any serious opposition to Bush's policies to be called traitorous. > > Who has the courage to discuss domestic policy frankly at this time? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:03:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Liu, Timothy" Subject: Book Party (NYC) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Please join Timothy Liu at the Asian American Writers Workshop (16 W. 32, NYC) to celebrate the publication of his new book of poems, HARD EVIDENCE (Talisman House) this Thursday, September 27, at 7 p.m. A reading will be followed by wine and cheese. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:23:37 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jack Ruttan Subject: (Fwd) "AN AGREEMENT TO MOURN: WRITING AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-transfer-encoding: Quoted-printable ------- Forwarded message follows ------- From: "Todd Swift" To: "Jack Ruttan" Subject: post this Date sent: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 18:21:58 +0300 Jack, could you post the following onto that U of Buffalo list? Thanks Todd "AN AGREEMENT TO MOURN: WRITING AFTER SEPTEMBER 11, 2001" This is being written in Europe, exactly one week after the "attack on America" which so shook the world; events, at time of publication, may wel= l have established the identity of the mastermind(s) - so far still mere conjecture, but likely radical Islamic terrorists - and worse, still, may have spiralled out of control into an apocalyptic cycle of revenge, of Biblical proportions. As likely as that Bush Bible Belt versus Taliban scenario may seem, leaving ash on my face, I must write as if a semblance = of "civilisation" - and publications like this one - will be here in the near future. One of the first things that happened, after the second and third planes h= it their symbolic targets, was that people, who could not communicate via the jammed phone lines, began sending emails. At first these, like most emails= , were not literary, or self-conscious, in any way. Some were brief, and mos= t to the point: "holy fuck"; "unbelievable"; "Oh my God"; and so on. Soon, they become slightly more poignant, and informative: "Am safe; think most = of my friends are; am waiting for my brother to call..." or sister, or husban= d, or girlfriend... and New Yorkers, mostly, let us knew they were still standing. Then came the anti-climax of the days that followed Day One of the media's visual bounty (whenever before had live feed, even during the OJ chase, be= en so damned cinematic that Industrial Light & Magic really couldn't better t= he eye candy, however horrific?) when "America mourned" and the world was silent for three minutes, holding its breath for considerably longer. Sad, traumatic and interesting as these other days have been, filled with incident and new leads, and sudden revelations of the efficacy of the cell phone, and the heroism of quotidian air passengers, thrust into Die Hard roles (one man thought to have tackled the hijackers and helped crash the plane in Pennsylvania, it was reported, had a tattoo of Superman on his shoulder) - well, they weren't the day anymore; we won't admit it, but we half mourned the adrenaline rush of the high octane spectacle, the feeling that life was, finally, as big as the movies, scarier than fiction. That's when the emails became literary. Sincerely, I want to believe, many of my friends in New York, journalists, poets, editors, among other life-style choices, came home at night from feeding sandwiches to firemen, or wandering oddly-hushed Gotham streets - and began to write long, emotional and humane emails. They spoke of their gutted feelings, their pride in fellow New Yorkers, the deeds they'd done - as if Beowulf's warriors, after slaying a dragon, had sat down to brag over mead in a hall= , and filled the air with tales of valour and loss. I don't want to comment on the writing, except to say, I hope someone has saved it all, because these emails - there must have been thousands of the= m written and sent to millions more - are a rich anthology of a significant moment. However, the poignant fact about writing sincerely - anyone who ha= s kept a diary will have experienced this - is that you can't keep it up for very long. Style intrudes; as do clich=E9s; and narrative; and the need of= the writer to turn life into art. Some of the poets, though, did valiant jobs = of rising to the electronic-epistolary occasion. Still, it was mostly well-meaning ephemeral dross. Which brings me to the death of a certain kind of poetry, now, after September 11, in this, our post-paranoid world. Certainly, poetry has had unusually intense pressure put upon it before, by the demands of history; some would even say the sort of coal-to-diamonds pressure that produced th= e best of Yeats, or Auden - and maybe the worst of Pound. We've been writing and reading poems for more than half a century since we were told that, after Auschwitz, poetry was now unacceptable - the horror = of genocide too terrible to justify anything as glib as beautiful language (a= s if poetry is basically about beauty). Heaney, among others, has attempted = to show that poems can also be used to redress injustice, and speak from a variety of positions, some those of the victim - and Plath certainly showe= d that some holocausts reside on the tongue, and in the heart. But that's not what I mean, exactly. Let me confess I was one of the first to write a poem commemorating the dead on September 11th, 2001. I am almos= t ashamed to say I think I wrote it less than an hour after the second tower of the WTC collapsed. I then emailed it to hundreds of people on my Agent poetry list. I'm not sure why I did this - one hopes it isn't grandstanding - but I think it had something to do with the concept of the poet as war correspondent and healer all rolled into one. I suppose I was inspired by Edward Thomas, or Dylan Thomas, for that matter - the former writing of the trenches of W.W.I, the latter, likely blotto, of the Blitz. There has been a tradition of poets responding to catastrophes and wars, a= s they happen (as well as after). Thomas Hardy's lines on the Titanic, or Hopkins' on the wreck of the Deutschland, in which five Franciscan nuns drowned, could hardly be bettered as examples. One could argue that the collapse of the Twin Towers is, more than "our Pearl Harbour" or Kennedy assassination, our Titanic (sad as this might be for director Cameron). It was the moment when our Western civilisation's masterful technologies - je= ts and hyper-tall structures - collided, like iceberg and ocean liner. It was our epoch's grand moment of failure - when old methods ceased to function. It is also our Light Brigade being slaughtered, or our 1914. But all these previous losses of security engendered masterpieces of poeti= c art - one thinks of The Wasteland's jaded urbanity and drained sang froid = - while this particular series of ultra-violent, tragic and sadistic events seems destined not to. Now, I may well be proven wrong. I can assuredly attest to the lack of greatness in my own poem, though it has its moments. Still, rhetoric, even artfully wrought - or even a more post-modern pastic= he of eloquence - seems incapable of handling this sort of thing. Can any historic event elude the poet's capacity to transform news into "news that stays news"? Not before. But, as I tried to grapple with what h= ad happened - the sly Fu Manchu genius of the evil that choreographed the second plane's trajectory just so, on the edge of the frame, as we all watched the fist fireball - I sensed that lack of taste, or judgement, was hovering at the edge of my claim on posterity. What great sonnet sequence from the Hindenberg's flames? True, Rushdie use= d the air terrorism of Air India for the opening sequence of Satanic Verses.= .. still... what has happened is that the moment is too graphically excessive to need new visualisation, too heart-rendingly maudlin (the doomed couple falling from the 101st floor, hand-in-hand, like Paolo and Francesca in Dante) - and too fraught with information. A Kipling could do something wi= th the need for jingoism, I am sure, but our age, unlike Hugh Selwyn's, does not now demand a grimace from poets. There will be poems published on this event. But will they be good poems? Will they be needed poems? When Dylan Thomas wrote his refusal to mourn, a= nd considered the death of children and old people under the Nazi aerial bombardment, magazines sought such literate texts to express, confront and ultimately endure such atrocities. We, glued to CNN, had the inescapably repetitive and often prosaic mumblin= gs of commentators incapable, like Bush, of rising to the Churchillian moment= . Let alone Miltonic. I said "post-paranoid" world earlier, because I think poems that work with themes of black boxes, and televisual violence, and mediated super-events, are now suddenly as dated as all those poems, sincerely written in the 30s about pylons and aerodromes. What is more poetic - in Appolinaire's understanding of that term - than what the terrorists themselves did? What more stunningly symbolic, nihilistic, unforgettable, haunting, powerful, or contrived? In the end we are weary o= f this ancient world, the above-mentioned French poet wrote, at the start of the 20th century. I think we are now about to become weary of this post-modern, one, too. And with it, all sorts of literary tics we once thought as self-reflexively-impressive as tattoos of Superman. Todd Swift Budapest, September 18, 2001 ------- End of forwarded message ------- Electronic Rights Defense Committee (ERDC) Web Site: http://www.geocities.com/jack_ruttan/erdc.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:58:40 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: eight percent In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Marjorie - The last time I heard this 92% invoked it was 1991 and I was walking alongside a few thousand people headed for the UN. The next thing we knew our containment policy was throttling a population whose leader, whatever psychoses he may actually embody, is not impatient. Does 92% really encourage you? Yes, something has to be done - does that mean we march a professional army into an area as dense with landmines as New Jersey is with people? That we fly thousands of sorties over the poorest desert run by the least recognized government? You tut tut the lack of nuance in a geopolitical discussion among poets; surely you can imagine this other eight percent's dread of the lack of nuance of any military response. For one thing, talibanization of the region won't make our beyond-precarious economic situation any prettier, even if civilians are flying less (jets consume eight percent of the world's fossil fuels). For another, a regime that's already come to power here through questionable means is talking about the world - the world - in a very possessive language. Yes, we must defend ourselves - an usher at my wedding lives a block and a half from the rubble, my dad works three blocks away, but I'm lucky not to have lost anybody (at least I haven't heard about anybody yet). I probably lack the experience that makes the idea that military action stops terrorism make sense. I also probably don't understand why the first response shouldn't be to find some things out -- who did it, how they work(ed), and what makes them do it. (I'm glad ABC intends not to air the crash footage again; will they now ask their reporters to ask government sources how they *know* the things they claim to know?) I certainly don't understand the logic of the elected officials who want simultaneously to bomb villains trained by the CIA and recruit new villains for the CIA. And if you're not skeptical about the creation of something called a Homeland Security office, please reassure those of us who are. I'm not going to quibble about percentages -- even if we're all trained to understand poll figures are responses to some controlling party's binary logic, thousands of people were killed here by people who clearly had their act together, and millions more of us were stunned. If the question were phrased a certain way, I'd probably be among that 92% too. But we're poets, and we're permitted to have a response that doesn't fall into that question's despair. We're entitled to a despair -- and a sanity -- of our own. I hope Drew Gardner won't mind my repeating his response: "I'm going to Saturn. They don't do things this way on Saturn." Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:54:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Halvard Johnson Subject: RIP Theodore Silverstein Comments: To: New-Poetry Comments: cc: Cafe-blue MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="Windows-1252" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Back in my grad school days, I took two courses from Theodore Silverstein-- Old English and Chaucer--and, although I haven't thought of him much during the intervening years, I was both sorry and pleased to see his obituary in this morning's NYT. I was sorry for the usual reasons, and I was pleased because this morning I learned more about him than I'd ever known before. How little I usually knew about those who were my teachers. Silverstein's classes were a delight and a pleasure, unlike most of those I remember from those Chicago years. Here's to him. His obit is below. Hal Halvard Johnson =============== email: halvard@earthlink.net website: http://home.earthlink.net/~halvard/index.html Dr. Theodore Silverstein, 96, Literature Scholar, Dies By DOUGLAS MARTIN Theodore Silverstein, a scholar of medieval literature at the University of Chicago whose subjects included Old English poetry and Late Latin visionary apocalypses and whose exploits as an intelligence officer in World War II were only recently revealed, died on Sept. 1. He was 96 and lived in Chicago. Dr. Silverstein was known for extending the work of 19th-century American scholars who realized that the dark ages were far from dark. His translation of the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was considered by some to surpass the previous definitive version, that of J. R. R. Tolkien. His scholarship was often playful, and he once made up a verse of Latin poetry to begin an article on his beloved Sir Gawain and signed it Petrus Argenteus, Latin for "silver stone." But his jokes sometimes suggested some fascinating thread in the rich tapestry of his life. The flyleaf of his translation of Sir Gawain, for instance, mentions "an adventure of a certain knight, during which Professor Silverstein commanded an Air Force unit which requisitioned the Eiffel Tower." The reference is to Dr. Silverstein's participation in an elite intelligence unit, which did indeed take over the tower to intercept communications of German planes during World War II. To be sure, his intelligence career contained stunning mishaps as well as brilliant successes. In trying to show his commanding officer a captured Belgian pistol, he accidentally fired the gun, hitting his superior in the groin. But Arnold C. Franco, who wrote a book about the unit, "Code to Victory" (Sunflower University Press, 1998), said the wounded officer, Harry Turkel, nonetheless later called him "the finest intelligence officer in the Western Theater." Hyman Theodore Silverstein was born on Oct. 11, 1904, in Liverpool and immigrated with his family to Boston in 1910. His father was a furniture salesman, and he attended the Boston Latin School. He then graduated from Harvard, where he stayed to earn his doctorate and teach. He accepted an appointment to teach at the University of Kansas City, a private college, now part of the University of Missouri. A freshman there, Mary Poindexter, became so enthusiastic about his brilliance that she attended all his lectures, even those in courses in which she was not enrolled. When he enlisted at 37 in the Army Air Forces in 1942, she wrote him every day for three years. They married after the war, after Dr. Silverstein agreed to her one demand: that he drop his first name, Hyman. His wartime career remained classified until the late 1980's. He first served in North Africa and Italy interrogating captured German pilots. He was then assigned to a new mobile unit that intercepted communications of German pilots and relayed them to Allied pilots. Dr. Silverstein joined the English department at the University of Chicago as an assistant professor in 1947, and stayed until his retirement in 1973. His intellectual work virtually began and ended with editions of the Apocalypse of Paul, an anonymous text written in the third century A.D., or even earlier, which tells of Paul's visits to heaven and hell. It was the subject of Dr. Silverstein's first book in 1935, and in 1997, he and Anthony Hilhorst, a Dutch scholar, cooperated on a version that many scholars consider definitive. Dr. Silverstein, who is also survived by his sister Mildred Nollman of Foxboro, Mass., is remembered for his talent for teasing. When a niece said she had never tried mincemeat pie, he gave a long lecture highlighted by the disclosure that the first such pie was found in fossilized form in China. He then offered what he said was the rival Russian claim, that the pie was actually Minsk pie. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:27:56 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Stroffolino's questions Comments: To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Chris, I do agree with Marjorie that, unless al Qaeda and its affiliates are literally disabled, future attacks on the US on a like scale of 9/11 or worse are inevitable. That would be a narrow response, but a reasonable one, I believe. However, the larger question I think is how does the left (small "l," complex, international, decentered, multifaceted) respond to what is quite evidently the contemporary equivalent of facism. I believe that every other question is a subset of this one. Ron _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 22:54:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Camille Martin Subject: need email addresses! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Could someone please backchannel email addresses for the following? Steve McCaffery Susan Stewart Lorenzo Thomas Anne Waldman Many thanks! Camille Camille Martin Lit City 7725 Cohn St. New Orleans, LA 70118 (504) 861-8832 http://www.litcity.net ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:28:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: What is to be considered Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Consider these points: (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be suffering effects from for years. Pearl Harbor was the starting point that ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. WTC attack was the starting point that ended with ______(?)___________. Anastasios Kozaitis & with the minor matter of the holocaust in the middle. Ron _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:22:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: art opening & book party MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Two events in New Orleans: ART OPENING Taking the Side of Things: Gouache and watercolor paintings by Richard O'Russa and Looking Down: Works in various media by Tom Varisco October 4 - 29, 2001 Opening Reception: Thursday, October 4, 6 - 8 pm Gallery hours: Monday - Thursday, 9 am - 5 pm, or by appointment Richard O'Russa is a painter, bookmaker, printer and conceptual artist. He received his B.F.A. in Painting from the University of Iowa, with minors in Printmaking and Multi-Media. Born in Peoria, Illinois, he has made his home in New York City since 1990, and since 1997 he has worked as a printer at SoHo Letterpress. Tom Varisco has taught Graphic Design at Loyola University in New Orleans since 1985, and is sole proprietor and Creative Director of Tom Varisco Designs, a full service design studio. This exhibition features collages, photographs, monotypes and a video by Varisco, the award-winning past president of the New Orleans Art Directors and Designers Association. DELGADO FINE ARTS GALLERY 615 CITY PARK AVENUE NEW ORLEANS, LA 70119 contact: Karoline Schleh 504.483.4512 *** BOOK PARTY The members of the New York/New Orleans based Erato Press cordially invite you to the New Orleans reception for their most recent publication, (the invisible city). Original artwork from (the invisible city) will be displayed in conjunction with poetry readings. This event will be held at The Studio 520 on General Pershing Street and refreshments will be served. For more information call The Studio 520 at (504) 899-1021 or email eratopress@cs.com. (the invisible city) Reception, Tuesday October 2, 2001 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM 520 General Pershing Street New Orleans, LA 70115 The Studio 520 is located between Annunciation and Tchoupitoulas, one block off of Napolean. It is around the corner from the original Tipitina's. We would also like to thank Maurice Alvarado for generously donating his studio space for this event. Contributors to (the invisible city), an anthology of art and poetry inspired by Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities, include: Will Alexander, Larry Giacoletti, Anselm Berrigan, Katie Pratt, Marcella Durand, Terry Brocke Davis, Joe Elliot, Karoline Schleh, Betsy Fagin, Dan Piersol, Laird Hunt, Richard O'Russa, Lisa Jarnot, Laura Richens, Rachel Levitsky, Massimo Boccuni, Brian Lucas, *Mary Jane Parker, Pattie McCarthy, *Anthony Henderson, Ricardo Matthews, Elizabeth Castagna, Alice Notley, Mitchell Long, Kristin Prevallet, Lisette Copping, Lytle Shaw, Eleni Sikelianos, Erin Tapely, Edwin Torres, Sandy Chism, Kevin Varrone, Meredith Hedges, Karen Weiser, and Tom Varisco Copes of (the invisible city) are available for $12. Send a check made out to Richard O'Russa at 332 E. 4th St., Apt. 24, NY NY 10009 Review by Audrey Leonard in Small Press Traffic online http://www.sptraffic.org/html/book_reviews/anthologies.html "One must certainly applaud the work of Erato Press editors Marcella Durand, Richard O'Russa, and Karoline Schleh. Their selection of artworks and writings creates a compelling landscape of the hearts and minds of contemporary city-dwellers. As Durand has it in her introduction, "we are all motion and transaction." Alice Notley, an outsider poet who's made it on to Penguin's list, contributes the largest selection, three pieces exploring cities platonic, supersonic, eerie and plain, sometimes all four in a single turn of phrase. Her work is steadily exuberant and plaintive as her lines and sentences traverse syntax and image in odd and pleasing measures. Lisette Copping's image of what look like two sleepy eyes in a tree trunk is the perfect companion to Notley's "The City Drifting". Lisa Jarnot's "This Is My Only Job", a foray into a New Jersey both visionary and cruddy, is a superb prose poem of crowded solitude. Other contributors include Notley's son Anselm Berrigan -- his "The Hunt of the Frail Stag" adds a neat touch of lightness to the eternally combustive questions of urban denizens -- as well as poets Will Alexander, Rachel Levitsky, Eleni Sikelianos, and Edwin Torres, and artists Mitchell Long and Dan Piersol." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:33:32 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Bush weighs military tribunals for suspected terrorists MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Declan McCullagh Reply-To: declan@well.com To: politech@politechbot.com Subject: FC: Bush weighs military tribunals for suspected terrorists Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 00:40:37 -0400 http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101010924/bprivacy.html Now the Bush Administration is considering the establishment of special military tribunals. Suspected terrorists could be tried without the ordinary legal constraints of American justice. During World War II, German saboteurs were tried secretly that way ... (This would mean suspending habeas corpus, right?) -Declan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 09:24:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: sublet available MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" From Eleni Sikelianos: One cat-loving subletter/roommate for 2-bedroom Lower Eastside loft-like apartment, Sept. 30-Jan. 14. You will have the place almost entirely to yourself (except for about 3 weeks, when we will be home). $1,000/month + utilities + 1,000 deposit. Contact Sikelianos@aol.com, esikelia@Princeton.edu or (212) 614-9546. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:47:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harold Teichman Subject: Re: What is to be criticized, affirmed, reiterated,celebrated,processed... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Maria Damon wrote: > in the tradition of > anglo-american analytic philosophy, it sets in motion a singular line of > argumentation that remains locked within and committed to a narrow and even > dead-end view of what's possible. Sorry, but this is complete rubbish. You cannot critique social institutions (or anything else) without canons of logical argumentation. And analytic philosophy is bigger than some smug poets recognize. Chomsky is essentially an analytic philosopher when he wears his linguist hat. I have just referred on the brit-po list to Elizabeth Anscombe's impassioned presentations of the (_very restrictive_) traditional just-war doctrine, in which she execrates attacks on civilians. If she isn't an analytic philosopher, I don't know who is (by the way, Retallack talks about her in the preface to Musicage). I would be interested to hear G. A. Cohen's remarks on the current situtation (he's been called an 'analytic marxist', i.e. one that dumps Hegel in the dustbin where he belongs). > i lost my martin > classical guitar, hundreds of records from the 60s and 70s (Cream/Disraeli > Gears, Big Bro. & the Holding Co, etc), and the computer UMN had given me. Here you have my complete sympathy. I lost my 60s record collection in a fire in 1977. I was, until two weeks ago, working in 1WTC. I witnessed the burning buildings directly, though I managed to get the ferry back to New Jersey before the towers fell. I think Nick Piombino is quite right that those of us who were there have a different set of emotional reactions from those who saw this as part of the news 'spectacle'. But this hasn't made me a war-monger or shut down my critical faculties, some of which (the horror!) have been honed on analytical philosophy. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:07:56 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hiya, if the USA / EU / UN / NATO wants to show what a great 'civilisation' it really is then it will not retaliate in any warring kind - that would demean such a claim. Who would be acting in self-defense? Would it be those 80 nation states whose citizens were represented by victims of the WTC attack? This is already a somewhat (and interesting for all that) extended concept of and understanding of the 'self'. Is it an ideology / a translocal alliance / a global trading community that needs to act in self-defence? IF (and i have to speak in complete ignorance of personal experience in such matters here) one wanted to goad someone(s) into a fight surely the most frustrating of all responses, that which would rubbish one's intentions, would be a form of response which did not trade kind with kind? It is just as likely that further attacks (on this entire body of 'selfhood') will follow from counter-aggression. More 'passers-by' will be drawn into an already futile fight. The BIG story is surely the fact that US / Allies' preparation for 'war' (a legal declaration of which invokes statehoods - and perhaps it is an opportune moment for the base falsity of the continued formations of statehood to be addressed) hogs the headlines, whilst the story of 200,000 and rising numbers of starving refugees already heading, abandoned, towards death on the roads out of Afghanistan is tagged at the end of the current bulletins. Surely the positioning of those two stories in another order would reveal the decivilising futility of what beckons. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 02:39:29 -0400 Reply-To: dbuuck@mindspring.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "dbuuck@mindspring.com" Subject: Tripwire 6 Submission Extension Content-Transfer-Encoding: Quoted-Printable MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Tripwire has extended its deadline for submissions to its next issue until Jan. 1 2002. Responses to & engagement with recent (and coming) events is invited. Tripwire invites submissions of essays, translations, interviews, art & book reviews, bulletins, letters responding to pr= evious issues, & visual art. Visual art submissions should be reproducible in black & white; visual artists are encourage= d to include a statement about their work. At this time, we are not accepting unsolicited poetry for publication. All submissions should include a hard copy. Currently available: tripwire 4: Work Eileen Myles, Rodrigo Toscano, Laura Elrick, Steve Farmer, Bruce Andrews, Rosmarie Waldrop with Carole Maso & C.D. Wright= , Jeff Derksen, Bobbie West, Catherine Daly, Camille Roy, Alan Gilbert, Pye Banbou, France Therot, Karen Brodine, Olga Ca= bral, Heriberto Yepez, Ramez Querishi, Axel Lieber, & more. 190 pp. $8. Forthcoming October: tripwire 5: Expanding the Repertoire: Continuity & Change in African-American Writing Will Alexander, Wanda Coleman, CS Giscombe, Renee Gladman, Erica Hunt, Nate Mackey, Mark McMorris, Harryette Mullen, Juli= e Patton, giovanni singleton, Lorenzo Thomas & Arnold J. Kemp. 200 pp. $8. tripwire c/o Yedda Morrison & David Buuck P.O. Box 420936 San Francisco, CA 94142-0936 yedd@aol.com www.durationpress.com/tripwire Distributed by: Small Press Distribution 800-869-7553 orders@spd.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:48:01 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: The Flag As Transitional Object In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, I knew little about Winnicott until working with a student on their PhD which used his ideas of transitional phenomena and intermediate space in respect of writing. Picking up Nick's comments on the transitional object, the following are direct from D.W.Winnicott's 'Playing and Reality': 'there may emerge some thing or some phenomenon - perhaps a bundle of wool or the corner of a blanket or eiderdown, or a word or tne, or a mannerism - that becomes vitally important to the infant for use at the time of going to sleep, and is a defence against anxiety, especially anxiety of depressive type...This object goes on being important.' I'd be wanting to introduce the concept of the 'tragedy of the commons' into such a thinking process. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:24:50 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: <009f01c14366$9678aa20$cb8756cf@jjstick> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi, several posters have remarked here on this fact in recent days, but the continued use of 'America' and 'Americans' is part of the perceptuial problem. Friends of mine in the USA have grinned when i pointed this out before, saying, it's just to rile everyone else. Hmmmm I write from the unfortunately recondeconstructed 'United Kingdom', knowing that we stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone in the formations and perpetuations of this problem. love and love cris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:05:40 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: road runner Subject: What is to be known and demonstrated In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20010921225939.00b1f1b0@mail.wayne.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The local news here in Los Angeles more than once showed demonstrations at Caltech and I believe Berkerely. Whether or not this coverage is proportionate is hard to say. Still, I was surprised to see it a all. However, yesterday on Vermont Blvd. a rather large demonstration took place in front of a Sikh mosque. I didn't see any coverage of that. -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Barrett Watten Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 8:12 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: What is to be known The claim that the CNN file footage story was a hoax can be found at: http://groups.google.com/groups?q=celebrating+group:alt.folklore.urban&hl=en &rnum=1&selm=604fd27e.0109190702.4e96c1f2%40posting.google.com Now that we are entering into war conditions, I imagine there will be a lot of uncertainty about what is and is not occurring. For instance, I have not seen any reportage of peace demonstrations in major media, though Elizabeth Treadwell mentions them occurring at Berkeley. Apparently 2000 students rallied but "you can't hear them." http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/09/21/nati onal0433EDT0478.DTL BW ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:59:59 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit You have to know who or what you are defending yourself from. If it's bin Laden from whom we are defending ourselves, then the list of targets for self-offense continue well into the very heart of the US intelligence establishment, NATO, and even the White House. Yes, the CIA was channeling him money through the KLA up through the end of 1999, AFTER bin Laden was an Official Enemy. Does that not sound criminal to you? We helped line his pockets even after he was a Public Enemy (Of course you simply do not have to believe me or a host of people inside the intelligence establishment speaking out against the actions of their own.) We're not going to be able to bring all of these criminals to justice in order to really protect ourselves. Therefore self-offense, er, self-defense will be another mockery of justice. Instead all we will witness is some businesspeople and/or narcotrafficers quietly eliminating some of their partners while noisily killing a bunch of innocent civilians to satisfy the apparent will of the people. There will always be the possibility of another terrorist attack but, should we let fear control our lives, we will also let the arbiters of fear take over. If the US is suddenly no longer a superpower and ceases to be a big weapons consumer or some colonial-imperialist dictator-installing provider of genocidal power in the name of being a "superpower", I know I'll be OK. At least we won't have so many attacks any more. At least I will feel better knowing I was not funding Nazis any more. The war already IS an "intelligence" war. Clearly it's not a "wisdom" war. The other war, the public spectacle, will be for entertainment and the closing of the credibility gap. If you're in a classroom and your back is turned and some unknown individual hits you with a spitball, do you have "the wisdom" to turn around and decide it's the bad kid in the class and then punish him? Or do you instead punish the whole class until someone confesses? Neither response has any justification yet that's the US Government's approach to "self-defense" here. Unfortunately less than 8% of US Citizens understand any of this. Most of the 92% would go on and punish the whole class. Frankly, I'm tired of superpowers. Patrick Food not bombs. > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Marjorie Perloff > Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 1:04 AM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: What is to be Done? > > > I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this > List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of > you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of > action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the > similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the > face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe > not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a > bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the > terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an > intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by > ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a > nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at > all. > > Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to > understand this. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:02:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard Subject: To be done Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit On Friday morning, on the subway, I saw the first media report that Boston was "targeted" for a terrorist attack this weekend. The information or rumor grew from a phone call between Ashcroft and the Massachusetts governor. Later in the day all authorities were downplaying the report as "false." Nevertheless the usually crowded places in Boston on Saturday were not crowded. On Friday night we caught about ten minutes of the celebrity fundraiser on television. Neil Young's performance was contained in that ten minutes. He sang John Lennon's "Imagine." Though I've heard the song hundreds of times before, this time I felt a heaviness in my chest and throat that didn't easily go away. This is where I stand on the current "crisis;" in the lyrics of that (unwitting?) anarchist song. And also, right behind Congresswoman Barbara Lee: yes, the attacks of September 11 are a horrible instance of mass murder, but they cannot allow us to support an open-ended vague war in potentially several countries against an unspecified enemy. (And yet there shall be one and, as with the Gulf War, there's really not a lot you can do about it.) On Sunday we attended the American Friends Service Committee Peace Rally in Copley Square. Several hundred people, perhaps a thousand, sat on the grass between the public library and the Episcopal church and listened to several speakers, singers, and poets. The majority of speakers were clergy of many different religions. It was the historian Howard Zinn whose brief talk moved me the most and, judging from the applause and cheers of the crowd, moved many other people too. Zinn cited both the spirit of Lennon's song and the action of Barbara Lee as models for people opposed to military retaliation. You cannot, he said, expect in modern warfare, with the technology capabilities of the US, to launch any military action and not kill thousands of civilians in the process. We should be eliminating the basic causes in the world---poverty, sickness, repression---that allow environments for terrorism to thrive. Now that the intense emotions felt in the immediate aftermath are subsiding (not going away but certainly not as intense) it's becoming possible as well as very necessary to think critically again. It's already too late to change the immediate actions of the government (they got twice the amount of money asked for and an authority to wage war beyond compare). But to learn from the Gulf War there is little that any citizen group could do to change the inevitable. (I say this because when Saddam Hussein agreed to withdraw unconditionally from Iraq days prior to the air war, Bush dismissed the offer as a "sick joke." There was no stopping US plans for war. Today, it's the same people, literally, running things.) Noam Chomsky said the attacks were "a gift to the hard jingoist right." The gift is the public support the Bush administration will have in doing anything it likes in terms of a response, including prepping the American public for a long war that will have "costs," declaring that the situation meets the requirements for tapping into the Social Security surplus, and also acknowledging potential small-scale "tactical" nuclear strikes. Last Thursday the president told the world everyone, every country, is either with us or against us. The time may be very brief when dissent in the US against this "war" will be equated with terrorism itself. In the media the attacks are finally being talked about as a continuation (a retaliation) of the Gulf War. A "continuation" because that war has never ended. The US "coalition" of eleven years ago may not be as large and active as it was for a horrific six weeks or so in February 1991, but the war against Iraq has never ended. Nor has the US's "temporary" military base in Saudi Arabia ever been removed. Supposedly this has been a big reason for a lot of angry, "America-hating" people in the Middle East. This is being talked about now in the press, that is in the past few days. Why wasn't it talked about ten years ago? And to talk about it now, to talk about anything but the people killed in the attacks is construed as callous not to mention (shudder) unpatriotic. Meanwhile, besides the admirable responses I've read here from Ron, Brian, Marcella, Barrett, the poets who can reach the outside world seem to do so with utter lameness. Andrei Codrescu, writing in the Plain Dealer (9/18/01), says (much like Tom Petty) that the waiting is the hardest part. "Whatever happens next will define everything we are going to do….we have rarely waited this impatiently for our national life to give direction to our individual lives." Also, and this is embarrassing, "waiting for news, obsessively glued to TV and radio. I cannot begin to express my admiration for the news people who keep us engaged every minute, 24 hours a day. They are heroic, intelligent, hardworking." But where I have received "news" I found useful almost exclusively from the Web, Codrescu writes, "The Internet, too, is buzzing, but mostly with make-busy noises without much substance, opinions and theories of every sort… People with little authority, moral or otherwise, are brushing off moldy left-wing or right-wing arguments against our government. Hollow theories and tired cliches spew forth. Total nuts like Noam Chomsky and shameless self-promoters like Christopher Hitchens on the left…are blaming America for the terror. It's unconscionable." Can you imagine? There are arguments against "our" government being made? Reductive viewpoint about "blame" aside. Someone please tell me where you've heard this cliché before: if you're actually interested in removing the threat of violence, you seek to understand it, especially in the heat of a terrible moment. If, on the other hand, you're interested in escalating the cycle of violence, you don't. This is Chomsky talking about the attacks and citing Ireland as evidence. It's a cliche I'd like to hear on the television news shows more often, if ever. Ron Silliman's post certainly reflects years of experience as a committed and effective organizer of leftist causes. You remind me in that post of the mentors (all Socialists) I have worked with in Cambridge in the past five years in tenant struggles. Thank you for that. There's not a lot one can do to prevent the coming US attack. But I agree with Ron's Nine points of things "to be done" to mitigate what is certain to be a bloodbath, worldwide disaster, and floodgate of future terrorist attacks here and abroad. ><>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard Senior Production Coordinator The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 <>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><>> ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:10:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Hartley Subject: Re: What is to be known In-Reply-To: <5.0.1.4.2.20010921225939.00b1f1b0@mail.wayne.edu> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit There was a rally here at Ohio University last week with at least 100 people to coincide with the national campus demonstration, maybe more. It got student paper coverage--I haven't looked for more yet. George Hartley _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:01:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Marjorie, I do understand that if we don't "do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK." However, I tend to think that there will be another attack if and when we do something, too. I don't see any way, at this time, that there won't be another attack. I'm not saying we shouldn't do something, but I read you here as implying that there's a greater chance of there not being another attack if we retaliate and find the terrorists and bring them to justice. While I wish that were true, I tend to doubt it. Charles At 10:04 PM 9/21/2001 -0700, you wrote: >unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe >not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a >bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the >terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an >intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by >ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a >nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at >all. > >Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to >understand this. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:22:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: oranget@GEORGETOWN.EDU Subject: Re: What is to be Done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit on Fri, 21 Sep 2001 Marjorie Perloff wrote: "The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK." NO! - U.S. military strikes are PRECISELY the response that the perpetrators of the attacks wished to elicit and precisely what they WILL USE TO JUSTIFY another attack!! more at some point, tom orange ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:51:11 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: What is to be Done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The idea that one can protect oneself if someone is determined to make an attack is a big misunderstanding. Britain's prisons are filling up in the mistaken belief that crime can be ended. Just now fools in our government are speaking of reducing liberty in order to protect liberty. But they like several others around the world are following their own agenda - a kind of looting I suspect that many of those who want something to be done would settle for anything... They want to feel something is happening. But people wanting *something to be done aren't necessarily proof of wise understanding. For example, there is a considerable lobby in UK for the government to do something about the flooding of houses built on flood plains... like what?! Sometimes there is nothing to be done I think it would be a start if the evidence against bin Laden was made available, had been made available, if it exists... He says it isn't him. Maybe it isn't. Maybe it's Iraq. We could always bomb Iraq... I heard last night that when this supposed evidence *is finally available it won't be given to the Afghans - because they don't have the same judicial system as USA. What kind of arrogance is that? One stage off from "These dark fellows wouldnt understand" We are in great need of an international judicial system and it is a matter of regret that the US government has resisted that But the UN is there and should be used. That Sudan has supported your President suggests to me the likelihood that they are scared to do anything else, not consensual behaviour *I am old enough to hear the postulated "global terrorism network" as an echo of the global communist network I grew up hearing about. It's never that simple. It wasn't that simple when it was the wiles of the tempter everywhere. If there is a terrorist network, by all means let's dismantle it; but that is only an obverse or reverse (depending on your point of view) of the "global arms trade". Let's dismantle that too. OTHERWISE THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. The idea of doing away entirely with the arms trade entirely is of course utterly hopeless; ditto the bogeymen We can sit and debate the | similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the | face, but unless we do something Doing that IS doing something. Neither your country nor mine, as an entity, is free of a prima facie charge of terrorism. There *is terror in Afghanistan now. That vast movement of people running from the dead-or-alive talk but they know not where must lead to deaths among the weak, the old, the sick. Terror is doing that. DO.... NOTHING... beyond sending aid OR THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK & the attack on USA *was another attack. It's just that the other attacks haven't been on USA's mainland but they were attacks on innocent human beings. PEOPLE are always being killed in hundreds, and some by USA, some by UK, some by others including official terrorists. Perhaps it's easier to see that from here though I am glad we haven't had such a one off horror as your country has suffered EVERY attack EVERY response is done in the name of some good, is justified in somebody's eyes Any violent or repressive response is wrong. I am deeply sorry if that is not understood and fearful for the future. all the best Lawrence ----- Original Message ----- From: "Marjorie Perloff" To: Sent: 22 September 2001 06:04 Subject: Re: What is to be Done? | I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this | List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of | you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of | action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the | similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the | face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe | not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a | bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the | terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an | intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by | ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a | nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at | all. | | Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to | understand this. | ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:42:06 -0700 Reply-To: tbrady@msgidirect.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Thanks, Mom [was RE: What is to be Done?] In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apparently all we new growths on the slopes of public discourse needed was to be cut down at a stroke and fashioned into a straw child. If not yet up to the demands of history, we are now at least upright enough to take instruction. Your stern parental presence is an inspiration to us all. Speaking for myself, I hope one day to be a real live boy. But I'm troubled by the fact that my grandmother -- who has a generation on you -- seems to agree with Laura Elrick's post of today. If I recall her words in our last phone conversation correctly, she characterized the choice between criminal investigation and open-ended war as one between internationalism and imperialism. We've settled the issue of age. Is it time to return to the question of wisdom? Taylor -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Marjorie Perloff Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 10:04 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: What is to be Done? I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at all. Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to understand this. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:22:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: first fall POG event: Dinnerware this Saturday, 7 pm: poet Mary Rising Higgins, photographer Michael Cherney MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit for immediate release POG presents Poet Mary Rising Higgins Photographer Michael Cherney Saturday, September 29, 7pm, Dinnerware Gallery, 135 East Congress Admission: $5; Students $3 Mary Rising Higgins is the author of two books of poetry: red table(S (La Alameda Press, 1999) and OCLOCK (Potes and Poets Press, 2000). A new book, )locus TIDES(, will appear from Potes and Poets in fall 2002. Higgins' poetry has also appeared in Central Park, Hambone, Big Allis, and other journals. for samples of Mary Rising Higgins' work you can go to http://www.potespoets.org/catalog/oclock.htm for a review of OCLOCK, by Patrick Durgin in Rain Taxi, see http://www.raintaxi.com/higgins.html Michael Cherney will present a collection of photographic slides that join images of China, including Tibet, with 2400-year-old Taoist writings in the form of calligraphy. An informal narrative will deal with the various locations, ethnicities and beliefs of southwest China, including ancient wisdom traditions. An award-winning photographer and experienced sinologist, Michael Cherney is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. His primary work aside from photography is as Executive Coordinator for Friendship Homes and Schools, a non-profit organization that supports orphans in southwest China. Samples of Cherney's art can be seen at: http://www.anian.net/ POG events are sponsored in part by grants from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council and the Arizona Commission on the Arts POG also benefits from the continuing support of The University of Arizona Extended University Writing Works Center, The University of Arizona Department of English, The University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the Arizona Quarterly. for further information contact POG: 296-6416 tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:28:17 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20010921175140.00af6e10@mail.theriver.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >George, I usually agree with you, but I think your response here is cruel. >I do think there are a good number of people who have been terribly shaken, >and wonder what of "america" there is to hold on to, and they want >something. So, the flag. Is this a great thing to do? In my estimation, >probably not, but is its meaning the same as jingoistic jumping on the >bandwagon of war? -- absolutely not. Is it understandable? I think so. Am I >going to do it? No, I am definitely not comfortable with that. But the kind >of ridicule you imply here, I believe, is going way too far. I hope there's >some goodhearted humor there that I'm just not catching. > >charles Nice letter, Charles. I appreciate it. I was not meaning ridicule when I asked about getting a gun while getting a flag. I know that you ar seeing the relationship from inside the US, and I think that it is hard for people inside the US to see what it looks like from outside. We get, for example, every day, lots of US tourists who are surprised at the border that they have to leave their guns outside Canada. They always ask "But how will I protect myself?" I remember one time on one of the many US patriotic days, I think it was Flag Day, stopping in a Wyoming city, I forget which one, and there was window display after window display in storefrons. In one there was nothing but flags and hand grenades. We got away from there as fast as we could. I dont know what flag-waving means in the US ecxactly, but I have to say that when I see them, I get scared. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:32:00 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: <015501c14306$66952640$2e442718@ruthfd1.tn.home.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >surely, the flag is not a black or white issue everywhere asit is here in >the heart of redneck country it's red, white, and blue and in the process of >evolving. Just because I join my neighbor who is a fireman and the owner of >a nearby QuickSak in displaying a flag surely doesn't make me responsible >for all that has been done or will be done in its name? We are participants >in this future. > But I am remembering going to a baseball game in Detroit, and there was a lot of the usual flag business, but then their was a trio of military types in uniform, carrying rifles on their shoulders, marching the flag in fronm center field. At a baseball game!!! I have seen this on TV several times since. I mean when baseball is militarized, one should cadst an analytical though frightened eye. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:48:04 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I'm sure someone else has said this already, but there will be another attack anyway. There is no way that I know of, other than working towards the Buddhist goal of total enlightenment for all sentient beings, to "wipe out" terrorism. The horrible gas attacks on the subways in Japan were the work of citizens of that country. Oklahoma City was not the work of a born and bred American. No amount of "concerted effort" on the part of this or any country is going to stop what seems to be, unfortunately, a constant and immediate access to Wrong Action by whomever feels the need to act this way. I mean, come on, haven't we all been blinded, at one point or another, by hatred or jealousy or terror? As long as people still feel that way, there will be terrible acts. Retaliation only continues the cycle of suffering. Compassion is the only way out. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:06:03 -0700 Reply-To: yan@pobox.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: matvei yankelevich Subject: small press nights, please get involved Comments: To: ugly.duckling@pobox.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii **** NEWS ABOUT SMALL PRESS NIGHTS **** **** AT SIBERIA **** Now more than ever it is important to support Really Independent Presses! That's why Ugly Duckling Presse has started a SMALL PRESS NIGHTS series, making independent and anti-commercial publishers the focus of our gatherings in the Cellar of SIBERIA. If you have a small magazine or make books by hand or have a penchant for xeroxing zines, let us know and we'll set up a night for you and yours and bring others to it. A book or magazine release, a reading, films, bands anything is a good reason and a good way to promote your SMALL but intense endeavor. It's important for us little people to meet each other, exchange the hard-to-find, non-B&N products of our labors, as well as our ideas about the future, about alternative distribution systems and the actions & collaborations we can make together. To get involved or arrange a small press night, email me (Matvei) at ugly.duckling@pobox.com. And please pass this message on. So far our schedule... September 26: UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE - 6x6 #4 October 3: KOJA MAGAZINE & PRESS October 17: MASS DEPORTATION PRESS & in November.... a SOFT SKULL benefit *** POETRY NEWS *** The Cellar encourages informal readings, so Filip Marinovic (poet and editor#4 of 6x6) will be spearheading an effort to bring poets/writers to the space with notebooks in hand, reading the freshest pages, talking, shaping what we pen-graspers and keyboard-meister must do in this POST NYC world we live in. *** PRACTICAL INFO *** SIBERIA (bar), Manhattan 356 1/2 W. 40th St., right off 9th Ave. we usually start after 8 and go late HOW: Take the ACE to 42nd, exit subway at 40th St., walk west, stay on left side, opposite the PortAuthority Terminal. As you approach the corner of 9th Ave, keep an eye out for the mysterious black doors on your left. open and DESCEND into the basement. www.uglyducklingpresse.org Thanks for getting to the bottom of this, Matvei __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 11:35:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this >List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of >you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of >action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the >similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the >face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe >not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a >bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the >terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an >intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by >ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a >nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at >all. > >Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to >understand this. Marjorie, are you saying that the people who then get their land, houses, children, etc blasted to hell will say "Okay, we see the light. We will no longer feel the urge to fight you"? Have you heard what Islamic people have been saying in the Middle east in the past few days? -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 19:57:58 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scott=20Hamilton?= Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Marjorie Perloff wrote: unless we do something THERE WILL BE > ANOTHER ATTACK and I agree completely with her. Unless the Western left 'does something' by getting huge numbers on the streets to match the anti-war actions gripping Pakistan at the moment, there certainly will be more terrorist attacks on the West. The 'guarantor of peace' is not new police state legislation, the indiscriminate arrest and indefinite detention of unlucky American Muslims, or the targeted, 'clean' extra-judicial assasinations that self-proclaimed 'moderates' in the West have suddenly fallen in love with: the guarantor of peace is the defeat of US and Israeli forces in the Middle East and the defeat of US policies for the Middle East. It's as simple and as difficult as that. Although few of us live in the Middle East, we can all play a role in protecting Marjorie and ourselves from further attacks. Seeya for the march: next Saturday, QE 2 Square, at 4.30: Richard :) and any other Aucklanders lurking hereabouts... Cheers, Scott ===== For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 15:48:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wanda Phipps Subject: Peace Action Tuesday Night MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's some info. on a peace action sent to me by a friend. She asked me to pass it on and thought you might be interested: Marianne This past Saturday artists who are concerned about the events of 9/11 performed a piece entitled OUR GRIEF IS NOT A CRY FOR WAR. At 12 noon they walked single file into Union Square and took their places in a semi-circle. For one hour they stood in silence wearing face masks and placards silk-screened with "OUR GRIEF IS NOT A CRY FOR WAR." The response to this performance was electric, many people coming up to take stickers, find out who these people were, and thank them. Some were in tears. The group who organized the performance were artists in film, video, visual art, theater, dance, spoken word. They do not want their grief to be used as a justification for war, attacks on Arabs and Muslims, and new repressive laws or clampdowns. THE NEXT PERFORMANCE is scheduled for tuesday (9/25) at 6 pm in Times Square. MEET in the triangle just north of the Army Recruitment Center between 43rd and 44th. PLAN to arrive as close to 6 pm as possible. WEAR black if you can. PLEASE pass this on to anyone who might join us. Hundreds of photographs were taken of this performance by people who saw it, including two by an AP photographer which landed on the yahoo.com homepage at 8:30 Saturday night. Within an hour one of the pictures became the "most popular" photo on the site, having been sent to other people over 400 times. For more information, go to http://artistsnetwork.org, the website of the Artists Network of Refuse & Resist! -- Wanda Phipps Hey, don't forget to check out my website MIND HONEY http://users.rcn.com/wanda.interport (and if you have already try it again) poetry, music and more! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:20:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Baker Subject: ny poetry workshop In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Hermine Meinhard asked that I send this along. For all that may be interested she's a wonderly gifted poet and teacher. ---------- Private Poetry Workshop in Manhattan given by Hermine Meinhard The soul or core of a poem lies in what is hidden, fleeting and nonrational. This workshop will help students draw on those elusive aspects of experience that give a poem its depth and mystery. Emphasis will be on in-class improvisational exercises, using objects, language and outside texts to spur associational thinking. We will experiment with direct and indirect ways of=20 approaching material and with extending our range through nontraditional uses of language and silence. And, working with journals, we will explore the variety of ways a poem can come into existence through rapid generation of text, fragments, accidents and mis-readings. The class will be offered this fall in Manhattan as an eight-week session on Wednesday evenings (excluding the Wednesday before Thanksgiving) from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., beginning mid-October. The course fee is $280. Hermine Meinhard is poetry editor of the literary journal 3rd bed. Her poem= s have been published or are forthcoming in Sonora Review, Willow Springs, Luna, Kalliope, The Prose Poem, Poetry New York, 13th Moon and other journals. She has been a finalist for the Levis and Intro Prizes for a book of poetry, was the grand prize winner of the Sue Saniel Elkind Poetry Award and a Pushcart Prize nominee. Other honors include artistic residencies at Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, Ragdale and the Blue Mountain Center= . She has read her work in a variety of New York City venues, among them The Kitchen, the Barrow Street Series, the Knitting Factory, and Cornelia Stree= t Caf=E9. She was poetry instructor for many years at The Writer's Voice and currently teaches writing at NYU. Contact Hermine Meinhard at hmeinhard@lincolncenter.org with questions or interest. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:29:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: claank design Subject: Re: m&r...disinformation... In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit A friend and neighbor, a man from Pakistan, reported to us that the news from home was broadcasting that all of the Jews who should have been in the WTC were absent that day. Implying, of course, that Israel plotted the whole thing to gain further aid in its own violence against Arab peoples. Andrea Baker > From: Harry Nudel > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 01:26:24 -0400 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Fwd: m&r...disinformation... > > nudel-soho@mindspring.com wrote: >> > > Arabic sources in the Middle East are reported to be saying that W.T.C. > bombing was a computer generated hoax.....to justify an American Attack on > IraQ....images were reimposed from a 1997 Arnold Schwar. movie...they are > linking this deception to the same people who pretend there was a > 'holocaust'...SPREAD THIS INFORMATION AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.....DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:12:43 -0700 Reply-To: yan@pobox.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: matvei yankelevich Subject: 6x6 #4 Comments: To: ugly.duckling@pobox.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii SMALL PRESS NIGHTS WEDNESDAYS AT THE >SIBERIA< CELLAR SERIES Ugly Duckling Presse 6x6 #4 the unveiling September 26 after 8pm 6x6 #4 includes new work by: Anna Moschovakis, Brandon Downing, Sam Truitt, Aaron Tieger, Dmitri Prigov / Chris Mattison, and WB Keckler. You can bet the NYC half of them will be there in person. *please come and see friends you haven't seen since the 11th. *please come and celebrate the birthdays of two 6x6 editors, Filip & Matvei. *readings, live music, intelligent conversation, drinks served by artists. SIBERIA (bar), Manhattan 356 1/2 W. 40th St., right off 9th Ave. we start after 8 and go late HOW: Take the ACE to 42nd, exit subway at 40th St., walk west, stay on left side, opposite the PortAuthority Terminal. As you approach the corner of 9th Ave, keep an eye out for the mysterious black doors on your left. open and DESCEND into the basement. www.uglyducklingpresse.org Thanks for getting to the bottom of this one too, Matvei ps - on my birthday I may be sick in bed, but you should check out my writings at the Cronica Reading Series website (I think it's cronicweb.com, or google it) and also on Amy Fusselman's SurgeryOfModernWarfare.com in the recent archives. pps - there are very few copies remaining of this new book of mine, WRITING IN THE MARGIN. email James Hoff (Loudmouth Collective) if you really want one and have three bucks to spend: jchoff@yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:41:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Tenure-system positions at MSU In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010924141208.022dadd0@bales.email.umn.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" From: "Patrick O'Donnell" (by way of Kent Bales ) Subject: Tenure-system positions at MSU Mime-Version: 1.0 Dear CIC Chairs: The English Department at Michigan State University will be conducting two tenure-system position searches this year. If you would, please distribute this information as appropriate. Thank you. Patrick O'Donnell, Chairperson Department of English Michigan State University Assistant Professor - Transatlantic Modernism We seek an Assistant Professor of English (tenure-system) with a specialization in Transatlantic Modernism. The position begins August 16, 2002. Candidates should work in literature and culture between 1860 and 1940, with an emphasis on transatlantic convergences and theories of modernity. Primary teaching responsibilities will be in comparative British and American literatures and cultures. Additional areas of expertise may include on or more of the following: critical theory, visual culture, film, gender and sexuality studies, race and empire. Requirements: Ph.D. by August, 2002; publications or strong promise of publication; college teaching experience preferred. Successful applicants will need to provide evidence of teaching abilities; faculty in the College of Arts and Letters at MSU contribute to programs in the Center for Integrative Studies. Send a letter of application and C.V. to: Transatlantic Modernism Search Committee, c/o Judith Stoddart, Search Committee Chair, Department of English, 201 Morrill Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 48824. Application Deadline: Nov. 1, 2001 Asssistant Professor - Early Modern British Literature and Culture We seek an Assistant Professor of English (tenure-system) with a specialization in 16th and/or 17th British literature and culture. The position begins August 16, 2002. Candidates should have additional expertise in one or more of the following areas: Medieval Studies, cultural studies, critical theory, gender and sexuality studies, postcolonial and race studies, performance studies. Consideration will be given to either a dramatic or non-dramatic specialization, with some experience and/or interest in teaching Shakespeare. Requirements: Ph.D. by August, 2002; publications or strong promise of publication; college teaching experience preferred. Successful applicants will need to provide evidence of teaching abilities; faculty in the College of Arts and Letters at MSU contribute to programs in the Center for Integrative Studies. Send a letter of application and C.V. to: Early Modern Search Committee, c/o Jyotsna Singh, Search Committee Chair, Department of English, 201 Morrill Hall, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI 48824. Application Deadline: Nov. 1, 2001. Michigan State University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Persons with disabilities have the right to request and receive reasonable accomodation. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply. For further information about the MSU English Department, visit our website at www.cal.msu.edu/english ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:11:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Orange Organization: Georgetown University Subject: Ammiel Alcalay & Jerome Rothenberg @ Georgetown U. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Georgetown University and the Lannan Foundation present Ammiel Alcalay & Jerome Rothenberg "The Political Character of Translation" Tuesday, 25 September 2001 Seminar: Room 462 InterCultural Center (ICC), 5:30 p.m. Reading & Performance: ICC Auditorium, 8:00 p.m. Georgetown University, Washington DC In Ammiel Alcalay’s work, the fields of poetry, scholarship and literary criticism, translation and international human rights come together and overlap. A crucial figure in providing access to voices under duress, he has edited and translated work from Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish and Serbo-Croatian (including books by writers caught up in the war in former Yugoslavia) and is responsible for the unique collection of Middle Eastern Jewish writing, Keys to the Garden. His own books include After Jews and Arabs, Memories of Our Future: Selected Essays, 1982-1999, and Cairo Notebooks, an original prose work. A Fellow at the International Center for Advanced Studies at New York University, Alcalay teaches at Queens College, in New York. Poet, anthologist, translator, and editor Jerome Rothenberg describes his work as "an ongoing attempt to reinterpret the poetic past from the point of view of the present." He has published some 50 books of poetry to date and numerous works of translation from the Spanish (including the poetry of Federico García Lorca), German, Czech, Navajo, Seneca and Aztec. Celebrated for his work in the fields of ethnopoetics and the modern avant-garde, Rothenberg is editor of the mind-expanding anthologies Technicians of the Sacred: A Range of Poetries from Africa, America, Asia, & Oceania and Poems for the Millennium (with Pierre Joris). Jerome Rothenberg has taught in universities across the United States and he now lives in San Diego, California. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:16:14 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Marjorie: You assume that we can eliminate terrorism. We can't--one of the dubious benefits of the epread of modern technology is that terrorism is very easy--witness Timothy McVeigh, who wreaked considerable damage with little support and not much intelligence. We (the US) obviously will take action, and hopefully it will be limited and wise and not create too many new enemies for us. That action may result in a relative hiatus, which would not be a bad thing. But the only way to reduce the danger of terrorism is to use that hiatus, if there is one, to change the conditions on the ground in the rather large area that the administration has designated as potential target so that large elements of the population no longer act as a support network or as willing camouflage for the terrorists. It's worth remembering that Bader-Meinhof is no longer with us--it never achieved more than marginal support among the German population. Irish terrorism is alive and well, on the other hand. This is a big job that I doubt we'll undertake. It will require the wealthy nations to stop using the poorer nations as despised sources for cheap natural resources, cheap labor and captive markets and instead to elevate those nations and their workers to the status of economic competitors, as we did in Europe and Japan after WWII. Otherwise terrorists will continue to be spawned and will continue to enjoy support and prestige, instead of being regarded, as by most people in the US, as part of a small, irreducible lunatic fringe. Mark At 10:04 PM 9/21/2001 -0700, Marjorie Perloff wrote: >I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this >List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of >you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of >action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the >similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the >face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe >not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a >bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the >terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an >intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by >ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a >nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at >all. > >Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to >understand this. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:25:13 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Re: What is to be Done? Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi Marjorie, I think a lot of people on this list are understanding that something must be done, and are thinking aloud (or a-text) about what that might be. Among the confusing, horrifying and frustrating things is that no matter what we do there will likely be another attack. Elizabeth I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at all. Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to understand this. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:45:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: Small Press Traffic's new website MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Small Press Traffic has a new, improved web site, featuring reviews of recent small press books author biographies a history of SPT new writing our first audio file (mp3), of Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge's Sept 7 reading (see new writing page) & much, much more.... HTTP://WWW.SPTRAFFIC.ORG Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:50:00 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Scott=20Hamilton?= Subject: Re: ' Let's not get too liberal': Chris Hitchens as Kipling? In-Reply-To: <3BAC4B11.44283B67@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Marjorie Perloff wrote: "I don't know if you print extracts from articles, but I think Christopher Hitchens' piece is a gem all on this list should read. It's also beautifully written!" Christopher Hitchen's article 'Let's Not Get Too Liberal' graphically demonstrates the role being played by the Guardian, that icon of the liberal left, during the current crisis. Normally, the paper is something of a Fabian gadfly, buzzing in an annoying if harmless manner around the ears of Britain's intelligentsia and midle classes. At times, however, when its owners' interests are threatened by anti-imperialist struggle abroad or class conflict at home, the Guardian is only too happy to play the role of necessary stand-in for more right-wing media. An opinion piece in the Times condemning strike action is, after all, likely to elicit about as much attention as the 'Dog Bites Man' story beside it. In the Guardian, the same sentiment will ripple: after all, it is sentiment from a 'left' newspaper, a paper which normally 'loves' strikes! The strike in question must be truly awful, and its condemnation by right-wing media and politicians truly motivated by something other than the tawdry and the obvious! Guardian writers have already, on the basis of ludicrously inadequate evidence, accused the anti-capitalist movement which had planned mass anti-IMF protests this month of a inhumanly gleeful response to the S 11 atrocities. In the atmosphere of McCarthyism being whipped up in the US and Europe at present, how many people have potentially been put in danger by these loose claims? Now Guardian columnist Hitchens has joined Bush, Straw and Murdoch in the project of caricaturing, decontextualising, and ultimately dehumanising fundamendalist Muslims. Here's a riposte to Hitchens from Priyamvada Gopal, an Indian academic and Marxist. Rather entertaining it is too! I can go into length about the various obvious analytical flaws in the Hitchens article, but it is not a serious enough piece to merit that. I plan instead to have my students do it for a colonial discourse analysis mid-term. (Colonial discouse analysis ordinarily bores me, still does. I almost never teach it. But perhaps Christopher as Rudyard Kipling rattling gamely through the Khyber pass merits a page of undergraduate writing as mine plough their way through Kim, a department-required text at where I teach). My only reason for discussing Hitchens is my growing disquiet (and disbelief) at what seems to be increasing support within certain quarters of the American left for the bizarre and culturalist notion that there are, in fact, in the present-day, sutured and separate sociopolitical systems in relation to which late capitalism is "undeniably" better, both in itself and for Marxist aspirations. Seriously, somebody please explain this phenomenon to me, with names, dates and examples. Bin Laden represents a non-capitalist, "worse than" movement?! Bin Laden?!!! A man with an MBA who made his billions out of the construction industry and petro-dollars?! Here's a thought: late capitalism begets with its Oriental despot allies, and nourishes, when it is in the mood,"revivalism" "fundamentalism," "neo-feudalism" "anti-secularism" and "Binladenism." And feudalism likes the stock market. To point to this is not an apology or even an explanation for what happened on September 11. And frankly, if you don't recognize the symbiotic interconnectedness of these political systems and you have a vested interest in defending, no advocating, "late capitalism" over these "other social formations"-a vague term that no one seems to have yet bothered to unpack-then, girlfriend, to put it euphemistically, you've got some rather serious civilizational hierarchy issues. Actually, I think I will go into the Hitchens piece so I'm not culpable of vague generalizations myself but I'll try to restrict myself to a few examples: 1. What is "Tribal piety"? "Tribes" are the primal, self-evident opposite of modernity and modern civil society (that's how and why the imperial Brits classified certain peoples as such in the first place). Hence, what we really have here is the clash of tradition (East) and modernity (West), and damn Hitchens'"farouche-loooking, wolfishly gruff" driver for spoiling our fantasy by listening to Dire Straits instead of-gotta love this-"the ululations of some mullah." I hope Hitchens wasn't too painfully reminded of his days in the Khyber during NPR's endless procession of rabbis, priests and mullahs last week, punctuated by requiems. NYC is, of course, unproblematically "the symbol of modernism and innovation." ModernISM? Maybe he just meant the architecture. Anyway, it all boils down to ideas. 2."Always homogenize" (that's me, not Hitchens.). So "bin Ladenism" not only pulled down the Bamiyan Buddha, but its "co-thinkers" have been "heard" to express condemnation for the Pyramids. And while we are at it, we can deploy this catch-all neologism to account for certain kinds of pressures to withdraw troops from Gaza, militancy in Kashmir (never mind that there are several factions in that front alone), critiques of Zionism and, folks - us - lefties. We too are "poisoned" by bin Ladenism Our analyses of unfortunate retaliatory ideologies, to ask the "why" for which there is no simple answer, are "the moral equivalent of the hateful garbage" that comes out of the Falwell and bin La! den camps. Analysis=Rationalization=Apologias. This is not a good time to make subtle distinctions, you know. United we stand and all that. It just wouldn't do right now to give each region-Algeria, Kashmir, Pakistan, Iran, Kosovo, Gaza, Chechnya, India, or each event-Kashmir conflicts, the Satanic verses controversy, the maiming of women in Kabul, leftist analysis or rightist preaching-its own context and history even as we note the connections. The East is pretty much the same place with the same sort of stuff going on everywhere. So instead of generalizing about American imperialism, generalize about Islamic "fundamentalism" 3. All you "masochistic" lefties out there. Disconnected as you are from ground realities (when was the last time YOU tried to cross the Khyber?)-- learn this then. You could have been on that plane, "yes, even in the Pentagon." Where would your little cold-eyed analysis be then, huh? THEN, while you shat your pants,you would understand, without any need for argument, that these guys don't just hate what you hate, but Western civilization in toto. (Isn't that what Bennett said about Fanon?). Rally to it, brother,it's YOU they don't like. Meanwhile the virtues of Western civilization are self-evidently unique: "emancipated women" (can't think why that sounds familiar); "scientific enquiry" (all that crap about the Arab roots of mathematics, Black Athena yada yada); "its separation of church from state" (somehow, I managed to miss that. In the UK, where I live, the Head of State is also the "Defender of THE faith, and in India we don't usually hear "God Bless India" after political speeches-YET. But I forgot that we superstitious natives are more culturally and genetically prone to god-genuflection). And in the midst of all this obviousness, many of us "non-Western" feminists and progressives have actually managed to pull out stuff on the long, illustrious history of non-Western feminisms and the history of rational and democratic values in our respective polities, heck, even ! the Islamic ones, much before the advent of the West into our lives. I guess secular Indian forces should just acknowledge what our own Hindu "fundoos" have been telling us all along and what we've strenously denied in classically unrealistic leftie fashion: that feminism, secularism and democracy are Western values. Oh dear, I suppose one has to say this for the hundreth time. Yes, analysis should not take the form of "chickens coming home to roost."The situation is way over-determined beyond that. And no, analyses of American imperialism cannot simply "account" for mass murder. Yes, we need to think in more complicated ways and try to find a way forward. But arguing for primal civilizational clash does not seem to me to be that way. Well, one could go on, but it's actually not that interesting beyond a point. Let me just note something that is as true of me as it is of many of us in the left. In our frustration at not being able to "see the way forward" and our sense of being painted into a corner, we are starting to turn on each other to vent. So, other lefties are "masochistic", "ideological," "purists" "non-pragmatic", "callous," "disappointing", "not mourning enough," "unrealistic", "unempathetic" "uncosmopilitan" "unsecular" and so on. Well, if it keeps us talking, ok, but maybe we want to be careful about the ways in which we let this situation hurt us, such as the "us" is. In solidarity, Priya ===== For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ ____________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:48:51 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: Fwd: m&r...1099.... ...This from an M&R...Nov. 3..2000 Date: Fri, 3 Nov 2000 05:55:50 -0800 Reply-To: harry nudel Sender: Bibliofind News and Views From: harry nudel Subject: m&r...1099.... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Runciman, Steven..HISTORY OF THE CRUSADES...3 Vols...16 copies over 100.00...condition varies...or make up a set yrself..from the other 100 individual volumes on... Sir Steven, from today's Times Obit..Describing the crusader's hard-won capture of Jerusalem from the Muslims in the year 1099. Sir Steven wrote that the victors "maddened by so great a victory after such suffering, rushed through the streets and into the houses and mosques killing all they met, men, women and children alike." History is a ladder of blood....t.v. news is the blank hole 'tween rungs"..the memory of the scholar poet writer... book seller/ book keeper/ book hoarder/ book possessor/ book collector/...momento mori...DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:50:11 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Jullich Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- "Stefans, Brian" wrote: > According to John Miller (and I confess that I got this info from David Letterman last night -- remember, I only have one tv channel!), bin Laden himself (at least in 98) had three specific points of contention with the United States: support of Israel, the air-bases in Saudi Arabia and the sanctions/no fly zone against Iraq. ------------------------------------------------------- DEAR BRIAN, The three points that John Miller reported are slightly mistranslated and re-ordered via Letterman etc. What you quote as the second point ("the air-bases in Saudi Arabia") is the main point, but wasn't phrased solely against "air-bases". The fundamentalist ultimatum is that there should be ~no~ non-Muslims, none, not one, including civilians, within the entire Arabian peninsula. This has to do with their belief that that land itself is--- PLEASE NOTE: holy ground. Hence, the point against Israel follows; it is not ~specifically~ discriminatory as anti-semitic; it is universally a taboo against ~all~ non-Muslims ("infidels"). As a formative influence in his life, years ago, bin Laden's construction enterprise was the one awarded the contract for the buttressing-up/restoration of the architecture that houses the Ka'aba (!) and, after a "wild youth" (Club Med of the Islamic world, etc.), he underwent a profound conversion. A sense of sacred space or holy ground may be difficult for us Americanized to understand (especially for those who understand their irreligion, such as "politics" or the secular, to be ontologically different from religion, who believe that Western empiricism, skepticism, and cynicism made some quantum leap break with tens of thousands of years of human religiosity, . . . instead of seeing rationalism-Americanism as another ~type~ of religion. [The god of money was Pluto]). The closest the United States comes to remembering "holy ground" is, of course, in the Native American sense of such: you're familiar with recent negotiations that were waged over industrial development because Native holy ground had been infringed upon. Those who followed the "story" around the Temple Mount in Jerusalem watched holy ground at play again. (Interestingly, Jews are forbidden to walk onto the Temple Mount, which is under Muslim jurisdiction, ~not~ [only] due to Muslim prohibition, but by ~Jewish,~ hallakhic law. Because it's believed that Solomon's Temple is inside the Mount but it's not known exactly where the Holy of Holies might be within that area, by Talmudic law Jews are not permitted to trespass because of our current state of impurity, for fear of crossing over the Sanctum Sanctorum that no one except the High Priest was allowed to enter.) These Islam fundamentalists have expanded that sense of holy ground to the entire peninsula, an unusual, perhaps unprecedented scale (from the little I know of Islam. The "jihadists" are also markedly un-Islamic in their practice of suicide bombing [according to a Muslim academic whom John Miller interviewed]). Westerners seem to re-acquire an approximation of a sense of holy ground only by death marking a spot. Viz., the struggle over the convent and crosses at Auschwitz. As a New Yorker, you'll recall the African slave cemeteries that were discovered in lower Manhattan, and the problems around exhumation or the continued construction by the builders who had stumbled across the vast cemetery. Jeffrey Dahmer's house was burned to the ground, and the spot is thought to be uninhabitable. There was a campaign along the New Jersey turnpikes of erecting small memorials at the spots of car collision deaths. Etc. The link between ancient holy ground and this XXth/XX1st cent. return of the repressed may be blood stain: the Temple altars red with the slaughter of livestock . . . The cries for "The World Trade Center will be re-built!" seem messianic and unrealistic to me. (Jewish "extremists" in Israel, of course, are dedicated to building The Third Temple, similarly.) My sense is that the site, if it can ever be decontaminated, hygiene-wise, will be too "holy". I don't want to get too theoretical (I was initially dismayed by all the first person narratives appearing on the List, --- I don't know why it is that an "anti"-first-person literary movement reverts into "I" when there's the feeling of a ~really~ serious subject, viz. Aaron Shurin's AIDS essays, "True," etc. --- but I sort of miss the memoirs, now that the breezier amateur politician bar stool opinions are flowing, a masculinist "coolant," I think, getting all prematurely theoretical and intellectual-hairy as a way of retreating from softer sadnesses, palpable groundedness) but--- an identification with holy ground cultures may have been especially lost to us because our civilization's sense of space went over to the concept of land as ~private~ property, land that could be owned. (Holy ground may be more rooted in nomadic hunter cultures, us a settled agrarian civilization.) {I was disturbed to read in ~Rain Taxi~last night --- I hadn't know --- that Gilles Deleuze died from jumping out a window a few years ago.} I was out of the city for the first time this weekend for the twins' 40th birthday party (my brother and sister) and to visit Mother in the physical rehab (revision surgery of hip replacement),--- and it was strange to find the world still going along elsewhere on quite different tracks, on the other side of the river (they're more at the phase of ~anger,~ I felt, New Yorkers more mournful)--- but helpful, reassuring in a way, that society moves along at different strata and some layers may persist unaffected, that the fissures might not reverberate into cracks throughout the entire system. My sister was driving me back north from the shore where family live --- a one-for-the-road snack of six ~bad~ oysters on half-shell, shrimp in the basket with nothing ~but~ little breaded fried shrimp, no French fries (when they say "in a basket," they're being very literal: a basket; who said anything about anything besides a basket?), out at a ~brise marine~ table on the edge of the long Funland pier, dozens of chatterbox gulls re-staging ~Suddenly Last Summer~ climactic bird ravenous god scene to fellow patrons tossing French fries--- and my sister in the driver's seat pointed through top of windshield at sky: "Look!" However poets have described them, "chevrons," the trails of undulant giant capital Vs gliding across the sky: near sundown, GEESE heading south overhead. Silent through the windshield. That made me feel better, sort of, that the vast millenia-old migrations still go on, as scheduled. One avenue I tried in the second week ("What is to be done?"), especially after late '60s punchiness at reemergence of The National Transitional Object (flag), was--- emulating models like Gertrude Stein who wrote a Susan B. Anthony opera during days of flag-waving, Kenneth Koch who wrote "George Washington Crossing The Delaware" during flag-waving days, Larry Rivers' spin-off "...Crossing The Delaware"series of paintings, Jasper Johns' white flag, etc.,--- was rather than let "them" just appropriate these symbols, to take my own closer look at the patriotic motherlode, bedrock, and see what it says to me, what I might make of it: been reading Francis Scott Key's Collected Poems (author of the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics). Some rewarding oddities: He did a rhyming pentameter couplets translation of Ajax's speech, XIIIth Bk. of Ovid; a very strange "On Visiting the Pennsylvania Hospital" ("Madness here,/ . . . / On high-piled human skulls his throne is fixed, / His bursting brows a burning iron crown / Confines, and blends its fires with fiercer flames / That from his ghastly eye-balls wildly glare; / A robe of straw his giant form conceals; / His hand a leaden sceptre wields, each point / With terrors armed. Ice, never melting, gleams / From the one; from the other, fire unquenchable; / Each, as it points to his devoted prey, / With cold, or heat, or freezes or inflames / The chambers of the brain, and stupefies / And chills to dullest idiocy"); a ~very~ odd, somewhat buffo, long (107-line) poem, "A Bear Story", ~with~ sequel! "Song" ("O, Bruin! O, Bruin! come back to thy chain / . . . / Thy lady-pressed paws will be luscious to lick"); a definite "dark streak" to Key, I think; ---but, to my point: The biographical materials note that Key's first major political commission (which lead to the ship-side imprisonment where he wrote the "Banner") was in the forced migration and encampment of the Creek Nation. (More JJ research needed there. To follow.) Thought of the Creek Nation also, paradoxically, lent me some hint of --- comfort? Before us, there were whole nations, civilizations, right here. They're gone. We ruined them. --- So, well, . . . I'll feel bad if it all caves in on us, yeah, but--- there may be civilizations/cultures that'll come later, as unimaginable to us as ours to the Creek. I own one Arabic music casette: Om Khalsoum (sp.?),the most popular singer in the world, more popular than Elvis was, than ABBA. I played it last weekend, windows always shut dust allergy air-conditioning (dust opened) opened wide. Hadn't heard it in years. Sounded beautiful. There's this curious ~stoppage~ that occurs in that Arabic music: the melodic line instantaneously seizes and lurches to a brief halt, then continues forward, at perhaps a modification of a half-step (?). Zuz', did you order that copy of Jackie's "Best Loved"? Today's the release date. I think it would be nice to read a few poems by Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. When The Towers were originally erected --- mid- to late-'70s, I guess --- all the earth that was displaced by digging the hole for the foundations was moved off toward the Hudson shoreline, and a small, man-made (temporary?) "beach" was created. There was an open air series run there for a while, called "Art on The Beach." The newspaper The Village Voice ran an article that I've never forgotten: Australian aborigines were brought to the US. They were taken to the ex nihilo beach for an Art on The Beach to do a performance of their "dances." It was very exciting to scholars and everyone that here were these pristinely untouched tribesmen. They were living neolithics who had ~literally~ just stepped out of The Stone Age (outback, forest). The newspaper played it up big, the angle that here were these people brought directly out of 40,000 B.C. by silver jet to dance at the base of the world's new tallest building, in the shadow of The Towers. Museum curators removed Stone Age artefacts from vitrines to show the aborigines, ask them what they meant to them. There was one particular petroglyph carved in rock. It showed a circle will concentric lines leading inward, like a wheel with spokes. Historians had conjectured that it might've been a solar disk, an ideogram for the sun. They asked the aborigines what it said to them. It's a meeting of tribesmen, they said, all sitting in a circle with their staffs pointed toward the center, tips touching. But, here's the point: Being neolithic and nomadic, they had no sense ~whatsoever~ of personal possession. One couldn't ~own~ anything. (That's why graves provide evidence of Stone Age life, filled with Venuses of Willendorf, Cycladic mothers, stuff: rather than proof of belief in an afterlife--- once somebody died, nobody ~wanted~ anybody else's s--t, and they just dumped their hoardings like garbage into the hole where the body went. There was one thing, though, which they could own: a dance. No one except the owner of a singular dance could do that dance. It could not be stolen, sold, or given away in life. Upon the death of a father, the son who had seen it practiced could then do the dance. And the dances were of such phenomenal simplicity that they were sometimes difficult for Westerners to recognize as having even ~happened,~ danced to completion before their eyes. Such as, I remember, "The Bear": The dancer stood very seriously, flat-footed, weight evenly distributed. He took one step forward, transferring his weight onto the sole of that foot. Done. The "dance," more than choreography per se, was like the "duende" that Lorca writes about in flamenco dancers, I guess, not only its motions but an attitude,or elan, about doing the dance, "The Bear," the self-consciousness of possessing something. The Australian aborigines danced at the base of The Twin Towers at its inauguration. love read __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 23:00:04 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rob Holloway Subject: Specific help for RAWA MIME-Version: 1.0 Dear All, I'm fully aware that calls for monetary support, whatever the cause, are not what this list is for but, given the times......I just received the message below on the RAWA (Revolutionary Association of Women in Afghanistan) supporters e-list, from Steve Penners of the Afghan Women's Mission - it seems extra traffic is causing web site problems for RAWA - best kind of bad news I guess - they need help specifically to keep the intro page up - the AWM are a great bunch who run many RAWA benefits on the West Coast - i.e. they're totally legit - I think help for RAWA at this time, particularly when its focused on raising awareness, is something small that can be done... many thanks for reading this, and the below, Rob Holloway. Steve Penners writes:- Their (RAWA's) site is down due to phenomenal levels of traffic. They are three times over their limit and their ISP has turned them off until someone commits to paying the potential bill. I've been talking to them all morning and looks like the bill will be anywhere from $375 to $600 or more depending on traffic levels through month's end. Some may have noticed that RAWA has corporate level sponsorship for their web hosting. You can see this by the URL "fancymarketing.com" which appears when you browse their site. If we did not have this corporate help, we would be facing a huge ISP bill. Nevertheless, we still need the intro page on www.rawa.org and believe it or not, that intro page along is getting hit so hard that traffic levels are three times the monthly limit already. I cannot imagine what the traffic levels must be on the corporate hosting company's web server. It's likely that AWM will make the necessary commitment to get the site back up shortly (waiting to hear from all concerned). Anyone who wants to help RAWA with this important awareness raising tool can make a tax deductible donation payable to SEE/Afghan Women's Mission. Indicate for RAWA web site in your donation letter or on your check's memo. Mail to: Afghan Women's Mission 260 S. Lake Ave. PMB 165 Pasadena, CA 91101 USA Thanks much, Steve Steve Penners Afghan Women's Mission Pasadena, California http://www.afghanwomensmission.org steve@afghanwomensmission.org fax: 509-756-2236 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:54:37 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: dcmb Subject: insane tassels MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Leonard Brink would caution us that the lunatic fringe always imagine = themselves to be especially enlightened. He then proceeds to some = special enlightenments from, who else but, Leonard Brink. Or if they are = not special, but merely run-of-the-mill, why does he trouble us with = them? my trouble with common sense must be that it is so common, I = can't sense it. Another of its problems is that if it really is common, = it follows the line of the LCD. Surely we are doing what we can to = enlighten, here, minds that would grow a little less common...or why = speak at all, unless to bark panic or moo reassurance?=20 Look, Leonard, if I blow up your army, and you then blow up mine, I = shall need to recruit a second army, as shall you, and all will then = proceed as before, etc.,etc. I realize my figure is a familiar one, but = despite its use during the antiquated and undeclared war in Vietnam, = which it helped halt, it bears repeating, in the hope that it will be = the only thing repeated. But this is just to say that the truly lunatic, fringe or not, will = repeat everything, a tit for every tat, and that I found your post, = pardon my frankness, boring in its predictability. I am sure you can do = better than that.=20 I realize,too,that you will have heard this in the antiquated past, = but we have never been here before. We may think we have, but that is = the trouble with thinking, v. Blake's "Mental Traveller". It is also the = error through which wars are lost, and I feel sure that neither you nor = I want us to lose the next one. Sincerely, David B. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:50:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Duration Press Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit though i do find it interesting that this question of "american"-ness never seemed to be a problem when "american" poetry was discussed. political nationalism is a problem, but poetic nationalism isn't? ----- Original Message ----- From: "cris cheek" To: Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 12:24 PM Subject: Re: What is to be done > Hi, > > several posters have remarked here on this fact in recent days, but the > continued use of 'America' and 'Americans' is part of the perceptuial > problem. Friends of mine in the USA have grinned when i pointed this out > before, saying, it's just to rile everyone else. Hmmmm > > I write from the unfortunately recondeconstructed 'United Kingdom', knowing > that we stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone in the formations and > perpetuations of this problem. > > love and love > cris > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 14:14:58 -0500 Reply-To: jlm8047@louisiana.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jerry McGuire Organization: USL Subject: The 2001 Deep South Festival of Writers Comments: To: Adam Overett , Alan Cockrell <73761.1143@compuserve.com>, Alan Davis , Allen David Barry , Amitava Kumar , amy moran , Andi Matherne , angie davidson , Ann Jennings , Anne Barrows , Anne Dering , april greer , Barbara Macchia , Bev Marshall , beverly vidrine , Bill Lavender , "Blanche A. Bell" , Boyd Girouard , Brenda Cary , Brent Royster , Brian O'Donnell , Carl Frantz , Cathy Bishop , Cedelas Hall , charles bernstein , Charles Hunt , Cheryl Torsney , Clayton Delery , Cynthia Harper <5SatLib-SanAntonio@ca5.uscourts.gov>, "D.J. Shaw" , Darrell Bourque , Darrell Curtis , David Duggar , "David J. Cheramie" , "David J. LeMaster" , David Kuhne , dayana stetco , dayne allan sherman , Dean Bruggeman , "deb2024@aol.com" , deborah novak , Deborah Phelps , Dedria Givens , Delane Tew , Dodie R Meeks , dominique ryon , DONALD JACOBSON , Donya Dickerson , doris meriwether , "DWooley111@aol.com" , Eliza Miller , eric mcneil , gail tayko , George Elliott Clarke , Glynnauth , Hank Lazer , janet bowdan , jean-marc , Jeff Goldstein , Jeff Lodge , john august wood , John Ferstel , Jonathan Barron , Joy Graham , Karen Ford , Karen Meinardus , Karleen Wooley , Kathy Ball , Kathy Gruver , Kathy Ptacek , kevin johnson , Kevin Murphy , Kevin Murphy , L V Sadler , Larry Anderson , "Leigh, Lori B." , "Lenore B." , lila walker , Linda Faulkner , Linda M Schopper , "lisa d. williamson" , Louis Gallo , louisiana , Luis Urrea , LWilson213 , Lynda O'Connor , "lynn a. powers" , lynne castille , M Butz , MANNY SELVIN , Marcella Durand , marcia gaudet , "MARGWAT@aol.com" , Marie Plasse , mark gremillion , Mark Nowak , Marvin Douglass , Mary Alice Cook , Mary Cappello , Mary Cotton , mary gannon , Mary Hillier Sewell , Maura Gage , McAdoo Greer , "Melinda M. Sorensson" , Michael and Charisse Floyd , Michael Cervin , michael hansen , Michael Mandel , miki nilan , morgan landry , Nancy Dawn Van Beest , Norman German , paige deshong , Pamela Kirk Prentice , Pat McFerren , Patrice Melnick , Patty Ryan , paul maltby , ralph stephens , Randy Prunty , Richard Crews , richelle putnam , rita hiller , rlehan , Robert Brophy , Robin and Charles Weber , Robley Hood , Rogan Stearns , ron osborne , Rosalind Foley , Roxanna Sanchez , Sam Broussard , Sandy Labry , Sandy Semerad , Sara Wallace , sarah , Sean McFadden , Sharon Mullen , Shawn Moyer , "Shreken@aol.com" , Stacey Bowden , Staci Bleecker , Staci Swedeen , Stephen Doiron , Steve Barancik , Steve Wilson , Steven Gridley , Susan Maclean , susan middaugh , Suzanne Mark , Suzette Rodriguez , "t. c. williams" , "Tammy D. Harvey" , Tana Bradley , Tatiana Stoumen , ted enik , Tim Smith , Timothy Materer , Todd Nettleton , w h coles , Walt McDonald , walter pierce , Wendell Mayo , "Whitten, Phyllis" , William Pitt Root and Pamela Uschuk , William Ryan , William Sylvester , wiselist , Writers' Forum , Zach Smith MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit DEEP SOUTH FESTIVAL OF WRITERS, OCT. 18-21, 2001 We are pleased to announce a tentative schedule for the Deep South Festival of Writers, one of the oldest and most prestigious literary conferences in the United States. Deep South is a yearly event dedicated to affirming the value of culture and the arts by providing public performances, panel discussions, craft lectures, exhibitions and writing workshops by a wide range of prominent artists from across the nation. This year's festival, our 41st annual event, will emphasize live performances as never before, in a wide array of genres--drama, poetry, the novel and short fiction, nonfiction, folklore, music, and performance art. Our featured writers (and also a number of guest visual artists and musicians) will give readings and performances and discuss their work in craft lectures and workshops. This year's program includes nationally acclaimed novelist, critic, and playwright Sarah Schulman, French poet Chris Tysh, arts editor and poet George Tysh, New Orleans playwright Mindy Mayer, and Pulitzer prize winning critic Michael Dirda. (Please check them out at our website: http://www.louisiana.edu/Academic/LiberalArts/ENGL/Creative/DeepSouth.htm.) In addition, the festival will feature performances of two original plays, Sarah Schulman's Correct Usage and Common Errors (staged by UL-Lafayette's Theater Department under the direction of Amy Waguespack) and Dayana Stetco's Milena, Stripping, a dramatic reading of an original play by Mindy Mayer (The Cool Sequester'd), a panel discussion detailing the craft of editing magazines, journals, and poetry books, a panel dedicated to Creative Writing Pedagogy, a panel discussion of performance collaborations, and our yearly "Poetry Crawl" (taking participants for a reading/eating/drinking tour of Lafayette cafés and arts venues). This year's festival will take place in a multi-media, multi-disciplinary performance environment featuring collaborations among Louisiana writers, musicians, and visual artists. Participants will include local writers Skip Fox, Jerry McGuire, Burton Raffel, and Dayana Stetco, and visual artists and musicians from this university and the local community. We hope in addition to be able to present a reading by our Distinguished Writer in Residence, Ernest Gaines. As always, the festival will create lots of opportunities for its audience to talk with all the performers about these exciting ventures in collaborative creativity. Most of the events will be staged at Fletcher Hall, home of UL Lafayette's College of the Arts. To register for the conference, print out the registration form on the last page of this email, fill it out, and return it to us. Alternatively, you may download the form here: http://www.louisiana.edu/Academic/LiberalArts/ENGL/Creative/Regform.htm. To receive news about additions and changes, please email Jerry McGuire at mailto:jlm8047@louisiana.edu or Dayana Stetco at mailto:dxs7118@louisiana.edu. Visiting Artists MINDY MAYER has been writing for the theater since 1991. Streetwise, a one-act play, was produced in 1996 and 2000 by Trustus Theatre, Jim Thigpen, producer. A performance by Heathwood Hall won the 2000 South Carolina Midland Regional competition, with two performers named Regional All-Stars and State All-Stars. Streetwise received first prize of the Paul T. Nolan One-Act Play Award in the Deep South Writers Conference competition, and was published in the 1996 DSWC Chapbook. The Cool Sequestered, a one-act play, was a finalist in the Tennessee Williams Festival 2000 One-Act Play Competition. An earlier version, entitled Hearts of the Matter, was a finalist for the Paul Green Playwrights Prize of the North Carolina Writerís Network. During 1991-1995, Ms. Mayer had numerous monologues produced at a variety of New Orleans area venues, including the Actorís Theatre Company, Dramarama, and the Raw Oyster Playhouse. Her work also has been published in New Orleans Desire magazine. At this year's Deep South, Mindy's play The Cool Sequester'd will be broadcast over KRVS radio (88.7 in Lafayette) at 6 p.m. Friday afternoon, and she will take part in the "playwrights' hour" with Sarah Schulman and Chris Tysh at 3 p.m. on Saturday. CHRIS TYSH has a B.A. and a Masters Degree from the Sorbonne, Paris. Her publications include: Continuity Girl (2000); In the Name (1994); Coat of Arms (1992); Secrets of Elegance (1981); Car Men, A Play in D, which premiered at The Detroit Institute of the Arts on November 15, 1996; Allen Ginsberg (a critical study); Julie or The Rose (translation from the French of Guillaume Apollinaire, in collaboration with husband George Tysh). She is the editor of Everyday Life; writes the "Blue Archive" literary column for trait; and is the poetry editor of mark(s), an on-line literary journal. Her poems and articles have appeared in Poetry, Black Bread, Blue Pig, Bombay Gin, Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory, Chain, City Arts Quarterly, Cranbrook Review, Poetics Journal, Lacanian Inc, The Poetry Project Newsletter, Moving Out, New American Writing, Raddle Moon, Sun & Moon, Talisman, Telephone, Triage, Westworld, The World. Chris Tysh's on-line publications include: "Dogma dogs" (in The Pedestal Magazine, February 2001); 13 scenes from Mother I, a film script, (in how2, September, 2000); and "Flagrant delight: the red-handed writings of Kathy Acker" (in Underwire, September, 2000). She has recently read poetry in New York (The Poetry Project, March 7, 2001), Los Angeles (The Poetic Research Bloc, February 10, 2001), San Diego (February 8, 2001), and Providence (Brown University, November 2, 2000). Chris Tysh teaches poetry and fiction at Wayne State University, Detroit. At Deep South, she'll be reading her poetry and participating in two panels--"Performing, Feminism, Teaching" and "The Playwrights' Hour." MICHAEL DIRDA is a writer and senior editor for The Washington Post Book World. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Distinguished Criticism in 1993. His reviews or essays appear weekly, and address a broad range of interests: classics in translation, intellectual history, children's picture books, fantasy and crime fiction, biographies, American and European literature, poetry, and innovative writing of all kinds. In his monthly Readings column he touches, light-heartedly (he hopes), on all kinds of bookish matters--collecting modern firsts, rediscovering neglected novels, the pleasures of ghost stories, the teaching of writing and much else, most of it at least semi-autobiographical. Before joining Book World in 1978, Dirda taught world literature at American University and George Mason University, and worked as a free-lance writer, translator and editor. Over the years he has contributed essays, profiles and reviews to a variety of publications--Smithsonian Magazine, Civilization, Encarta, Connoisseur, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Collier's Encyclopedia Yearbook, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, etc. For three years he was a board member of the National Book Critics Circle. He frequently conducts public "conversations" with visiting writers for the Smithsonian Institution , most recently with Booker Prize winner Arundhati Roy, crime novelist Donald E. Westlake, and Gore Vidal. He has also contributed biographical-critical essays to scholarly volumes on detective fiction (John Dickson Carr, Edmund Crispin) and science fiction and fantasy ("The European Tradition in Supernatural Fiction," Jack Vance, Maupassant). He has written a short paperback, distributed by the Book of the Month Club, called "Caring for Your Books,"and collected some of his journalism in "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" (Indiana University Press). Other book projects are also in the works. In 1995 Dirda received a Washington Post/Duke University Fellowship, and in 1997 he was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters from Washington College, Chesterfield, Maryland. In 1999 he was a visiting master artist in literary journalism at the Atlantic Center for the Arts in New Smyrna Beach. During the fall term of 1999 he was the Distinguished Visiting Honors Lecturer at the University of Central Florida. Dirda is married to art conservator Marian Peck Dirda. They live, with their three sons, in Silver Spring, Maryland in a house filled with too many books. At Deep South he will give a reading and take part in panels on editing (with Burton George Tysh) and on translation (with Burton Raffel). GEORGE TYSH--From 1965 to 1973, George Tysh lived in Paris, France, where he co-edited Blue Pig (1968-72, with poet David Ball), a journal of modern poetry. From 1965 to 1979, he published five collections of poetry, most notably Mecanorgane, Shop/Posh, and Tea. In 1974-75, he came back to Detroit, where he originated and hosted "Dimension," a late-night program on WDET-FM, which combined spoken word and music sequences. In 1979 he returned to Detroit and was awarded a National Endowment of the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship, and became associated with the Detroit Institute of Arts, where for 11 years (1980-91) he coordinated the LINES: New Writing program and also produced LINES Radio, a 13-part spoken word series for National Public Radio which made some of the most exciting LINES readings available to a national audience. From 1984 to 1990, along with his wife (poet Chris Tysh) he directed In Camera, a press which published collections of postmodern poetry and a journal, Everyday Life. He returned to the English Department/W.S.U. to complete a graduate degree (M.A.) in film studies and theory which he received in 1991. In the following year, he joined the faculty of the English Department as a lecturer, teaching primarily film courses from 1992 to 1997. Then in 1997, he accepted a position as Arts Editor with the Metro Times, Detroit's alternative newspaper. His most recent collections of poetry include Ovals (Detroit: In Camera, 1985) and Echolalia (New York: United Artists, 1992), the first two parts of a soon-to-be-completed trilogy; and Dream Sites: A Visual Essay (Ferndale & Bloomfield Hills, MI: Past Tents Press & Cranbrook Art Museum, 1998). He has given readings of his work at such popular poetry venues as New Langton Arts in San Francisco, The Poetry Project in New York City, Milwaukee's Woodland Pattern, and Just Buffalo in Buffalo, NY, as well as at Brown University, the Cranbrook Art Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, Macomb Community College, SUNY-Buffalo, the University of Michigan, and Wayne State University, among many others. He has also been invited to give talks on poetry and art at the California Institute of the Arts, the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and The Poetry Project in New York City. In addition to his poetry reading, he'll take part in our Deep South panel of editors. SARAH SCHULMAN--Sarah Schulman is a New York playwright and fiction writer. Her books include: The Child, Shimmer, Rat Bohemia, Empathy, People in Trouble, Girls, Visions, and Everything, After Delores, and The Sophie Horowitz Story. Her plays include: The Child, Correct Usage and Common Errors, Freud Was My Co-Pilot; Playyy!, Cousine Better, Made in Korea, Heaven and Hell, Promenade, Salome/Psychology, When We Were Very Young, and Art Failures. Her essays and articles have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Village Voice, The Nation, Interview, The Guardian of London, Cineaste, Jump-Cut, Out, Harvard Lesbian and Gay Review, American Theater Magazine, and The Boston Phoenix. In 2001 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for playwriting. In 1999 she was awarded the American Library Association Gay/Lesbian Book Award for her book of non-fiction, Stagestruck, and the Gustavus Meyers Book Award on the Study of Human Rights for her book My American History. She was The New York Foundation for the Arts Fiction Fellow in 1987 and 1991 and received the Gregory Kolovakos Memorial Prize for AIDS Fiction in 1990 for her book People in Trouble. Schulman is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at The College of Staten Island, CUNY and has taught at the University of California, San Diego, the San Francisco Art Institute, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Goddard College. At this year's Deep South, Amy Waguespack of UL Lafayette's Theater Department will direct Ms. Schulman's Correct Usage and Common Errors (Friday at 8 p.m.). Ms. Schulman will also take part, with Mindy Mayer and Chris Tysh, in the "playwrights' hour" (3 p.m. Saturday). Program (This is still subject to change) Thursday 7-8..........Multimedia installation/Poetry/Music (Skip Fox, Kyle Donaldson, Jerry McGuire, Hector Lasala) Friday 9-10..........Breakfast/ Opening Ceremonies 10-11 ..........Editors' Panel (Michael Dirda, George Tysh, Jerry McGuire) 11-12..........Jerry McGuire Poetry Reading 12-1:45..........Lunch 2-3..........Performing, Feminism, Teaching (Yung-Hsing Wu, Chris Tysh, Denise Rogers, Amy Waguespack) 3-4..........Joe Andriano Fiction Reading/Fiction Craft Lecture 4-5..........Jerry McGuire Poetry Workshop 5-6..........Michael Dirda Reading 6-7..........Reading of Mindy Mayer's play The Cool Sequester'd (KRVS) 6-7:30..........Dinner 8-9:30..........Performance of Sarah Schulman's play Correct Usage and Common Errors (Directed by Amy Waguespack) 9-11..........Party Saturday 8-9..........Breakfast 9-10..........The Art of Translation Panel (Burton Raffel, Michael Dirda) 10-11..........Garden Poetry Readings (Darrell Bourque, George Tysh) 11-12..........Sarah Schulman, Amy Waguespack: Drama Craft Lecture 12-1:45..........Lunch 2-3..........Chris Tysh Poetry Reading 3-4..........The Playwrights' Hour (Sarah Schulman, Mindy Mayer, Chris Tysh) 4-5..........Inside the Artist's Studio 5-6..........Michael Dirda Q&A session 6-7:30..........Dinner 8-9:30..........Performance of Dayana Stetco's play Milena, Stripping 9:30-12..........Poetry Crawl Sunday 9-10:30 ..........Breakfast 10:30-11:30..........Discourses of Performance Panel (Steve Peters, Kenneth Jenkins, Hector Lasala) 11:30-12:30..........Ernest Gaines Reading (tentative)/Closing Ceremonies 2001 DEEP SOUTH FESTIVAL OF WRITERS REGISTRATION FORM Please print out this form (and please print all information--and make extra copies for friends!), check one of the following categories, and return with your check or money order made payable to: DEEP SOUTH Name_____________________________________ Address__________________________________ _________________________________________ Telephone________________________________ E-mail Address___________________________ ___Registration Fee............$40 ___UL Students with ID..................Free ___Other Students with ID............. $20 Return the completed form to: Dayana Stetco, Program Director The Deep South Festival of Writers English Dept. Box 44691 University of Louisiana at Lafayette Lafayette LA 70504-4691 -- ________________________________________________________ Jerry McGuire Director of Creative Writing English Department Box 44691 University of Louisiana at Lafayette Lafayette LA 70504-4691 337-482-5478 Creative Writing Website: http://www.louisiana.edu/Academic/LiberalArts/ENGL/Creative/Index.html ______________________________________________________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:51:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...FREE.... FREE FBI HOTLINE...866-463-5137....FREE....DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 23:19:44 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: JUST ICE Comments: cc: polity@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit nearly time for bed, hoping it won't be my last thought I'd take in the news first the russians, and we always knew they were regular guys in the hands of an evil international web devoted to the destruction of our way of life, now freed are willing to channel arms to the other lot or one of them in Afghanistan while it is becoming more and more explicit that the US govt aim is to destabilise the regime in Kabul regardlesss of having evidence against Bin Laden (which they still do not seem to have finished writing and which they won't show anyone in Kabul anyway) or that's it according to BBC well, pardon me, but isn't that why Afghanistan is in the state it's in? with scarcely one brick on top of another, most of them dying and the whole place possibly an advertisement for the supposed sanity of suicide warfare because other more powerful countries - the same countries - despite the fact that they have poverty, crime and decay within their own borders - take it on themselves to engineer the course of history in the land of perceived inferior races - despite the clear evidence that *every time they try it they get it wrong and create a bigger mess than they started with before it was USA and USSR fighting each other by proxy in Afghanistan; now they're fighting a civil war together with their hands up the parties on one side like their glove puppets, despite the mess they made and are still making in Jugoslavia with UCK No one in either country, USA / USSR, is in any doubt now what it means to see people die; it's happened in their own capitals. Is it really appropriate to help others go through the same thing? Politics as cock-fighting I've got a bush in my garden. I am willing to donate it. It's not much on leadership, but I see that as a quality. L --------------------------------------------------- http://pages.britishlibrary.net/lawrence.upton/ http://www.crosswinds.net/~subvoicivepoetry/ http://www.crosswinds.net/~writersforum/ --------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:29:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: (if not wiser) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Do you honestly expect "the wisest" answers to come from the 92% mob? C'mon. Old answers, sure. --Jim _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 15:56:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: A Word On Language In A Time Of Crisis In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Points well-taken. But I think the barn door closed behind that one a long time ago: in the US "god," like the flag and all the patriotic songs, has been coopted by the right. Even in the section of Bush's speech dedicated to protecting US Moslems this was in evidence. Moslems pray to Allah, not god. Maybe Bush and his handlers don't know that allah is merely Arabic for god, or maybe they feel it's still necessary to portray Moslems as exotic Other. Mark At 01:53 PM 9/23/2001 -0400, you wrote: >A Word On Language In A Time Of Crisis > > It is the nature of both history and language that they are bound by a >principle of change. =B3Things change=B2 might be the most adequate= statement >of a philosophy of history I can think of. Historical change in language >generally happens very slowly. Meanings evolve through slight variations= in >word usage over time. However, in the wake of =B3The Events of September >11th=B2, many commonplace words, through their media-enhanced association= with >a single image fraught with the grief and suffering of so many, seem to= have >had their meanings changed over night. > Before =B3The Events of September 11th,=B2 a =B3skyscraper=B2 was, =B3a= very tall >building=B2; an =B3airplane=B2 was, =B3an aircraft kept aloft by the= aerodynamic >forces upon its wings and driven forward by a screw propeller or by other >means, as jet propulsion=B2; and a =B3collapse=B2 was, =B3a falling in or= together, >as the sides of a hollow vessel.=B2 Now, the definition of =B3skyscraper= =B2 must >include, =B3a tall, symbolic and functional structure, vulnerable to highly >coordinated terrorist attack=B2; =B3airplane=B2, =B3extremely lethal= airborne >explosive device=B2; and =B3collapse,=B2 =B3collateral damage to financial >infrastructures and markets caused by unexpected terrorist attacks.=B2 I= doubt >anyone will ever again be able to watch an =B3airplane=B2 fly behind a >=B3skyscraper=B2 without remembering the =B3collapse.=B2 And not without a= certain >amount of anxiety, either. > Before =B3The Events of September 11th,=B2 a cell-phone was =B3a= hand-held or >mobile radio-telephone providing access to a cellular radio network.=B2 = Now >it is an =B3emergency communications device used under highly dangerous >circumstances, such as hijackings and explosions, to report locations of >victims, logistics of attacks and, in certain irreversible situations,= final >messages to loved ones.=B2 As of this writing, the only definition for the >word =B3box-cutter=B2 I have been able to find is buried in the OED: =B3A= person >employed in cutting out the material for boxes.=B2 I can find no= definition >that refers to =B3a tool with a sliding, retractable razor used for cutting >boxes.=B2 It feels a little late for that definition now, because it too= must >be modified with the addendum =B3or for sneaking past underpaid, poorly >trained airport security personnel to launch a suicide attack on the World >Trade Center and the Pentagon, cf. =8CThe Events of September 11th.=B9=B2 > When we say that the meanings of these words have changed, I think we >are really saying that the context in which we use these words has changed, >which modifies the possibilities for their usage. Over time, this can >result in a change in their meaning, but at present it constitutes only an >alteration in their use. Gertrude Stein said, =B3Nothing makes a= difference a >difference in beginning and in the middle and in ending except that each >generation has something different at which they are looking.=B2 What has >changed is what we are looking at, and what we are looking at is that. We >are looking at the repeated image of the airplane crashing into the >skyscraper. We are looking at the skyscraper and the stock market= collapse. >We are looking at a world that is no longer constituted by 180 nations >competing with a single superpower for control of the global market, but >rather by a division between Western democratic nations and a network of >semi-autonomous cells of well-funded terrorists intent on killing innocent >civilians, even at the cost of their own lives. We are looking at the >possibility of the curbing of civil liberties, of decreased privacy, of >increased security, and in a worst-case scenario of Spartan discipline >brought to bear on civilian life in a long, hard, painful, costly war. We >are, it seems, =B3united=B2 in our attention to that image. > What concerns me about this is not whether or not our declaration of = =B3a >new kind of war=B2 against a =B3nameless, faceless=B2 enemy is just. I= think it >is. I think that Al Qaeda and the Taliban =AD any armed religious fanatics >for that matter =AD jeopardize the stability of the entire world. What >concerns me is the ease with which we are allowing certain other aspects of >the language to change, which change can have serious long-term= consequences >for the way we understand them and our government in the future. Very >disconcerting is the use of words like =B3god=B2 and =B3prayer=B2 in any= kind of >governmental communication including, and especially, presidential >addresses. Since =B3The Events of September 11th,=B2 the president has= felt no >qualms about associating the mourning process with religious ceremony, >retaliation with Christian morality, and grieving with prayer, all under= the >aegis of =B3compassionate government in a time of crisis.=B2 > It is the linguistic and institutional =B3separation of church and= state=B2 >which keeps this country from teetering off the already precarious cliff of >Christian fundamentalism into the abyss of religious fanaticism that >envelops the members of so many of these terrorist networks. To use this >event to promote, implicitly or explicitly, the federalization of religious >sentiment in America is to risk committing the same crime as the Taliban. >This may be a =B3just=B2 war, but it is not a =B3holy=B2 one. This =B3war= =B2 is not >about defending Christian values; it is about defending the citizens of >democratic nations from the threat of terrorist attacks. If history= teaches >us anything about language, it is that it doesn=B9t take a thousand years= to >change the meaning of =B3God is with us in our time of national mourning=B2= to >=B3God is on our side.=B2 It can happen over night. > >Mike Kelleher > >(Definitions taken from OED Online and Webster=B9s New Universal Unabridged >Dictionary, Deluxe Second Edition) > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:08:36 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Comment: Let's not get too liberal In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Bin Laden is only marginally relevant to "our" problem. Out of the billion or so people who feel they have reason to dislike us there are more than a few potential suicide bombers. Some of them are even nice to women and scientists. Some of them are women. Some of them are atheists. All of them are "our" problem. Mark At 09:48 AM 9/24/2001 -0500, you wrote: >I agree with Christopher Hitchens in general and with this article in >particular: > >"What [Bin Laden & co.] abominate about 'the west', to put it in a phrase, >is not what western liberals don't like and can't defend about their own >system, but what they do like about it and must defend: its emancipated >women, its scientific inquiry, its separation of religion from the state. >Loose talk about chickens coming home to roost is the moral equivalent of >the hateful garbage emitted by Falwell and Robertson, and exhibits about the >same intellectual content." > > >Thanks, Marjorie. > >-Aaron Belz > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:12:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: generation veneration Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed


Elizabeth Treadwell "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) Hi all, excuse the generation post, please. That was some twisted topical kneejerk notation of an essay I had been working on about the "younger" poets vav the Language school -- having to do with things I've heard about the olders not thinking (seeing) we're engaged. But it's all blown away now by the current events. Michael Magee, I take your points on both issues. I know irony & apathy ain't the same; sorry if I seemed to conflate em. My best to one and all - Elizabeth _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 19:14:01 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beckett Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit According to an email from my father, my brother Jim, a NYC ironworker who has been at the WTC since the 11th, will tomorrow (Sept. 25), with another person whose name I don't know, ring the opening bell at the NYSE. What a curious thing. Tom B. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:20:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: FW: allen curnow In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >-----Original Message----- >From: Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG) >Sent: Monday, 24 September 2001 2:49 p.m. >To: 'poetics@kiistserv.acsu.buffalo.edu' >Cc: 'poetryetc@jiscmail.ac.uk' >Subject: allen curnow > > > > > My father died last night shortly after seven. There are I know many on >the list > who know his work and who will be saddened by his death. > > He didn't suffer. A cold that had gone to his chest on Saturday was a >concern > and he went to hospital. By the end of the day and a range of tests all >seemed well > but he was to stay there for a day or two under observation. After dinner >last night > his heart stopped all of a sudden. > > He turned 90 this year. His last book, The Bells of St Babels, Auckland >University Press, > came out earlier this year and won the Montana Prize for Poetry. The >Carcanet edition > will be published this week. He had given quite a few readings this year, >the last being > a week ago in Auckland. Just before that he was in the studio recording a >three hours selection > of his work for the BBC archives. As all this suggests, he surrendered >very little to age > before it ran out of patience with him. > > Long live poetry! > > Wystan. Wystan, that was a wonderful remark that I am sure yr fathert would like, re age's running out of patience. That is the best kid's euology I remembe hearing. We have the poetry, and yes it'll be around, no worries. GB -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 19:24:22 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: What is to be known MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/24/01 9:52:07 AM, b.watten@WAYNE.EDU writes: << For instance, I have not seen any reportage of peace demonstrations in major media, though Elizabeth Treadwell mentions them occurring at Berkeley. Apparently 2000 students rallied but "you can't hear them." >> On CNN, during one of their evening "town meetings" (this one focused on college students from around the country), footage of at least five or six peace demonstrations at various universities. Don't know how much coverage, otherwise, has been aired, if it is enough to satisfy, but the demonstrations were reported and discussed with students both on campus site and in the studio. Student responses, as you might imagine, defined the political spectrum. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:33:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: <000901c14542$e1352880$d980153f@threeseven> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >though i do find it interesting that this question of "american"-ness never >seemed to be a problem when "american" poetry was discussed. political >nationalism is a problem, but poetic nationalism isn't? In "American" poetry, are you including Pablo Neruda and Anne Carson? Or do you mean US Poetry? I also get confuded when the Lakers are referred to as the "World" champions. > >----- Original Message ----- >From: "cris cheek" >To: >Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 12:24 PM >Subject: Re: What is to be done > > >> Hi, >> >> several posters have remarked here on this fact in recent days, but the >> continued use of 'America' and 'Americans' is part of the perceptuial >> problem. Friends of mine in the USA have grinned when i pointed this out >> before, saying, it's just to rile everyone else. Hmmmm >> >> I write from the unfortunately recondeconstructed 'United Kingdom', >knowing >> that we stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone in the formations and > > perpetuations of this problem. > > > > love and love > > cris > > > > -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:31:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: What is to be considered In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > Consider these points: > > (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of >them the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This >total is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic >combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be >suffering effects from for years. > > > >Pearl Harbor was the starting point that ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. >WTC attack was the starting point that ended with ______(?)___________. > >Anastasios Kozaitis > > >& with the minor matter of the holocaust in the middle. > >Ron Yes, Ron, and the 2.5 years that the English and Canadians etc. were fighting Hitler before the US got in. We were glad they did. It is true that the US ww2 started with Pearl. But it was only one of many starting points. And really, the WTC wasn a starting point, either. The concept of a starting point, is, when you think about it, a dangerous notion. It can be used to give justification for retaliation. Aw, Mom, HE started it, etc. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 19:55:35 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rodrigo Toscano Subject: coordinating imagination / action [no. 2 / no html] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Listees, I'm sharing this note / e-mail I wrote to an informal group of poets and artists (11 eleven of us here in NYC gravely effected by last week's occurrence, who plan on meeting fairly regularly for a while) as a way of sharing with you some possible points of departure for cultural work within the peace movement. The communication here is very context-specific (involving many problematics lumping one on the other), and so many of the referents might not be fully detectable. Also, it does not even *partially* capture the richness of these New Yorker Poets and Artists thoughts as they expressed them the other night (our first meeting). Yet, I hope some of these thoughts on the lanugage of "protest" may be of use. [[the double brackets indicate something added for this post only]] "Hi everyone. Much of what I heard last night has helped me get a grip on the tremendous variety of thoughts and responses that people are having to what occurred on September 11, 2001. I look forward to more meetings between us. One thing that excited me was that the words / phrases pasted onto signs need not be anything at all resembling *any* current slogans in *any* way, both in length and word choice (Kristin, and Betsy). [[also, song, dancing, as well as silence are already coming into play]] *Maximum imagination* That is, that you can have "a thousand plateaus" and still be effective (if not more so even) which might be the reasoning (as I understand it) behind our first Thursday night intervention [[posting handfulls of poems at Union Square]] Yet, for the slogans (sound-byte length ones) that are out there already (at these demos), a *critique* of them still interests me very much, especially if these (our) collective critiques [[a sub-working group of a cultural-education working group within a coalition]] inform (funnel up into) the workings of the coalition *as a whole* I had actually written this before our meeting and planned on handing it out [see attached], but resisted in the interest of furthering the organic form the group was taking as regards "coordinated action" [something that should be questioned in and of itself]" * [Draft for] "Effective" Slogans, that: Preserve the moment somehow (the tragedy, the emotions, deep concerns, sometimes as yet unarticulated: the "ground zero-ness" of it all). That the slogans not come from (speak to) some moment before it (historically, 9-11) however right we may be about the content leading up to that moment (we are not a mini-lecture series on wheels) That the slogans leave room enough for what might happen next, that they be adaptable enough to adjust if needed. Slogans that: Draw people out. That encourage them to stand up and join in. That unify people. That signal the difficulty in doing so even (especially at this time, so pitched as it is with hasty saber-rattling). Slogans that don't put us apart from others around us (sometimes even the people that act hostile toward us). That the affect, the gesture, and the content should be carefully examined in the interest of appeal, thoughtfulness, or sudden (ideo-effective) surprise. In a language that's easy to understand (*or* not). In a language that can't (as much as possible) be manipulated (impossible to do, in the end, yet, at *varying degrees*) "No Justice, No Peace!" It should be fairly obvious to us here that however apt the slogan has been for other struggles (and very worthy ones at that), is not apt here at all. So with many other slogans. We should examine them for maximum effectivity. Effectivity=non-isolation, non-isolating, non-stasis. Sectarian self-reflexivity is something that ails us all on some level. To extirpate it (asap). We're not trying to re-convince ourselves (for the upteenth time) of many of the principals we believe in and sometimes (though imperfectly) live by. In fact, we're not "a we", ever yet, but a dynamic (in process) burgeoning Consensus against Death and Violence in all its forms. Things we are having to defend ourselves about (already): 1. That, we are "do nothings" Slogans like "declare peace" (and this is my opinion only) (however much I share the sentiment) might seal that opinion. It is a justifiable thing to say and feel, but it seems too broad for the moment [a point of discussion no doubt], as well as being anchored by a "practical" eternity of some kind. Not everybody out there (unfortunately) is a peacenik (yet). [I'd say it's a problem of ideological transport potential] 2. That, we (as demonstrators) are "the same people as always (out there)," the (supposed or alleged) ‘usual suspects’" and that we are "out of touch" somehow with the current mood of the nation (or even the city) What good is it, then, to start up a raucous round of "Who’s streets? Our streets!" (a chant from the Seattle-Washington-Quebec-Goteburg-Genoa sequence of demos) in front of municipal workers, or relatives of those workers (as well as relatives and friends of the victims) many of whom lay buried, or are still having to pick through the rubble for body parts. Folks (that is, "in" or bestride the Coalition) it's show time! This (movement) is also theater. Why else march to Times Square? And not be prepared, slogan-wise (for the whole world press no less). One hundred rounds of "hey hey's-ho ho's" mark us as those "usual suspects" by distancing us away (again by going backwards, as regards cultural forms) from what is (still) very much a gut-level fear, sadness, and mixed resolve that people are feeling...a resolve, toward *something*. It's that "something" that we're after. Here. Today. And tomorrow. Full-Shiftable. We must make differentiations with (and banking off) the "unity" theme / sentiment that surrounds us and dominates us. Making differentiations does not mean ditching a direct-response either (though an indirect response is certainly needed too) e.g. Should we be transfixed (in public) by Bush per say, as in a death-clutch / agony, through slogans that are almost personal-sounding? (however much we feel them to be "true" about "him" (and his retinue) *off* camera?) A slogan (I penned off-the-cuff at Times Square): "For a lasting and (just) peace, the other ground zero" might be a clumsily-worded slogan, but perhaps it contains the elements of an equitable idea / practice (that preserves the moment). In short, it needs work. As technicians of the word, poets, and cultural workers in general, we very much can and should enter into this burgeoning peace (justice) movement, to help shape it, and transform it. -Rodrigo Toscano ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:52:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag As Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit chris, this also refers to your previous message but I think we here have not really absorbed the real impact of the event which is that America is vulnerable. trama victims' initial responses often are mixed, to say the least, and include rage, fear, bluster, teddy bears, and a lot of other elements. I think possibly this event is our opportunity to join the rest of the world and transend stereotypes from the past, given a little understanding. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "cris cheek" To: Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 11:48 AM Subject: Re: The Flag As Transitional Object > Hi, > > I knew little about Winnicott until working with a student on their PhD > which used his ideas of transitional phenomena and intermediate space in > respect of writing. Picking up Nick's comments on the transitional object, > the following are direct from D.W.Winnicott's 'Playing and Reality': > > 'there may emerge some thing or some phenomenon - perhaps a bundle of wool > or the corner of a blanket or eiderdown, or a word or tne, or a mannerism - > that becomes vitally important to the infant for use at the time of going > to sleep, and is a defence against anxiety, especially anxiety of > depressive type...This object goes on being important.' > > I'd be wanting to introduce the concept of the 'tragedy of the commons' > into such a thinking process. > > love and love > cris ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:01:40 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010924131614.0143fc80@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" i wonder if it's occurred to anyone else that the ~90% "for military action" vs. ~10% "against" (u.s.) polls might be a highly artificial stat?... that, if those polled were provided with background and options, we might well find that some percentage of u.s. citizens (25%? i'm being optimistic), a portion of the 90 AND the 10 (a little boolean logic here), would prefer international police action to outright war... to those of you who refuse to yield to what's rightly (i think) perceived as a warlike stance on the part of the u.s. govt: i'd respond that i refuse to yield myself both to said warlike stance AND to the idea that the u.s. should be sitting on its hands... please---i'm not straddling any fences, and certainly few on this list (i daresay) have the tactical/strategic wherewithal (in military terms per se) to argue down the notion that some limited commando-type operation(s) (FOR EXAMPLE) might be both workable and necessary at the moment (and result in zero civilian casualities), with some sort of international legal resolution in the offing... i *do* understand, too, that there are generational issues at work in what's being advocated hither & thither... not simply so, of course, but still... i mean, my mother was a refugee in france, courtesy of national socialism... and that of course has something to do with why i feel the way i do (though again---not simply so)... anyway, in light of what i suggested earlier re questions: is it necessary, finally, to reproduce the "you're either with us or agin us" logic of bush jr. *here*?... i'm not asking a rhetorical question this time either, and i'm not "accusing" everyone or anyone of everything and anything... i'm picking up here on a certain tension that, well, i find unproductive, given that (i would asssume, i would hope) my differences with ALL of you folks (and probably even with, shit, bush jr.) are much less, finally, than my differences with someone like bin laden, the folks who crashed the planes, tim mcveigh, etc.... i don't mean to erect a radical alterity (please!), but i *do* mean to lay out some provisional grounds for collective social action... thanx to *all* for your thoughts & convictions... peace, joe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:18:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: JDHollo@AOL.COM Subject: from the desk of the anti-laureate MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable As one of the (probably few) list members with a personal memory of life=20 under aerial bombardment (age 5 to 9), and an eyewitness to the fall of the=20 second tower on September 11th, I grieve with the victims and their families= =20 and friends. Ron Silliman=92s and Don Byrd=92s posts strike me as the most=20 cogent and insightful appraisals of the present situation. =20 While I also agree with much in Barrett Watten=92s response to Silliman, I f= eel=20 obliged to correct Watten=92s statement that =93It is the US, I'm sure you a= re=20 aware, that invented total war with civilians as a military objective=20 (Sherman's march to the sea), gratuitous annihilation of civilian population= s=20 (the A-bomb).=94 =20 To my knowledge, the objective of General Sherman=92s march was not to kill=20 civilians, but to destroy infrastructure; and =93total war=94 had been waged= by=20 humans long before him, by, among others, Genghis Khan. In more recent=20 times, =93gratuitous annihilation of civilian populations=94 was accomplishe= d by=20 the British Royal Air Force in the fire-bombings of Dresden, Hamburg,=20 Frankfurt, and other German cities in World War 2. Let us not burden =93the= =20 US=94 with more guilt than it deserves. Anselm Hollo ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 01:25:27 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: <000901c14542$e1352880$d980153f@threeseven> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hi Jerrold, yes nationalism is a problem and the proof that it is is given by the facts that it is being strongly contested (although in differing ways and to varying effects) by: globalism translocalism regionalism decentralisation unionism separatism terrorism networking . . . and i'm not suggesting that they are in any way inter-related btw, but that nationalism is one pressing vortex through which these challenges to its formations, which are now well overdue a thorough examination, pass it might be reified, but right now it is being contested who said that chat about American poetry was ok and not American politics? I've always balked at this representation of a large continent through one nation state's sloppy rhetoric - much as i enjoy the slippage of rhetorical ambitions. Now if we're talking 'poetries of the Americas' that's a different story. love and love cris and i'm not suggesting as i already mentioned that United Kingdom is any the more acceptable or less problematic. These questions might seem a little down the line, but ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:30:48 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: hello MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII - why you haven't heard from me, because i am in miami and as far as i can see, there are no protests, and i don't say much on the street because the right-wing's strong, and at the university there's salsa dancing and not much else, one of the students thought the terrorists were 'faggots,' which seemed to go over well, i was told that the word's ok, because they use it all the time in spanish. so i try to survive by typing furiously and making what work i can, but the debate - i want to be there participating in new york, i got myself into this fix, i talk to people here all i can, it means nothing, the sun's hot, lizards everywhere, radio's filled with soppy jingoism far to the right of limbaugh, we're americans, it's frustrating we just can't nuke them, most of us would like to go to war even if it resulted in us casualties, do you honestly trust your next-door neighbor, i sleep hardly at all. it's a foreign land, it's heartland rubbed raw in repetition, i want to apologize for my meaningless life of self-indulgence, i want to do something that matters, i forward uselessly, sign occasional petitions (there are 100s and i don't think they matter much), i don't think the lists make much of a difference, i think there are evil men who think like miami out there, they're taking us towards far worse hells, raise our fists, they're charred this is just stupidity, decadent opinion, the perversity of someone who keeps writing against the day the wires sputter, don't worry, he's well aware of the strategy and mediocrity of this reply to no one _ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:16:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jason Nelson Subject: 3rdbed HyperText Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed 3rdbed.com is continuing to update the hypertext section of their website. New work is loaded now. So go and have a look around. (selfish plug: including two works of mine) goto: www.3rdbed.com and click on hypertext And let the hypertext writers/artists know what you think by e-mailing 3rd Bed. Any support, particulary narrative, is always helpful. cheers, Jason Nelson _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:52:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jumper Bloom Subject: one ticket to Saturn Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed JANE!!!! STOP THIS CRAZY THING I WANT TO GET OFF!!!!!!! LOVE (George) JUMPER (Jetson) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:57:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Transitional object or ego ideal? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joel Weishaus" > What bothers me is that I got the same sinking feeling I had during the > Vietnam War, the one that tells me we can't win this one for the Giffer. > That we're on a disasterous course. > What I heard in Bush's speech was, "We're the greatest," and, "You better do > what we want, or else." If he had also said, "I understand that there are > people who hate us, and with some reason. We've made mistakes. We must learn > to be more tolerant of other societies, and of each other," I'd wave a flag > too. > > -Joel right, Joel, we have made mistakes and we must learn to be more tolerant of others, but we also needn't abandon the flag to Bush. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:05:48 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: What is to be Done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I agree in principle with this Scott: on this List is a good sign of a real debate going on in the U.S. and evrywhere as against a knee jerk support of "one side or other". The problems are complicated. Its easy (for me at leat) to get paranoid about all this. This morning I got a phone call: it was an American voice "Is that Baxter?" "No ..I think you have the wrong number." "Oh, ok, my apologies" said the American.(Obviously(?) an FBI or CIA agent checking me out!! After all wasnt the poet Baxter (contemporary of Allen Curnow) (and I dont think he was referring to the comic or "Visual Novelist" personage) a left-leaning "communist-lapsed-catholic-liberal" ?!!) I agree with marches against war and disagree with Perloff's analysis. (Mind you I'd be scared of getting beaten up or shot even - especially - in Auckland). The terrorist attacks come any way: a better thing to do would be to debate eg "what actually is terrorism?" "Is it ever justified?" "Why did these attacks occur?" and so on. Which is indeed happening. But unfortuanately the right wing never want debate.They equate dissent with "socialism" or whatever. This is classic paranoia: the pilot that advocated action by the people on the aeroplane is quite right: that is the way anyone is ever goping to fight terrorism or for their own life. The individual and together. It has shown that with all the US's enormous military might and spending it (and everyone in the world in fact) are helpless against a determined terrorist or politically motivated attack: whether that attack is justified or not. In some ways that is a good sign for a large "Evil Empire" can be beaten by Luke Skywalker etc: I believe in The Force. Exactly why it occrred is a mystery. But certain US and British and other Western policies havent helped. More information needs to be known about the background to the Middle East politics: the often wrongful treatment of the Palestinians AND the stupid blanket hatred of Jews by Arabs: the endless "them or us" attitudes. The enormous power and also the great goodness of the US creates its opposite: a corresponding "evil". We are arrogant to hold up Western democracy as the "only way" and so on. Israel feels (sometimes rightly) that they are threatened by barbarous forces: the Palestinians have had some wrongfulness. Iraq has done some stupid things and the response to them was rather "over the top"....but a military strike against Afghanistan is stupid. The resources of the West should be diverted to educate and assist other nations and this needs to involve ALL nations: including Pakistan and all the "non democratic" countries...the UN doesnt seem to be very strong. They seem to be merely puppets of the US. Of course there are a lot of crazy people around but the terrorist attacks have always come from within a nation...or as near as. McVeigh operated more or less on his own and was trained (and brain washed?) by the US Military. Perloff is completely (completely ?) wrong: if the US is to be immolated because people exercise freedom of speech that is better than being immolated for trying to "impose" freedom or to "free the world of terrorism" (during which process you will have to shut down "feedom of speech"!!A "War against terrorism" why not a "War againgst `p' " or a "War against Neurasthenia" ? "Nothing comes from nothing" War generates war. Kill Bin Laden and you probably create hundreds more...and so on...If he's hehind this: bring him to trial. Let justice be seen to be done..and so on. Do something serious about the enormous social and finacial inequalities in the world. Bring about a truly democratic world. The struggle is endless. Bugger it, I cant write poetry or read books while this is going on: although I have been reading C Bernstein's essays in "A Poetics": they are very astute and strangely "calming" and stimulating to read (and I am a great enthusiast for Marjorie Perloff's poetics notwithstanding what I say above - her response is understandable to this: I can see why and where she's coming from - this is a terrible tragedy we have here). Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Scott Hamilton" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 6:57 AM Subject: Re: What is to be Done? > Marjorie Perloff wrote: > > unless we do something THERE WILL BE > > ANOTHER ATTACK > > and I agree completely with her. > > Unless the Western left 'does something' by getting > huge numbers on the streets to match the anti-war > actions gripping Pakistan at the moment, there > certainly will be more terrorist attacks on the West. > > The 'guarantor of peace' is not new police state > legislation, the indiscriminate arrest and indefinite > detention of unlucky American Muslims, or the > targeted, 'clean' extra-judicial assasinations that > self-proclaimed 'moderates' in the West have suddenly > fallen in love with: the guarantor of peace is the > defeat of US and Israeli forces in the Middle East and > the defeat of US policies for the Middle East. > > It's as simple and as difficult as that. > > Although few of us live in the Middle East, we can all > play a role in protecting Marjorie and ourselves from > further attacks. > > Seeya for the march: next Saturday, QE 2 Square, at > 4.30: Richard :) and any other Aucklanders lurking > hereabouts... > > Cheers, > Scott > > > > > > > > > > ===== > For "a ruthless criticism of every existing idea": > THR@LL, NZ's class struggle anarchist paper http://www.freespeech.org/thrall/ > THIRD EYE, a Kiwi lib left project, at http://www.geocities.com/the_third_eye_website/ > and 'REVOLUTION' magazine, a Frankfurt-Christchurch production, http://cantua.canterbury.ac.nz/%7Ejho32/ > > ____________________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get your free @yahoo.co.uk address at http://mail.yahoo.co.uk > or your free @yahoo.ie address at http://mail.yahoo.ie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:16:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: heidi peppermint Subject: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the country in response to the current situation. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:43:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit to clarify a small point here. as a mail list message i did bristle at your response here, George, but were we sitting in a tavern in Mexico I would hope we would have ended toasting a new America? there does seem to be a general assumption on the list that the flag I had my kids buy was a post-vietnam one but it had echoes of one painted on the side of a plane my father sent me from England in 43. I had them buy it for my granddaughter who I hope will grow up with a better flag than we now have. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "charles alexander" To: Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 7:54 PM Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object > George, I usually agree with you, but I think your response here is cruel. > I do think there are a good number of people who have been terribly shaken, > and wonder what of "america" there is to hold on to, and they want > something. So, the flag. Is this a great thing to do? In my estimation, > probably not, but is its meaning the same as jingoistic jumping on the > bandwagon of war? -- absolutely not. Is it understandable? I think so. Am I > going to do it? No, I am definitely not comfortable with that. But the kind > of ridicule you imply here, I believe, is going way too far. I hope there's > some goodhearted humor there that I'm just not catching. > > charles > > At 01:00 PM 9/19/2001 -0700, you wrote: > >>after forty years of resistance to flag-waving and what I saw as meaningless > >>gestures, on the 11th I asked my children to buy one for us to display. > >> > >>tom bell > >> > >>----- Original / > > > >Did you get a gun too? > >-- > >George Bowering > >Freelance reader > >Fax 604-266-9000 > > charles alexander / chax press > > fold the book inside the book keep it open always > read from the inside out speak then > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:00:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: The Flag As Transitional Object In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT As for me, I always thought of the flag as transitional phenomena and intermediate space in respect of moving from one country to another. By golly by jingo! Best, JGallaher ------------------- JGallaher "Poetry has to be something more than a conception of the mind. It has to be a revelation of nature. Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential." --Wallace Stevens ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 22:17:50 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Does anyone remember . . . MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Does anyone remember the burning of the Reichstag? Perhaps not. Or when people once thought the Soviets killed Kennedy? Or what really happened with the Gulf of Tonkin incident? No one believes the "accepted truths" about these and many other incidents that have been used to construct an unprecedented illusory truth. Or as a certain acquaintance of mine says, "the bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe." At one time people believed the alleged Communist Marinus Van Der Lubbe burned down the Reichstag alone in 1933. It later turned out that Hitler and his pals (esp. Goering) made it look that way in order to eliminate the Communists from the upcoming election. Soon Hitler was no longer some democratically elected Chancellor but a dictator, the Fuhrer of Germany, and he closed the Reichstag altogether. Seig Heil? Once upon a time in a place called USA its president was shot, and everyone blamed the Communists. And then a Government-appointed committee of "professionals", without producing any compelling evidence, seconded that "facile" conclusion. In 2001, almost no one any longer buys the Warren Commission load. Take a poll on that one. It's simply a completely untenable theory that the Soviets did it. There was little if nothing they stood to gain and so much that they stood to lose. Yet I'm sure that at least 92% of Americans thought it was the Soviets in November 1963. In 1962 it was widely reported that the North Vietnamese attacked US Warships in the Tonkin Gulf. The attack never actually happened. Three days later, on the basis of the fabricated attack, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which functioned in effect as a declaration of war against North Vietnam passed in the Senate with only two dissenting votes. You are no doubt familiar with the resulting Vietnam War, a war no one is even remotely proud of. Why did these things happen? Because things sometimes ARE NOT AS THEY SEEM. And people believe what they find will make their lives easier to live. Unprofessionally, Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 23:18:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Recent Work on 2 cdroms MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII === Recent Work on 2 cdroms Folder PATH listing Volume serial number is 0006FE80 0000:0000 C:\MIAMI MIAMI.txt recent writings on miami before i arrived miami1.jpg 1,10,11,13,and the other jpgs from the miami10.jpg videos: nude welcomings, languor, as if miami11.jpg azure and alan were waiting for you, miami13.jpg under a harsh/violent sun miami19.wav this music of burying and retrieval miami2.jpg miami23.wav music of hysteric beat going nowhere miami3.jpg miami4.jpg miami41.wav music of burying and retrieval miami5.jpg miami6.jpg miami7.jpg miami9.jpg miami97.mov movie looking in from outside and miami98.mov movie walking down a dark street and miami99.mov movie questioning one susan graham No subfolders exist Folder PATH listing Volume serial number is 0006FE80 0000:0000 C:\VOYAGE | BORDER.MOV interior talk to camera, azure sleeping, one feedback | GLADE.MOV of stripping in a glade, of posing, of confusion | GLADE1.JPG glade images of alan and azure, the posturing, | GLADE10.JPG profusion of insects, spiders, gaunt backdrop to | GLADE2.JPG lack of ideas penetrated by remnants of a wounded | GLADE3.JPG or violated natural order | GLADE4.JPG | GLADE5.JPG | GLADE6.JPG | GLADE7.JPG | GLADE8.JPG | GLADE9.JPG | HER.TXT not being anywhere, cinema, cinema | LOOK.MOV we wander in the studio, no ideas but in skin | LOOKX.MOV we have this text from the world of mathematics | PERFORM.MOV i am his beautiful wife i perform for you | SECRET.MOV this is the secret we will show you | VOYAGE.MOV the voyage by alan sondheim in miami going nowhere | WELCOME.MOV naked, i am alan sondheim's beautiful wife, look, look | WRITING.TXT all the philosophy writing itself in the world | FILM.MOV of the border movie, the original black and white scratched | HELLO.MOV old form of welcome.mov, hello hello hello | LOOKXX.MOV warped look of mathesis collapsed | miami17.wav my energy fast electric sound south beach fury guitar | susangra.jpg of susan graham a solitary image | miami.mov rework of the susan graham movie from first cdrom | miami2.mov rework of rework of the susan graham movie | 5184.mov of the moment of these dead, remnant sound, destroyed film | wtc.mov of the name lost everywhere in the terror | \---STATE CAROLINA.JPG from brooklyn to miami, naked in the car FLORIDA.JPG leaving one state and entering another GEORGIA.JPG over and over again, all this welcoming NCARO.JPG and exposure, the languor of sexual NCARO2.JPG disaffiliation as if you could have us, NCARO3.JPG as if this were the best of all worlds, SCARO.JPG forgetting the dark shadow, the uneasy SCARO2.JPG sircumstances, as if there were control SCARO3.JPG or lack of pleasure in the heat, you SCARO4.JPG ignore the words, worlds, gestures, look VIRGINI2.JPG hard at the anatomy, it looks back at you, VIRGINIA.JPG we are all rising == ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:55:33 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Dickison Subject: Alan Chong LAU & Shirley ANCHETA, Thursday Sept 27, 4:30 pm Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable P O E T R Y C E N T E R 2 0 0 1 The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives presents An afternoon reading with ALAN CHONG LAU & SHIRLEY ANCHETA Thursday afternoon September 27 4:30 pm, free @ The Poetry Center, SFSU presented in collaboration with Asian American Studies, SFSU Join us when celebrated poet Alan Chong Lau returns to California from Seattle, joining his friend and fellow poet Shirley Ancheta for an afternoon reading of their works at The Poetry Center. ALAN CHONG LAU's early book of poetry, Songs for Jadina, won the American Book Award in 1981. His new book, Blues and Greens, subtitled "a produce worker's journal" -based on Mr. Lau's experiences working daily in an Asian produce department in Seattle's international district-is new from the University of Hawaii Press, published in association with UCLA Asian American Studies Center. "In this sensuous, often witty book," notes Gail Tremblay, "one is struck from the first page onward with how completely this poet lives a 'life considered.' No one I know writes with more sensitivity about the nature of life and work than Alan Lau, and few poets explore so honestly the nature of living in a community with others who have had to live complex and difficult lives." Also a visual artist, Mr. Lau has illustrated this volume throughout with his ink drawings and sumi paintings. sign language When our new worker from Vietnam wants to take a breather he signals to me Holding an imaginary stick in mid-air he snaps it in half and grins SHIRLEY ANCHETA co-edited the poetry anthology Without Names (Kearny Street Workshop, San Francisco), one of the first such collections by Filipino American poets. Her work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Bamboo Ridge, Quarry West, and Premonitions: the Kaya Anthology of Asian North American Poetry. A regular book review contributor to the Pacific Reader in Seattle, she lives in Watsonville, California, and works as an English instructor at Cabrillo College, in Aptos. With Jeff Tagami, Al Robles, and others, she recently presented a program titled "Watsonville Stories" at the San Francisco Public Library. =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D COMING UP: for details http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit September 27 Alan Chong Lau & Shirley Ancheta October 11 Claudia Rankine & Linda Norton October 15 Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Benefit for Poetry Center @ Club Fugazi, call 415-421-4222 for tickets. October 18 Paul Auster: George Oppen Memorial Lecture @ ODC Theater, call 415-863-9834 for tickets. October 25 Bill Berkson & Vincent Katz October 27 Mark Nowak & Allison Hedge Coke November 2 Bernadette Mayer & Jack Collom November 10 Alice Notley November 29 Pierre Joris =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D+=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D THE POETRY CENTER is located in Humanities 512 on the SW corner of the San Francisco State University Campus, 1600 Holloway Avenue 2 blocks west of 19th Avenue on Holloway take MUNI's M Line to SFSU 28 MUNI bus or free SFSU shuttle from Daly City BART READINGS that take place at The Poetry Center are free of charge. Except as indicated, a $7 donation is requested for readings off-campus. SFSU students & Poetry Center (with exception of October 15th Benefit Reading featuring Lawrence Ferlinghetti) get in free. All Poetry Center events are videotaped and made available to the public through our American Poetry Archives collection. The first Complete Catalog in over a decade detailing available Archives tapes will be published in late 2001, including videos from 1974 forward, and audiotapes dating from the early years of The Poetry Center , from its founding in 1954 through the early 70s. MEMBERS WILL BE MAILED A FREE COPY OF THE CATALOG ON PUBLICATION. The Poetry Center's programs are supported by funding from Grants for the Arts-Hotel Tax Fund of the City of San Francisco, the California Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, Poets & Writers, Inc., as well as by the College of Humanities at San Francisco State University, and by donations from our members. Join us! =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Steve Dickison, Director The Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue ~ San Francisco CA 94132 ~ vox 415-338-3401 ~ fax 415-338-0966 http://www.sfsu.edu/~newlit ~ ~ ~ L=E2 taltazim h=E2latan, wal=E2kin durn b=EE-llay=E2ly kam=E2 tad=FBwru Don't cling to one state turn with the Nights, as they turn ~Maq=E2mat al-Hamadh=E2ni (tenth century; tr Stefania Pandolfo) ~ ~ ~ Bring all the art and science of the world, and baffle and humble it with one spear of grass. ~Walt Whitman's notebook ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 23:43:39 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Firing Artillery at the Algebra of Bees MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Today we stand at the edge of a large cliff, ready to leap off the edge into an unknown darkness. Many of us find ourselves no longer able to resist the temptation to solve our problems with military might; even some of the most left of us are arching our feet getting ready to dive headlong into the darkness of war. There seems no stopping people from jumping off; history painfully jabs us with this sharp reminder over and over again, that we are doomed to make this same murderous mistake over and over and over again. Most if not all of the experts and leaders from all political positions have already leapt. The US economy is screaming, and many of our own livelihoods is in danger. Every one of us was hurt in some way. Some people suggest war is the only way to protect our livelihoods, to save the economy from tumbling down it's own invisible staircase. But for those of you who have not yet leapt into the molten fires of the desire for war, hold on a moment. I want to talk about absurdity, truth, justice, murder, money, and democracy. I want you to consider some harsh realities, and I want you to make decisions where the truth is self-evident. Advocating any sort of military or intelligence solution (as in acts of war or an increase in intelligence spending) to the US's crisis at hand sets a whole new standard for absurdity. Yes, absurd. War is not only a poor solution, it is no solution at all. Neither is padding the pockets of an already totalitarian-minded secretive elite with a long criminal history. Yet that's what I seem to be hearing from everywhere, from the right, the left, the TV, and the infotainers on NPR, that we can only respond with war, with espionage, with more money to the CIA, to the DIA, to the NSA, and to the US Military. Such recommendations are not only non-solutions. The so-called "solutions" promise to only amplify the cycle of violence while extending the impoverishment and exploitation of the citizens of the world, in the US and beyond. The war will spread like burning jet fuel, extending the violence well beyond the circles of Lower Manhattan, rural Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. The attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was indeed an attack on the people of the United States. Many US citizens died horrible and unjust deaths, as did many across the globe. It was an attack on people of the United States and people across the world. These deaths make many people like you and me angry, and, rightfully so. We must surely accept our anger, but we also have a responsibility to honor those fellow lost travelers to seek truth and justice, however evasive those concepts may seem. Truth. Justice. We must be brave, show courage and resolve so that we may respect the lives of all people who deserve that respect, and so that we may honor the lives lost in the apocalypse in Manhattan, southern Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon. The attack was carried out in a way that rendered many possible US Military responses impotent. The US Military is for the most part a hierarchical bureaucracy where even operational decisions must be passed down a chain of command. It is painfully apparent that the attackers operated rather independently of any large organization for an extended period of time. There was no doubt a central body for training and for giving the fateful order, but those cells ran their own operations. The arms of a giant are too slow and coarse in swinging at barely visible and distributed small attackers. The arms of the US Military beast are much too coarse, unless those operations come from US Special Ops. US Special Ops are the only units in the US Military trained to act in a decentralized and independent fashion. Special Ops will suffer no disadvantages against a decentralized opponent, not only in terms of force, but also in terms of independent operational decisions and intelligence gathering. The US Delta Force will be on the front line and they will not fail to hit their targets. The US is nowhere near incapable of waging a "modern" war. The US and its Delta Force are the "bleeding edge" of military response technology and problem solving. What does that mean for us? What we are about to witness is a covert war, a war where no person will ever hear a shred of truth, a war where our dishonest justice will be rendered empty. Quite frankly, covert war is not war but terrorism. The sort of terrorism that allows the CIA to train bin Laden how to convince, recruit, brainwash (take your pick) people and make them ready to die in the name of Islam, to teach this man how to use religion as a tool for control. The sort of terrorism that bin Laden passed to the Kosovo Liberation Army, whose skills the US government rewarded with large sums of money, the organization in tight with bin Laden and The sort of terrorism that makes it OK for the CIA to enrich someone like bin Laden at least through the end of 1999, when the KLA and Al Qaieda partnered with the CIA to make many dollars at the expense of the Serbian civilian population. That's right--the US Government KNOWINGLY pumped Osama bin Laden's organization with cash in 1999, despite that he was already a state enemy. And bin Laden's training of the KLA allowed the US to take Serbia and Kosovo. And now Kosovo is known as perhaps a pure narco-state. Is that progress? If this does not sound Orwellian to you, I recommend you read _1984_ again. Orwell's world in _1984_, however, is nowhere nearly so bleak or convoluted. It does, however, smell the same. To follow the bogus and unsubstantiated calls to over-modernize the US's military and its intelligence services, to make them able to respond to such rhizomatic terrorist organizations (which they already are capable of) would require that US leaders: * pump even more money into dark corners of US military already receiving hundreds of billions of dollars a year, * distance US citizens even more from all supposedly "democratic" processes, and * place more and more US civil liberties at risk. The truth is, these organizations already are the very vanguard of all violent problem-solving. No one's talking about those groups in any realistic terms because talking heads on every trusted media outlet are illustrating their desires to help the powerful get more power. After all, it seems the only thing their flapping gums are good for. The powerful want more power and are willing to exploit your suffering, your compassion, your desire to make the world a better place. they're not about to tell the public anything about how things work behind closed door. Many of them are chosen to speak either because they know and have incentive not to tell, or they simply do not have a clue but want to sound like they know something. The attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon comprised a murderous act of aggression against all people, mostly US citizens. It happened on US soil, in our backyards. Friends and loved ones lost their lives, their homes, and we watched suffering flood an entire country. The death toll and physical devastation are perhaps reminiscent only of war, sure. The losses were beyond our own imaginary limits for infamy. It is tempting indeed to call these attacks war and to unleash the might and massive machinery that US Citizens have labored so hard to provide for our own security, for the safety of our homes, our families, our friends, our communities, and our ideals. So many Americans seem ready to place the lives of their sons and daughters on the line to swing at an unseen enemy. But what is an act of war? An act of war implies an organization's *overt* effort to effect international policy. It is an effort by the offending organization to make known that it can act in a violent way to change how organizations and states operate. It is perhaps the most brutal form of negotiation. However, no one has admitted guilt. No one. There's no one else at the negotiating table. There is nothing overt about the organizers of the attack. No organization is making itself known as players in the role of aggressor. Let us not be misled by either the rhetoric of opportunistic politicians or the scale of devastation. The attacks do not comprise some act of war. There is no one standing up and saying what he, she, or they want. We have only silence. To move even one step in the direction of strengthening the US Military or US Government intelligence services by spending increases will only prove to strengthen the exploitation of people both inside and outside US borders. To move in the direction of a military response to the attack will underscore a dangerous misunderstanding of the secrecy of the attack. To move in the direction of security and violence, to mistake the clearly covert attack for an overt act of war, will simply add to the pile of bodies and pump energy into already massive cycle of violence across our globe. War is a violent form of communication. When we see the horrible message of the WTC towers collapsing, there's no one admitting to having sent it. This is not an act of war, however masive its impact is, but instead a criminal act on a scale we never before even imagined. The perpetrators are criminals. Their only purpose is to wreak destruction and make us full of fear, to cause us to lash out in such a predictably coarse and ineffective way. If anything, the US should be looking into improving its cooperative efforts internationally to take preventative actions against all criminal organizations hell-bent on killing US Citizens. To seek justice, the US must discover the truth about who organized and carried out the attack to the very last detail. Every citizen must keep it in his or her best interest to help bring this person to justice. We already know whoever did it is secretive and "moves through shadows;" we must be willing to roll back the mist and consider every possibility, no matter how unbelievable, every motive, every theory, until we discover the complete truth. While we are seeking the parties responsible, leaving no stones unturned, we must also make sure the more vulnerable and dangerous elements of our industrial society are safe. That includes not just aircraft but also nuclear reactors and industrial production plants of all sorts. The destruction of any one of many different chemical plants, for example, could do more harm to the US and its people than what we witnessed that gruesome Tuesday. Consider for a moment if one of those planes crashed into a nuclear reactor the horrors we would now be discussing. Firing artillery at a swarm of bees is ineffective in preventing people from bee stings. The swarm easily evades the relatively large and ungainly attack. In real terms, such an act of violence bleeds the resources of US citizens while lining the pockets of those selling weapons to the US Government. That's the only benefit such actions are going to provide: someone's going to get rich. What's worse is, the bees are going to come back at you. Such large gestures of military strength might make you feel safe, but they only manage to increase your risk of being stung. Worse, the nurturing of war and military & intelligence budgets only increases your risk of being the target of brutality far worse than any bee sting imaginable. Today the world is behind America for a change. The people of the world are looking to us as a possible home for truth and justice and freedom, a nation willing to set a proud example, not a people of awkward and murderous retribution or of blind support of murderous secretive and anti-democratic organizations. A country where its people believe not in doing to others what it has already done to them, but doing to others as the people want for themselves and their families today and forever. Perhaps truth and justice may sound unattainable to the 21st century ear, or may be completely drowned out by the barrage of half-truths floating out of mouths everywhere. Instead let us work to allow our ideals to prevail, not our cynicism, not our fears. I write to you this Monday evening, the 24rd Of September, from the land of the FREE and the home of the BRAVE. Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 16:23:35 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: m&r...FREE.... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Is this a poem Harry? You could give them my name as a "dangerous" terorist: I purchased a plastic "robot arm" from a local $2.00 shop which I thought might come in handy for something. (Am I thus a terrorist? Any way the info may come in handy: the FBI might be paying!) I used it to imitate an American supporter and shook a few peoples's hands: and I said: "You know President Bush, youngfella?" The boy nodded. "Well I'm his chief adviser - I may look like a little fat man with glasses but dont be fooled. Shake hands, you're either for me or against me". And the young fulla nodded and as his parents laughed as he shook my $2.00 Taiwanese plastic hand at 3 (safe) feet distance. If I may say so Harry me old mate: that meeting symbolised everything that is beautiful every where. drn. Richard....drn. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Nudel" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 9:51 AM Subject: m&r...FREE.... > FREE FBI HOTLINE...866-463-5137....FREE....DRn.. > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:11:47 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Bassford Subject: EXOTERICA October MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Welcome to the October issue of the EXOTERICA Newsletter. On Sunday, October 7th at 1 p.m., EXOTERICA is proud to present poet MARIE PONSOT, "a poet of elegance and complexity", said The NY Times after her recent collection, "The Bird Catcher", won the National Book Critics Circle Award and was named a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize. Ms. Posot, a native New Yorker born in 1921, has won awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and is a recipient of the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Prize; she teaches in the graduate writing program at Columbia University in NYC. Admission is $5. Open Mike follows feature. The Exoterica book stall sells books by current and past featured readers at a discount. The EXOTERICA Fall COMMUNITY POETRY WORKSHOP led by poet JOHANNA KELLER will begin on Wednesday, October 17th, at 8 p.m. and run for 8 weeks. The workshop is open to writers of all levels. Johanna Keller's poetry has appeared in Nimrod, Southwest Review, New Plains Review, and the Chelsea Review, as well as publications abroad. She has won an Artist's Fellowship from the NY Foundation for the Arts and the 1997 Editor's Award from the Florida Review. She teaches at The Writer's Voice and is a music reviewer for The NY Times. The 8 week workshop fee is $200. All readings and classes take place at The Society for Ethical Culture, 4450 Fieldston Road, in the Bronx. To register, or for more information, write here or call Director Rick Pernod at 718-549-5192. To unsubscribe, write here. EXOTERICA...we'll be spreading the word.... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 00:21:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Analyzing the Flag Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Dear Nick: Thanks for the eloquent post. When I first saw flags coming out after September 11, I correlated that with the (it turns out) more aggressive display in the Gulf War. I also remember the half-time show of the Super Bowl, an important cultural document which ought to be studied for its object relations. In it, groups of children of servicemen were trotted out on center stage,and there was virtually a sacrificial aspect to the whole thing. "We" were to identify both with the child left behind (perhaps permanently) and the parents doing their duty leaving the child ("who is us"). This identification of the child--held hostage by the adult demands of uncompromising duty--with the potential space not of play but of mourning has been reinforced in many ways since then. The Columbine High School tragedy, as much as the Oklahoma bombing, is emblematic of the way the child is placed at the forefront of a process of mourning that is also definitive of group identity. I haven't seen that discourse invoked particularly, but it bears on the question of the transitional object. The transitional object, as you know, is primarily related to the question of separation and hence normal development. It also is important in relation to traumatic experiences that in some way interrupt the normal course of separating from the care-giving parent. A signal use of the concept is to describe a space ("potential space") in Winnicott's terms that is where play takes place. Winnicott sees this as space of acting out, and the child can unload its destructive rage in this safe space because really, the potential space is defined by the presence not absence of the mother. This has enormous use in thinking about art of all kinds. For instance, Mike Kelly uses teddy bears in some of his pieces where he punches them out, shits on them. You could think of Jaspers Johns's use of the flag, in that famous work where there are three of them stacked on top of each other, as a playful acting out around the national symbol. And because it's art (the context being the late 50s or early 60s) it's OK. No one is going to accuse him of insulting the flag. The concept is very intuitive and I think many can easily identify it. Maria writes about her cat. I have my transitional object (or one of them) sitting on a shelf--Mickey Mouse, c. 1950. But does that really work with the flag? I'm trying to think how. I'm picturing the huge flag right next to the hole at Ground Zero from a helicopter, on the TV news today. That's the use we are thinking of. Reaching for my psychoanalytic library, I find the following passage in Winnicott: "The object is a symbol of the union of the baby and the mother (or part of the mother). This symbol can be located. It is at the place in space and time where and when the mother is in transition from being (in the baby's mind) merged with the infant and alternatively being experienced as an object to be perceived rather than conceived of. The use of the object symbolizes the union of two now separate things, baby and mother, at the point in time and space of the initiation of their state of separateness. [. . .] The mental representation [that results] in the inner world is kept significant, or the imago in the inner world is kept alive, by the reinforcement given through the availability of the external separated-off and actual mother, along with her technique of child care. [Hence, the mother is not dead in the creation of the object and its space.] "It is perhaps worthwhile trying to formulate this in a way that gives the time factor due weight. The feeling of the mother's existence lasts x minutes. If the mother is away for more than x minutes, then the imago fades, and along with this the baby's capacity to use the symbol of the union ceases. The baby is distressed, but this distress is soon mended because the mother returns in x + y minutes. In x + y minutes the baby has not become altered. But in x + y + z minutes the baby has become traumatized. in x + y + z minutes the mother's return does not mend the baby's altered state. Trauma implies that the baby has experienced a break in life's continuity, so that primitive defenses now become organized to defend against a repetition of "unthinkable anxiety" or a return of the acute confusional state that belongs to the disintegration of nascent ego structure." ("The Location of Cultural Experience") And Winnicott goes on to conclude that most babies don't experience x + y + z. "This means that the majority of children do not carry around with them for life the knowledge from experience of having been mad. Madness here simply means a breakup of whatever may exist at the time of a personal continuity of experience." In that situation, the child has a hard time reintegrating. I believe that's the model. It's distinct from Freud in "Mourning and Melancholia," importantly because the parent is not dead. The object is not lost, but the continuity of experience has become traumatic. That I think is accurately what those of us who did not experience a direct loss have just experienced. The continuity of our experience--sense of well being, its protension and retention--has been disrupted. There is a before and after, a traumatic shock. A number of aspects of what we are observing bear on this model. Something is holding it all together in the face of trauma. Does this mean the flag posits a caring parent? That could be interesting in light of the Columbine High School discourse--a way to translate child, parent, and community into national identity. Then there are the questions of play and aggression. When I see people in SUVs flying the flag where there once was a hockey team flag (Detroit Red Wings), something of the playful use of an identity symbol is suggested. But I can't get farther than that. As for aggression of the Mike Kelley variety, I don't see that. Acting out on the flag because it's safe. What strikes me as important is the way that Winnicott infers that our response to this circles back to the position of the child. And I think that is a powerful political discourse. It also powerfully separates the politics of nation states (and their aggressions) from the politics of community (and their concerns with caring). Perhaps you can see by this analysis that I think this is a terrible result. It separates, cordons off, our basic instincts from the political arrangements that protect them. We are all held hostage by forms of aggression that at any moment could disrupt our lives. So the flag. We could look at it this way, yes. We could look at it as an identity symbol--that's my flag, I'm an American. And we could look at it as a form of duty. Salute the flag and do your duty. I don't think it's possible to dissociate any of these ways of seeing the flag. What is remarkable at the present moment is the overwhelming sense that we have been placed in the position of the child whose mother, a.k.a. sense of well being that can't possibly "go away," has gone away. For the present time. This is the x + y + z situation Winnicott discusses. The tragedy is that, given the total destructiveness of great power politics and terrorist responses, that is the only place for us. I certainly did not mean to infer that concern for the human reality of the trauma that has occurred is an apology for all that might be done in the name of a national symbol. I also feel caught up in the same relation to the trauma that occurred. I notice it because I perceive the flag, right now, as more or less benign in precisely the way you and others have seen it. But I also perceive in it an ominous masking of the other forms of identity and disavowal that are to come. Barrett ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 01:07:44 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Hope @ Union Square MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit A poignant video about the search for survivors and the messages written on the walls of hope around Union Square in NYC. Created by my friend Giles on September 13. http://www.webslingerz.com/ghendrix/mov/memorial.html Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 01:30:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Oum Kalsoum Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Jeffrey Jullic wrote: "I own one Arabic music casette: Om Khalsoum (sp.?),the most popular singer in the world, more popular than Elvis was, than ABBA. I played it last weekend, windows always shut dust allergy air-conditioning (dust opened) opened wide. Hadn't heard it in years. Sounded beautiful. There's this curious ~stoppage~ that occurs in that Arabic music: the melodic line instantaneously seizes and lurches to a brief halt, then continues forward, at perhaps a modification of a half-step (?)." Hi Jeffrey, Actually, Oum, Umm, Om, Omme, Kalthoum, Kalsuom, Kaltsoum, Kulthum & other variations are all valid. You mention that "brief halt"--there's almost a word for it, although I think it has more to do with quality of voice: "Bahha," which means "a quality of hoarseness or a break in the voice considered to be beautiful and expressive." But, yeah, you can hear that "stoppage" in the instrumentation as well. The composition is ordered and performed in such a way as to heighten dramatic tension, and suspensions of various kinds, sudden shifts (sometimes bizarre to western ears) of coloration/instumentation, brief halts, and so on are all employed to create it. It was said that she never sang a line the same twice, ever--and audiences frequently demanded that she repeat a particular line or phrase in performance. The point being to reduce your audience to a complete state of entrancement. (Is that a word?) Probably, on the tape you have, Kalsoum doesn't even begin to sing for a good 5-10 minutes. On some of the live recordings I have, you can hear the audience going apeshit in anticipation of her stepping up to the mic & singing--composers would write *into* that moment, knowing the effect it had on audiences. Kalsoum was so popular that national leaders would schedule speeches around her weekly radio show, which ran for decades. In a review of one of her concerts, where she sang "Aruuh li-miin," Kamal Al-Najmi complained that she went on until 4:00 a.m. (He later admitted she'd probably only gone on until 3:00) "What was responsible for this protracted length was the growing number of audience requests for repetitions of lines and entire sections." (Virginia Danielson, _The Voice of Egypt_) It's interesting to note, however true it is (& it's an exaggeration of course), that it's frequently said that Oum Kalsoum is the "one thing all arabs have ever agreed upon." Kalsoum's popularity, however, has waned since the 60s. It's considered "nostalgic" to listen to her, in the way that listening to Billie Holliday might be considered an exercise in nostalgia. (In other words, there's this admittance that she was great, which is unquestioned, but ...) The most popular singer in Egypt (and most of the arabic world) right now is probably Amr Diab, whose hit single "Habibe," which sounds more like the Gypsy Kings than anything else, was played constantly on the radio for more than a year. There are still singers who record renditions of songs Oum Kalsoum originally made famous, but they're usually truncated, "poppy" versions. And there are still singers recording things somewhat in the style or lineage of Kalsoum--Asallah Nasri, for instance, who is a huge success, although very different sounding, finally. Her latest, _Ya Akhi Is'al_, is beautiful but I guess you could say sounds "metronomic" or something, in comparison. Also, her voice has very little of that "hoarseness" or "scratchiness" or whatever you get with Kalsoum, although it's certainly expressive--compare to Angham or Najwa Karam, for instance, two other of my current faves. Often troubling is the relationship of popular arabic music to Islamic fundamentalists--many of the "rai" singers of Algeria have had to leave the country--I think Cheb Hasni was murdered in the mid-90s by fundamentalists. Kadim Al Sahir (also spelled Kazeem), who kind of goes back & forth between a more traditional style and a "western" (or as many arabics refer to it, "intercultural") style, tried to return to his native Iraq in the late 90s & was shot & wounded. I've been looking, unsuccessfully, for anything by Googoosh, who was supposedly the most popular pre-revolutionary singer in Iran, and who now no longer sings--the price of remaining in Iran, according to what I've read. One thing I've never been able to wrap my mind around is that arabic singing comes out of readings of the Koran. If you heard the broadcast from I guess Yankee Stadium last Sunday, you heard the reading, which of course sounded like singing--although it's not considered singing. I've never understood this split, except for the (seemingly) obvious that in one case the "lyrics" are sacred, in the other they're secular. But in explainations I've heard, that's not the real issue. Can anyone explain this? Thanks for the post, Jeffrey, Gary _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 02:25:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..Scholarships.. Usually reliable Arabic sources have informed me that in the cause of world peace, one world and global understanding, they have established a Scholarship Fund for needy, underprivileged Palestinian Youth to come to the U.S.A. to study chemical and civl engineering, nuclear medicine, aeronautics and allied technical subjects as well as Western Civ. PLEASE PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR HEART IS AND CONTRIBUTE GENEROUSLY...Drn... ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 20:43:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: The Flag as Transitional Object In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Thanks, George. I know this reverence of flags and arms is a part of a part of American culture. I've never been very close to it. I don't even know if I know anyone anymore who owns a gun, though I did when growing up in Oklahoma. I have seen such window displays as you describe, and I try to flee from them, too. on another note, can I be a freelance reader, too? charles >Nice letter, Charles. I appreciate it. I was not meaning ridicule >when I asked about getting a gun while getting a flag. I know that >you ar seeing the relationship from inside the US, and I think that >it is hard for people inside the US to see what it looks like from >outside. We get, for example, every day, lots of US tourists who are >surprised at the border that they have to leave their guns outside >Canada. They always ask "But how will I protect myself?" I remember >one time on one of the many US patriotic days, I think it was Flag >Day, stopping in a Wyoming city, I forget which one, and there was >window display after window display in storefrons. In one there was >nothing but flags and hand grenades. We got away from there as fast >as we could. I dont know what flag-waving means in the US ecxactly, >but I have to say that when I see them, I get scared. >-- >George Bowering >Freelance reader >Fax 604-266-9000 charles alexander / chax press fold the book inside the book keep it open always read from the inside out speak then ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 07:29:14 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rob Holloway Subject: humanitarian intervention MIME-Version: 1.0 I'd like to put my voice loudly behind the call for humanitarian intervention previously raised here by Lawrence, cris and others. One of the most difficult things I've read in the last week has been that report from Chris Buckley from the Christian Aid Programme (as posted by Alan.S., also available on ZNet) detailing his withdrawl due to fears of American military intervention. It showed how The World Food Programme in Herat has food there but has shut down its operations due to the same fears, and so it is not being distributed. That such organisations are having to back out due to US military heat at the time when 5 million Afghan civilians are threatened with starvation (Oxfam report released this weekend) is the sickest of ironies. Even more so when one realises that the CAP and WFP could not cope with the crisis even if their work was being allowed to continue, and that what they exactly needed in the past and need now even more so with the Afghan winter about to kick in, is a massive logistical operation that can get food from the West into Afghans mouths - the sheer weight of men (sic) and machine now in the area who could carry out such a task given a shift in political will, is more than they could ever have wished for... Of course, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan pre-dates Sept 11th by a long way. War has been one of the major factors in its creation. War will be the major factor in its continuance. I could think of no better way to honour the dead of New York and Washington than by the US/NATO/EU making good on prior humanitarian rhetoric and initiating operations in Afghanistan that get people fed. What better context for US foreign policy to be seen in by the vast majority of non-fundamentalists in the Middle East, exactly the 'moderates' that must be won over if terrorism is to be truly tamed (see the URL's from Anastosios:- http://play.rbn.com/?wgbh/world/demand/we6.rm http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/19/fighting_terror/print.html for the importance of this approach for Britain and France in Ireland and Algeria respectively) Ron and Marjorie, I share your fears, and also the desire for action, but sitting as I am in the middle of London, across the Thames from the MI6 and Houses of Parliament, I reckon I'm closer to a terrorist cell that might attack those places as any of military personel massing on the borders of Afghanistan - they are not in the camps, they're in the US and Europe. I fully support a police/intelligence based international effort to track them in those places, its bias towards civil rather than military law. Yes, they will act again I fear, but their actions will appear far more justified to a Muslim world if they are performed against the backdrop of a military assault in Afghanistan, then Iraq, then... by the US/NATO/EU alliance, than if their terrorism came after the kind of humanitarian efforts of that alliance discussed above. further to this, what are people's thoughts on drafting something along the lines of a press release that would detail support for a truly humanitarian intervention - naive and ineffectual perhaps, but a possibility....I'm figuring Marjorie's 92%/8% split also resembles the balance of this list in favour of such humanitarian action - a draft could be posted and then if you didn't want to be behind it, b/c to Charles Alexander as list moderator saying so - it could then be forwarded to media outlets, dressed up in 'their' language - 'Voice of Int'l Poetic Community' or some such expedience - an idea anyway and thanks to all for the quality of discussion hereabouts, in hope, Rob Holloway ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 22:53:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cinthia jasper Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <20010924174804.14491.qmail@web11305.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Yes, what you create in the world you create in spirit. That spirit goes on. I was stuck in SeaTac the friday after - it was during the "minute of silence" the country observed-- simply put, there were some people who simply wouldn't shut up. For a minute. For five thousand dead people. For the terrorists. For whatever you could take or give or both to that minute. I wonder if there aren't always going to be people who are-- morons? terrorists? on & on. So for me the question is: if compassion is the way to go, how to really bring that about *now* as a tool? cheryl burket --- Arielle Greenberg wrote: > I'm sure someone else has said this already, but > there > will be another attack anyway. There is no way that > I > know of, other than working towards the Buddhist > goal > of total enlightenment for all sentient beings, to > "wipe out" terrorism. The horrible gas attacks on > the > subways in Japan were the work of citizens of that > country. Oklahoma City was not the work of a born > and > bred American. No amount of "concerted effort" on > the > part of this or any country is going to stop what > seems to be, unfortunately, a constant and immediate > access to Wrong Action by whomever feels the need to > act this way. I mean, come on, haven't we all been > blinded, at one point or another, by hatred or > jealousy or terror? As long as people still feel > that > way, there will be terrible acts. Retaliation only > continues the cycle of suffering. Compassion is the > only way out. > > > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant > messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 02:35:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..Dar al-Warb... Where's our own on boskey boy Ted He'd a been Special Forces Couple of Days of speed & Cokes & he'd wiped out those 'ghans.. ..... where is pierre joris where is pierre joris ..... Mr. Al-Marabh had returned to buy a slush-like drink Parot-Ice.. .... Saudis use at least 3 names their given name their father's name their tribal name .... too stupid to die ..... the Dar-al-Islam the Dar-al-Warb ....... No thanks, I'll have the A-ONE steak sauce.....DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 03:22:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII === you look at a star you have never seen before and there is a wound in the side and you know it's war and you know there is suffering and something is gone against the dark light of some other's sun so you turn away to your own and you say this is my own and this is the day and the sky turns to ash and the light from the star is gone in the glare and none from afar is looking at you and none from afar is taking you in and looking at you are none from afar gone from the glare and none from afar in the sky turned to ash in the light from the star and this is my own and this is my day so you turn away to your own and you pray against the dark light of some other's sun where you know someone suffers and someone is gone from the wound in the side and you know it's war when you look at the star you've not seen before === ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 21:05:33 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: A pedagogical question from Scott Bentley In-Reply-To: <125.4c3eb50.28df4be8@aol.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Thanks, Scott Great to hear from you. I usually do not teach, and if there were enough money to be made at the combination of small press and book arts I practice, or if I were a better fundraiser, I would prefer to work at Chax Press all the time. Yet I also love to teach, and each time I do, I am very happy about it. This fall, for the first time in 17 or so years, I took an adjunct position teaching, just as you say, a "basic grunt" class in composition, at Pima Community College in Tucson. Students are quite varied, some of them sent by their families from Mexico to become educated in the USA, some who are on probation at the U of Arizona, students of all ages, including one on her way to a second degree after having received her b.a. at Berkeley in 1968. I had a class on September 12 and we did nothing but talk about the events of the previous day, how people felt about it, what they thought should be done, etc. I was somewhat surprised, and very pleased, at how thoughtful the students were. Some, yes, were gung-ho for retaliation; one (my former Berkeley student) even thought the USA getting 'tough' and doing such things as closing its borders and cracking down on *bad* elements in other countries, was long overdue; but most, even on that day after, were talking about how to achieve peace, about not getting upset with all Muslims, and about how scared they are that there might be a war (most thought there would). They really wanted to talk and seemed to appreciate it that all I did was come and sit at my desk and say, "Do you want to talk about what's going on?" Since then, I've found them very energetic about discussion in class, and there's never a problem relating what we're reading to current events. Today they were the ones who were talking about the relevance of Plato to current events; I didn't have to lead them. Because I am teaching a semester class (I teach several 6 and 8-week creative writing classes each year, and one or two book-making classes) for the first time in ages, in some ways I'm making it up as I go along, with most of the reading list planned in advance, but with the pace of it responding to student needs, and what I do in individual class sessions often determined a day or two before. Right now they need to talk, and anything they read plays into other things they are thinking about. They're quite civil in their discussions, too. I'm finding it all rather amazing, and it's making my job much easier than I thought it might be. I don't know how it will be for you, starting school a few weeks after the events; but since the students won't have been with others in a classroom until then, my guess is they will want to talk, too, and that a lot of what you can do is just to let them do so, and allow enough freedom in writing assignments to let them write about current events if they wish to do so, in ways that are meaningful to them. Charles At 10:30 AM 9/23/2001 -0400, you wrote: >Dear listees, > >I've enjoyed reading the different responses that folks have had to the Trade >Center tragedy. I'd imagine that most of you are at semester schools, and >many of those in New York. I teach in California, at CSU Hayward, on a >quarter system. As such, we haven't started up yet. This coming quarter I'll >teach "Rhetoric and Argument," "Basic Composition" and maybe a poetry >workshop. I'm wondering if some of you teach, and if some of you, like me, >teach basic grunt classes with a lot of young students. I'm wondering how/if >y'all have begun to talk about in your classes the current political >situation. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:21:29 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I tried writing out "America" to mean United States of America of a piece I have written for _Masthead_, exchanging US or USA etc whenever I found it in my draft. [Actually even USA is a bit odd - Canada's a federation too, but we can live and die with that] It took me three goes and then I missed one. I could have got it with the word-processor find function; but aiming to pick it up as I rewrote I found it was invisible from familiarity. [Similar to picking up "he" to mean men and women when I first tried it] The real problem came with "American". United States citizen? Person of the US? There is no word I know of outside of slang used abusively which would not fit at all L ----- Original Message ----- From: "cris cheek" To: Sent: 24 September 2001 17:24 Subject: Re: What is to be done | Hi, | | several posters have remarked here on this fact in recent days, but the | continued use of 'America' and 'Americans' is part of the perceptuial | problem. Friends of mine in the USA have grinned when i pointed this out | before, saying, it's just to rile everyone else. Hmmmm | | I write from the unfortunately recondeconstructed 'United Kingdom', knowing | that we stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone in the formations and | perpetuations of this problem. | | love and love | cris | ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 08:05:28 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Stickney Subject: What is to be done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The discussions on this list lead to some simple questions: 1) If an attack on your own soil is not enough to justify going to war, = what act would justify a call to arms? 2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies of = the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so that = their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious minorities = could be even more effectively administered? =20 3) Are the only innocent civilians that matter living outside the United = States? 4) Is what remains of the "Left" as disconnected from normal, everyday = people as the majority of the traffic on this list would indicate? =20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 05:56:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: poetry now?, etc. In-Reply-To: <4.3.2.7.2.20010924130214.00c4d490@hesiod> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I was interested in Dan's recent post about the lack of good responses from poets, and wanted to offer up this encouraging development: on Friday, as Rob and I were driving from Boston to Unity (!), Maine for the Common Ground Fair, we heard a broadcast of the WBUR call-in show "The Connection." I don't know at this point whether or not this show is broadcast on NPR stations anywhere outside of Boston, but the theme of the day was "how can poetry help us cope with this recent tragedy." (It very well may be archived online.) He had Marie Howe and Naomi Shihab Nye on and Nye read a poem by an Arab woman writer which was very beautiful and then people from all over the country called in to read their own poems or other poems about tragedy...someone read a very moving piece by Levine. One of my favorite moments was when the host got Nye on the phone and instead of starting by answering questions or anything like that, Nye just said, long distance from the Southwest to Marie in NYC, "Hello, Marie, I've been thinking of you" and Marie said "Hello, Naomi. Hello, darling. I've been thinking of you, too." It was silly and funny but made me think of what a wonderfully tight community the poetry community can be. It was also just very encouraging that someone at WBUR thought to HAVE this sort of a show (it was apparently the suggestion of a listener, though I wondered if our own Sean Cole had a hand in any of it) and that so many Americans, many of them not Poets (one guy was a real estate agent), really do seem to turn to poetry in hard times. I was wishing I could have called in myself, because there was no representation or discussion of non-narrative or non-linear poetic responses to tragedy, but I was just really pleased to hear the show. It made my heart glad. And so did the Common Ground Fair, which is an annual weekend festival in Maine put on by organic farmers and activists, and the whole thing was wonderfully grassroots and positive. Jim Hightower spoke and got lots of applause for his pro-peace, pro-working-class, anti-globalization message. There are workshops on alternative medicine (and even an herbalist/witchcraft first aid tent!), folk art demos, all the food is locally grown, etc. It was terrific just to be surrounded by people who seemed genuinely engaged in making the world a better place. If anyone wants more info, please feel free to backchannel me. Arielle Dan Bouchard wrote: > > Meanwhile, besides the admirable responses I've read > here from Ron, Brian, > Marcella, Barrett, the poets who can reach the > outside world seem to do so > with utter lameness. Andrei Codrescu, writing in the > Plain Dealer > (9/18/01), says (much like Tom Petty) that the > waiting is the hardest part. > "Whatever happens next will define everything we are > going to do….we have > rarely waited this impatiently for our national life > to give direction to > our individual lives." Also, and this is > embarrassing, "waiting for news, > obsessively glued to TV and radio. I cannot begin to > express my admiration > for the news people who keep us engaged every > minute, 24 hours a day. They > are heroic, intelligent, hardworking." > > But where I have received "news" I found useful > almost exclusively from the > Web, Codrescu writes, "The Internet, too, is > buzzing, but mostly with > make-busy noises without much substance, opinions > and theories of every > sort… People with little authority, moral or > otherwise, are brushing off > moldy left-wing or right-wing arguments against our > government. Hollow > theories and tired cliches spew forth. Total nuts > like Noam Chomsky and > shameless self-promoters like Christopher Hitchens > on the left…are blaming > America for the terror. It's unconscionable." > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:03:04 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: a few links re: possible responses to terrorism on US civilian t argets MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" These will likely be of most interest to US readers, as they address what the USA is likely to do in the short run, and what the current US strategic thinking is about its vulnerabilities to terrorism on its own soil. ********* 5-page overview of "homeland defense" updated to Sept 19; pretty much a blueprint for how the new Cabinet-level office will be focused: http://www.csis.org/burke/hd/reports/New%20US%20Strategy%20for%20Terror%209- 20.pdf "asymmetric war" and "homeland defense" -- a group of studies done June 99- Dec 00 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies: http://www.csis.org/burke/hd/index.htm#reports One of the studies -- addressing nuclear, radiological, chemical and biological attacks on the US "homeland." [addressing scenarios called "Four Very Bad Days" -- it also posits a Fifth "Very Bad Day" in which bin Laden's 1993 attack on the World Trade Center had succeeded via a large explosion of conventional explosives (96 pp):]] http://www.csis.org/homeland/reports/combatchembiorad.pdf 1997 statement opening Congressional hearing (on missing former-Soviet nukes): http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1997_h/h971001w.htm bio weapons primer: http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/bw/index.html chem weapons primer: http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/cw/index.html page of links to info about nukes: http://www.fas.org/nuke/links.htm 1997 testimony on possible response to urban chemical/biological terrorism: http://www.fas.org/spp/starwars/congress/1997_h/97030309.htm ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:13:38 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: roger.day@GLOBALGRAPHICS.COM Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Excerpted from the Gitlin's article. "Many say that the US should change its foreign policy - I have long thought the US should be pressing Israel to end the occupation and uproot the settlements - but the presumption that the fundamentalist murderers would be placated by a just arrangement in Israel-Palestine is absurd. The question still dangles: what to do?" If the US changed it's Foreign Policy, at least it would be a START (ignoring that fundamental plank is just as absurd as the point raised - and, in a broad-brush context, neatly absolves any action required in that direction). In my eyes, this would be the start down a long road of opening up, understanding and reconciliation. Although I do agree with the attempts at justice - but whose justice? Arabic or Western? I think it would be worth looking for articles from Arabic writers - what questions (aesthetic, moral, military) do they raise? Tending towards Western voices can be blinkering. At 24/09/2001 22:23:47, Ron Silliman wrote: # http://www.terrorism.com/terrorism/Groups2.shtml # # Also, very much worth reading is Todd Gitlin's piece in the Guardian this # weekend: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4262750,00.html # # Gitlin, a sociologist by profession, was the head of SDS for awhile in the # 1960s, # # Ron # # _________________________________________________________________ # Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp # Roger ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 03:11:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: BELLADONNA* Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable BELLADONNA* will go forward with the readings as planned. Our publisher, David Kirschenbaum, works three blocks from the WTC, so BELLADONNA* books will be a bit slowed down. I feel confident that the readers in this series will be natural contributors to the dialogue on peace, justice and mourning. yours, with love and in struggle, Rachel Levitsky BELLADONNA* BELLADONNA* BELLADONNA* Please come On Friday, September 28 at 7:00 pm Lee Ann Brown (Polyverse, Sun & Moon) Adeena Karasick (Dyssemia Sleaze, Talonbooks) at The Bluestockings Women=92s Bookstore 172 Allen Street, NYC (between Rivington and Stanton) (212) 777-6028 Additionally the Fall schedule goes like this: All readings at Bluestockings at 7 pm October 26 Aja Duncan, Lila Zemborain December 7 Lynn Tillman, Abigail Child, Cheryl Pallant Lee Ann Brown Tender Buttons PO Box 13, Cooper Station NYC 10276 (718) 782-8443 home - (646) 734-4157 cell "Harmless amulets arm little limbs with poise and charm." =8B Harryette Mullen, Trimmings (Tender Buttons Books) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:41:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: Bravo Ron Silliman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Steven Meyer wrote: > I must have accidentally erased Ron Silliman's piece. It may be useful to remind everyone that messages sent to the Poetics List continue to be accessible through a public archive. The archive can be reached directly at , or via the EPC: follow the UB Poetics link, and then take the Express to the Poetics List Archive. Christopher W. Alexander poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:49:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: A chance to oppose censorship MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ABC, the television network, is acting against the television program "Politically Incorrect" because of remarks by its host. Apparently, when a guest said that, whatever else it might be, flying a plane into a building was not "cowardly," the host, Bill Maher, said: "We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly." Supposedly, ABC is threatening to cancel the show; it has already been pulled off the air here in D.C. This is exactly the kind of jingoistic censorship that American principles are supposed to prevent. Please phone or write your local ABC affiliate and let them know that this is WRONG. LF ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:58:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Brandon Stosuy Subject: Prose Acts In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.0.20010924204139.00afae60@mail.theriver.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable PROSE ACTS brings together importantly fearless poets, writers, and musicians for an incisive four-day affair in Buffalo, New York. Our confirmed participants include Dodie Bellamy, Lawrence Braithwaite, Dennis Cooper, kari edwards, Robert Gl=FCck, Kevin Killian, Eileen Myles, Matthew Stadler, Roberto Tejada, White Collar Crime, Ether Drag, Krakatoa, and The National. SCOUT, a live compilation of writers and musicians that began at Threadwaxing Space in Manhattan is doing a ten-day event at Hallwalls in Buffalo. The first week overlaps and joins forces with Prose Acts. Confirmed artists include The Need, Michelle Tea, Bruce Benderson, Mike Basinski, Mary Gaitskill, Ishle Park, Douglas Martin, and many more. A complete schedule and artist/band bios rests at . For information regarding hotels and the like please e-mail Brandon at bstosuy@acsu.buffalo.edu. Thanks, Brandon Stosuy and Christopher W. Alexander ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:09:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ". sandra" Subject: banned songs In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In response to Tuesday's terrorist attacks, Clear Channel, the world's largest radio network, has sent out a list of some 150 "lyrically questionable" songs by everyone from the Animals to the Zombies to its radio stations, recommending that the songs not be aired. Some songs are overtly violent in their intent, but the majority simply contain metaphorical language or narrative aspects that connect uncomfortably with the tragedy. http://www.hitsdailydouble.com/news/songs.html Clear Channel's List of Songs with Questionable Lyrics Artist - Title Drowning Pool - "Bodies" Mudvayne - "Death Blooms" Megadeth - "Dread and the Fugitive" Megadeth - "Sweating Bullets" Saliva - "Click Click Boom" P.O.D. - "Boom" Metallica - "Seek and Destroy" Metallica - "Harvester or Sorrow" Metallica - "Enter Sandman" Metallica - "Fade to Black" All Rage Against The Machine songs Nine Inch Nails - "Head Like a Hole" Godsmack - "Bad Religion" Tool - "Intolerance" Soundgarden - "Blow Up the Outside World" AC/DC - "Shot Down in Flames" AC/DC - "Shoot to Thrill" AC/DC - "Dirty Deeds" AC/DC - "Highway to Hell" AC/DC - "Safe in New York City" AC/DC - "TNT" AC/DC - "Hell's Bells" Black Sabbath - "War Pigs" Black Sabbath - "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" Black Sabbath - "Suicide Solution" Dio - "Holy Diver" Steve Miller - "Jet Airliner" Van Halen - "Jump" Queen - "Another One Bites the Dust" Queen - "Killer Queen" Pat Benatar - "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" Pat Benatar - "Love is a Battlefield" Oingo Boingo - "Dead Man's Party" REM - "It's the End of the World as We Know It" Talking Heads - "Burning Down the House" Judas Priest - "Some Heads Are Gonna Roll" Pink Floyd - "Run Like Hell" Pink Floyd - "Mother" Savage Garden - "Crash and Burn" Dave Matthews Band - "Crash Into Me" Bangles - "Walk Like an Egyptian" Pretenders - "My City Was Gone" Alanis Morissette - "Ironic" Barenaked Ladies - "Falling for the First Time" Fuel - "Bad Day" John Parr - "St. Elmo's Fire" Peter Gabriel - "When You're Falling" Kansas - "Dust in the Wind" Led Zeppelin - "Stairway to Heaven" The Beatles - "A Day in the Life" The Beatles - "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" The Beatles - "Ticket To Ride" The Beatles - "Obla Di, Obla Da" Bob Dylan/Guns N Roses - "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" Arthur Brown - "Fire" Blue Oyster Cult - "Burnin' For You" Paul McCartney and Wings - "Live and Let Die" Jimmy Hendrix - "Hey Joe" Jackson Brown - "Doctor My Eyes" John Mellencamp - "Crumbling Down" John Mellencamp - "I'm On Fire" U2 - "Sunday Bloody Sunday" Boston - "Smokin" Billy Joel - "Only the Good Die Young" Barry McGuire - "Eve of Destruction" Steam - "Na Na Na Na Hey Hey" Drifters - "On Broadway" Shelly Fabares - "Johnny Angel" Los Bravos - "Black is Black" Peter and Gordon - "I Go To Pieces" Peter and Gordon - "A World Without Love" Elvis - "(You're the) Devil in Disguise" Zombies - "She's Not There" Elton John - "Benny & The Jets" Elton John - "Daniel" Elton John - "Rocket Man" Jerry Lee Lewis - "Great Balls of Fire" Santana - "Evil Ways" Louis Armstrong - "What A Wonderful World" Youngbloods - "Get Together" Ad Libs - "The Boy from New York City" Peter Paul and Mary - "Blowin' in the Wind" Peter Paul and Mary - "Leavin' on a Jet Plane" Rolling Stones - "Ruby Tuesday" Simon And Garfunkel - "Bridge Over Troubled Water" Happenings - "See You in Septemeber" Carole King - "I Feel the Earth Move" Yager and Evans - "In the Year 2525" Norman Greenbaum - "Spirit in the Sky" Brooklyn Bridge - "Worst That Could Happen" Three Degrees - "When Will I See You Again" Cat Stevens - "Peace Train" Cat Stevens - "Morning Has Broken" Jan and Dean - "Dead Man's Curve" Martha & the Vandellas - "Nowhere to Run" Martha and the Vandellas/Van Halen - "Dancing in the Streets" Hollies - "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother" San Cooke - Herman Hermits, "Wonder World" Petula Clark - "A Sign of the Times" Don McLean - "American Pie" J. Frank Wilson - "Last Kiss" Buddy Holly and the Crickets - "That'll Be the Day" John Lennon - "Imagine" Bobby Darin - "Mack the Knife" The Clash - "Rock the Casbah" Surfaris - "Wipeout" Blood Sweat and Tears - "And When I Die" Dave Clark Five - "Bits and Pieces" Tramps - "Disco Inferno" Paper Lace - "The Night Chicago Died" Frank Sinatra - "New York, New York" Creedence Clearwater Revival - "Travelin' Band" The Gap Band - "You Dropped a Bomb On Me" Alien Ant Farm - "Smooth Criminal" 3 Doors Down - "Duck and Run" The Doors - "The End" Third Eye Blind - "Jumper" Neil Diamond - "America" Lenny Kravitz - "Fly Away" Tom Petty - "Free Fallin'" Bruce Springsteen - "I'm On Fire" Bruce Springsteen - "Goin' Down" Phil Collins - "In the Air Tonight" Alice in Chains - "Rooster" Alice in Chains - "Sea of Sorrow" Alice in Chains - "Down in a Hole" Alice in Chains - "Them Bone" Beastie Boys - "Sure Shot" Beastie Boys - "Sabotage" The Cult - "Fire Woman" Everclear - "Santa Monica" Filter - "Hey Man, Nice Shot" Foo Fighters - "Learn to Fly" Korn - "Falling Away From Me" Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Aeroplane" Red Hot Chili Peppers - "Under the Bridge" Smashing Pumpkins - "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" System of a Down - "Chop Suey!" Skeeter Davis - "End of the World" Rickey Nelson - "Travelin' Man" Chi-Lites - "Have You Seen Her" Animals - "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" Fontella Bass - "Rescue Me" Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels - "Devil with the Blue Dress" James Taylor - "Fire and Rain" Edwin Starr/Bruce Springstein - "War" Lynyrd Skynyrd - "Tuesday's Gone" Limp Bizkit - "Break Stuff" Green Day - "Brain Stew" Temple of the Dog - "Say Hello to Heaven" Sugar Ray - "Fly" Local H - "Bound for the Floor" Slipknot - "Left Behind, Wait and Bleed" Bush - "Speed Kills" 311 - "Down" Stone Temple Pilots - "Big Bang Baby," Dead and Bloated" Soundgarden - "Fell on Black Days," Black Hole Sun" Nina - "99 LuftBalloons/99 Red Balloons" ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:04:34 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: A Reply to Ron Silliman MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Ron— I have been thinking about your excellent piece. To be sure, the murder of more than 5,000 people warrants response, a thoughtful and powerful response. Above all a practical, effective response. To whom or what do we respond? I ask this as a completely practical question. The Bush administration will have to respond, and its time for a response is running out. The oil men are no doubt as aware as any one of the dangers of a misstep. They have great interests in the region which, with the wrong move, they could push into chaos. Any number of mistaken responses or failed campaigns could plunge the entire region into war and civil war on many fronts. War was in effect declared two weeks ago, and not a shot has been fired, or as far as one can tell, a target identified. There will, however, be a response, probably this week. It will be made by men of fairly limited capacity, and the intelligentsia (a word I find strangely embarrassing to use) or whoever should provide a clearly articulated context in which to make the decision has failed. I have been reading night and day. I have not found a really sharp analysis of the situation; I have a found a suggestion that seems to me likely to lead to practical solution to the problem. What response is appropriate? Whoever the murderers were, and we may never know, as at least some of them seem to have been living under false identity for years, are dead. We can only respond to them by villifying their likely false names. Their ashes mix with the ashes of their victims and are being scooped up and carried away. Thus, we must respond to the accomplices of the murderers. This morning’s NYT reports that 352 suspects have been detained without producing a trace of a connection to the terrorists: “Some investigators still believe that the plot was so intricately timed that it almost certainly required help from accomplices on the ground who helped scout airlines, airports and flight training schools. “But as days pass without evidence of their presence, other investigators suggest that the hijackers designed their plot to self-destruct, leaving behind no trace of other conspirators or much documentary evidence. “Moreover, investigators have still not identified a chief architect of the plot who might have headed a decision-making structure and then fled.” The names of seventeen of the nineteen hijackers were unknown to American intelligence before they were found on the passenger lists of the four planes. These murders’ appearance in the world lasted about an hour. In that time one does not leave much of a trail. So we respond to something else. It appears that there is a world-wide network of terrorists or would-be terrorists, some of whom where trained by bin Ladin, some of whom may be knowingly sponsored or harbored by states or perhaps half-knowing sponsored or harbored. There are also religious groups who, if not directly terrorists, are sympathetic with the terrorists in ways that may or may not be clearly articulated or even consistent with their more conscious beliefs. But in none of this is there a clear military target, and certainly not a target, if successfully taken out, would insure a world safe from terrorism. I take it that our response is not driven by vengeance but by a completely reasonable desire to prevent future destructive attacks on innocent people and on the fabric of civilized life. So the response should attempt to eliminate the terrorist threat without creating two (or ten) terrorists for every one eliminated and without starting a world war. Most scenarios of military response have one or both of these possible, perhaps even likely, outcomes. The ubiquitous US flag has mixed meanings, as such symbols always do. It represents a certain strain of American terrorists, always ready to kill people who are not like us (in terms of whatever difference), but it represents an entire spectrum of other meanings as well. Most significantly in this case, I think, it represent a humble and completely reasonable desire for a world in which people do not commit insane acts of mass destruction for reasons that are unfathomable. It is a sign not of American patriotism as much as American pragmatism. What can be done that is not in its own way as senseless as the acts of the terrorists themselves? I do not ask this question from high moral ground. I want this threat eliminated. I do not want the cities of the world sprayed with deadly biological agents. I do not want war on a dozen fronts in Middle East. And, of course, it must be remembered that not all terrorists are connected with Islam. We have deadly terrorists with pure American credentials, and we want to be safe from them too. I have a piece on my web site in which I try to suggest another analysis that would hopefully underwrite a vigorous and powerful response that might be more focused and more effective than a military response.It is unfortunately a long ways from a practical program. http://www.albany.edu/~djb85/SOMETHING%20BIG%20HAS%20HAPPENED.htm Don Byrd ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 12:56:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Meyer Subject: Re: Bravo Ron Silliman Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Marjorie, I must have accidentally erased Ron Silliman's piece. Do you still have it and if you do can you forward it to me? Thanks. Stevenn ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:41:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: What is to be Done? In-Reply-To: <20010925055312.98526.qmail@web20207.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > I wonder if there aren't always going to be people > who > are-- morons? terrorists? on & on. > > So for me the question is: if compassion is the way > to > go, how to really bring that about *now* as a tool? > > cheryl burket > The Buddhist idea (and correct me if I'm wrong, you on the list who have been studying this much longer than I have) is that you start NOW with yourself -- generate compassion in yourself, for yourself, for everyone else. Through meditation, Right Thought, Right Action, Right Speech, etc. This itself is a really, really hard step and pretty much a lifetime's work, but I can say that the process itself can lead to results in this lifetime. I'd be most appreciative if some of the other Buddhists on the list -- anyone at Naropa? -- could also post about living with compassion in these times, reading suggestions, or any other ideas. I am literally taking refuge in the dharma (the ideas/teachings of Buddha) at this time, but am not involved in a sangha (community of fellow meditators) at the moment and would love to hear from others thinking through these things from this perspective. Backchannel or front. Thanks, all, Arielle __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:59:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: banned songs In-Reply-To: <692373842.1001419753@ubppp234-73.dialin.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT It was written: I reply: All the more reason why I was happy when Neil Young sang "Imagine" (one of the songs on the list) at that Hollywood fund raiser last week. All right Neil! Rock on! He sang it, and the world didn't end. Imagine that. --JG ----------------- JGallaher "Poetry has to be something more than a conception of the mind. It has to be a revelation of nature. Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential." --Wallace Stevens ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:53:05 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: <20010925011652.15074.qmail@web11403.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii --- heidi peppermint wrote: > I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > country in response to the current situation. > Hey, Heidi, No, but I'm considering moving to the country. We had already been thinking about what life would be like if we lived up in rural Maine and with all of this it in some ways seems even more appealing. Partly to avoid being at the wrong end of someone's bull's eye but mostly just to live closer to the land and be more intergral to my own survival. Live simply, all that stuff. I have in the past thought about leaving the country, but where to go? I like Canada quite a lot but it doesn't need any more Americans in search of utopia. I love Paris but France isn't exactly a model government...and I have heard their acceptance of feminist priniciples, just as one example, has a long way to go. I mean, there are struggles every where you go, right? xo, Arielle __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:04:38 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Weiss Subject: Re: What is to be done? In-Reply-To: <002001c145ba$5ec09ec0$bf8756cf@jjstick> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" 1. Your first point is very strong. There are lots of countries the US dosesn't like, but the evidence for involvement in the WTC attack remains tenuous--less than needed for conviction in a court of law. In the event that we can't identify any one country as the source of aggression I suggest that someone at the state department put slips of paper with the names of all of the world's countries in a hat. The president, blindfolded, should pick one. That country should be levelled by carpet bombing. 2. Your second point is something of a moral dilemma. The rights of Afghanis of all genders are routinely and officialy trampled upon. Their children routinely starve. A great many of them have suddenly preferred to become refugees rather than suffer the violence they anticipate, and many of these will die. I guess it's a question of priorities. 3. No. 4. Elements of the opinions aired on this list are beginning to sneak, shyly, into the mainstream media. _Business Week_, of all places, had an article last week outlining the dangers of US action. And last night Koppel interviewed a pundit and former apparatchik (sorry, I don't remember more than that) who opined that the best Bush could accomplish would be to "get out of this" with as little damage to his administration as possible because there is no way to "win." Mark At 08:05 AM 9/25/2001 -0400, you wrote: >The discussions on this list lead to some simple questions: > >1) If an attack on your own soil is not enough to justify going to war, what act would justify a call to arms? > >2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious minorities could be even more effectively administered? > >3) Are the only innocent civilians that matter living outside the United States? > >4) Is what remains of the "Left" as disconnected from normal, everyday people as the majority of the traffic on this list would indicate? > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:24:01 -0400 Reply-To: wstowe@mail.wesleyan.edu Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "William W. Stowe" Organization: Wesleyan University Subject: Job Posting MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I wonder if you would be willing to post the following announcement on thepoetics list. Thanks for your help, if you can, Bill Stowe, Chair, Department of English Wesleyan University Middletown, CT 06459 860-685-3627 wstowe@wesleyan.edu Opening for Poet/Critic The English Department at Wesleyan University seeks a practicing, published poet who is also a literary critic and/or scholar, preferably with an interest in poetics. This is a full-time, tenure-track position at the Assistant Professor or untenured Associate level. The successful candidate will teach two writing courses and two literature courses a year. Ph.D., M.F.A., or the equivalent in publications and experience. Teaching experience required of all candidates. Send letter of application, CV, dossier including three confidential letters of reference, writing sample (25 pp maximum) and self-addressed postcard to William Stowe, Chair, Search Committee by November 9, 2001. No faxes please. Wesleyan University values diversity and is an equal opportunity employer. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:26:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: What is to be done? In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20010925100438.014573b0@mail.earthlink.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" odd how these times can make for odd bedfellows... e.g., during last week's capital gang, bob novak seemed (to my ears) to be questioning the logic/utility of doing anything---anything at all---wrt afghanistan, bin laden or no bin laden... now just b/c novak is a conservative through & through doesn't mean we can't agree... but... but we all know how isolationist conservatives can be, right?... also: kass and i just caught ~one day in september~ last night---the documentary about the 1972 munich olympics (some editorializing going on in this doc, of course)... watching that video just now is a pretty eerie experience, "black september" and all... best, joe ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:36:44 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eileen Tabios Subject: 100 More Jokes From The Book of the Dead MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable A special offer to Listmembers who would like to order John Yau and Archie=20 Rand's newly-released book directly from the publisher, Meritage Press. Fre= e=20 shipping and handling. And if you include a poem with your order, receive a= =20 30% discount for a net price of $17.50 per book (instead of $25 retail). At= =20 Meritage Press, a poem has value, though we can only advance part of such=20 value through your order. =20 Checks should be made out to Eileen Tabios. Send orders to her at: 3337 Clay Street #3 San Francisco, CA 94118 -------------------- 100 MORE JOKES FROM THE BOOK OF THE DEAD By John Yau and Archie Rand $25 Publisher: Meritage Press (distributed by SPD) ISBN No. 0-9709179-0-2 100 More Jokes From The Book Of The Dead presents an etchings-based=20 collaboration between poet John Yau and visual artist Archie Rand. Yau and=20 Rand have collaborated with each other for nearly 20 years in a variety of=20 mediums (watercolors, paintings, the comic book, among others). In creating= =20 the 91 images simultaneously without revision, Yau and Rand sat at a table=20 and passed each other the etching plates, both creating and responding=20 concurrently to the other=E2=80=99s work. The spontaneous, often combustive= results,=20 reflect the poet=E2=80=99s and artist=E2=80=99s dismissal of editing as a sa= fety net. In=20 considering his collaborative process with Rand, Yau quotes from poet and=20 critic Frank O'Hara=E2=80=99s statement, "You have to go on your nerve alone= ." Also=20 featured in the book is an essay by Yau.=20 Of this project, two rise from the dead to provide the requisite "blurbs": "I wasn=E2=80=99t like Felicien Rops and Aubrey Beardsley. I was a virtuoso= of=20 enjoyment, while they---poor things---reveled in their suffering. That=E2= =80=99s why=20 I like what John Yau and Archie Rand do, and I always look forward to their=20 new work. They make being dead a lot more fun." --Marquis Franz Von Bayros (1866-1924) "It=E2=80=99s really a shame that Archie and John weren=E2=80=99t hanging ou= t in Hollywood=20 in 1931. I am sure they would have dreamed up a scene for me and Marlene=20 that would have set Josef von Sternberg=E2=80=99s hair on fire." --Anna May Wong (1907-1961) ****** Meritage Press is a new press seeking to expand fresh ways of featuring=20 literary and other art forms. Meritage expects to publish a wide range of=20 artists =E2=80=93 poets, writers, visual artists, dancers, and performance a= rtists. =20 By acknowledging the multiplicity of aesthetic concerns, Meritage=E2=80=99s=20 interests necessarily encompass a variety of disciplines =E2=80=93 politics,= culture,=20 identity, science, humor, religion, history, technology, philosophy and wine= . Reflecting how poets make instead of inherit language, the press is named=20 after "meritage," a word created to describe the Bordeaux-style of=20 wine-making that uses California-grown grapes. Meritage style combines the=20 grapes of cabernet, cabernet franc and merlot to create a wine characterized= =20 by robustness in flavor, bouquet, color and body =E2=80=93 symbolizing the p= assion=20 underlying the vision of Meritage=E2=80=99s artists. =20 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:33:53 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laurie macrae Subject: Fwd: Three things we learned | Economic Policy Institute MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > Subject: Three things we learned | Economic Policy Institue There is no silver lining to the cloud of horror that descended on America last week. And the avalanche of pain, terror, and death we have witnessed may be just the beginning. But life, as always, slowly picks up and moves on. Despite the nagging sense that it is unseemly to begin thinking about the economic consequences, the country is once again back in the market. Investors are selling the stocks of insurance companies and airlines, buying those of military contractors and companies that will benefit from the new security-conscious society. Economists are calculating the gains and losses and guessing about the odds of a recession. Many are engaged in burying the dead and tending to the survivors, or facing the awesome responsibility of satisfying the national demand for action that serves justice rather than multiplying evil. Those of us who are going back to business have an obligation, as we do, to reflect on what we have seen. The attacks of last Tuesday revealed some truths about the American political economy that have been obscured in recent years.

One is just how much of our economy is made up of what used to be called the "working class" -- the non-supervisory, non-college-educated people who make up 70 percent of our labor force. For the last half-dozen years the media saw economic trends through the eyes of the glamorous, globe-trotting, business executive -- to the point where it seemed to many that they must represent the vast majority of American workers. And one could hardly find a more fitting symbol of the new global economy than the World Trade Center -- surrounded in the evening with a herd of sleek limousines waiting to serve the masters of the universe at the end of the day.And yet, it turns out, that the building was run by thousands of data clerks and secretaries, waiters and dishwashers, janitors and telecommunication repair people. The roll of trade unions mourning their dead is long: firefighters, hotel and restaurant employees, police, communication workers, service employees, teachers, federal employees, pilots and flight attendants, longshoremen, professional engineers, operating engineers, the electrical workers, federal employees, building trades, and state, county, and municipal employees.And many were in no union, meaning job insecurity, no benefits, and certainly no limousines.

A second insight revealed by the awful gaping hole in the Manhattan skyline was how ill-served we have been by a politics that perpetuates the illusion that we are all on our own and, in particular, holds the institutions of public service in contempt. For two decades, politicians of both parties have celebrated the pursuit of private gain over public service. Shrinking government has become a preoccupation of political leaders through deregulation, privatization, and cuts in public services.

One result is that the U.S. is the only major nation that leaves airline and airport security in the hands of private corporations, which by their very nature are motivated to spend as little as possible. So the system was tossed in the lap of lowest-bid contractors who hired people for minimum wages. Training has been inadequate and supervision extremely lax. Turnover was 126 percent a year and the average employee stayed in airline security for only six months. Getting a job at Burger King or McDonald's represented upward mobility for the average security worker. In an anti-government political climate the airline corporations were able to shrug off the government inspections that consistently revealed how easy it was to bring weapons on board. The competition for customers sacrificed safety to avoid any inconvenience. How else to explain the insane notion that a 3-1/2 inch knife blade is not a weapon. Private provision of public services has been the dominant philosophy of government in our time. Only natural, the economists told us. People were motivated by money. It's human nature. "Greed is good," said the movie character in the send-up of Wall Street -- a sentiment echoed by politicians of both parties. "Collective solutions are a thing of the past….The era of big government is over….You are on your own." Public service was "old" economy, just for losers. A teacher in New York City schools starts at $30,000. A brand new securities lawyer starts at $120,000. Does anyone believe that this represents sensible priorities?And does anyone believe that the firefighters who marched into that inferno did it for money? Does anyone think that people working for a private company hiring people for as little as possible would have had the same motivation -- would have been as efficient? At the moment when efficiency really counts? When the chips are down, where do we turn? To the government's firefighters, police officers, rescue teams. To the nonprofit sectors' blood banks and shelters. And to Big Government's army, navy, and air force. During his campaign, the president of the United States constantly complained that the people knew how to spend their money better than the government did. Overnight, we just appropriated $40 billion for the government to spend however it sees fit. Who else would we trust? The stock market itself made one point. Despite calls for investors to exercise patriotic restraint, the market opened with an avalanche of sell orders, driving the Dow to its largest point loss in history. As one broker said, "This is how capitalism is supposed to work." Just so. The market is about prices, not values. Finally, perhaps we learned something about our national identity.It is common -- almost a cliché -- among political philosophers and pundits to define America as an "exception." For many, America's exceptionalism means that it is the best place to get rich. For others, it is our unique set of laws -- our Bill of Rights. Still others see America not in national terms at all, but as a patchwork of ethnic groups and regional interests.There is some truth in all of these views. But those who risked and gave their lives -- both the public servants and the brave civilian passengers who rushed the terrorists and forced the airliner down in Pennsylvania before it could get to Washington -- are unlikely to have acted out of reverence for the deregulated market or for our court system or for some ethnic or religious loyalty. Everything we know tells us that they acted as human beings responding to the agony of other human beings, or trying in one last desperate effort to spare their country more damage, not because it is the world's superpower but simply because it is their country. No country has a monopoly on simple patriotism.If America is, as the politicians often remind us, the "last best hope" for humankind, then it is not because we as individuals are exceptional and different from the rest of the world, but because we are much the same -- full of the normal set of human traits, which at times of stress often bring out the best in us. I send this out as a response to Ron, and all the rest of you who have seen that this disaster has effected working people most, and that it is working poeple who have responded immediately and valiently. In the last two weeks I have heard from friends and colleagues all over the country and the response has been mostly the same: we must act as citizens not as leftists to let the goverment know what we believe is right. Just as Eugene V. Debbes was imprisoned for his response to The Great European War, twenty years later his socialist platform became the New Deal. Leftists of the 60s are in positions of power throughout the country now and we are frequently the voices of our professions: teachers, librarians, social workers, municipal workers of many categories. Demonstrations, dialogues, and meetings of all sorts are happening all over the countery right now. This is no time to throw in the towel and say we have lost our political identity. On the contrary, it is a time to recognize the fact that this is a country still capable of amazing acts of heroism and concieince. I live and work in a community of predominantly Asian, Mexican, and near eastern immigrants. They think we are the greatest people in the world. The following was sent to me from old friends in New Mexico.Laurie We can no longer rely on our exceptionalism to keep us safe. In the coming weeks and months and years we are likely to be reminded of that. To get through this, we need to be disabused quickly of the illusion that we are all on our own. America's strength, like the strength of any other society, is in our ability to be there for each other. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:41:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" --- heidi peppermint wrote: > I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > country in response to the current situation. > I live and work (for the US govt) within a half mile of the Capitol. Places I love and have spent time in in the past include Gwynedd, North Wales; a headland on the island of Paros; Guilin, China; and 67 acres I have in rural Frederick County, Maryland. Look forward to seeing all of them again, but am staying here. Sometimes I feel like there's a great big concentric bullseye on the Dome (a target bin Laden missed) and, consequently, both warlike and frightened, but I also feel like the way to be peaceful is act peaceful, which in my case means staying here. "Here" including inside my own skin. As Arielle Greenberg said earlier today, "The Buddhist idea (and correct me if I'm wrong, you on the list who have been studying this much longer than I have) is that you start NOW with yourself -- generate compassion in yourself, for yourself, for everyone else." LF ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 14:00:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Nick Piombino Subject: Postraumatic Stress Disorder Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Source: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) " The essential feature of Postraumatic Stress Disorder is the development of characteristic symptoms following exposure to an extreme traumatic stressor involving direct personal experience of an event that involves actual or threatened death or serious injury, or other threat to one's physical integrity; or witnessing an event that involves death, injury,or a threat to the physical integrity of another person,or learning about unexpected or violent death, serious harm, or threat or death or injury experienced by a family member or close associate (Criterion A1). The person's response must involve intense fear, helplessness, or horror (in children, the reponse must involve disorganized or agitated behavior) (Criterion A2). The characteristic symptoms resulting from the exposure to the extreme trauma include persistent reexperiencing of the traumatic event (Criterion B), persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (Criterion C) and persistent symptoms of increased arousal ( Criterion D). The full symptom picture must be present for more than 1 month (Criterion E), and the disturbance must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning (Criterion F). Traumatic events that are experienced directly include, but are not limited to, military combat, violent personal assault (sexual assault, physical attaack, robbery, mugging)being kidnapped, being taken hostage, terrorist attack, torture, incarceration as a prisoner of war or in a concentration camp, natural or manmade disasters, severe automobile accidents, or being diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. For children, sexually traumatic events may include developmentally inappropriate sexual experiences without threated or actual violence or injury. Witnessed events include, but are not limited to, observing the serious injury or unnatural death of another person dur to violent asssault, accident, war, or disaster or unexpectedly witnessing a dead body or body parts.Events experienced by others that are learned about include, but are not limited to, violent personal assault, serious accident, or serious injury experienced by a family member or close friend; or learning that one's child has a life-threatening disease. The disorder may be especially severe or long lasting when the stressor is of human design (e.g. torture, rape). The likelihood of developing this disorder may increase as the intensity of and physical proximity to the stressor increase. The traumatic event can be reexperienced in various ways. Commonly the person has recurrent and intrusive recollections of the event (Criterion B1) or recurrent distressing dreams during which the event is replayed (Criterion B2). In rare instances the person experiences dissociative states that last from a few seconds to several hours, or even days, during which components of the event are relived and the person behaves as though experiencing the event at that moment (Criterion B3). Intense psychological distress (Criterion B4) or physiological reactivity (Criterion B5) often occurs when the person is exposed to triggering events that resemble or symbolize an aspect of the traumatic event (e.g. anniversaries of the traumatic event; cold, snowy weather or uniformed guards for survivors of death camps in cold climates, hot humid weather for combat veterans of the South Pacific; entering any elevator for a woman who was raped in an elevator). Stimuli associated with the trauma are persistently avoided.The person commonly makes deliberate efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations about the traumatic event (Criterion C1) and to avoid activities, situations, or people who arouse recollections of it (Criterion C2). This avoidance of reminders may include amnesia for an important aspect of the traumatic event (Criterion C3). Diminished responsiveness to the external world, referred to as "psychic numbing" or "emotional anaesthesia" usually begins soon after the traumatic event. The individual may complain of having markedly diminished interest or participation in previously enjoyed activities (Criterion C4), of feeling detached or estranged from other people (Criterion C5), or of having markedly reduced ability to feel emotions (especially those associated with intimacy, tenderness, and sexuality) (Criterion C6). The individual may have a sense of foreshortened future (e.g. not expecting to have a career, marriage, children or a hormal life span) (Criterion C7). The individual has persistent symptoms of anxiety or increased arousal that were not present before the trauma.These symptoms may include difficulty falling or staying asleep that may be due to recurrent nightmares during which the traumatic event is relived (Criterion D1), hypervigilance (Criterion D4) and exaggerated startle response (Criterion D5). Some individuals report irritability or outbursts of anger (Criterion D2) or difficulty concentrating or completing tasks (Criterion D3) Specifiers The following specifiers may be used to specify onset and duration of the symptoms of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Acute. This specifier should be used when the duration of symptoms is less than 3 months. Chronic. This specifier should be used when the symptoms last 3 months or longer. With delayed onset. This specifier indicates that at least 6 months have passed between the traumatic event and the onset of the symptoms.... Associated Features and Disorders Individuals with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder may describe painful guilt feelings about surviving when others did not survive or about the things they had to do to survive. Phobic avoidance of situations or activities that resemble or symbolize the original trauma may interfere with interpersonal relationships and lead to marital conflict, divorce,or loss of job. The following associated constellation of symptoms may occur and are more commonly seen with an interpersonal stressor (e.g. childhood sexual or physical abuse, domestic battering, being taken hostage, incarcertion as a prisoner of war or in a concentration camp, torture): impaired affect modulation, self-destructive and impulsive behavior; dissociative symptoms; somatic complaints; feelings of ineffectiveness, shame, despair or hopelessness; feeling permanently damaged; a loss of previously sustained beliefs; hostility; social withdrawal; feeling constantly threatened; impaired relationships with others; or a change from the individual's previous personality characteristics. There may be increased risk of Panic Disorder, Agorophobia, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Social Phobia,Specific Phobia, Major Depressive Disorder, Somatization Disorder and Substance-Related Disorders. It is not known to what extent thse disorders precede or follow the onset of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Associated laboratory findings.Increased arousal may be measured through studies of autonomic functioning (e.g. heart rate, electromyography, sweat gland activity ). Associated physical examination findings and general medical conditions. General medical conditions may occur as a consequence of the trauma (e.g. head injury, burns) Specific Culture and Age Featues Individuals who have recently emigrated from areas of considerable social unrest and civil conflict may have elevated rates of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. Such individuals may be expecially reluctant to divulge experiences of torture and trauma due to their vulnerable political immigrant status.Specific assessments of traumatic experiences and concomitant symptoms are needed for such individuals. In younger children , distressing dreams of the event may, within several weeks, change into generalized nightmares of monsters, of rescuing children, or of threats to self and others....children may also exhibit various physical symptoms, such as stomachaches and headaches.... Course Posttraumatic Stress Disorder can occur at any age, including childhood. Symptoms usually begin within the first 3 months after the trauma, although there may be a delay of months, or even years, before symptoms appear. Frequently, the disturbance initially meets criterion for Acute Stress Disorder in the immediate aftermath of the trauma....The severity, duration, and proximity of an individual's exposure to the traumatic event are the most imortant factors affecting the likelihood of developing this disorder. There is some evidence that social supports, family history, childhood experiences, personality variables, and preexisting mental disorders may influence the development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. This disorder can develop in individuals without any predisposing conditions, particularly if the stressor is especially extreme.... Diagnostic criteria for 309.81 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder A. The person has been exposed to a traumatic event in which both of the following were present: (1) the person experienced, witnessed, or was confronted with an event or events that involved actual or threatened death or serious injury, or a threat the physical integrity of self or others (2) the person's response involved intense fear, helplessness, or horror. B. The traumatic event is persistently reexperienced in one (or more) of the following ways: (1) recurrent and intrusive distressing recollections of the event,including images, thoughts, or perceptions. Note: in young children, repetitive play may occur in which themes or aspects of the trauma are expressed. (2) recurrent distressing dreams of the event. Note: in children there may be frightening dreams without recognizable content (3)acting or feeling as if the traumatic event were reocurring (includes a sense of reliving the experience,illusions, hallucinations, and dissociative flashback episodes, including those that occur on awakening or when intoxicated). Note; in young children, trauma-specific reenactment may occur (4) intense psychological distress at exposure to internal or external cues that symbolize or resemble an aspect of the traumatic event C. Persistent avoidance of stimuli associated with the trauma and numbing of general responsiveness (not present before the trauma), as indicated by three (or more) of the following; (1) efforts to avoid thoughts, feelings, or conversations associated with the trauma (2) efforts to avoid activities, places, or people that arouse recollections of the trauma (3) inability to recall an important aspect of the trauma (4) markedly diminished interest or participation in significant activities (5) feeling of detachment or estrangement from others (6) restricted range of affect (e.g. unable to have loving feelings) (7) sense of a foreshortened future (e.g. does not expect to have a career, marriage,children or a normal life span) D. Persistent Symptoms of increased arousal (not present before the trauma) as indicated by two (or more ) of the following: (1) difficulty falling or staying asleep (2)irritability or outbursts of anger (3) difficulty concentrating (4) hypervigilance (5) exagerrated startle response E. Duration of the disturbance (symptoms in Criteria B, C, andD), is more than 1 month F.The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social,occupational, or other important areas of functioning Specify if: Acute: if duration of symptoms is less than 3 months Chronic: if duration of symptoms is 3 months or more Specify if: With delayed onset of symptoms is at least 6 months after the stressor (compiled by Nick Piombino, M.S.W.) http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/piombino/ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:40:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Landers, Susan" Subject: FW: POM2 Issue #1 Now Available! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Pom2 issue #1 is out and ready to be ravaged! The magazine's premise is to publish work that responds to work printed in previous issues. Contributors whose work will start the conversation are: Andrews | Borkhuis | Boykoff | Bryant | Cole | Conrad | Coolidge | Coultas | Fitterman | Fogelson | Fuller | Gizzi | Hofer | Jackson | Jarnot | Jullich | Karasick | Kiely | Killian | Loranger | Luoma | McCreary | Mirakove | Nichols | Phipps | Prevallet | Putnam | Richards | Sikelianos | Smith | Spahr | Sullivan | Torres | Varrone Copies are $5. Please send checks payable to: Susan Landers 227 Prospect Ave. #2 Brooklyn, NY 11215 Release party and reading at St. Mark's Poetry Project, NYC, October 29 @ 8PM! Stay tuned for more details... ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:57:54 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: megan minka lola camille roy Organization: Pacific Bell Internet Services Subject: Re: What is to be known MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT There was a news report on the 10:00 news the other night of a peace rally in Delores Park in San Francisco. The analysis of the event by the speakers was that American military response to the WTC attack was "another example of America waging war against people of color". Truthfully I felt relieved I hadn't gone so I didn't have to listen to this kind of analysis in the name of an interest in peace. our oh-so american political ignorance of the world is every bit as much on display in that analysis as in the analysis of the Wall Street Journal editorial page. > For instance, I have not seen any reportage of peace demonstrations in > major media, though Elizabeth Treadwell mentions them occurring at > Berkeley. Apparently 2000 students rallied but "you can't hear them." A friend in NYC came up with the idea that the left has to organize around this situation in the manner of ACT-UP, aggressively pursuing information & analysis, as ACT-UP did with funding research into treatment, and then make sophisticated and informed and specific policy recommendations, from the demonstrations in the streets. (Thanks rachel levitsky for your idea). We need teach-ins, where hard questions are asked, of the united states of course, but also with regards to the whole volatile religious and cultural and political mix in the middle east. What is to be done? For starters, avoid the mistake of pasting old but easily available rhetoric onto this terrible situation. What happened at the WTC was perhaps not an act of war. It was, unfortunately, a massacre. Doing nothing, waiting around for the other shoe to drop, will simply not happen. It is not an option. If the left is to have any moderating effect at all, it must bother both to educate itself, and to treat the threat seriously. megan camille roy -- http://www.grin.net/~minka "If this is going to be a calm equality, there will be no people." (L. Scalapino) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:34:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: <20010925011652.15074.qmail@web11403.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" >I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the >country in response to the current situation. Not me. I am staying right here in Canada. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:43:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: What is to be done? In-Reply-To: <002001c145ba$5ec09ec0$bf8756cf@jjstick> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > >2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies >of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so >that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious >minorities could be even more effectively administered? This remark would have been more comprehensive were it added that before the US installed the Taliban , the women of Afghanistan could work and go to school. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 11:41:50 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Bowering Subject: Re: What is to be done In-Reply-To: <00ce01c145ac$0bc2ece0$2c1486d4@overgrowngarden> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" > > >The real problem came with "American". United States citizen? Person of the >US? There is no word I know of outside of slang used abusively which would >not fit at all > > >L In my books etc I have been using the term USAmerican for several years, Others have picked it up. It aint perfect, but then neither am I. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:56:27 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Elena Caballero-Robb Subject: Re: banned songs In-Reply-To: <3BB0719F.31846.615D20@localhost> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT As it turns out, the much reported banning or recommended banning of songs is half-truth, half-rumor. See the following NYT article on internet rumors surrounding the events of the last two weeks. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/23/weekinreview/23HARM.html -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of J Gallaher Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 9:59 AM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: banned songs It was written: I reply: All the more reason why I was happy when Neil Young sang "Imagine" (one of the songs on the list) at that Hollywood fund raiser last week. All right Neil! Rock on! He sang it, and the world didn't end. Imagine that. --JG ----------------- JGallaher "Poetry has to be something more than a conception of the mind. It has to be a revelation of nature. Conceptions are artificial. Perceptions are essential." --Wallace Stevens ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:43:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Posttraumatic Stress Disorder MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Nick, thanks for posting this. This current crisis does seem related in = some ways, and you've reawoken for me some things I did on PTSD several = years ago. links are: Adrift in RIF/T http://writing.upenn.edu/epc/rift/rift05/rift0501.html#bell2 Adrift http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/cobble/adrift.htm Melodies of war http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/petals/melodies.htm this stuff might be of interest and I do apologize for the morass of = work it's embedded in at present as I've not been ableto go back and = redo it yet. By the way, the reference to your work is in there = somewhere. tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:45:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Fw: The Infinite Mind: Courage, Altruism, Trauma, Grieving, and Anxiety MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable tom bell ----- Original Message -----=20 From: Lichtenstein Creative Media=20 To: List Member=20 Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 1:06 PM Subject: The Infinite Mind: Courage, Altruism, Trauma, Grieving, and = Anxiety This week on The Infinite Mind, "Mental Health in Troubled Times," a = compilation of common sense, science and psychology on topics such as = courage, altruism, trauma, grieving, and anxiety from some of our best = programs.=20 According to a recent study by the Pew Research Center, 7 out of 10 = Americans are feeling depressed in the wake of the September 11th = attacks, nearly half have had trouble concentrating, and nearly = one-third report having trouble sleeping at night. We offer insight into = these reactions and perspective on a range of psychological, social and = ethical issues now affecting all of our lives. Guests include:=20 - Dr. Matthew Friedman, director of the National Center for Post = Traumatic Stress Disorder, who discusses the diagnosis and treatment of = PTSD, including how to know when normal anxiety or nightmares become = problems needing clinical attention;=20 - Tony Tedeschi, Ed Mislynski, and George Healy of Rescue Company One, = the New York City Fire Department's oldest rescue team, who give their = thoughts on what it takes to rush into a burning or collapsing building. = (All members of Rescue Company One who were on duty on September 11th = are now lost);=20 - Noted anxiety researcher Dr. Michael Davis of Emory University, who = explains the biology of anxiety and describes the connection between = anxiety, the senses and memory. The show also features a discussion about altruism with a Buddhist lama, = an Episcopal priest, a Muslim imam and a Jewish rabbi and a moving = personal commentary about grief by John Hockenberry. Visit www.theinfinitemind.com/stations.htm for The Infinite Mind's = broadcast date and time in your area, or contact your local public radio = station.=20 The Infinite Mind is the weekly, public radio series on the art and = science of the human mind. It is hosted by Dr. Fred Goodwin and produced = by the Peabody Award-winning Lichtenstein Creative Media.=20 The Infinite Mind currently airs on more than 170 public radio stations, = and is produced in association with WNYC/NY.=20 For more information, please contact Lichtenstein Creative Media, at = BL@LCMEDIA.com or 212-765-6600. -------------------------------------------------------------------------= ------- Powered by List Builder Click here to change or remove your subscription ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:10:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: humanitarian intervention Comments: To: Daniel Kane , AnselmBerrigan@aol.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I was staying with my friend Bob Waterhouse when it Happened. I woke at 8:35 am to the Cable News Network - his custom to watch it over morning coffee. After a few hours, I stumbled the three blocks home to numbly post two New York Times articles to the List: it was all that I could do at the moment, but at the least I felt obliged to reach anyone who was out there and not yet aware of what had taken place. I should say, 'had happened' - for it seems that many of the 651 messages that have come to this List since those two articles have come in an effort, precisely, to compel 11S to take place definitively in our respective lives: to locate in our several conceptions of New York a hole large enough for 64-hundred dead. As Liz Grosz remarked the other day, it has been the immediate, animal responsiveness to these events that has offered the greatest hope; to be human has been demonstrated again not to be homo sapiens - reasoning man - but something more rapidly feeling. What comes after - the accustomed calls for vengeance and accustomed cries for peace, the formulation and rationalization and confusion - has been quite necessary but less bright. My personal thanks for early posts to Brian Kim Stefans, Leslie Scalapino and/or David Cook, Lee Ann Brown, Charles Bernstein, Anselm Berrigan, and others. Sampson Reed, one of Emerson's classmates at Harvard, under very different circumstances once said, "There has always been a fire on the earth"; in Reed's oration, this statement is equated with its fore-runner: "The human heart has always had love of some kind." More recently, even a simple message like Brenda Coultas' "okay in NYC" has been enough to turn its bright light toward us. But having tentatively, and each in our small way 'realized' a massacre, we are needful of strategizing responses - with an 's' meaning that we is not a consensus. This List is one of many useful meeting places, and personally I hope to see it made useful. For example, when Rob Holloway enquires about > drafting something along the lines of a press release that would > detail support for a truly humanitarian intervention" - it is needless to ask - as I take the subsequent comments to ask - whether I would allow such a thing; as needless to ask whether I agree with it. I have opinions and will say them, as will others theirs; but am here chiefly to keep the channel open. I would have no objection to such a document emerging from or being sent to this List, any more than I have objected to the List's recently becoming a sort of - broadly - political scratchpad. Bergson, in the Creative Evolution, asserts that our logic is pre-eminently the logic of solids: "our intellect triumphs in geometry." His point, there as elsewhere, is to introject the possibility of Time, and consequently of Becoming. Mine, here, is to say that what the List has been is no more - even those portions of it that seem not to have changed. More than anything, recent discoursing has made me realize that it remains, or is again and again momently a space for the articulation of new possibilities. Having spent yesterday evening with Cole Swenson's book The Park, I could say it is "Light redistributing the news." In this regard, personal thanks to Michael Kelleher, Rodrigo Toscano, Camille Roy, Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Jordan Davis, and others. Let us have more! Finally, an aside: as to the question of whether the Left is 'out of touch': certainly we must be careful not to accept this as merely a pejorative for 'in disagreement' - which, in fact, the Left is. Christopher W. Alexander poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 11:59:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: laurie macrae Subject: Apologies!! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii I managed to insert my comments in the last paragraph of the document I sent you earlier. I'm afraid it may be very confusing to readers. I intended them to appear at the end of the doc. So sorry. Laurie __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:09:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: What is to be known MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "megan minka lola camille roy" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 12:57 PM Subject: Re: What is to be known > What is to be done? For starters, avoid the mistake of pasting old but > easily available > rhetoric onto this terrible situation. > > What happened at the WTC was perhaps not an act of war. It was, > unfortunately, > a massacre. Doing nothing, waiting around for the other shoe to drop, > will > simply not happen. It is not an option. If the left is to have any > moderating effect at all, it must bother both to educate itself, and to > treat the > threat seriously. > > megan camille roy > -- > > http://www.grin.net/~minka > "If this is going to be a calm equality, there will be no people." > (L. Scalapino) right, but my fear is that thinking in the old rhetoric (of two weeks ago) is going to lead to the 'left' being isolated from the great 'middle' mass of this and other countries. My recollections (hazy though they may be) of SDS is that the media turned it into a black/white, either/or kind of thing and the greys were ignored. The 'sit-ins' can and should include the flag-aver next-door? tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:23:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: What is to be done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" George Bowering wrote: >2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies >of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so >that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious >minorities could be even more effectively administered? This remark would have been more comprehensive were it added that before the US installed the Taliban , the women of Afghanistan could work and go to school.>> This remark, in turn, would be more persuasive if it were accurate. The US did not "install" the Taliban. The Taliban "installed" itself; initially, most of the Afghan people accepted it as a more attractive substitute to the brutal regime that took over after the end of the Soviet occupation, perhaps not knowing the kind of repression that would follow. (The triggering event for the formation of the Taliban was religious and popular reaction to a gang rape but two of those people.) LF ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:29:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Don Byrd Subject: A well reasoned piece by Steve Niva MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0921-06.htm > >Fight the Roots of Terrorism >by Steve Niva > >The current fight against terrorism poses an unprecedented challenge. To >succeed, the US must overcome the desire for massive military retaliation in >response to the horrific attacks on September 11. It should adopt a strategy >based on a more accurate understanding of the perpetrators of these attacks >and the roots of anti-American sentiments in the Middle East. > >For starters, that means moving far beyond Osama bin Laden. The likely >perpetrators of these murderous attacks are the product of a fringe network >of militants originally recruited by the CIA and Pakistan from around the >Arab and Muslim world in the 1980s during the Soviet war with Afghanistan. >After pulling its support once the Soviet Union left, the US further angered >these militants during the Gulf War when it stationed troops and bases in >the Arabian Peninsula near the holy sites of Mecca and Medina. Consequently, >anti-US bombings began increasing from the 1995 and 1996 car-bombings at US >military installations in Saudi Arabia, to the 1998 bombings of the US >embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the recent attack on the USS Cole in >Yemen. > >Osama bin Laden is not the sole mastermind of these attacks as is often >claimed in the media. He just facilitates these groups with logistics and >finances. His network has no geographical location or fixed center. It >appears to be a kaleidoscopic overlay of cells and links that span the globe >from camps on the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands to immigrant ghettoes in >Europe and the U.S. > >What's more, this network is largely disconnected from most Islamic >opposition groups in the Middle East who are fighting national struggles to >create Islamic states. What drives their hatred of the US is not Islam but >more political factors. They believe that Muslims have received the brunt of >international violence over the last decade. They point to the genocide >against Bosnian Muslims, the Russian war in Chechnya, the conflict between >India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian >lands, and the UN sanctions against Iraq. In all of these cases, they view >US policies either tacitly condoning the violence or actively supporting it. > >Therefore, a military strike on militant camps in Afghanistan may kill or >capture bin Laden and a number of his associates but it will not likely >incapacitate the far-flung networks of militants that may have produced the >recent attacks. They will remain in place, with new reasons to carry out >more terror. Moreover, a massive display of American military might brought >to bear on a Muslim nation, especially one that kills innocent civilians in >the process, is precisely the type of action that these militants hope will >create the conditions for unifying greater numbers of Muslims against the >United States. It would confirm their view that the US is an arrogant >superpower that cares little about Muslim lives. > >A more effective alternative to a military response must combine a massive >international law enforcement effort with a political strategy designed to >isolate and undermine these militant networks. The deliberate and murderous >attacks on innocent American civilians should be characterized and >prosecuted as a crime not a war. The United States must use all its >resources to compel international cooperation to ensure that the >perpetrators have no place to hide. Identifying bin Laden and his network as >criminals who have violated international law will make it extremely >difficult for countries, especially those who fear being allied with an >American-led war, to refuse more discrete and effective assistance to the >US. Also, given the disperse nature of the networks, only international >cooperation will work to root them out. American declarations of war inhibit >rather than promote this cooperation. > >This approach must be bolstered by a political strategy that deepens the >isolation of these fringe networks from the vast majority of Arabs and >Muslims, many of whom hold deep and legitimate grievances with US policies >but who do not support violence. In words and deeds, the US must clearly >make a distinction between Islam as a religion and violent extremism. But >the US must also critically reexamine its policies in the Middle East. > >The US should condemn the serious human rights abuses committed by its >allies with the same force as it condemns other regimes in the region and >condition its aid on progress in opening up closed political systems. It >should curtail the massive arms transfers to the region and reduce its >military presence, which have done little to promote democracy or stability. >The US must also recognize the failure of the devastating sanctions regime >on Iraq and support legitimate Palestinian aspirations for an independent >state alongside a secure Israel. > > Such an approach is not a concession to terrorism but a more realistic and >effective response that is closer to the values that the United States >claims to uphold. > >Steve Niva teaches International Politics and Middle East Studies at the >Evergreen State College. He writes regularly for Middle East Report >(www.merip.org) and is an Associate at the Middle East Research and >Information Project (MERIP) in Washington DC. > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 20:47:28 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > I tried writing out "America" to mean United States of America of a piece I > have written for _Masthead_, exchanging US or USA etc whenever I found it in > my draft. I just used 'Amerika', Lawrence, and for the same publication, as it happens. I felt somehow that no-one would mistake that for say Guatemala or Vancouver Island. Best Dave David Bircumshaw Leicester, England A Chide's Alphabet www.chidesplay.8m.com Painting Without Numbers www.paintstuff.20m.com/default.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/default.htm ----- Original Message ----- From: "Lawrence Upton" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 11:21 AM Subject: Re: What is to be done > I tried writing out "America" to mean United States of America of a piece I > have written for _Masthead_, exchanging US or USA etc whenever I found it in > my draft. > > [Actually even USA is a bit odd - Canada's a federation too, but we can live > and die with that] > > It took me three goes and then I missed one. I could have got it with the > word-processor find function; but aiming to pick it up as I rewrote I found > it was invisible from familiarity. [Similar to picking up "he" to mean men > and women when I first tried it] > > The real problem came with "American". United States citizen? Person of the > US? There is no word I know of outside of slang used abusively which would > not fit at all > > > L > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "cris cheek" > To: > Sent: 24 September 2001 17:24 > Subject: Re: What is to be done > > > | Hi, > | > | several posters have remarked here on this fact in recent days, but the > | continued use of 'America' and 'Americans' is part of the perceptuial > | problem. Friends of mine in the USA have grinned when i pointed this out > | before, saying, it's just to rile everyone else. Hmmmm > | > | I write from the unfortunately recondeconstructed 'United Kingdom', > knowing > | that we stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone in the formations and > | perpetuations of this problem. > | > | love and love > | cris > | > ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:04:01 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: mediated horrors Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Mark Weiss wrote: Elements of the opinions aired on this list are beginning to sneak, shyly, into the mainstream media. Yes I have noticed this too. It is frightful, though, about Bill Maher being booted off TV (the Politically Incorrect host). (What freedoms precisely then are we protecting?) Students at UCB are now protesting both for and against war, they have never seemed so babyish to me. Students at Berkeley High are doing teach-ins on tolerance. So again my townie cap to them. I can't imagine how tiring it must be to be teaching these days. My hats off to all of you. Someone wrote that (& I paraphrase) "if we don't respond militarily to an attack on our soil when can we respond..." etc. I can no longer resist mentioning the fact that this good ol USA was founded in the abyss of a holocaust inflicted by immigrants on the indigenous peoples. It's been centuries and that's still not looked at much, much less resolved in any coherent, much less reasonable/compassionate, way. That's what's most shameful to me --- how can we expect to be healthy, or respected, as a nation, unless we confront that. Elizabeth Treadwell "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 16:21:56 -0400 Reply-To: jamie.perez@AKQA.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jamie Gaughran-Perez Organization: AKQA Subject: [Fwd: Musical March for Peace] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit this may or may not be your bag -------- Original Message -------- Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:29:41 -0400 Musical March For Peace In solidarity with the victims of the September 11th Attacks and the victims of terrorism all over the world, we will be uniting on Saturday, September 29th to express our desire to find peaceful ways to resolve the problems facing us. Please join us. Bring along signs, drums, and any noisemakers you can find. We want our voices to be heard! Saturday, September 29, 2001 11AM - Farragut Square, Washington DC (meet in the middle by the statue) further info contact protest@disinfo.net see also http://www.iacenter.org/ for info on the protest we will be joining ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 13:39:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Analyzing the Flag MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barrett Watten" To: Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 11:21 PM Subject: Analyzing the Flag > So the flag. We could look at it this way, yes. We could look at it as an > identity symbol--that's my flag, I'm an American. And we could look at it > as a form of duty. Salute the flag and do your duty. I don't think it's > possible to dissociate any of these ways of seeing the flag. What is > remarkable at the present moment is the overwhelming sense that we have > been placed in the position of the child whose mother, a.k.a. sense of well > being that can't possibly "go away," has gone away. For the present time. > This is the x + y + z situation Winnicott discusses. The tragedy is that, > given the total destructiveness of great power politics and terrorist > responses, that is the only place for us. > > I certainly did not mean to infer that concern for the human reality of the > trauma that has occurred is an apology for all that might be done in the > name of a national symbol. I also feel caught up in the same relation to > the trauma that occurred. I notice it because I perceive the flag, right > now, as more or less benign in precisely the way you and others have seen > it. But I also perceive in it an ominous masking of the other forms of > identity and disavowal that are to come. > > Barrett > nice analysis, Barrett. This is whyi feel it's important right now thatwe not let the flag revert to an empty jinoist and isolationist weapon. tom bell ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:25:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: What is to be done? In-Reply-To: <002001c145ba$5ec09ec0$bf8756cf@jjstick> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Dear Mr. Stickney, > 1) If an attack on your own soil is not enough to justify going to war, what act would justify a call to arms? 1) How can you go to "war," in the hitherto accepted sense, against something that isn't a nation? The Wars on Poverty and (Some) Drugs have failed to adequately answer this. > 2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious minorities could be even more effectively administered? 2) They sure do have grievances. Can you remind me who said "legitimate"? Also, surely (a) bombing Afghanistan back to the proverbial Stone Age and (b) providing aid and comfort to the Taliban are not the only options. > 3) Are the only innocent civilians that matter living outside the United States? 3) Are the only innocent civilians who matter living *inside* the United States? > 4) Is what remains of the "Left" as disconnected from normal, everyday people as the majority of the traffic on this list would indicate? 4) I am a person every day, but rather abnormal (ask shrink, ask hubby); the "Right" does not seem to want me as such. Where on the political spectrum ought I go to be represented? Yours sincerely, Gwyn McVay ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:37:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: banned songs In-Reply-To: <692373842.1001419753@ubppp234-73.dialin.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII >>>Martha and the Vandellas/Van Halen - "Dancing in the Streets" Dear Clear Channel, Does that mean that the David Bowie/Mick Jagger and the Grateful Dead versions of these songs are acceptable? If the latter, which era of the Grateful Dead is acceptable: the Pigpen Era, the Keith Godchaux Era, the Brent Mydland Era, and/or the Bruce Hornsby/Vince Welnick Era? I ask this latter particularly because four former members of the Grateful Dead are now literally dead, and because the name "Grateful Dead" itself might come to have unsavory implications in light of the recent disaster. If one or more of the Grateful Dead versions might be acceptable, are there any show dates one should refrain from playing because of their negative connotations (any 9/11 show springs to mind)? Yours faithfully, Gwyn ***** (last name deleted because it is pronounced the same as that of the Oklahoma City bomber) ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 22:50:48 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Selim Abdul Sadiq Subject: Re: one self sin teared question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed >I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the >country in response to the current situation. I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end up, don't forget to duck. SASq >From: heidi peppermint >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: one self sin teared question >Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:16:52 -0700 > >I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the >country in response to the current situation. > >__________________________________________________ >Do You Yahoo!? >Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! >Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 19:32:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Stickney Subject: What is to be done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable George -=20 In large part the US is responsible for the Taliban achieving power. = Does that not make it the US's responsiblity to, at a minimum, help = remove them from power? > > >2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies = >of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so = >that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious = >minorities could be even more effectively administered?=20 This remark would have been more comprehensive were it added that before = the US installed the Taliban , the women of Afghanistan could work and = go to school. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000=20 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 00:57:59 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rob Holloway Subject: clarification re. humanitarian intervention MIME-Version: 1.0 Christopher, firstly many apologies for getting your first name wrong. I'm afraid I composed the post before work this morning, the clock was ticking fast, and by the end it was all getting very late... for the same reasons, I carelessly wrote near the end:- "a draft could be posted and then if you didn't want to be behind it, b/c to Charles Alexander as list moderator saying so". I didn't intend this to mean that anyone who disagreed with the list being used in this way should then contact you, and thus force you into some position of arbitration about ultimately whether such a thing was 'allowable', though your response:- "- it is needless to ask - as I take the subsequent comments to ask - whether I would allow such a thing; as needless to ask whether I agree with it." now clearly shows me this meaning - again, apologies for my lack of clarity - so, what I *was* doing in my bit quoted above, was simply floating a possible way in which people who didn't want to associate themselves with any such 'document' could say so before it ever went anywhere else, so that their names didn't show on the list of those who did support it...but of course, this was just thoughts about projected tinkering for later on once any such document had indeed been set up etc... the principle intention of the final paragraph of my post was to raise the basic question with people on this list about whether they would want to create such a document in the first place - and thinking again, maybe a more workable option might be, as has been suggested to me backchannel, for anyone who is interested to contact me directly - I then work on a draft to be tweeked etc, and then we as a group just take it from there - i.e. it is something formulated backchannel on a smaller scale (which the response level so far seems to indicate is more suitable) - having said that, if anyone wants to suggest another way, please go ahead so apologies to you, and all, for initial confusions here - as I said, due to time, I was at the top of my head as it were, and my job flaps were definitely beginning to show - I hope this opportunity for clarification can be helpful in getting some kind of statement together for those who would like to and thank you Christopher for the openness you show in discussing the ways in which this list may be useful at these times, and in encouraging a potential for the list to morph in response to those uses finally, I couldn't agree more about the importance of the kind of posts you mention yours, Rob Holloway. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 01:40:30 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: What is to be done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "John Stickney" To: Sent: 25 September 2001 13:05 Subject: What is to be done? | 1) If an attack on your own soil is not enough to justify going to war, what act would justify a call to arms? Answer: None, unless you have abandoned Christianity and / or sense | 2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious minorities could be even more effectively administered? Answer: That is not a simple question. Nor is it, in my judgement, an honest question because it assumes the correctness of things it only asserts... Hint - It isn't *their country and it isn't USA's 3) Are the only innocent civilians that matter living outside the United States? Answer: All innocent citizens matter. All guilty citizens matter. Non citizens matter 4) Is what remains of the "Left" as disconnected from normal, everyday people as the majority of the traffic on this list would indicate? Answer: I don't understand your question. What is "the Left"? Regarding the normal and everyday, the vulnerability you all feel in USA is what is felt everyday in the world at large. In that, you have my sympathy; but not beyond that L ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 01:15:34 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Good one. Thank you, Mr B L ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bowering" To: Sent: 24 September 2001 19:41 Subject: Re: What is to be done | > | > | >The real problem came with "American". United States citizen? Person of the | >US? There is no word I know of outside of slang used abusively which would | >not fit at all | > | > | >L | | In my books etc I have been using the term USAmerican for several | years, Others have picked it up. It aint perfect, but then neither am | I. | -- | George Bowering | Freelance reader | Fax 604-266-9000 | ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 23:12:32 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Quasha Organization: Station Hill / Barrytown, Ltd. Subject: Dalai Lama letter apparent hoax MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I believe the letter cited on this list as from H.H. the Dalai Lama is a hoax, and a familiar one -- a number of them have appeared in his name only to be denounced as fraudulent. The content and style do not correspond to his dryer, more careful letters. Here is his office's denial as regards a letter printed on another list [I have removed names and addresses because I have not sought permission to cite them]: ***Note -I have been informed that the letter dated September 12, 2001, that has been published on [some lists] on September 21, is false. It did not originate from HH the Dalai Lama. For your information, I attach the correspondence I received on this issue, as well as a "real" letter to President Bush that has been written by His Holiness. [List moderator]*** Date : Tue, 25 Sep 2001 12:48:21 +1000 Subject : Fw: A Letter from His Holiness, XIVth Dalai Lama The Office of Tibet, NY, has verified that this email is a hoax. HHDL has only released 2 letters on this matter, the ones to George Bush & Mayor Giuliani. http://home.iprimus.com.au/bobgould/ ----- Original Message ----- From: The Office of Tibet To: … Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 12:28 AM Subject: Re: A Letter from His Holiness, XIVth Dalai Lama Dear Mr. G..., Thank you for your inquiry. Actually, the letter you sent is a forgery and we have been trying to find where it originates. If you have any information on how it originally started circulating it would be very helpful to the Office of Tibet. In addition, please refrain from forwarding the message to others and if you receive it again then please tell others it is not authentic. The actual letter sent by His Holiness to President Bush is attached. Thank You, Tenzin _____ THE DALAI LAMA His Excellency Mr. George W. Bush The President The White House Washington, DC 20500 USA September 12, 2001 Your Excellency, I am deeply shocked by the terrorist attacks that took place involving four apparently hijacked aircrafts and the immense devastation these caused. It is a terrible tragedy that so many innocent lives have been lost and it seems unbelievable that anyone would choose to target the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. We are deeply saddened. On behalf of the Tibetan people I would like to convey our deepest condolence and solidarity with the American people during this painful time. Our prayers go out to the many who have lost their lives, those who have been injured and the many more who have been traumatized by this senseless act of violence. I am attending a special prayer for the United States and its people at our main temple today. I am confident that the United States as a great and powerful nation will be able to overcome this present tragedy. The American people have shown their resilience, courage and determination when faced with such difficult and sad situations. It may seem presumptuous on my part, but I personally believe we need to think seriously whether a violent reaction is the right thing to do and in the greater interest of the nation and the people in the long run. I believe violence will only increase the cycle of violence. But how do we deal with hatred and anger which are often the root causes of such senseless violence? This is a very difficult question, especially when it concerns a nation and we have certain fixed conceptions of how to deal with such attacks. I am sure you will make the right decision. With my prayers and good wishes, Yours sincerely, [signature] ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 16:21:37 -0400 Reply-To: jtley@home.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jennifer Ley Organization: Riding the Meridian Subject: Thoughts on what the "left" can do MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Prior to September 11th and following a trip last year to Cambodia, I had spent much of the past year reading material about the Vietnam War, and its impact on neighboring counties like Laos and Cambodia. So much of what the US did during that war was atrocious, and many people in the traditional left who grew up during that time, myself included, carry with us a large amount of conflict over what it means to be a citizen of the United States. In light of that, I am grateful to the posts on this list which have attempted to broaden the discussion of current events beyond a traditional leftist knee jerk response. Living as close as I do to NYC, I’ve been lucky enough to participate in some of the volunteer efforts there. Yesterday I spent the day on a large dining cruise ship anchored near the former towers where we served food through the Red Cross. Being in such close proximity to the wreckage really does little to make the situation more ‘real’ -- I can tell you that. The mood at the site is one of quiet resignation at this point. There is no ‘rah rah USA’ chanting going on, little talk of retaliation against who, what or when. The focus is, as it has to be, on the work, and for us, cooking up and sorting out the huge amount of donated supplies that arrive by boat several times a day. The Red Cross has already served over a million meals. The people working at the site are from all over the country. Our Red Cross shift leaders were from Minneapolis and Oregon. 88% of the Red Cross staff is volunteer. When it comes to staffing the boat with cooks, servers, etc., there are more volunteers than available work. After nine hours on that boat, I cannot imagine how the people who are working the site are continuing to labor so hard, day after day after day. Many of the departments who send personnel require their people to commit to 8 days of 12 hours on, 12 hours off. The top floor of the boat has become a sleeping area -- with a battery of chiropractors and masseuses available. If that sounds like a luxury its far from it. Add to that the psychological exhaustion these workers face as they realize the operation is reaching the point where the city will have to decide what to do next, though many of the workers said that with access to a water supply, people could still be alive. One man told me that for days they had been walking around to all the smaller, deeper vents and tossing down bottles of water and wrapped sandwiches. Most of the coverage I’ve seen on television does not offer camera positions where one can see just how large an area was impacted, or the effect on neighboring buildings which are still standing. Girders hang off blasted facades, smoke continues to fill the air as new fires flare up. All the workers on the site wear extremely heavy gear, hard hats and breathing masks. Just toting all that clothing around in weather that fluctuates from sopping humidity to rain to hot sun is enough to make most people I know need a day or two off to recover. On my jean jacket, I have an old ‘hippie’ button. It says: “Whatever you do may seem insignificant, but it is most important that you do it.” I find that quote extremely helpful because I recognize that no matter how progressive my personal politics, the fact that I drive a car, heat my home, use a credit card, go to a movie, watch television, purchase imported food, and as a woman, work and become educated, all makes me complicit in the ‘sins’ of my country from the terrorists’ perspective. To not recognize that complicity is naive. To not use the freedoms I am given to make a positive impact, however small, is a travesty. There’s another old hippie saying: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. The events of September 11th have had a vast impact. People wish to *do* something. The most obvious things US citizens have been given to do to date include flying flags and supporting the President. What we’d call a right wing knee jerk response. They can also give money, a decision that can be made and executed much too quickly to give much psychological benefit to the giver, no matter how good the cause. I think it may be up to the left to offer alternative (and in the course of donations, additional) responses. Opportunities for dialogue that reach past cliche. Opportunities to mourn and experience sadness. Means to formulate a response that recognizes and gives positive vent to the fear that many citizens of the US and the world are now feeling. And celebrations of who and what we are and can be if we utilize our freedom wisely. In addition, there are so many charities and important causes which will have a hard time raising funds and finding support given how much focus is going towards September 11th funds. As writers and artists we have a large network at our disposal; but I think we also have to seize this opportunity to make sure that what we do and say reaches ‘outside the box’. All my best to all of you, Jennifer Ley -- Riding the Meridian: Lit [art] ure http://www.heelstone.com/meridian in the Archives: Women and Technology ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 18:01:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Fouhy Subject: Bronx literary Reading Comments: To: "PartnersBE@aol.com" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Northern Westchester Center for the Arts 272 N. Bedford Road Mt. Kisco, NY 10549 914 241 6922 ext 17 Bronx Accent: A Literary Salute to the Borough Creative Arts Café Poetry Series Continues Fall Series Mt. Kisco, NY: October 1st 7:30 PM the Creative Arts Café Poetry Series at the Northern Westchester Center for the Arts continues its seventh season with selected readings of works in Bronx Accent; A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough. Readers are Lloyd Ultan and Barbara Unger. The reading is followed by a reception, book signing and OPEN MIKE. The comprehensive book, Bronx Accent, captures the Zeitgeist of The Bronx through the eyes of its writers-both past literary figures and emerging talents. Lloyd Ultan and Barbara Unger place this literature in its historical context. They include almost one hundred vintage photographs from The Bronx Historical Society and postcard views from the early decades of the century, bringing the writings to life. The resulting work provides the reader with insight into the kaleidoscopic shifts in Bronx life over the centuries. Filtered through the imaginations of authors of different times, ethnic groups, social classes, and literary styles, the borough of The Bronx emerges not only as a shaper of destinies and lives, but as an important literary mecca. Some writers included in the book are: Sholem Aleichem, James Baldwin, James Fenimore Cooper, Theodore Dreiser, Washington Irving, Jack Kerouac, Clifford Odets, Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, Edgar Allan Poe, Chaim Potok , Kate Simon, Leon Trotsky, Mark Twain, Tom Wolfe, Herman Wouk and many others Lloyd Ulton is the author of 6 books, including The Beautiful Bronx, 1930 n- 1950 and The Bronx of Innocent Years: 1890 – 1925. He is a professor of History at Fairleigh Dickenson University and has been appointed the Bronx Borough Historian. Barbara Unger is a poet and a professor of English at Rockland Communtiy College of the State University of New York. She is the author of a book of short Fiction plus five collections of poetry. The suggested donation is $7.00; Seniors and Students: $5.00. The Creative Ars Café Poetry Series is funded by the New York State Council on the Arts and the Bydale Foundation. The Northern Westchester Center for the Arts is located at 272 N. Bedford Road, Mt. Kisco, NY. For further information, call Cindy Beer-Fouhy at 914 241 6922 ext 17. More Events October 15th 7:30 PM Suggested Donation: $7.00; Seniors and Students: $5.00 OPEN MIKE and Ron Price and Pamela Uschuk- poet living in Tucson, Arizona Ron Price is Poet in Residence at the Juilliard School. His poems have appeared in literary journals and various anthologies. The past recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, in 1996 Price was a U.S.I.A. Visiting Poet to Belgium. In addition to A Small Song Called Ash From The Fire, he is the author of a chapbook, Surviving Brothers, & a sixty minute recording called A Crucible for the Left Hand. He teaches the Poetry Workshop at NWCA on Wed. Evenings. Pamela’s poems have appeared in nearly 200 journals and anthologies world-wide, including POETRY, PARNASSUS REVIEW, PEQUOD, COMMONWEAL, AGNI EVIEW, NIMROD, CALYX, 48 YOUNGER AMERICAN POETS, ATOMIC GHOST and others. Her first book of poems, FINDING PEACHES IN THE DESERT, was released by Wings Press in June 2000 and has received many favorable reviews. A CD by the same name will be released soon from Wings. Her poems are accompanied by music by the band, Chameleon, by Joy Harjo and Dan van Kilsdonk. In April 2002, her second book of poems, ONE-LEGGED DANCER is due out of Wings. Among the prizes her work has been awarded are the 2001 Tucson/Pima Arts Council Writing Award, the Struga 2000 International Poetry Prize, the ASCENT Poetry Prize, the King's English Poetry Prize and awards from the National League of PEN Women, the Chester H. Jones Foundation and Amnesty International. Her poems have been translated into Albanian, Bulgarian, Czechoslovakian, French, Korean, Macedonian, Spanish, and Swedish. Pamela will be one of the American poets featured at this year's Slovenian Poetry Festival as well as at the Swedish Book Festival in September. This past semester she was Visiting Poet at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado. In February 2002, she will assume the Directorship of the Center for Women Writers at Salem College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. October 22nd 7:30 PM Suggested Donation: $7.00; Seniors and Students: $5.00 OPEN MIKE and Welch Poet Robert Minhinnick Robert Minhinnick (b. 1952) is a Welsh poet, essayist and environmental activist. He has published six collections of poems, which Carcanet published a selection of in 1999 in Selected Poems. His earliest poems are set amidst heavy industry and describe the landscapes of the poet's childhood in Wales. His later poems move about Brazil and the USA, and develops broader views of history and culture. Minhinnick's poems have won a number of literary awards, most recently, in 1999, the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem. Twenty-five Laments for Iraq can be read on the Internet (www.cam.ac.uk/societies/casi/info/25laments.html). Minhinnick is currently working on his third collection of essays. The ironic and impressionistic essays in his second collection (Badlands, 1996) spread out a broad map of the absurd zones of the world. They take a look at post-communist Albania, the pecularities of California, and the current state of Wales and England. Minhinnick's hyperbolic style has been compared to that of Martin Amis and his wanderlust to Bruce Chatwin's. Minhinnick has also edited collections of essays on conservation, including The Green Agenda: Essays on The Environment of Wales (1994). He is currently editor-in-chief of the Poetry Wales literary magazine and lives in the town of Portcawl in South Wales. His interests include collecting driftwood, cooking curry meals, playing beach soccer and training jellyfish. October 29th 7:30 PM Suggested Donation: $5.00; Seniors and Students: $3.00 HS Student Halloween OPEN MIKE Poetry Night –Join us for an evening of community readings by a host of favorite “dead poets” and menacing music for a special pre-Halloween Eve. Refreshments included. Costumes optional. With Special features TBA The following is a list of October readings: October 1st 7:30 PM OPEN MIKE and selected readings of works in Bronx Accent; A Literary and Pictorial History of the Borough. Readings by Lloyd Ultan and Barbara Unger. October 15th 7:30 OPEN MIKE and Ron Price and Pamela Uschuk- poet living in Tucson, Arizona. October 22nd 7:30 -OPEN MIKE and Welch Poet Robert Minhinnick . Anne Marie Macari has been published in various literary magazines such as Field, TriQuarterly, and The Ohio Review. Her book Ivory Cradle, winner of the 1999 American Poetry Review First Book Prize, will appear September, 2000. Macari has published one book of poems, Ivory Cradle, which won the American Poetry Review First Book Prize. She has published in numerous journals, including Field, TriQuarterly, Ohio Review, and Courtland Review. She studied at Oberlin College and is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence. Most recently, Macari read at the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Poetry Festival in Morristown, New Jersey. October 29th 7:30 PM - HS Student Halloween OPEN MIKE Poetry Night –Join us for an evening of community readings by a host of favorite “dead poets” and menacing music for a special pre-Halloween Eve. Refreshments included. Costumes optional. With Special features TBA ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 20:12:15 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Camille Martin Subject: Lit City Readings & Workshops MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii ---------------------------------- * L * I * T * * * C * I * T * Y * ---------------------------------- presents Poetry Readings and Workshops featuring CHARLES ALEXANDER and CARLA HARRYMAN CHARLES ALEXANDER is a poet, publisher, and book artist who lives in Tucson, Arizona. His books of poetry include Pushing Water (1998), Four Ninety-Eight to Seven (1998), arc of light/dark matter (1992), and Hopeful Buildings (1990). His newest book, Etudes: D & D, is forthcoming from Quarry Press. Alexander is founder, director, and book artist of Chax Press, a publisher of trade literary editions and handmade letterpress books that explore innovative writing and its conjunction with book forms. Through his work with visual arts, dancers and musicians, Alexander brings to poetry a broad sense of artistic and collaborative possibility. Currently he teaches poetry at the University of Arizona. Ron Silliman calls the poems in arc of light/dark matter "rich with news, life, war, sex, parenting, the texts at hand, the spicing of mulled thought, humor, bright southwestern colors, and an ear to die for . . . . This is the most sensuous, intelligent, rewarding writing I've read in ages." CARLA HARRYMAN is a poet whose work often blends the genres of poetry, playwrighting, and fiction. Her most recent work is Gardener of Stars (forthcoming 2001). Other books include The Words: After Carl Sandburg's Rootabaga Stories and Jean-Paul Sartre (1999), There Never Was a Rose Without a Thorn (1995), and Animal Instincts (1989). Harryman has won numerous awards for her work, including the Fund for Poetry, the Millay Colony Award, and the New American Fiction Award. She has read her poetry throughout the United States and in the U.K. and France, and her poetic plays have been widely performed in the United States and in New Zealand and the U.K. Currently she teaches in the Department of English at Wayne State University. Lynne Tillman says that in The Words, Harryman "playfully examines the family, the suburbs, daily life, the position of woman, while boldly undermining notions about character and plot. There's a ferocity to her wit. . . . I admire Harryman's rare mind, its gleeful feminism, broad intelligence, and anarchic inventiveness." Reading 7:30 pm, Thursday, October 4 Zeitgeist Multi-Disciplinary Arts Center 1724 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. (at Felicity) / New Orleans Admission: $3 Reception, booksigning, and display of Chax Press book art follow the reading. Workshops Saturday, October 6 Charles Alexander: 10:00 - 11:30 am Carla Harryman: 1:00 - 2:30 pm Auditorium, New Orleans Public Library, 219 Loyola Ave. Cost per workshop: $8 To reserve a place, call 504.861.8832 or email bill@litcity.net Lit City thanks the Louisiana Division of the Arts for their assistance in making this event possible. Lit City is a New Orleans-based 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Your tax-deductible contributions are gratefully accepted. Checks payable to Lit City may be sent to Lit City / 7725 Cohn St. / New Orleans, LA 70118. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 00:10:39 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...Iran... Nice...Nice..in Iran...the major colonial powers in Iran were Afghanistan, Russia and the British...we're the heirs to a tradition that doesn't exist...give it back to the Russians...what's Nice...Nice..in ruzzky..DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 12:08:17 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: FW: allen curnow MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Everyone. Allen Curnow was a major poet anywhere in the world. I attended lectures for one year (1968) and he lectured (amongst other subjects) on Browning who I thought or had thought at the time was rather dull: mainly because then I didnt know much about poetry and was only dimly aware of his famous "Pied Piper.." poem..but his lectures on Browning were (I found ) quite fascinating. Then when I took up my "poetry hobby" more recently an old frienfd of my father's gave me a book of Alan Curnow's. I met Allan Curnow briefly at a memorial for Kendrick Smithyman who was also a great poet: at that meeting I pointed out half humorously how I had had to stop reading his poetry as they were..well simply impossible to "equal" and they made it nearly inpossible for me to "think" or write, they haunted, so to speak: to attempt the rigorous brilliance of Allan Curnow to quote Alan himself was..well here's the last stanza of "A Leaf": Bud of a leaf, blade of a leaf Given a strange twist, given for something to do With deadly baffled fingers happy to squeeze Blood from a conundrum: insoluble but endlessly Amusing in the attempt His poems baffled and haunted and were often dark and strange, sometimes even savage, but he was from years of working as a "technition" and his wide and intense reading and knowledge (especially of factual and 'conceptual" details),his, I believe, considerable interest in such as Dylan Thomas and then Wallace Stevens and others was always a "conundrum" ( or at least a challenge and an inspiration) for any aspiring writer: bafflingly brilliant: I at one time stopped reading Curnow because I was so "under his spell" that I was writing poor imitations of his stuff: but maybe without knowing. When I met him in 1996 he was a dignified but fairly jovial person who laughed when I pointed this out. Then in the converstion he said that he "didnt like all this jangly jangly postmodern stuff" and commented that he was a "post post modernist"...he didnt like being in anyone's categories (who does?) .... Curnow is/was a great man and a great poet in anyone's language. My feelings for you Wystan and others who loved him and or knew him or his work. Richard ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bowering" To: Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 11:20 AM Subject: Re: FW: allen curnow > >-----Original Message----- > >From: Wystan Curnow (FOA ENG) > >Sent: Monday, 24 September 2001 2:49 p.m. > >To: 'poetics@kiistserv.acsu.buffalo.edu' > >Cc: 'poetryetc@jiscmail.ac.uk' > >Subject: allen curnow > > > > > > > > > > My father died last night shortly after seven. There are I know many on > >the list > > who know his work and who will be saddened by his death. > > > > He didn't suffer. A cold that had gone to his chest on Saturday was a > >concern > > and he went to hospital. By the end of the day and a range of tests all > >seemed well > > but he was to stay there for a day or two under observation. After dinner > >last night > > his heart stopped all of a sudden. > > > > He turned 90 this year. His last book, The Bells of St Babels, Auckland > >University Press, > > came out earlier this year and won the Montana Prize for Poetry. The > >Carcanet edition > > will be published this week. He had given quite a few readings this year, > >the last being > > a week ago in Auckland. Just before that he was in the studio recording a > >three hours selection > > of his work for the BBC archives. As all this suggests, he surrendered > >very little to age > > before it ran out of patience with him. > > > > Long live poetry! > > > > Wystan. > > Wystan, that was a wonderful remark that I am sure yr fathert would > like, re age's running out of patience. That is the best kid's > euology I remembe hearing. We have the poetry, and yes it'll be > around, no worries. > > GB > > > -- > George Bowering > Freelance reader > Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 20:42:19 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Webster Schultz Subject: Fw: Peace stuff (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Susan Schultz" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 8:21 PM Subject: Peace stuff (fwd) > > > ---------- Forwarded message ---------- > Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 16:44:32 -1000 > From: Gaye MG Chan > To: Susan Schultz , > Susan Hippensteele > Subject: Peace stuff > > > Students and faculty of the University of Hawaii Department of Art are > producing various visual paraphenalia to advocate for peace. > > To view current products, please go to > http://www2.hawaii.edu/~gchan/PEACE.htm > The page will keep changing as we make > more stuff or sell out on stuff. > > price list as follows- > Handshake shirts $3 each > Peace shirts $5 each > Peace stickers $1 each or $25 for 50 stickers > > Payment- > send payment along with self-addressed and stamped envelop to > 1019 kamahele street, kailua, HI 96734 > Specify exactly what you want and check webpage for shirt sizes. > > To calculate shipping- > shirts weigh (7oz each) > stickers (4 oz per 50 stickers) > see > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 23:00:21 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit If the US removes all military forces from ANY and EVERY nation oputside the US and concentrates on giving aid where requested rather than interferring in any sates whatsoever and the people of the world move toward the progressive transformations of their own countries to higher levels of democracy and prosperity the main energy for terrorism will be greatly diminished. The US should stay out of this except where asked: they should never censor another country for "terrorism" or "civil rights violations": that's the business of the countries concerned. Nothing to do with anyone else. If a military - even a "defensive one" is undertaken - it will be seen as the US interfering again: the millions of muslims, africans, south americans dont care if the US is nuked from within or without. Many want to see the end of capitalism: with US out of the way that makes building their own countries easier. This attack, bizarre and terrible as it is, is part of the ongoing interaction and continuimg struggle which often takes many bizzarre unforseen and contradictory turns. No action by the US ...except the increasing REAL democratisationof it..will change anything in the long term. This situation is actually very similar to the Vietnam thing. In a way oit signals a good thing: that NO super power, no arrogant "policeman state" is ever going to be free from military or any other counmter action. Blast here blast there: give them 10 years and new "heads" of hydra opposition will have sprung up. remove and stoip ALL foreign intervention of a "policeman" kind and start some real changes toward a more egalitarian world and you're talking. China will survive anby war. China and India and Africa may soon be the seats of the new civilisations. Let he who is without sin caste the first stone. Workers of the world unite!Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Silliman" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2001 3:29 PM Subject: What is to be done > I've been thinking for days about how best to write this - and I still have > no clue, so I'm just going to wade in and hope for the best. I've been asked > what I think about "all this" by some two dozen people, and what I think is > this. > > It is time for progressives to act, but not on the past dragged on as habit. > > The horrific attack on four jetliners, the World Trade Center and the > Pentagon last week places everybody under extraordinary kinds of pressure > right now - I must have seen one hundred or so American males openly cry on > television over the past week (and even Bush barely kept it together when a > reporter in the Oval Office asked him about his feelings). The attack places > progressives into a particularly difficult and painful spot. So far, my > impression is that the left as a whole has not responded well and is mostly > doing a bang-up job of isolating itself at the worst possible moment in > history. > > The argument that a U.S.-led coalition, or even the U.S. on its own, should > not respond militarily to the death of over 5,000 people, all but a hundred > or so of them civilians, is based on premises that reveal an absolute > inability to look at the circumstances directly. Instead, people seem to be > continuing on some mode of automatic pilot that is well-intended, but > ultimately self-defeating. The present situation is qualitatively different > from the Vietnam War or Desert Storm. To pretend otherwise and to trot out > the same old slogans is itself potentially a disaster from which the left > may not soon recover. To quote the subhead of Richard Sennett's excellent > article in yesterday's Guardian, "The traditional left-right dispute is > irrelevant to these abnormal times." > (http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,554037,00.html) To focus > exclusively on what the U.S. might (and may well) do wrong in responding to > the attack is to miss the point so completely that it is going to be > difficult, if not impossible, later on, to be taken seriously. That is what > I think is at stake. > > Consider these points: > > (1) Everyone has had the opportunity to see over 5,000 people, most of them > the most ordinary folks in the world, die very horrible deaths. This total > is more than the attack on Pearl Harbor and the sinking of the Titanic > combined - this is a visceral shock to the system that we will all be > suffering effects from for years. > > (2) What would happen to any government that did NOT respond militarily to > such an attack on civilians on its soil? Frankly, it would collapse. Bush > would be impeached or worse. Politicians are for the most part followers, > craven followers at that, and the reaction by the professional pols has been > completely predictable. > > (3) Does anybody anywhere honestly think that this network, whether or not > we inscribe bin Laden's name in as the CEO, will not, at some future > moment, do something as bad or worse if it is not broken up? Do we not think > that it would use a nuclear weapon if it had a chance? Anthrax? > > (4) Does anybody honestly think that if America were to somehow "improve its > behavior" toward people of the Third World, that this would eliminate the > impetus behind these attacks? That it could do so quickly enough to > forestall future assaults? > > (5) Does anybody honestly think that the U.S. could do # 3 without > literally abandoning Israel? > > (6) Can anybody here imagine a U.S. electoral politician advocating some > version of #4? See that last comment under #1 again. > > (7) Even if those last three points were politically do-able in the near > future, is there anybody who cannot imagine what THAT ensuing war would > look like? > > This, it seems to me, is the double-bind of this situation. And that is why > I find it so personally painful right now to be a left pacifist, which I > still am. > > Hal Meyerson, the longtime Papa Bear of the Los Angeles democratic left who > is now the executive editor of The American Prospect, put it very succinctly > when he noted last week that there really are no legitimate reasons to go to > war except when somebody decides to go to war against you - and in this case > someone very definitely has. > (http://www.prospect.org/webfeatures/2001/09/meyerson-h-2.html) > > In the face of all this, to argue against the use of force in breaking up > the network of terrorist cells is to confess that one is not only tone deaf > to the popular will, manipulated or otherwise (and I suspect, frankly, that > the media, like the pols, is much more a follower than a leader in this), it > is even wrong in terms of the protection of Americans. To the extent that > the American left and its allies puts its eggs into this basket, it is going > to find itself with very little credibility remaining with which to make the > far more crucial arguments that need to be made right now. > > This is especially true since the folks running the American government, and > thus the American campaign - thanks again, Ralph Nader - are the worst > possible people to have in power at this historical moment. > > What makes them the worst possible people, besides the obvious, is the > unique problem of this point in history. Presuming, as I do here, that force > is inevitable, the real questions that must be confronted are what force, > against whom, and how? Traditional military strategy argues that one > identifies the center of gravity of one's opponent and attacks that. In a > typical war, that usually means taking out some country's infrastructure so > that it lacks the means to sustain itself and fight back. > > Even George W. Bush recognizes that this loose coalition of activist cells > that he characterizes as a terrorist network is not "some country." Not only > does al-Qaeda and its affiliates lack the trappings of statehood and the > infrastructure that normally accrue with that, this coalition has been > consciously built - a progression that can be traced back to the use of > cells by Algerian revolutionaries in the 1950s - so as not to have any true > center of gravity. It's a rhizome, almost like the point-to-point computing > model one associates with post-Napster MP3 ripping, while the U.S. military' > s experience is telling it to hunt for a mainframe somewhere. > > The whole reason that Bush et al have spent so much time talking about the > "states that harbor and sponsor" al-Qaeda is because the U.S. military knows > how to attack a state. It is far less ready to go after something that doesn > 't really have a head. In fact, what the U.S. media campaign has done with > bin Laden has been to build up his reputation simply to make of him a > feasible personal target. While bin Laden's individual wealth has been of > real value in giving these groups the time, leisure and resources to train, > plan and execute "martyr operations," there is thus far (9/18) relatively > little evidence that bin Laden himself did anything more direct with regards > to this particular tragedy. > > Lets presume, for a moment, that the U.S. manages to capture or kill bin > Laden and even to force the downfall of the Taliban (which would have a > beneficial impact for the people of Afghanistan, especially women). Does > anybody think that this means that this network would not be able to find > resources elsewhere to continue figuring out ways to attack the United > States and global capitalism generally? Hardly. > > So what I fear most is a god-awful bloody and useless war that leaves nobody > any safer than they are today. What I fear is a war that is a surrogate for > a solution. And we can't afford to not solve this quandary. The collapse of > the towers has raised the ante amid the terrorists markedly. The next > assault will almost have to be nuclear or biological even to get our > media-weary attention. > > This is where the left has a role that it can and must play for the good of > all. Progressives need to focus on the necessity of the U.S. > > (1) proving itself to be better than terrorists by not targeting civilians, > > (2) seriously educating the American population on the sources of resentment > that the U.S. (and especially U.S. capital) generates worldwide, > > (3) keeping totalitarian forces in the U.S. from deleting the Bill of Rights > in the name of security, > > (4) acknowledging that embargoes only punish the poor and reversing this > long-term "containment" strategy once and for all, not just in Iraq but > everywhere, > > (5) raising the issue of the need for a true solution of the "Palestine > problem" (it's not the only festering sore of U.S. foreign policy, just the > most blatant one in that region), > > (6) protecting American citizens and residents both from North Africa, the > Middle East and South Asia from racist reprisals, > > (7) dealing with all the important ancillary issues that accompany these > questions, > > (8) raising the issue of dictatorship with all our "allies," and > > (9) taking control of globalization away from multinational corporations. > > If the left can address these, with focus and intelligence, it potentially > can have a shaping influence on the outcome of this struggle. That role > could prove to be far more important even than the one that progressives had > in ending the conflict in Indochina a generation ago. > > But progressives can do this only if we retain some semblance of > credibility. To take any position that can be perceived as inaction in the > face of the enormous physical and emotional wound that confronts the > American people serves only to exacerbate the reputation of the left as a > movement completely out of touch with reality. Julian Borger, also writing > in The Guardian > (http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,553876,00.html) > , gets it right when he argues against the idea that "Americans should be > asking themselves why this happened to them . . . . Rather than getting > angry, then, they should be meditating and wondering what they have done > wrong. > > "This point of view seems to me to be detached to the point of inhumanity. > Moreover, it is driven by an internal logic that is utterly bogus. That > logic, insinuated between the lines, suggests that the horror visited on > thousands of New Yorkers must be balanced somewhere by an equal and opposite > evil that the US has inflicted upon someone else." > > Borger is correct in acknowledging that that position fails to acknowledge > the enormity of the assault. It will certainly be rejected by a huge > majority of people. As it should be. And that position also fails to address > the ugly reality that, without action, future attacks are inevitable, and > that the death toll in the towers has raised the bar for ambitious future > martyrs. > > Nick Piombino's post to this list on the flag's role not as an icon of war > mongering, but as a transitional object in the grieving process, makes > perfect sense to me. I've been struck at how radically differently it has > been used in the past week than, say, the yellow ribbon campaign during the > Gulf War, a soft swastika if ever there was one. If anything, the flag's > role this time around has been one of solidarity, an emblem not of the state > but of the people. Coming out of the Vietnam experience, I never thought I > would see the stars & stripes used that way. But there it is. And it's > everywhere. > > This solidarity is a unique and probably temporary phenomenon. It is > certainly something that the left needs to address and to examine. But a > movement that surrenders its credibility by pretending that the murder of > more than 5,000 people doesn't warrant a response, or which pussyfoots > around the issue by reframing the assault as "criminal" rather than as an > act of war, will have silenced itself before it has ever had the chance to > speak. > > Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 20:22:40 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Living with compassion in these times Comments: cc: Arielle Greenberg Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:41:52 -0700 From: Arielle Greenberg Subject: Re: What is to be Done? >> I wonder if there aren't always going to be people >> who >> are-- morons? terrorists? on & on. >> So for me the question is: if compassion is the way >> to >> go, how to really bring that about *now* as a tool? >> cheryl burket > The Buddhist idea (and correct me if I'm wrong, you on > the list who have been studying this much longer than > I have) is that you start NOW with yourself -- > generate compassion in yourself, for yourself, for > everyone else. Through meditation, Right Thought, > Right Action, Right Speech, etc. This itself is a > really, really hard step and pretty much a lifetime's > work, but I can say that the process itself can lead > to results in this lifetime. > > I'd be most appreciative if some of the other > Buddhists on the list -- anyone at Naropa? -- could > also post about living with compassion in these times, > reading suggestions, or any other ideas. I am > literally taking refuge in the dharma (the > ideas/teachings of Buddha) at this time, but am not > involved in a sangha (community of fellow meditators) > at the moment and would love to hear from others > thinking through these things from this perspective. > Backchannel or front. > > Thanks, all, > Arielle Arielle, From a Buddhist perspective one feels compassion for the innocent victims of the WTC attack AS WELL AS for the terrorists who perpetrated the attack. Violence burns those who engage in it. From a Buddhist perspective one feels compassion for the innocent Afghani people who (as collateral damage) will become the innocent victims of US retaliation AS WELL AS for American soldiers ordered to carry out the strategic retaliatory strikes. Violence burns those who engage in it. Sometimes strong action IS necessary; some people are unable to understand anything except firm words & firm actions. But before engaging in such actions, one examines oneself to see whether the mind is balanced, Whether we have only love & compassion for the person who is misbehaving. If so, the action will prove helpful, if not, it won't really help anyone. Acting from love & compassion we cannot go wrong. I have yet to feel that the posts of those advocating retaliation (except for the Dali Lama's comments which someone forwarded to this list) are motivated solely by love & compassion. Exhibitions of threadbare brain power though no doubt sincere in their desire to be fair &, in these troubled times, wise & perhaps even kind, still unable to see clearly, perspicaciously. Thus, like most everyone else, tripping over slogans, labels, concepts, ideologies of left & right, good & bad .... makes one sad, very sad. One wonders, when reading the posts of some of the most articulate poets & critics, if this poetic community & it's various agendas have in fact the capacity to produce a deeper humanity, a more enlightened consciousness or shall we expect no more then glibness, more shine, & nothing more harmful or benign then ARTICULATION. I would hope not. With metta, Reuven BenYuhmin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 06:16:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: heidi peppermint Subject: Re: What is to be done? In-Reply-To: <002001c145ba$5ec09ec0$bf8756cf@jjstick> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Because answers suggest a certainty I do not feel, I am going to try and respond to the posed questions by posing questions. > 1) If an attack on your own soil is not enough to > justify going to war, what act would justify a call > to arms? If to be 'just' denotes conforming to what is right, and so 'justified' denotes having been made right, or denoted by a governing body as right -- who is this that justifies? Whose morality determines what justifies violence? Does the question 'what act would justify a call to arms?' hold within in it an already justified assumption that a call to arms is an appropriate response to mortal threat? Assuming a morality that includes a justified violence, what are the terms of such justification? Is mortal threat justification enough? If not, exactly what is? I'm thinking that unjustified violence against One might suggest the possibility of justified violence; but are there universal categories 'right' and 'wrong' or do competing demands tend to generate opposing working definitions of 'right' and 'wrong'? > 2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances > against the policies of the United States, should we > help them rebuild their country so that their > deadly, repressive polices against woman and > religious minorities could be even more effectively > administered? Is this the only choice other than violent action? Is life under a repressive regime worse than death at the hands of a regretful attacker? > 3) Are the only innocent civilians that matter > living outside the United States? Did anyone claim such a distinction between 'innocent' civilians? Does the situation necessitate a choice between 'our' innocent civilians and 'their's'? Are those people living under a repressive regime possibly less responsible for the acts of their government than those living in a democracy? > 4) Is what remains of the "Left" as disconnected > from normal, everyday people as the majority of the > traffic on this list would indicate? Does this question imply a natural good in the category of 'normal and everyday people'? Is what makes someone 'normal and everyday' that s:he agrees and complies with the prevailing moral code, the definitions of 'just'? What is the prevailing moral code? Why do you and/or do you believe it is just? __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:30:54 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r...vorste... My mother sez 'for us survivors it's 'vorste'....now on top of post-holocaust syndrome...i've got post-traumatic stress disorder..wow i'm a sleeping bag of symptoms... Yesterday began well...i woke up singing at the top of my voice...'i went to sea to see the world...but all i saw was the sea sea sea..i went to sea to see the world...but all i saw was the sea sea sea' So L. & I decided to drive on by to Brighton Beach...half hour over the bridge was unusual...on the Bklyn side... Checkpoints every block..hundreds of police...random stops...searches of all trucks...seas of vehicles..we decided to go home...it tooks us 2 hours to get back over the bridge.., Minor changes..i've lost 15 pounds...from a quart a day of caffeine i'm down to 0...i've eaten no meat...i yoga an hour a day....i can stomach only comfort foods..sushi...ice-cream with chocalate syrup & anything from the 2nd Ave. Deli... I'm putting my money on Ben-Laden...this is a culture with the sickness unto death of ambivalence...the best lack all passion...so i'm a maniac...i've been 'vorste'...DRn.. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:32:32 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Germain Bree MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The French scholar Germain Bree (don't know how to do the accent here) has died at 93: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/obituaries/26BREE.html Ron ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:39:46 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Barrett Watten Subject: Violence and rhetoric Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The point can be briefly, and rhetorically, stated: violence is as American as apple pie. This includes genocide of native peoples, mass displacement of civilians and destruction of "infrastructure" on which the lives of civilians depend as a military objective in the Civil War, use of atomic weapons on civilian populations in WWII, and mass bombings that do not distinguish between civilians and military in Vietnam and the Gulf War. Some of these are in fact American inventions (think of the use of napalm and defoliants, for instance, in Vietnam; cluster and other antipersonnel bombs in the Gulf War), and some even basic to American "character." I would put the stockade mentality ("draw in the wagons") and manifest destiny in that category, leading to the rise of cowboy poetry ("wanted dead or alive"). Not too debatable. What is debatable is that to point this out is to diminish the acts of Genghis Khan, the Royal Air Force, or other horrors of war. BW ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 09:52:43 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael g salinger Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" "On the outskirts of every agony sits some observant fellow who points." Virginia Woolf ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 10:59:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Hartley Subject: Posttraumatic Flags In-Reply-To: Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I want to thank Nick, Barry, and others for their interventions in the flag debate. I too think Nick's call for understanding and empathy is important. It helps us, as Nick writes, to explain behavior that might otherwise appear incomprehensible--or, in this case, to understand behavior that is all too comprehensible in terms that might not always apply to particular instances of a particular behavior (displaying the American flag). But I think there's a danger we should acknowledge in turning to the empathetic response. I can understand and empathize, for example, with the heroin addict who steals money from his own mother, but that doesn't mean that I also condone or ignore those actions (and I know that this is not what Nick implies). Understanding and empathy must be accompanied by critique and alternative possibilities. The flag might very well function as a transitional object for someone undergoing traumatic stress and desubjectivization. But one particular idiosyncratic use of a symbolic object does not at the same time erase that object's symbolism, its social mediation. That is where a flag and a rock differ. I have a conch shell that my grandmother owned. For me that shell is a metonymic embodiment of my grandmother now that she is gone because of my associations of that shell with my grandmother. But this association is purely contingent and idiosyncratic--almost nobody else would ever think to associate the two objects. And beyond that, that shell is NOT a symbol but a metonym. The flag, on the other hand, is a socially-constituted symbol of the United States, a symbolism which is also overladen with other layers of symbolism and associations--patriotic pride, militaristic response, imperialist power, etc. What, we might ask, does the United States as a concept itself symbolize in a given moment and set of circumstances? The swastika has (at least) one set of associations in Buddhist tradition and yet quite another in Nazi tradition, yet in this global symbolic economy a purely Buddhist presentation of the swastika is impossible--the Nazi associations will override all else. (And I am not implying some connection between Naziism and our current situation--that I even have to explain this illustrates my point.) We cannot erase the historical symbolic determinations of an object at will. The flag cannot stop symbolizing the vast array of objects and emotions attached to it simply by using it in some new and idiosyncratically transitional way. Yes, the flag now functions as a symbol of national solidarity, but what in turn is the effect and consequence of that solidarity? How is that solidarity itself shaped and determined in the struggle over discursive hegemony? It seems to me that the solidarity now symbolized by the American flag is one with the slogan United We Stand. The two cannot at this moment be separated. But what is the nature of this Unity? Who is this collective subject designated as We? What exactly is our Stand? The answers to these questions are exactly what is at stake right now. We (and I'm not just referring to Americans here) are all engaged right now, willfully or not, in a hegemonic struggle over symbolic legitimacy. What is the symbolism of the attack on the Towers and the Pentagon? That is still up for grabs. How does Bin Laden function symbolically right now? The answer to that has life-and-death consequences. And the answers to these questions are already being laid out for us by the Bush administration. What will NOT help us at this moment is to conflate several different potent images such as the recent attacks and the Nazi death camps. What we need right now is a separation out of the various symbolic trajectories already implicit in an object such as the flag and an open contest over how those trajectories will be determined and instantiated as actions. George Hartley _________________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 11:43:13 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard Subject: Be done: to be/ shall be/ can be Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed "We have no issue and no anger toward the citizens of Afghanistan" said President Bush, yesterday, standing beside Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan. You will recall his father eleven years ago said the same thing about the people of Iraq ("we have no quarrel with the people of Iraq") right before he directed the complete flattening of that country and the subsequent criminalization of offering help to those same people which lasts to this day. Well, presidents are full of rhetoric and shit almost everytime they speak publicly. That's because we, as citizens, need it all dumbed down for us. So the smoke Bush is going to use to root out evil in faraway places is very similar to the smoke he feels the need to blow up our asses in preparation for the loss and deprivation to come. Before the Gulf War I remember the large amounts of media-talk that emphasized Iraq's forces as an entrenched, massive army of battle-hardened veterans. It was not going to be easy to force them out of Kuwait, especially once the US sent ground troops in. As it turned out, the air war had so overwhelmingly incapacitated what was left of Iraq's army that US troops hardly encountered any opposition. Many of those they found were very willing to surrender. And as the decade of the 90s matured we learned more and more that the Iraqi army had not been all that formidable a foe in the first place. This time the official responses being given to us vary a great deal. Some days we're going only after targeted cells, like a drug raid. Other days (tho this rhetoric has been toned down a lot) we're going to bring death and destruction to all who harbor terrorists and, in some cases, "end" entire states. Now it's been two weeks since the US was attacked. And don't get me wrong---I'm as pissed off and angry and emotional and upset about the murder of nearly 7000 people as the next guy, gal, or poet. Yes, I would like to BELIEVE that the government's response will be to find only the terrorists linked to the "network" believed responsible for the attacks. But I don't believe they will. And much like poor Codrescu, glued to his TV somewhere, all we can do is wait. Some of us will fly flags, some of us will attend peace rallies, and some people are actually in the military and doing what they're trained to do. But nothing can convince me that an attack that kills civilians in Afghanistan (for starters, perhaps elsewhere too) is not just as horrible and murderous as the attacks here in the US. These are the days immediately before the war. If the US does not make any kind of repsonse (that is, not even pursue the people responsible; I'm not for that) there is a chance (not the inevitable fact Prof. Perloff claims) the US would be attacked again. WHEN the US responds, does the chance of more attacks increase or diminish? One of the things that continues to bug me about Ron's "What is to be done" post (9/18) is the suggestion that "reframing" "the assault as 'criminal' rather than as an act of war" amounts to "pussyfooting". This is the kind of thing you expect to read in a George Will or William Safire column. If it is an act of war, then the US can respond with warlike activity. In fact, it demands return acts of war in self-defense. And thus, another Iraq, whose invasion of Kuwait was an attack on the US itself (in the "framing" of it by Bush, 1990). "We" had no problem with the people of Iraq or Afghanistan, just their horrible rulers (one of whom we gave a 43 million dollar grant to last spring to support their noble ban, or "war," on drugs, i.e. opium), or in this case, their friends. Unfortunately, the ordinary people of these countries have neglected to overthrow their dictators so naturally the US can hardly be blamed if they are in the way of the crusade against terrorists and evil. See today's Washington Post , Michael Kelly's column, for how a pacifist position amounts to supporting terrorism and is in fact pro-terrorist and pro-fascist. Such people are "against" the US, which is called treason in times of war. PS: I made a reference in my post (9/24) about Saddam Hussein withdrawing from Iraq. Of course I meant Kuwait. ><>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Daniel Bouchard Senior Production Coordinator The MIT Press Journals Five Cambridge Center Cambridge, MA 02142 bouchard@mit.edu phone: 617.258.0588 fax: 617.258.5028 <>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><>> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 13:05:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: Daniel Bouchard & Patricia Pruitt read Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Patricia Pruitt & Daniel Bouchard at Brookline Booksmith Saturday 9/29 at 7 PM Brookline Booksmith 279 Harvard St. Brookline, MA 02446 Call 617 739 6002 for more information. Ask for "Jim." _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:30:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: <20010925165305.8209.qmail@web11303.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit >> I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the >> country in response to the current situation. >> > > Hey, Heidi, > > No, but I'm considering moving to the country. Hey everyone, If you want to escape the bullseye: Please consider the benefits of St. Louis, MO. We are very friendly and it's easy to take a "drive in the country" in any direction. Need some fresh water? Check out the Missouri, Meramec and Mississippi rivers. Talk about confluence! Also, there are only a few writers/artists here; no clamor of scene, styles, or worry of fashion. Think of St. Louis as Canada with baseball and real dollars. -Aaron Belz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:12:35 -0400 Reply-To: BobGrumman@nut-n-but.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bob Grumman Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit > | >The real problem came with "American". United States citizen? > | > > | >L > | > | In my books etc I have been using the term USAmerican for several > | years, Others have picked it up. It aint perfect, but then neither I'm sure you'd love being called a CanadianAmerican. The citizens of every country in the Americas are easily named, and--except for those of us from the USA--aren't reasonably called simply Americans (they are North, Central or South Americans). And I speak as one who thinks Canada and the USA are just an oversprawl of England. London is still my final capital. --Bob G. --Bob G. > | -- > | George Bowering > | Freelance reader > | Fax 604-266-9000 > | ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 15:32:28 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jenn McCreary Subject: Backstreet Boy apologizes... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ..for voicing a political opinion. <<"Kevin Richardson has fallen into the same trap that snared poor Bill Maher the other day. And now, like the "Politically Incorrect" host, the Backstreet Boy has been forced to chew himself out -- or face the wrath of the American public. Richardson didn't mean any disrespect to the nation, he said, when he made the following statement to a Canadian interviewer in the aftermath of the attack: "I just think we are a little bit of an arrogant nation and maybe this is a little bit of a humbling experience ... what has our government done to provoke this action that we don't know about?" The tentatively put-forth query apparently raised the ire of some of his more patriotic compatriots. And so, Thursday morning, Richardson took to the airwaves to clear things up. "My thoughts weren't put together quite properly," the penitent pop star explained to Z100's Paul "Cubby" Bryant. "We had been doing about five interviews in Toronto, Canada ... and as I was sitting there listening to the rest of the guys talk, I just got overwhelmed with anger and frustration, on 'how can this happen in our country, in this nation that we live in?'" What he meant by "arrogant," he said, was that "we've been a little overconfident, we've maybe taken our freedom for granted, taken our security for granted." "I apologize if I have offended anyone, any of the families of the victims, if my statement seemed insensitive, but I was reacting out of anger and out of frustration, and I was emotional," Richardson continued. "I don't want anyone to think that I don't love this country ... I'm proud to be an American. I apologize if my comment was untimely.">> ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:12:59 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/26/01 2:23:22 PM, abdlasalaam@HOTMAIL.COM writes: >I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of >further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end up, >don't forget to duck. > >SASq > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine to Taylor's reference to the beauty of burning towers). I supposed Sasq's post can not be considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing to "everybody." Absolutely disgusting really. Murat ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:29:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wanda Phipps Subject: More on the call for Peace MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's an excellent site with beautiful animation in response to the recent terrorist attacks. Check it out and the linked petition. http://www.alternet.org/break_cycle.html Love, Wanda -- Wanda Phipps ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 15:26:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lisab Subject: forward from Anne Waldman Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Anne asked me to send this to everybody. Lisa CAUTIONARY THOUGHTS MANIFESTO Re: The American War on Terrorism (second take) dedicated to innocent victims everywhere & the memory of their life & unwarranted deaths "Sunday night, and on Wall Street a foul wind blows newspapers along the empty sidewalk. Wall St. with stars eerie and empty. The bank windows dark though not all. A few rows lit up in the black monstrosities. They can be identified: the foreign departments of the big banks. The iron doors barred and padlocked. But by back doors some people have entered the foreign departments. The lights -- secret meetings, decisions we're unaware of (and their cigar smoke rising like shares) but they affect us all. Devaluation sparks off a riot in Malaysia, buses burned and blood flows in the streets like water from a hydrant. At the hour that the stars shine over Wall Street and the hour the banks open in London. -Ernesto Cardenal from COSMIC CANTICLE (1970s) "All I have is a voice To undo the folded lie, The romantic lie in the brain Of the sensual man-in-the-street And the lie of Authority Whose buildings grope the sky: There is no such thing as the State And no one exists alone; Hunger allows no choice To the citizen or the police; We must love one another or die." (WH Auden, "September 1, 1939", received compliments of Alice Notley) Umberto Eco, semiologist-philosopher, reminds us of the three ways cultures clash: the members of Culture A cannot recognize the members of Culture B as human beings (and vice versa), seeing them as "barbarians" to civilize or destroy, which is the Conquest Model. In the Cultural Pillage Model, Culture A must steal from B and colonize or subjugate politically or militarily and in that way undermine and usurp the invaded culture. The Exchange Model is a two-way process of reciprocal support, often "influence" in the best sense and respect. *Always invoke Model Three! It is a fact, woefully, that Western culture (European civilization) has been most engaged with the first model - and, as just one example, subjugated African and Ameridian cultures with unmerciful acts of cruelty. And that now, more particularly America - the richest and most powerful country in the world - the "cop of the world" - acts and has acted with unmitigated and brutal economic self-interest in many parts of the globe. Because of media control (particularly since the American War in Vietnam) Americans do not fully comprehend the damage we have inflicted on Iraq. And now do not understand the "karma" of that conflict which galvanized so much hatred of the US. Or how the indignities that the Palestinians have suffered in Israel/Palestine have led to such loathing and call for "jihad". I was in Germany during the Gulf War and was shocked by the contrast in media coverage between the States and abroad. I only heard Ramsay Clark speak live of the devastation of Basra (bodies in the streets, no water to drink) via transmitted reports from Cuban radio. * Demand comprehensive, intelligent, reliable and mature media coverage from television (where is where most of America & a lot of the world is getting its news). Support the alternative media! Does it only take a tragedy to subsist from constant pushing of the Market? It seems shameful that only a week after the terrorist attacks in the US we were back to business as usual, slick advertising pushing the American Economic Way, theme music for the American War, sentimental ads to push cell phone biz to communicate with loved ones. And endless repetition/assault of images that invoke patriotism and revenge. After Operation Desert Storm a UN mission to Iraq reported that the Gulf conflict "wrought near-apocalyptic results" by destroying "most means of modern life support", relegating Iraq to a "pre-industrial age". Again, is it any wonder that citizens of that country, as much as they might be under the iron rule of Saddam Hussein abhor America and everything it stands for? As we know, as has been proven, they are not alone in this. Or the instability we brought to South & Central America, Indonesia, the Caribbean historically in support of corrupt governments that were in our interest to support. In a recent conversation with Ernesto Cardenal - Nicaraguan Catholic Priest, poet, and former Minister of Culture under the Sandinistas - the suggestion was that karmically the US helped create Osama Bin Laden (& others like him), through a variety of actions, but most particularly the US covert (CIA) support against Russia in Afghanistan on which side Bin Laden fought. Bin Laden also later saw arrogant US presence in Saudi Arabia which he resented. His call for jihad, his heinous words against America and Jews are the product of a sick and twisted yet ideological-based seemingly "righteous" mentality. Ernesto also noted that Bin Laden helped support the Contra movement against the Sandinistas who had overthrown the brutal dictatorship of Somosa who was supported by the US! (This is documented in an Oliver North biography, although Bin Laden has said he didn't know what he was funding). Poet Andrew Schelling's response to this information: "after all the Soviets were supporting the Sandinistas. The enemy of your enemy's friend is of course; your friend. Bin Laden's just a Machivellian militarist/politician with vast sums of money, & a crazy agenda, who loves god but hates humans." * Invoke Investigative and documentary Poetics! Know the score! Know the history! The TV pundits and media cannot keep mindlessly repeating the simplistic notion that these recent horrific disasters are merely an attack on America's "freedom" in light of such demented, albeit complex history and the grinding truth of cause and effect. It is insulting to our dignity as free-thinking individuals. Bin Laden - if he is the mastermind - is another hardened player in the big "game". He can play both sides in his agenda. Glamorizing him as a "holy warrior" would be idiotic as well. His agenda, presumably , is to rid the Middle East of US presence. Any ends -to that goal -justify the means. * Study the nature of power-politics! In Buddhist psychology one of the Six Realms of Existence includes the Warring God Realm which is a super-intelligent paranoid realm of energetic activity in which enemies have to be created and maintained in order for the neurotic mind to function and thrive. It operates on the notion of revenge. This states manifests in an endless cycle of balance and checks around power and perpetuates suffering, and yet its strategies, to some, are fascinating, compelling even, and may suck one in. *Check out the Warring God realm of every day existence! US Military budget could go as high as $400 billion this year and higher in the future. You know where your dollars are? Are we insane? Meanwhile, an innocent victim of The Warring God Realm could be any one of us. We can empathize now with innocents who have died & suffered while the Masters of War carry out their agendas. Writing this text from Europe, one hears countless stories of the suffering of innocent victims during times of war still within memory. Czech friend writer/translator/scholar lost an aunt to US bombing during WW II, the US never apologized. Of course Hitler had to be stopped. The US was late in that conflict. We know governments do not always serve the best interests of their citizens. The situation in Afghanistan is extremely complex. The Taliban in power represent only a minority of the Pashto-speaking Afghanis who border Pakistan. The nation has been described as a "pre-modern warlord state". The Pashto speakers are mostly Sunni Muslims, the Persian (Farsi) speakers are those who look to Iran. the underclass Shiite Heraras speak an archaic Persian and resemble in physiognomy Tibetans or Nepalis. Residents of Bamian were evidently enraged when the Taliban destroyed the magnificent large twin statues of Buddha there ("bowed to dust"...) How irresponsible for the US to portray Afghanistan as a united front to the American public, dehumanizing the situation. William Blake implores us to "observe the minute particulars" and to "look to the little ones". "God is in the details" - A. Warburg. * Discriminating Wisdom ("prajna") Now! Poetics adages are useful here: "No ideas but in things" (Williams), "Go in fear of abstractions" (Ezra Pound) Poets & artists: make your own lists of sane trustworthy language measures.... Aren't there sane models for mutual co-existence on this precious planet? Aren't there any wise leaders (with clout) who may be allowed to speak sagely & effectively at this crucial time? And speak with historical/cultural/philosophical/religious perspective? Why don't governments have such counsel in place? The US presidential cabinets are made up primarily of partisan lackeys, often not even trained in their supposed arenas of expertise. And they, too, can be bought. Are the Muslim Clerics the only "body of elders" to weigh in on this? Isn't there a way of invoking and developing (through UN auspices) a body of mediating enlightened human beings from all nations and cultures and communities that aren't simply representing and reflecting their own government's national interests? Who holds the whole of existence sacred? Cannot we have, also, a body of folk going in just to help (as witnessed powerfully in the aftermath of the attack in NY)? Not aid groups or religious groups with ideologies or strings attached, but... *Form cadres of "boddhisattvas" for mediation, for true compassionate (not self-serving) action! And bands of articulate poet-warriors! The US's questionable legitimate presidential leadership, its government's very recent rejection of the Kyoto accords, its boycott of the UN conference on racism (related to the situation in Israel/Palestine), its undoing of sane and sensible legislation that protects its own citizens (standards for arsenic levels in water etc) has been most troubling, depressing. Does not the current scenario, at the brink of a consuming possible war in the Middle East - simply benefit this country's hegemonic interest, economy? Will it root out terrorism or create more terrorism? Does the US not showcase its most advanced weaponry once again which will lead to support of Star Wars and other scary outer space death machines? Is it not true that the US wants an oil pipeline through Afghanistan? And won't we be paying a heavy price for an "us versus them" mentality, for invoking a sense of righteous "crusade" and revenge? Where are the women critique-ing the use of patriarchal language now when we need them? Where are the responses of women leaders in general as we see unfolding before us another Macho drama. What are the 3 wives of Osama Bin Laden thinking? Is Condoleeza Rice our only audible voice? Where is Hillary Clinton in articulation of the suffering of the Palestinian people now, at the eleventh hour? Should we now examine our language with perspicuity at this time? Should we not explore other less devastating method for uprooting terrorism and its causes before we inflict more suffering on already desperate and suffering peoples? * Stay vigilant. Be a guardian of "right speech"! Consider the deals that are being made to insure support of US policy planet-wide! Will Russia now even have more permission to persecute its "terrorists" in Chechnya, will China in Tibet and Taiwan etc etc... As patriotic US citizen who has always strived to "save America from herself" and one (with many) who mourns her country's loss, & who feels tremendous assault on her home city, and as writer defending creative expression and the right to dissent and as denizen of the world who aspires to know the world (& the cosmos) -understand it, witness it in all its richness & complexity, - I take a vow for an aspiration of "vipashyana" or clear-seeing (insight). The world does not need more war. Pursue the path of least suffering... Umberto Eco also invokes the Tower of Babel collapsing as a result of man's hubris in a salient essay that examines the search for the original language of the first man. The plurality of tongues should hardly be seen as a tragic consequence and yet there is something to be said for an image of restoration and communication. Is it really too late? By this merit may all obtain omniscience May it defeat the enemy wrong-doing... Sarva mangalam. Anne Waldman Civitella Ranieri Center Umbria Sept 26.2001 crcfellow@netemedia.net ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:02:23 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: <20010925011652.15074.qmail@web11403.mail.yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII yes, and many have, tens of thousands. Oh, what country do you mean? kevin On Mon, 24 Sep 2001, heidi peppermint wrote: > I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > country in response to the current situation. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 14:32:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: poetry now?, etc. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Arielle, thanks for connecting me to the connection. http://www.wbur.org/newsletters/unsubscribe_lists.asp?email=trbell@home.com I'm pretty sure we don't get it locally. Others might be interested in the archives which contain some opposing views on current issues. I will be doing a 'scholarly' article on poetic response to trauma for ASAP, which is a web journal put out by the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues. This is peer reviewed so no guarantee but also a journal heeded by policy makers. The discussions on this list will be a part of the piece. Any suggestions appreciated. I'll be busy trying to gather 'proof." tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Arielle Greenberg" To: Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 7:56 AM Subject: poetry now?, etc. > I was interested in Dan's recent post about the lack > of good responses from poets, and wanted to offer up > this encouraging development: on Friday, as Rob and I > were driving from Boston to Unity (!), Maine for the > Common Ground Fair, we heard a broadcast of the WBUR > call-in show "The Connection." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 21:38:35 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: What is to be done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit No, Sir because they aren't doing it out of the goodness of their hearts They KEEP interfering and making it worse - there's always another agenda I have no faith in your government or mine to get it right It is in all senses a failure of intelligence The body to deal with the mess is the United Nations, an organisation which has been considerably undermined by USA's government, under both Presidents Dum and Dee All our economies should contribute to the UN and not make the paying of dues part of their debating and voting strategy & that would free all those creative energies to deal with the poverty and need within USA Here in UK, the energy spent on destabilising other people's countries would be much better spent on the many problems we face including riots and civil war L ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Stickney" To: Sent: 26 September 2001 00:32 Subject: What is to be done? George - In large part the US is responsible for the Taliban achieving power. Does that not make it the US's responsiblity to, at a minimum, help remove them from power? > > >2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies >of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so >that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious >minorities could be even more effectively administered? This remark would have been more comprehensive were it added that before the US installed the Taliban , the women of Afghanistan could work and go to school. -- George Bowering Freelance reader Fax 604-266-9000 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 21:40:58 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lawrence Upton Subject: Re: What is to be done MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Yes, David, ok, but I want a name that indicates the place where live a lot of kind, friendly, creative and giving people L ----- Original Message ----- From: "david.bircumshaw" To: Sent: 25 September 2001 20:47 Subject: Re: What is to be done | > I tried writing out "America" to mean United States of America of a piece | I | > have written for _Masthead_, exchanging US or USA etc whenever I found it | in | > my draft. | | I just used 'Amerika', Lawrence, and for the same publication, as it | happens. I felt somehow that no-one would mistake that for say Guatemala or | Vancouver Island. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:10:02 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear "Selim Abdul Sadiq", HA! You are so funny. Boy, to see so many people die is just so FUNNY! Thigh-slappin' good times! Ha ha! Thanks for reducing the appearance of your name to a stereotype of complete ignorance and blind aggression. I'd wager you're some just some stupid white guy trying to stir up some predictable reactions (like my own reaction perhaps) or further the stereotypes of Middle Easterners. I assure you have done NOTHING for heteronymity, Mr. "Truthful". Get back to your Ruthven text and call me when you finally grasp it. Now, please be a dear, take your pills, and go to sleep. Oh yeah, and I won't duck, you quack. You may have my head. Here. I wish for you a crimson stain on all your shoes. Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Selim Abdul Sadiq > Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2001 6:51 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > > > >I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > >country in response to the current situation. > > I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of > further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end up, > don't forget to duck. > > SASq > > > >From: heidi peppermint > >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >Subject: one self sin teared question > >Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:16:52 -0700 > > > >I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > >country in response to the current situation. > > > >__________________________________________________ > >Do You Yahoo!? > >Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! > >Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 16:17:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: waving metaphors MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable came across this which might be of interest to those exploring 'poetic' = calls to action or inaction: Lakoff, G. (1991a) Metaphor and war: The metaphorical system used to = justify war in the gulf. In Hallet (Ed.), _Engulfed in war: Just war and = the the Persian Gulf. Honolulu: Matsunaga Institute for Peace.=20 tom bell =3D<}}}}}}}}}****((((((((&&&&&&&&&~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Metaphor/Metonym for health at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/metaphor/metapho.htm Black Winds Press at = http://members.tripod.com/~trbell/lifedesigns/blackwin.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 19:27:00 -0400 Reply-To: jtley@home.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jennifer Ley Organization: Riding the Meridian Subject: Job opening at Georgia Tech MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Apologies if this has already been posted here. I thought some of you might be interested: Jennifer Please circulate: Narrative, Interactivity, Interactive Games LCC seeks a practitioner-theorist of New Media especially as related to interactive narrative, performance, and computer-based interactive games. (Rank open; appropriate terminal degree preferred.) Georgia Tech's School of Literature, Communication, and Culture, part of the Ivan Allen College, Georgia Tech's liberal arts college, offers an undergraduate major in Science, Technology, and Culture and an M.S. in Information Design and Technology. LCC participates in the university's interdisciplinary program Women, Science, and Technology, and an MS program in Human-Computer Interaction. LCC encourages applications from women and minority candidates. We will begin considering applications on November 1 and continue until the position is filled. Applications to: Search Chair: Cultural Studies of Science and Technology, School of Literature, Communication, and Culture; Georgia Institute of Technology; Atlanta, GA 30332-0165. Website at www.lcc.gatech.edu . ************ Janet H. Murray Professor, Director of Graduate Studies Program in Information Design and Technology School of Literature, Communication, and Culture Georgia Tech http://www.lcc.gatech.edu/~murray > -- Riding the Meridian: Lit [art] ure http://www.heelstone.com/meridian in the Archives: Women and Technology _____ My Great Aunt Agnes http://www.heelstone.com/agnes ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 20:07:10 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: What is to be done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/26/01 3:16:22 PM, fargas-laura@DOL.GOV writes: << George Bowering wrote: >2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies >of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so >that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious >minorities could be even more effectively administered? This remark would have been more comprehensive were it added that before the US installed the Taliban , the women of Afghanistan could work and go to school.>> This remark, in turn, would be more persuasive if it were accurate. The US did not "install" the Taliban. The Taliban "installed" itself; initially, most of the Afghan people accepted it as a more attractive substitute to the brutal regime that took over after the end of the Soviet occupation, perhaps not knowing the kind of repression that would follow. (The triggering event for the formation of the Taliban was religious and popular reaction to a gang rape but two of those people.) LF>> This last remark from LF is accurate. Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:14:27 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Re: one self sin teared question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Is this some kind of sick joke? Please tell us that this was just the most ill-chosen, totally inappropriate sarcasm of your life, and nothing more. >From: Selim Abdul Sadiq >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: one self sin teared question >Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 22:50:48 +0000 > >>I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the >>country in response to the current situation. > >I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of >further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end up, >don't forget to duck. > >SASq > > >>From: heidi peppermint >>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >>Subject: one self sin teared question >>Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:16:52 -0700 >> >>I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the >>country in response to the current situation. >> >>__________________________________________________ >>Do You Yahoo!? >>Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! >>Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com > > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 20:36:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII = (w163.z064221109.) 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In-Reply-To: <3BAC1BAC.F399C137@earthlink.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit i think what's wholly misunderstood is that REGARDLESS of what we do THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK, whatever form that attack takes -- below we're encouraged to think that some kind of "action," some kind of "concerted action," some kind of "something," will stave off further attacks (unless we do something...), but the exact nature of this "action" is not clarified isn't the potential delusion that "concerted action by ourselves and our allies" (however it's defined) will prevent further atrocities precisely what has inspired some to call for a different way of approaching this action (as well as our policy actions now and in the future), a way that doesn't place faith in conventional modes of action? -- doomsday predictions are unnecessary for several reasons, but if the means currently exist for further terrorist attacks here in the U.S. (and all reports i've heard suggest they do), then shouldn't we assume that more is on the way? -- wouldn't it be wise to assume that self-defense, as conventionally enacted by allied military forces, won't in fact *defend* us against anything? >I believe this should be an intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a nasty Imperialist super power any more. this seems to imply that "concerted action" somehow stands apart from "intelligence war" and that both are necessary -- might not the wisest concerted action turn out to be, in fact, an intelligence war and not a bombing one? -- NPR reported yesterday that the Bush administration has launched its first strike on the financial resources of terrorists and their funders -- this seems wise to me since bomb-making equipment, airline tickets, and fake IDs cost money, and the less money available the better, but i would imagine as well that terror funding sources are as ubiquitous around the world as ATM machines are in the states, so the question remains as to how these operations will, as C. Rice promised on Fox, "choke off" the terrorists financially -- but, that aside, is this the first step in the "intelligence war," or just a prelude to the "concerted action" called for, albeit ambiguously, here and elsewhere? to avoid misunderstandings, i ask that the terms of "concerted action" be spelled out a little more clearly, since these are similar to the terms currently being issued by Rice and the state department -- does this mean air strikes and commando missions? INS sweeps through all 50 states? -- whatever "concerted action" means, i want to know how these actions are going to *defend* us from the man working at the gas station down the street from me (La Mesa, CA) arrested last week for providing funds to the hijackers or, more seriously, his associates most likely still at large in the U.S. -----Original Message----- From: UB Poetics discussion group [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Marjorie Perloff Sent: Friday, September 21, 2001 10:04 PM To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU Subject: Re: What is to be Done? I think there's one thing that is still wholly misunderstood on this List and maybe I see it because I'm older (if not wiser) than most of you. The reason there has to be action (we can debate what kind of action) is 99% self-defense, pure and simple. We can sit and debate the similarities between our crimes and their crimes till we're blue in the face, but unless we do something THERE WILL BE ANOTHER ATTACK. Maybe not a plane, maybe this time germ warfare or the water supply or a bridge--whatever. So far most of the action has been finding the terrorists--which I applaud since I believe this should be an intelligence war not a bombing one. But without concerted action by ourselves and our allies, you won't have to worry about the U.S. being a nasty Imperialist super power any more. Because it may not be here at all. Fortunately, about 92% of the country, acc. to polls, seems to understand this. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 18:42:06 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: poets as grief counselors conundrum. Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Dear Poetix People, On another list there's been a discussion about why poets are expected to soothe, honor, grieve, whatever, be turned to in the time of need and expected to produce a something out of this while folks in other mediums are not. (I'm not sure this is true!) And that it's a bit insulting when we're and our medium is usually, generally not all that respected. What do you think? Elizabeth Treadwell "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:55:57 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: What is to be done? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Good questions. I dont think we are that diconnected from the ordinary people...trouble is who are "the ordinary people"? But good points. Regards, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John Stickney" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:05 AM Subject: What is to be done? The discussions on this list lead to some simple questions: 1) If an attack on your own soil is not enough to justify going to war, what act would justify a call to arms? 2) If the Taliban has "legitimate" grievances against the policies of the United States, should we help them rebuild their country so that their deadly, repressive polices against woman and religious minorities could be even more effectively administered? 3) Are the only innocent civilians that matter living outside the United States? 4) Is what remains of the "Left" as disconnected from normal, everyday people as the majority of the traffic on this list would indicate? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:08:34 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Selim. To attack all Americans is stupid....if you aren't joking. All humans are basically the same wherever they are from. Great injustices may have been done to country A against country or countries B(but there will always be an unjust A and an aggreived B) but I (despite my "call to arms" so speak for the workers of the world to unite which I believe in but realise is a little rhetorical - after all HOW do we unite?) (and despite I can see the "good" or "revolutionary" (wake up call so to speak) side of this attack) : I dont think that those who did it are your feinds or really want progress: I could understand it more from their point of view if this had happened during the Vietnam war or the Iraq debacle...but despite my protestations and defence such countries as Syria and Palestine etc and some very agonising resentment by Arab or Muslim people: I cannot suppport any nation or philosophy or religion or anyone who wants to kill ANYONE (meaning EVERYONE) of another nation: I can understand the emotion and the whys and wherefores. I as a New Zealander take some but not ALL responsibility for my own Government's policies...much eg as I disliked Muldoon (right winger) and Roger Douglas ( great believer in capitalism etc) I have never wanted to kill either of those persons. My own Government isnt listening to my advice: they are supporting the US - Am I to be killed because I "support" them...I may in some ways..may not? I would, if I felt the cause was greater than the evils caused by acheiving the cause ,join a cause. I was considering joining the Palestinians to fight but I'm not certain that the resultant from that situation is going to improve the world or even the immediate situation....a lot of other things...but its entering into madness to want to kill every one. This is the Raskolnikov complex...was it that gentleman in "Crime and Punishment"? I know there are some smug right wingers: but I can disagree violently (or mildly) say with Ron Silliman, admire his poetry, argue all sorts of "crazy" things, but at the end of the day we are all dealing with a human reality here: I dont know Ron Silliman to hate him...the people you would want to kill you dont even know! Many support your aims, many dont. Read the Merchant of Venice.....the West and the East SHALL the Twain meet....Kipling was wrong - very wrong. Neither Christianity nor Communism nor Capitalism nor Muslimism or any religion or any ISM is greater than a human face, a human smile or human hand, or a child's smile... To want to kill (everyone or "all") is to hate yourself: and that is to stop living. At least in the US and the West (with all the horror in those countries) debate is allowed and a kind of (albeit troubled ) democracy and so on. To fight for your cause in self defence is admirable. I dont want to sound patronising: I've been where you're coming from. But consider: men and women and children have been through all this before. Rhetoric too many times has been turned to blood. Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Selim Abdul Sadiq" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 10:50 AM Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > >I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > >country in response to the current situation. > > I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of > further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end up, > don't forget to duck. > > SASq > > > >From: heidi peppermint > >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >Subject: one self sin teared question > >Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:16:52 -0700 > > > >I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > >country in response to the current situation. > > > >__________________________________________________ > >Do You Yahoo!? > >Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! > >Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 13:03:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "tracy s. ruggles" Subject: Re: What is to be Done? Comments: To: Arielle Greenberg , cinthia jasper In-Reply-To: <20010925164152.84920.qmail@web11307.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Thanks for bringing a bit of spirit into these discussions. (I appreciate it that there are a few leftist progressives poet-intellectuals who see there's more than just the body and the world...) I attended Naropa, am an off and on Buddhist, I'd say this: Keep your state of mindfulness and do what's in front of you with compassion. If you're led to speak out, join in, protest or salute, just do it with a heightened sense of engagement. Without implying powerlessness, all we can really do is work to our own enlightenment. The world will go on with its silly and violent ways... MAYA. Though, living as an active Buddhist probably means that we do more than just sweep the kitchen floor compassinately. How we live our lives with love on a day-to-day basis has a lot of impact on those around us. We are examples. Wanting to do something more, though, probably shouldn't come from a sense of wanting to control the "evil forces" out there... as if what goes on the world is really 'wrong'... or even 'right' for that matter. If you meet Buddha on the road, kill him. Don't let Buddhism get in the way of living your life and choosing your actions in response to what's going on around you. A 21st century Koan: The Buddha in the stones destroyed. 6,000 die in the toppling of the towers. Rage and hatred flow in the rivers of the world. The clerk at the grocery store asks you, "How are'ya doin'?" What do you say? --Tracy on 9/25/01 11:41 AM, Arielle Greenberg at ariellecg@YAHOO.COM wrote: >> >> I wonder if there aren't always going to be people >> who >> are-- morons? terrorists? on & on. >> >> So for me the question is: if compassion is the way >> to >> go, how to really bring that about *now* as a tool? >> >> cheryl burket >> > > The Buddhist idea (and correct me if I'm wrong, you on > the list who have been studying this much longer than > I have) is that you start NOW with yourself -- > generate compassion in yourself, for yourself, for > everyone else. Through meditation, Right Thought, > Right Action, Right Speech, etc. This itself is a > really, really hard step and pretty much a lifetime's > work, but I can say that the process itself can lead > to results in this lifetime. > > I'd be most appreciative if some of the other > Buddhists on the list -- anyone at Naropa? -- could > also post about living with compassion in these times, > reading suggestions, or any other ideas. I am > literally taking refuge in the dharma (the > ideas/teachings of Buddha) at this time, but am not > involved in a sangha (community of fellow meditators) > at the moment and would love to hear from others > thinking through these things from this perspective. > Backchannel or front. > > Thanks, all, > Arielle > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. > http://im.yahoo.com -- Tracy S. Ruggles :: tracy@reinventnow.com :: 512/858.2280 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 15:28:01 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: jaugusta Subject: Best of 2 ? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Now folks what conversation would you rather eavesdrop on: poets discussing issue of national security, or national security personnel discussing poetry? I agree. Let's get back to the poetry. best wishes, joseph ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 17:50:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pam Brown Subject: No WaR Comments: To: espresso MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii FOR ANYONE IN SYDNEY : ANTI-WAR COALITION FORMED Last Thursday night (Thurs 20 sept), over 200 people attended an anti-war meeting in Surry Hills, Sydney and formed a new anti-war coalition - Network Opposing War and Racism (NO WaR). The new Network agreed to call a day of action on 29 September at 11am, Town Hall, Sydney to demand: No to US War No Australian troops or support No to racist scapegoating Defend democratic rights NO WaR also endorsed the Refugee rights rally at Villawood on Sun 23 Sept at 12 noon and the call for a rally at 5.30pm at the US consulate on the day bombing starts or war is declared. NO WaR also agreed to organise regular Friday pickets to protest against racist scapegoating and possible war and to liaise with the Muslim community to organise an possible upcoming rally in Auburn. The meeting also agreed that the Network would be open to all individuals and organisations who supported the four demands. NEXT MEETING: 7pm, Wednedsay 26 SEPTEMBER - Uni of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Marion Benjamin Multimedia Co-ordinator School of Humanities Blacktown Campus University of Western Sydney Locked Bag 1797 South Penrith Distribution Centre NSW 1797 ph.02-98524422 fax.02-98524420 email. m.benjamin@uws.edu.au ===== Web site/P.Brown - http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Workshop/7629/ __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:44:05 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Murat Nemet-Nejat writes: > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine [....] I supposed > Sasq's post can not be considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing to > "everybody." Absolutely disgusting really. I'm not sure whether that last sentence is intended to take in the post by "sasq" - Selim Abdul Sadiq - or my having forwarded to the list. In any case, I'd like to make a few comments: 1. In general, I don't like to address my interactions with subscribers here, for the obvious and historically verifiable reason that such discussions tend to initiate a recursive spiral of endless and recriminatory posts to the List about the List. The situation is [A.] as dull as any public squabble; and [B.] by its tendency to a peculiarly school-boyish acerbity, tends also to make other subscribers reluctant to engage in the business of the List: which is Discussion. Since almost the entirety of my position here is to maintain an atmosphere in which people feel that they can have "their say" without becoming the subject of personally-directed rhetorical violence - hence my use of the phrase 'ad hominem,' unfortunately gendered - These consequences are detrimental. The post over which we disagreed, Murat, fits very neatly into the category that I have elicited, since it was one in which you repeatedly characterized another subscriber as a "windbag" and stated that s/he is guaranteed to express the "windbag point of view." My response to you was also very simple: the points you express in relation to the discussion are very welcome, but please express them without the personal insult. In light of this response, I can't help remarking that the term Censored is a bit inflated. 2. This morning on "The Connection," I listened to two very well-spoken liberal men - the host, and a writer on the airline industry - discuss the 'unfortunate inevitability' of racial profiling in matters of national and especially airport security: "You can write well-intentioned memos saying that it shouldn't happen, but the bottom line is that it will take place." This brought to mind the number of times, crossing the border from Canada into the United States, that I have seen brown people standing beside their car as it is minutely searched by the border guards - in proportion to the few times - well, once in four years actually - that I have seen white people in a similar situation. Apparently, it is easy to sympathize, so long as we keep the "bottom line" firmly in place - though, in this case, "bottom line" makes a curious bridge between a pervasive financial jargon and the less widely-esteemed phrase "mud people." Perhaps in reacting to Selim Abdul Sadiq's post, we might credit its author with an awareness of the "stereotype of complete ignorance and blind aggression" that is generally attributed, in the U.S., to people of middle eastern descent; let's go so far even as to impute an intimate awareness. Perhaps, given an apparent interest in the nuances of poetry, we might even credit its author too with the dexterity to momentarily own the disreputable stereotype in order - having credited us with the dexterity to read this gesture - to point out its terrible absurdity. But of course, this is all conjecture. Christopher W. Alexander poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 23:00:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "kevinkillian@earthlink.net" Subject: White Rabbit Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" ; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable If you'll be in San Francisco in October, please come and see my new=20 play WHITE RABBIT written in collaboration with the videographer Kota=20 Ezawa. The play will be shown at New Langton Arts (1246 Folsom=20 Street between 8th and 9th) on two Friday nights in succession,=20 October 5 and 12. The painters, filmmakers, architects and sculptors=20 who comprise the collective Hobbypop Museum are making their first=20 visit to the US and are turning the space into a huge installation=20 celebrating German fantasies of San Francisco history. In this=20 setting we will stage a drama on the same theme and with the same=20 title, using action painting, computer animation, large musical=20 numbers, tape and sound effects, extravagant costumes, video=20 commercials and a cast that blends local poets and artists with our=20 visiting German counterparts. Jack Spicer wrote (1959) "A white=20 rabbit absolutely outlined in whiteness / upon a black background."=20 In German and English. Call for reservations (415) 626-5416 Rupert Adley, Taylor Brady, Norma Cole, Gerald Corbin, Thea=20 Djordjadze, Peter Elting, Kota Ezawa, Craig Goodman, Glen Helfand,=20 Sophie von Hellerman, Cliff Hengst, Scott Hewicker, Tanya Hollis,=20 Karla Milosevich, Nick Laessing, Dietmar Lutz, Andre Niebur, Rex Ray,=20 Jocelyn Saidenberg, Marie-Celine Schaefer, Wayne Smith, Suzanne=20 Stein, Markus Vater in WHITE RABBIT a new play by Kota Ezawa +=20 Hobbypop Museum + Kevin Killian . . . New Langton Arts (San Francisco), October 5 and 12, 2001, 8:00 p.m. Our largest show ever! Same low price. From Soho to Singapore,=20 bring your body to the floor as an embittered singer tries to break=20 off an incestuous affair with her drug-addled son, Ari. Two jaded=20 Las Vegas magicians reflect on the twists of life that have bonded=20 them together for fifty years. An action movie hero surveys the=20 wreckage of his career and a fading link to an American political=20 dynasty. One rabbit is rescued from vivisection, another is worn for=20 good luck, a third is clutched in a little boy's hand. Mayor Willie=20 Brown welcomes the crew of a cheesy "reality TV show" to San=20 =46rancisco, where the indigenous spirits of Angel Island stage their=20 own revolt. Mariah Carey draws strength from Kirilian realignment=20 therapy, she's starting to see colors and explore her mixed race=20 heritage. One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small,=20 and the ones that Mother gives you don't do anything at all. When=20 the shark bites, with its teeth, dear, scarlet billows start to=20 spread. I'll be the wind, the rain and the sunset, the light on your=20 door, to show that you=92re home. Thanks everyone, Kevin Killian ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 08:09:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harry Nudel Subject: m&r..'we should be confident..." The Italian Prime Minister: "we should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries which embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion....This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries." The West 'is bound to occidentalize and conquer new people...It has done it with the Communist World and part of the Islamic World but unfortortunately a part of the Islamic world is 1,400 years behind. From this point of view, we must be conscious of the strength of our civilization"... truth out of the mouths of Billionaires....Chechnya has been fighting Russia for independence off and on since the time of the American Civil War....Welcome to the 100 years war....you can now go back to reading Perec.....DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 09:29:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aldon Nielsen Subject: a pleasant surprise (Happy Birthday Ray!) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed While driving to the office this morning, I heard Garrison Keillor's "Writer's Almanac" on NPR. I don't ordinarily pay much attention, but I suddenly recognized a line. Keillor was announcing Ray Di Palma's Birthday, and went so far as to quote the poet! Maybe we can get Ray nominated for Poet Laureate of Lake Woebegone. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> " chaos is not our condition." --Charles Olson Aldon Lynn Nielsen George and Barbara Kelly Professor of American Literature Department of English The Pennsylvania State University 116 Burrowes University Park, PA 16802-6200 (814) 865-0091 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 10:48:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: Readme has moved Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi Everyone, Earthlink, who bought out jps.net, just deleted everything formerly at , including Readme. Fortunately, after winding through the customer service maze, I found a guy who was able to find the files, and shift them somewhere else. The new address for Readme is: You can access the main page there, and link into Issue Four. I need to change the links everywhere else in the magazine, so for the time being, you won't be able to link into earlier issues. Until then, you can find a file in an earlier issue (or the two links pages) by substituting for what was formerly . I'll send a post to the list when the internal links in the magazine have been changed & are available. Thanks, Gary _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 08:42:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joel Weishaus Subject: Re: Backstreet Boy apologizes... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Any wonder we need poets, not entertainers, more than ever? Artists who care more about their soul than their career. -Joel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenn McCreary" To: Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:32 PM Subject: Backstreet Boy apologizes... > ..for voicing a political opinion. > > <<"Kevin Richardson has fallen into the same trap that snared poor Bill Maher the other day. And now, like the "Politically Incorrect" host, the Backstreet Boy has been forced to chew himself out -- or face the wrath of the American public. > > Richardson didn't mean any disrespect to the nation, he said, when he made the following statement to a Canadian > interviewer in the aftermath of the attack: "I just think we are a little bit of an arrogant nation and maybe this is a little bit of a humbling experience ... what has our government done to provoke this action that we don't know about?" > > The tentatively put-forth query apparently raised the ire of some of his more patriotic compatriots. And so, Thursday morning, Richardson took to the airwaves to clear things up. > > "My thoughts weren't put together quite properly," the penitent pop star explained to Z100's Paul "Cubby" Bryant. "We had been doing about five interviews in Toronto, Canada ... and as I was sitting there listening to the rest of the guys talk, I just got overwhelmed with anger and frustration, on 'how can this happen in our country, in this nation that we live in?'" > > What he meant by "arrogant," he said, was that "we've been a little overconfident, we've maybe taken our freedom for granted, taken our security for granted." > > "I apologize if I have offended anyone, any of the families of the victims, if my statement seemed insensitive, but I was reacting out of anger and out of frustration, and I was emotional," Richardson continued. "I don't want anyone to think that I don't love this country ... I'm proud to be an American. I apologize if my comment was untimely.">> ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 06:12:42 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Susan Webster Schultz Subject: virus alert Comments: To: PoetryEspresso@topica.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable I'm very sorry but I seem to have been inadvertently spreading the = Magistr.b virus to everyone in my Outlook mailbox. Do NOT open any = attachments from me, please. If you get it, McAfee antivirus seems to clean it out. aloha, Susan ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:52:50 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: virus alert MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Susan Webster Schultz writes: > I'm very sorry but I seem to have been inadvertently spreading the = > Magistr.b virus to everyone in my Outlook mailbox. Do NOT open any = > attachments from me, please. Nota Bene - this unfortunate situation will not have affected anyone who received messages from Susan that were distributed over the Poetics List; the Listserv program having been configured to reject all attachment-bearing messages. Backchannel messages, obviously, do not fall into this category. Christopher W. Alexander poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 09:14:42 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Another logic -- Brava Maria Damon Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Belated kudos to Maria Damon for modelling another approach. There is a logic of relationships, wherein one looks to the effect of one's actions on the self, the intimate, the local, the global, the universal, and takes guidance that way. It requires more listening than pronouncing. More patience than speed. It's hard to follow of course. But very practical I think. Elizabeth Treadwell "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 09:30:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Taylor Brady Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: <92.1abcbee1.28e39edb@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v388) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit By now I think it's probably beside the point, but I feel compelled to point out that nothing I wrote to this list struck me as having much to do with "the beauty of burning towers." I'm really not sure where you got this from. Peace, Taylor On Wednesday, September 26, 2001, at 02:12 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat wrote: > In a message dated 9/26/01 2:23:22 PM, abdlasalaam@HOTMAIL.COM writes: > >> I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of >> further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end >> up, >> don't forget to duck. >> >> SASq >> > > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine to Taylor's > reference to the beauty of burning towers). I supposed Sasq's post can > not be > considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing to "everybody." > Absolutely > disgusting really. > > Murat > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 05:43:19 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kate thorn Subject: Re: No WaR Comments: To: PoetryEspresso@topica.com In-Reply-To: <0.1700034735.1185407213-738719082-1001551837@topica.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii To quote an old hippie slogan--- "what would happen if they gave a war and no one showed up?" Kate ===== PassionForPoetry@yahoogroups.com http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PassionForPoetry __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:00:28 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Subject: JOB: senior poet at UW-Milwaukee Dear Poetics persons, I include below the job description for an approved senior poet search in my department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. This is an important position in a Creative Writing program that offers the MA and PhD and in a city with other colleges & universities, arts action, and the vivid literary Woodland Pattern bookstore. Please circulate to interested individuals and encourage them to apply early. Thanks, Lisa Samuels --- Creative Writing – Poetry. Associate Professor or Professor. We seek a senior poet who can direct doctoral candidates in large creative writing program. PhD and substantial publications essential. Opportunities exist for work with The Cream City Review, in community- outreach projects, in other areas of the Department's broad curriculum (literature, composition, professional writing, linguistics, modern studies) and with the internationally known Center for Twenty-First Century Studies. The Department would be especially interested in candidates with secondary interests in one or more of these fields: creative non-fiction, ethnic literature, or nineteenth- or twentieth-century British literature. Applications should include a letter of application and CV and be addressed to Professor James A. Sappenfield, Chair, Department of English, University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee, Box 413, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53201. Applications should be postmarked no later than December 15, 2001. Start date: August 19, 2002. Interviews will be conducted at the MLA. The University of Wisconsin is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 11:10:06 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: rhetoric, petitions, collectives... In-Reply-To: <20010927005035.58225.qmail@web12007.mail.yahoo.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" yknow, i feel the need to say this publicly---and a few of my backchan correspondents will hear echoes here of what i've said to them personally---but isn't it possible to find a rhetoric, a way of conducting ourselves (and yes, i think there is a "left" (in the u.s.) in all of this, you bet) so that we don't alienate one another?... i'm pointing to the violence of our own rhetoric... i could extract any number of critical-theoretical articulations and offer them to this list as an example of what we *shouldn't* be doing... but i won't... suffice to say that, if anyone, *i* should have been most offended e.g. at ron s's "pussyfooting" remark... but i wasn't, and i suspect this is in part b/c i've known ron for some years (and for the most part, online), hence there's a degree of trust there... my point being that we mustn't lose sight of how vulnerable this list is to the liabilities of anonymity... and i'm thinking that there's room on our (ok?) side of the fence for outright pacificism *and* for those (like moi) who believe that the conflict before us amounts to an international law enforcement operation (with which the military will be involved somehow, i can't see how it won't be)... again, no bombing, no civilian casualities as an objective... i can understand too, as some have argued, that maintaining a rigidly nonviolent agenda is the most expedient means of counterbalancing the hawks (ditto for those of you who posit self-critique as a necessary precondition to any govt action)... and while i don't see eye-to-eye with this (latter) belief, i don't think it's something i'm "opposed to," exactly... surely not in the sense that i'm opposed to carpet bombing afghanistan... i just don't see nonviolence per se as an effective strategy wrt public discourse *or* terrorist realities... anyway... perhaps, following this line of reasoning, we on the left won't eat ourselves alive?... one more thing: i *do* understand our fearless moderator's chris alexander's desire not to turn this list into something it's not... i.e., not to presume that this list is a political entity that can vote (e.g.) *as* a political entity (see rob holloway's clarifications)... at the same time: the left is very good at splintering itself into numerous factions, so good in fact that the result often does not do justice to the sophistication of thought etc... my way of saying that, whatever *is* offered to this list by way of petition (against war, and for some sorta action, what have you) might be understood, not as the crystalline articulation of theoretically manageable proprieties, but as a best attempt to gather leftist sentiment into one document... i've agreed to help rob with this, as i can (even though i suspect he's more capable than me in this regard)---so if he *does* manage to put something forth here, it would be nice it would be nice if it were greeted in this (latter) spirit... collective action is, after all, the action of a collective, so perceived... peace, joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:14:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Behrle Subject: Ed Barrett and William Corbett read in NYC Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Poets William Corbett and Ed Barrett read Monday October 8th 7 PM 55 Mercer Gallery 55 Mercer St. Between Broome and Grand New York, New York art on view by Astrid Cravens, Suzanne Mechan and Dean Brown. for more information dial (212) 226 8513 _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 10:18:18 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: kathryn graham Subject: From my cubical at an international security think tank MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Poetics- The Nautilus Institute (http://www.nautilus.org/admin/about.html) has a collection of essays re: September 11 written by a decent variety of people from both the United States and elsewhere. http://www.nautilus.org/fora/Special-Policy-Forum/ Here's what they say about themselves: "The attacks in New York and Washington DC on September 11, 2001 were global in both origin and impact. People and nations everywhere on earth will be affected by the attacks and their aftermath. Therefore, it is crucial that Americans join with others around the world to understand why these attacks happened and what they mean. In this spirit, we are conducting a Special Forum on the September 11 Attacks as an International Crime Against Humanity." Of particular interest to me was "Black Tuesday: The View from Islamabad" By Pervez HOODBHOY at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad: http://www.nautilus.org/fora/Special-Policy-Forum/07_Hoodbhoy.html And the responses to this essay: http://www.nautilus.org/fora/Special-Policy-Forum/13_Hoodbhoy_Discussion.html Some tentative thoughts: Of course, there are problems with much of what's being said in the articles, but the Nautilus Institute is one of the few international security policy oriented/research organizations in the US that I think succeeds in fostering useful dialogue amongst a group of people that tends to be much larger than the usual suspects in the field (though they are there too). Anyway, it's worth looking at. As someone who currently makes a living in this field (though I mostly work with China and N.E. Asia related topics) hearing or reading a statement from a DC policy influential that doesn't sound like it comes strait out of a Department of Defense (DOD) press release is a rare relief--but it DOES happen. I've been surprised to see people (for example Michael O'Hanlon at Brookings Institute in DC) arguing that most types of military action on the part of the US just won't work and won't do anything to solve the problem. (But he does go on to argue for support of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and so on with no mention of the results the last time the US government did that...). But international security is a conservative field--or many of the institutions and people that are listened to the most by the US government and governments around the world are relatively conservative. That said, I face a huge dilemma: The report that lands summarized on a 3X5 index card on the desk of Senator or Congressman so and so is watered down and was probably unhelpful and not very imaginative to begin with, and Senator or Congressman so and so doesn't automatically pay attention to anti-war/violence/military action protests. But the ones planned for DC this weekend will be in the news, and that will make more of an impression I hope. The problem though, I find, is that one cannot really engage in conversation with many policy influentials unless you're engaging them on their terms. So, I wonder how we (or I, or one) might change those terms of engagement. In my work, the two issues I deal with most are PRC-Taiwan relations and Missile Defense as it relates to North East Asia. In both cases what me and my co-workers have been trying to do is change the terms of the debates...by trying to bring people together for dialogue that don't normally even talk. For example--on Missile Defense and NE Asia--technical experts and regional experts. This sounds obvious; of course, these people should all talk to each other. Of course, the US government should be talking with the PRC etc. But most of the time it's just not happening. I've been having conversations with the poets in DC, with people who are involved with the protests, and I've been having conversations at work. I've resisted the urge to put copies of Frank O Hara's "Ode to Joy" (which Mike Magee read recently when he was here in DC) in all my co-workers mailboxes, but should I be? Should I be forwarding the links above to this list? I want to talk about engagement with different groups and types of people, but that hardly sounds like a strategy for a paradigm shift. -Lorraine Graham ===== www.yakub-beg.com "You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it." -Frank O'Hara, "Lines for the Fortune Cookies" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 10:06:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: Incorrect or incomplete address field found and ignored. From: owner-realpoetik@SCN.ORG Subject: RealPoetik Chris Chris, at chris@trnsnd.net sent this in. The Day Gas Prices Reached Infinity germinal motors had just introduced the Massif all-terroreign vehicle, named after the wildlife area that was to be slashed and burned to provide the raw materials needed to outfit the army of suburban hairspray commandos who were at that very moment preparing thousands of miles of stud-damaged roadways that would have to be torn out and repaved every two or three years with fresh supplies of petroleum from whatever area could be cleared for oil exploration. by the way, by this time the price of gas had entered a relationship with the gross national product that involved complex functions of calculus to express. mathematicians finally achieved full vocational employment, and thousands were forced in data camps around the world to learn the basic process of calculations required to keep the exchange markets "functioning." the populations had already realized the precariousness of their situation as they watched the adrenalscript[tm] flowcharts streaming continuously from the UStyle section of their portal windows. things looked grim ... will our intrepid troopers find a sustainable lifestyle?! ^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^ in - tre - pid 1. invulnerable to fear or intimidation; 2. the Stodge Intrepid[tm]. manufactured by a division of CrySlur Automotive for the discriminating gentleman experiencing waistline expansion and marital frigidation. complete with engine noise resonators and exhaust amplification, so people will get the hell out of your way. troop-er 1. A soldier in a body of cavalry; 2. the Mis-use-u Trooper[tm]. manufactured by IronAge Heavy Industries for energetic outdoorspersons who don't want to get their shoes too muddy or jostle their nerves too harshly in the rough and tumble world of nature. 35 gallon tank will get you from gas station to gas station. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:31:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: Re: poets as grief counselors conundrum. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson asks: I reply: I've not heard of anyone turning to poets or poetry at this time. Some people are turning to politics, I hear. And some people are turning into statues, but no one that I've heard of (excepting Robert Hass and Billy Collins in the usual trot on Fresh Air [one must have a token poet or two]) is turning to, or is much interested in, poetry. Personally, I wish people WOULD turn to poetry. I wish Congerss would meet in a joint session and read Oppen's "Of Being Numerous" on national TV. Less Bible, More Poetry! We might not find "answers" but we would most assuredly find better questions than those currently circulating. John Gallaher ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 11:30:31 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark DuCharme Subject: Re: A well reasoned piece by Steve Niva Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Thanks to Don Byrd for forwarding this thoughtful and informative article-- which I assume is the sort of analysis some on this list would call a "knee-jerk leftist" response. Since many posts to the list have presumed those who do not favor blind retaliation also advocate "no response," let me just add that this article outlines a framework from which a sane, intelligent and (I think) moral response can proceed. The article also explains clearly why a purely miltary response won't be effective. I'm not necessarily opposed to SOME well-defined military action, if it can be established that it is the only way to achieve particular objectives, & if every care is taken to ensure that innocent people are not harmed. ONE of the reasons I oppose an open-ended, vaguely defined, rah-rah war such as Bush (if not Powell) has proposed, is that I think-- and I am speaking now directly to Marjorie Perloff-- it will increase the likelihood that MANY MORE attacks WILL occur, by sowing more enmity & bitterness among those who already despise us. (Notice I do not entertain the fallacy that NO MORE attacks will occur; I am merely concerned with reducing their frequency &, one hopes, their severity). I do think that, despite his eloquence which I will acknowledge, Ron Silliman is wrong that the left should not engage in a principled critique of the means of response. Lose its credibility? It HAS none, & has had none (in the ABC News/Time Magazine sense) since the Civil Rights movement. *Liberals*, maybe-- but the Left?!!! (Ron Silliman, you of all people know the difference). If anything, the left (no capital L) has credibility to GAIN by engaging in a principled, coherent dialogue on national policy. The problem is that the left/Left has already been shut out of any effective means of engaging in such a dialogue. (Protest, yes; dialogue, no). With the exception of the Civil Rights & Anti- (Vietnam) War, movements, & some early (and very hard-won) successes of labor, can you tell me, Ron, any time in "USAmerican" history where the l/Left HAS had this facility? Ron is right that certain lines of argument are more self-defeating than others; for example, posts to this list that have tried to address the historical context of the U.S.'s role in the Mid-East have been met with the presumption that these were attempts at justification of the attacks, while in most cases I think this is utterly false. Nevertheless, there is a *knee-jerk* response to any line of argument, it seems, that seeks to contextualize the event in order to MORE INTELLIGENTLY RESPOND. (C.f. Andrei Codrescu-- & thanks to Dan Bouchard, by the way, for forwarding an excerpt of his remarks). If this is the reaction of, presumably, trained scholars & thoughtful poets, I don't think it would be fruitful to pursue this line of analysis in a more public forum. I think, rather, that the case to be made might rest in part on comparisons to the Israeli/Palistinian violence in the Mid-East & the Catholic/Protestant violence in Northern Ireland. Can any sane, reasonable person honestly claim to believe that violence in these arenas is not self-perpetuating-- almost an "industry" unto itself? Surely, this is a cycle we do not want to see our country drawn into. Further, as Byrd's forwarded article points out, there is no "there" to go to war with. Terror has no boundaries; it is diffuse & far-reaching. The only conceivable response that could have any impact toward making us any safer, rather than just FEELING like we're the great big superpower world champions, is one that combines intelligence (by which, sadly, I mean the CIA & FBI), international law (remember that, George?), vigilance & the credible threat of military response-- but one that is only deployed sanely, to achieve very defined objectives. (Yes, I do mean ABSOLUTELY NO nuclear weapons. The fact that Bushie, as my daughter calls him, says their use is even being considered, is a shame & a scandal). Finally, I want to say something about knee-jerk responses. Ron Silliman is right to caution us against them. I think that poetry, & art in general, can serve a unique purpose right now in that its very modus is one which, at its best, undermines received ideas, unquestioning assent & piety. I think that everyone on this list should write a poem today. Better yet, write two, & pass on the impulse to post some further insight on the uses of the U.S. flag. You'll feel better, I guarantee, because you'll actually be doing something that could begin to have an impact. Love, Mark DuCharme >From: Don Byrd >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: A well reasoned piece by Steve Niva >Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 15:29:57 -0400 > > >http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0921-06.htm > > > >Fight the Roots of Terrorism > >by Steve Niva > > > >The current fight against terrorism poses an unprecedented challenge. To > >succeed, the US must overcome the desire for massive military retaliation >in > >response to the horrific attacks on September 11. It should adopt a >strategy > >based on a more accurate understanding of the perpetrators of these >attacks > >and the roots of anti-American sentiments in the Middle East. > > > >For starters, that means moving far beyond Osama bin Laden. The likely > >perpetrators of these murderous attacks are the product of a fringe >network > >of militants originally recruited by the CIA and Pakistan from around the > >Arab and Muslim world in the 1980s during the Soviet war with >Afghanistan. > >After pulling its support once the Soviet Union left, the US further >angered > >these militants during the Gulf War when it stationed troops and bases in > >the Arabian Peninsula near the holy sites of Mecca and Medina. >Consequently, > >anti-US bombings began increasing from the 1995 and 1996 car-bombings at >US > >military installations in Saudi Arabia, to the 1998 bombings of the US > >embassies in Kenya and Tanzania and the recent attack on the USS Cole in > >Yemen. > > > >Osama bin Laden is not the sole mastermind of these attacks as is often > >claimed in the media. He just facilitates these groups with logistics and > >finances. His network has no geographical location or fixed center. It > >appears to be a kaleidoscopic overlay of cells and links that span the >globe > >from camps on the Afghan-Pakistan borderlands to immigrant ghettoes in > >Europe and the U.S. > > > >What's more, this network is largely disconnected from most Islamic > >opposition groups in the Middle East who are fighting national struggles >to > >create Islamic states. What drives their hatred of the US is not Islam >but > >more political factors. They believe that Muslims have received the brunt >of > >international violence over the last decade. They point to the genocide > >against Bosnian Muslims, the Russian war in Chechnya, the conflict >between > >India and Pakistan over Kashmir, the Israeli occupation of Palestinian > >lands, and the UN sanctions against Iraq. In all of these cases, they >view > >US policies either tacitly condoning the violence or actively supporting >it. > > > >Therefore, a military strike on militant camps in Afghanistan may kill or > >capture bin Laden and a number of his associates but it will not likely > >incapacitate the far-flung networks of militants that may have produced >the > >recent attacks. They will remain in place, with new reasons to carry out > >more terror. Moreover, a massive display of American military might >brought > >to bear on a Muslim nation, especially one that kills innocent civilians >in > >the process, is precisely the type of action that these militants hope >will > >create the conditions for unifying greater numbers of Muslims against the > >United States. It would confirm their view that the US is an arrogant > >superpower that cares little about Muslim lives. > > > >A more effective alternative to a military response must combine a >massive > >international law enforcement effort with a political strategy designed >to > >isolate and undermine these militant networks. The deliberate and >murderous > >attacks on innocent American civilians should be characterized and > >prosecuted as a crime not a war. The United States must use all its > >resources to compel international cooperation to ensure that the > >perpetrators have no place to hide. Identifying bin Laden and his network >as > >criminals who have violated international law will make it extremely > >difficult for countries, especially those who fear being allied with an > >American-led war, to refuse more discrete and effective assistance to the > >US. Also, given the disperse nature of the networks, only international > >cooperation will work to root them out. American declarations of war >inhibit > >rather than promote this cooperation. > > > >This approach must be bolstered by a political strategy that deepens the > >isolation of these fringe networks from the vast majority of Arabs and > >Muslims, many of whom hold deep and legitimate grievances with US >policies > >but who do not support violence. In words and deeds, the US must clearly > >make a distinction between Islam as a religion and violent extremism. But > >the US must also critically reexamine its policies in the Middle East. > > > >The US should condemn the serious human rights abuses committed by its > >allies with the same force as it condemns other regimes in the region and > >condition its aid on progress in opening up closed political systems. It > >should curtail the massive arms transfers to the region and reduce its > >military presence, which have done little to promote democracy or >stability. > >The US must also recognize the failure of the devastating sanctions >regime > >on Iraq and support legitimate Palestinian aspirations for an independent > >state alongside a secure Israel. > > > > Such an approach is not a concession to terrorism but a more realistic >and > >effective response that is closer to the values that the United States > >claims to uphold. > > > >Steve Niva teaches International Politics and Middle East Studies at the > >Evergreen State College. He writes regularly for Middle East Report > >(www.merip.org) and is an Associate at the Middle East Research and > >Information Project (MERIP) in Washington DC. > > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 11:41:02 -0600 Reply-To: Laura.Wright@Colorado.EDU Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Laura Wright Subject: Re: poets as grief counselors conundrum. In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Elizabeth, A musician friend just expressed interest in "what you've been writing since Sept. 11" and I found it hard to explain that there wasn't really anything yet. I was a student of music in Los Angeles during the riots. We had a discussion in a music history class about the role of the musician/artist in general during such crises. I remember our professor asking if we felt as if carrying on with our usual activities was tantamount to "fiddling while Rome burned." I don't recall if we came to any conclusions, but the discussion was useful. I also remember turning the sound off on the television and watching images of the city burning to the sounds of Pink Floyd. I think part of our job ("us" being poets here) is to reframe -- but not to help digest, which is what the expectation to "produce" feels like. Best, Laura -- Laura Wright Serials Cataloging Norlin Library, University of Colorado, Boulder (303) 492-3923 Poetry must be at least as powerful as music, but I am not sure that it is possible --George Oppen ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:52:57 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: Upcoming events at The Poetry Project MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable This week and next week at the Poetry Project: Monday, October 1st at 8 pm OPEN MIKE, sign up at 7:30 pm, reading starts at 8 pm. Wednesday, October 3rd at 7:30 pm NEW POEMS TO END GREED, IMPERIALISM, OPPORTUNISM, AND TERRORISM: POETS RESPOND TO THE SEPTEMBER 11TH ATTACKS AND ENSUING EVENTS Readers indude: Ed Sanders, Patti Smith, Edwin Torres, Cecilia Vicuna, Jackson Mac Low, Anselm Berrigan, Todd Colby, Veronica Corpuz, Brenda Coultas, Fielding Dawson, Maggie Dubris, Tonya Foster, Luis Francia, Ed Friedman, Maureen Owen, Joann= a Fuhrman, Ted Greenwald, Lewis Warsh, Eileen Myles, Elinor Nauen, John Giorno, Jessica Hagedorn, David Henderson, Vicki Hudspith and more. Friday, October 5th at 10:30 pm THE NEW TRADITIONALISTS COMPOSITIONAL AND IMPROVISATIONAL MUSIC Contemporary folk-pop and progressive instrumentalists, solos and duets. Featuring saxophonist Marlon Ariola with drummer Ryan Sawyer, clarinetist Patrick Holmes with violist Dylan Willesma, and songwriter/ guitarist/ vocalist Theo Eastwind. Each musician is in pursuit of a personally defined mode of expression that represents and transcends the preeminent styles of the instrument based on Modern American Music. This is a night of acoustic music, St. Mark=B9s "unplugged" as it were. A pared down evening of progressive jazz hybrids and sing-along American folk-rock. Everybody=B9s chops have been honed religiously on the streets and subway tunnels of New York City proper. Monday, October 8th at 8 pm AARON KUNIN and CORT DAY Aaron Kunin teaches film, curates the Mellon Poetry Seminar at Johns Hopkin= s and is currently at work on a Ph.D. in the English department at Duke University, where he specializes in the Renaissance. His poems have appeare= d in The Germ, Jubilat, and Pierogi Press. Kunin=B9s experimental fiction explores the interior design of ideas while his poetry blurs the boundaries between translation and creation. Cort Day=B9s work has appeared in numerous journals, including American Letters and Commentary, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Fence, and Verse. His first collection of poems, The Chime, was published by Alice James Book= s earlier this year. "=8A Cort Day has produced a work of transgressive imaginings, calls and responses, chimes and echoes. It is a work by turns, humorous and darkly erotic, where the ships of reason burn on an ocean tune= d to an open frequency. That ocean is poetic speech, drowning the reality principle in its surges and its deeps." =8BMichael Palmer Wednesday, October 10th at 8 pm FANNY HOWE and KIMBERLY LYONS Fanny Howe, poet and novelist, teaches at the University of California San Diego. She is the author of numerous publications including The Quietist, Saving History, Deep North, The End, One Crossed Out, Nod, and Forged. Her most recent collection of poetry, Selected Poems, is just out from the University of California Press and her most recent novel, Indivisible, is published by Semiotext(e). Rain Taxi calls her "one of contemporary America=B9s most innovative poets" and states that "her work deserves wider recognition and readership." And the Chicago Review instructs "=8Athe intrigued reader has no excuse: get your hands on one of [Howe=B9s] books, an= d get cracking." Kimberly Lyons is the author of Abracadabra (Granary Books, 2000). Mark Wallace wrote in Rain Taxi (online): "The work has an understated precision of detail, as well as meditative subtlety." Lewis Warsh said of Abracadabra= , "a real opening, a step onwards." Her work was recently translated into French for the inaugural issue of Double Change (www.doublechange .com), a French/English online literary magazine. She has been anthologized in An Anthology of New (American) Poets (Talisman House), and The Portable Boog Reader (Booglit). Friday, October 12th, 10:30 pm Part I of CELEBRATING GERTRUDE STEIN organized by Bevya Rosten. Poets and performers will present works by Stein and works of their own tha= t were influenced by her. Participants include dancer Sally Silvers, poet Bruce Andrews, playwright/ director Irene Fornes, Anne-Marie Levine, and surprise guests. Come celebrate Stein! (Part II and Part III will be held a= t the Judson Church on October 13 and 14 at 8 p.m.). Saturday, October 13th at 6:30 to 8:30 A book party for Elio Schneeman's A FOUND LIFE. Reception and Reading of Elio's work from A Found LIfe by friends and poets. Books available. Unless otherwise noted, admission to all events is $7, $4 for students and seniors, and $3 for Poetry Project members. Schedule is subject to change. The Poetry Project is located in St. Mark's Church at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 10th Street in Manhattan. The Poetry Project is wheelchair accessible with assistance and advance notice. Please call (212) 674-0910 for more information or visit our Web site at http://www.poetryproject.com. * * * =20 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:52:36 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: J Gallaher Organization: University of Central Arkansas Subject: A Change of Pace, and a diploma too! In-Reply-To: <92.1abcbee1.28e39edb@aol.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT This is just too rich, I just had to share. I got this email today from someone at the address . Imagine all the diplomas we deserve! ---------------------------------- UNIVERSITY DIPLOMA Obtain a prosperous future, money earning power, and the admiration of all. Diplomas from prestigious non-accredited universities based on your present knowledge and life experience. No required tests, classes, books, or interviews. Bachelors, masters, MBA, and doctorate (PhD) diplomas available in the field of your choice. No one is turned down. Confidentiality assured. CALL NOW to receive your diploma within days!!! 602-294-9402 Call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including Sundays and holidays. ---------------- I just love those 3, count 'em, exclamation points . . . JGallaher ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:05:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fargas Laura Subject: Re: No WaR MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" >>To quote an old hippie slogan--- "what would happen if they gave a war and no one showed up?">> Well, the World Trade Center would still be standing, for one thing. LF, old hippie ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:09:16 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Addition to the Welcome Message MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I would like to make current subscribers aware of this addition to the Welcome Message. Christopher W. Alexander poetics list moderator -- 4. Cautions 'Caveat lector': The Poetics List has become increasingly, though in small proportion, occupied by subscribers who interest themselves in pseudonymous authorship. The practice, while not encouraged by the moderators, is tolerated on the grounds that it is no more practicably eradicable than effectually harmful - not harmful, that is, until it becomes so on the level of particular, individual interactions. The feeling, for subscribers unaware of the circumstance, may be - and perhaps justifiably so - one of having been 'duped.' That said, we have felt it necessary to caution all subscribers: read carefully and be sure of your acquaintance as it suits your personal comfort. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:10:29 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Welcome Message - last updated 27 September 2001 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Welcome to the Poetics List & The Electronic Poetry Center ..sponsored by The Poetics Program, Department of English, College of Arts & Science, the State University of New York, Buffalo /// Postal Address: Poetics Program, 438 Clemens Hall, SUNY Buffalo, NY 14260 Poetics List Moderator: Christopher W. Alexander Please address all inquiries to . Electronic Poetry Center: =3D Contents =3D 1. About the Poetics List 2. Subscriptions 3. Posting to the List 4. Cautions 5. Digest Option 6. Temporarily turning off Poetics mail 7. "No Review" Policy 8. The Electronic Poetry Center (EPC) 9. Poetics Archives at EPC This Welcome Message updated 27 September 2001. -- Above the world-weary horizons New obstacles for exchange arise Or unfold, O ye postmasters! 1. About the Poetics List With the preceeding epigraph, the Poetics List was founded by Charles Bernstein in late 1993. Now in its second incarnation, the list carries over 800 subscribers worldwide, though all of these subscribers do not necessarily receive messages at any given time. A number of other people read the Poetics List via our web archives at the Electronic Poetry Center (see section 10 below). Please note that this is a private list and information about the list should not be posted to other lists or directories of lists. 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You can temporarily turn off your Poetics subscription by sending this one-line message, with no "subject" line, to : set poetics nomail You may re-activate your poetics subscription by sending this one-line message, with no "subject" line, to the same address: set poetics mail When you return you can check or download missed postings from the Poetics archive. (See section 9 below.) ------------------- 7. "No Review" policy For the safety and security of list subscribers, the "review" function of the Poetics List has been de-activated. Non-posting subscribers' email addresses will remain confidential. Please do not ask the list editors to give out subscriber addresses or other personal information. ------------------- 8. What is the Electronic Poetry Center? The World Wide Web-based Electronic Poetry Center is located at . The EPC's mission is to serve as a gateway to the extraordinary range of activity in formally innovative writing and digital media poetry in the United States and around the world. The Center provides access to extensive resources in new poetries. These include our E-POETRY library, our links to digital VIDEO and SOUND (including our award-winning LINEbreak series of radio interviews and performances) as well as e-journals such as lume, Deluxe Rubber Chicken, Alyricmailer, and many others, the POETICS List archives, an AUTHOR library of electronic poetry texts and bibliographies, and direct connections to numerous related electronic RESOURCES. The Center also provides information about contemporary electronic poetry magazines and print little magazines and SMALL PRESSES engaged in poetry and poetics. Visit the EPC's many libraries, the featured resources available on the EPC home page, or its NEW listings, where recent additions are available for quick access. The EPC is directed by Loss Peque=F1o Glazier. ------------------- 9. Poetics Archives at the EPC Go to the Electronic Poetry Center and select the "Poetics" link from the opening screen. Follow the links to Poetics Archives. Or set your browser to go directly to . You may browse the Poetics List archives by month and year or search them for specific information. Your interface will allow you to print or download any of these files. Please note that it is possible to toggle between proportional and non-proportional fonts in viewing archived messages; a feature that may be useful to interpret messages reliant on the neat spacing of a proportional font, or that require the "word wrap" feature of same - and useful, too, for aesthetic reasons. To change the display font of an archived message, simply follow the "proportional font" or "non-proportional font" link at the top of the message. -- END OF POETICS LIST WELCOME MSG ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:43:07 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Marjorie Perloff Hits the Number Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Today is Marjorie Perloff's 70th birthday. Is today, Marjorie Perloff's 70th birthday. Marjorie Perloff's 70th birthday today is. Perloff's 70th birthday is today, Marjorie. 70th birthday, today, Marjorie Perloff's is. Birthday is today, 70th, Marjorie Perloff's. * Happy Birthday, Marjorie! ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 11:14:49 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson Subject: Addition to the Welcome Message Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed This is very bizarre, but glad to know about it. I think it's much braver to use your real name, or at least the name under which you publish. "I protest against being kept in irons and chains." -- Joan of Arc (trans Willard Trask) _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:33:40 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: <392088.3210583445@ny-chicagost2a-242.buf.adelphia.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I got the point that the author knew he was playing a provocateur role. Please read my post again. I think he should be able to post away like this, and I should be able to tell him it's idiotic. And yes, in case you did not catch my pointing it out the first time, I believe that if I am not mistaken the last name "Sadiq" DOES mean "truthful." It seems I caught the "joke" the first time and pointed that out. It was also my point to say it was not funny, or even interesting, and it probably is a very poor attempt at heteronymity (for better examples see KK Ruthven's _Faking Literature_.) Most of all, the post was in incredibly poor taste. Some of us have friends that were vaporized that day. It's not HA HA at all. For some of us it wasn't just spectacle on some television. Besides, I get better attempts at poetry from drunk North Carolina frat boys writing poems about their feces. At least their poor taste isn't so caustic. But again, maybe I just don't get off on the sadism of others. Even sadism in jest is still sadism. I'm sincere in recommending pills and sleep. Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Poetics List > Administration > Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 12:44 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > > > Murat Nemet-Nejat writes: > > > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine [....] I > supposed > > Sasq's post can not be considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing > to > > "everybody." Absolutely disgusting really. > > I'm not sure whether that last sentence is intended to take in the post > by "sasq" - Selim Abdul Sadiq - or my having forwarded to the list. In > any case, I'd like to make a few comments: > > 1. In general, I don't like to address my interactions with subscribers > here, for the obvious and historically verifiable reason that such > discussions > tend to initiate a recursive spiral of endless and recriminatory posts to > the > List about the List. The situation is [A.] as dull as any public squabble; > and [B.] by its tendency to a peculiarly school-boyish acerbity, > tends also > to make other subscribers reluctant to engage in the business of the List: > which is Discussion. Since almost the entirety of my position here is to > maintain an atmosphere in which people feel that they can have "their say" > without becoming the subject of personally-directed rhetorical violence - > hence my use of the phrase 'ad hominem,' unfortunately gendered - These > consequences are detrimental. The post over which we disagreed, Murat, > fits very neatly into the category that I have elicited, since it was one > in which you repeatedly characterized another subscriber as a "windbag" > and stated that s/he is guaranteed to express the "windbag point of view." > My response to you was also very simple: the points you express > in relation > to the discussion are very welcome, but please express them without the > personal insult. In light of this response, I can't help remarking that > the term Censored is a bit inflated. > > 2. This morning on "The Connection," I listened to two very well-spoken > liberal men - the host, and a writer on the airline industry - discuss the > 'unfortunate inevitability' of racial profiling in matters of national and > especially airport security: "You can write well-intentioned memos saying > that it shouldn't happen, but the bottom line is that it will take place." > This brought to mind the number of times, crossing the border from Canada > into the United States, that I have seen brown people standing > beside their > car as it is minutely searched by the border guards - in proportion to the > few times - well, once in four years actually - that I have seen white > people in a similar situation. Apparently, it is easy to sympathize, so > long as we keep the "bottom line" firmly in place - though, in this case, > "bottom line" makes a curious bridge between a pervasive financial jargon > and the less widely-esteemed phrase "mud people." Perhaps in reacting to > Selim Abdul Sadiq's post, we might credit its author with an awareness of > the "stereotype of complete ignorance and blind aggression" that is > generally attributed, in the U.S., to people of middle eastern descent; > let's go so far even as to impute an intimate awareness. Perhaps, given an > apparent interest in the nuances of poetry, we might even credit > its author > too with the dexterity to momentarily own the disreputable stereotype in > order - having credited us with the dexterity to read this gesture - to > point out its terrible absurdity. But of course, this is all conjecture. > > Christopher W. Alexander > poetics list moderator > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:49:23 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: Re: Addition to the Welcome Message In-Reply-To: <699492.3210588556@ny-chicagost2a-242.buf.adelphia.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I'm all for heteronymity. e.g., see Lester's up-and-coming journal now in development: http://proximate.org/CloseQuarterly/ I'm not for stupidity. And I'm glad my criticism of such stupidity is welcomed here. Best, Patrick > -----Original Message----- > From: UB Poetics discussion group > [mailto:POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU]On Behalf Of Poetics List > Administration > Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 2:09 PM > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: Addition to the Welcome Message > > > I would like to make current subscribers aware of this addition > to the Welcome Message. > > Christopher W. Alexander > poetics list moderator > > -- > > 4. Cautions > > 'Caveat lector': The Poetics List has become increasingly, though > in small proportion, occupied by subscribers who interest themselves > in pseudonymous authorship. The practice, while not encouraged by > the moderators, is tolerated on the grounds that it is no more > practicably eradicable than effectually harmful - not harmful, > that is, until it becomes so on the level of particular, individual > interactions. The feeling, for subscribers unaware of the circumstance, > may be - and perhaps justifiably so - one of having been 'duped.' > That said, we have felt it necessary to caution all subscribers: > read carefully and be sure of your acquaintance as it suits your > personal comfort. > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 11:16:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "J. Scappettone" Subject: what is being done Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Elizabeth, >>Students at UCB are now protesting both for and >>against war, they have never seemed so babyish to me. Students at Berkeley >>High are doing teach-ins on tolerance. So again my townie cap to them. My hat as well to the students at Berkeley High. However, one should investigate the charged scenario at UCB before announcing its "babyishness" to the world at large; the peace movement, gaining in momentum and helping initiate a National Student Day of Action last Thursday which affected over 150 campuses across the country, including NYU and Columbia, has of course been filtered by the media (when it miraculously makes it to the media) to seem divided and overwhelmed by a handful of shallow hecklers at a single rally. I would like to point out that there has been a steady series of teach-ins at UC Berkeley following the tragedy--on alternatives to war, on understanding the complexities of U.S. involvement in the Middle East, on race hatred, and more. In fact, there has been a teach-in every day for the past week. As well as a days-long sit-in and its inevitable arrests regarding a racist political cartoon printed by the university newspaper--and a rally/march attended by thousands. I am not responding because I am personally offended. I am responding because if fellow members of the left indulge in this kind of splintering finger-pointing to patronize our quite serious attempts at reeducation, we will never be able to cull the respect necessary to get a hearing from either end of the political spectrum. It's enough just to deal with the attendant abuse from self-proclaimed "patriots." Thank you in advance for your future cooperation and respect. J. Scappettone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 19:53:20 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Selim Abdul Sadiq Subject: Re: one self sin teared question Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Christopher, What you suggest below might now I hope be thought of as something certainly other than mere conjecture, along the lines of your enquiry; I, not alone, but among my stereotypes, confirm it. Thank you. Sdq >From: Poetics List Administration >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Re: one self sin teared question >Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:44:05 -0400 > >Murat Nemet-Nejat writes: > > > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine [....] I >supposed > > Sasq's post can not be considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing >to > > "everybody." Absolutely disgusting really. > >I'm not sure whether that last sentence is intended to take in the post >by "sasq" - Selim Abdul Sadiq - or my having forwarded to the list. In >any case, I'd like to make a few comments: > >1. In general, I don't like to address my interactions with subscribers >here, for the obvious and historically verifiable reason that such >discussions >tend to initiate a recursive spiral of endless and recriminatory posts to >the >List about the List. The situation is [A.] as dull as any public squabble; >and [B.] by its tendency to a peculiarly school-boyish acerbity, tends also >to make other subscribers reluctant to engage in the business of the List: >which is Discussion. Since almost the entirety of my position here is to >maintain an atmosphere in which people feel that they can have "their say" >without becoming the subject of personally-directed rhetorical violence - >hence my use of the phrase 'ad hominem,' unfortunately gendered - These >consequences are detrimental. The post over which we disagreed, Murat, >fits very neatly into the category that I have elicited, since it was one >in which you repeatedly characterized another subscriber as a "windbag" >and stated that s/he is guaranteed to express the "windbag point of view." >My response to you was also very simple: the points you express in relation >to the discussion are very welcome, but please express them without the >personal insult. In light of this response, I can't help remarking that >the term Censored is a bit inflated. > >2. This morning on "The Connection," I listened to two very well-spoken >liberal men - the host, and a writer on the airline industry - discuss the >'unfortunate inevitability' of racial profiling in matters of national and >especially airport security: "You can write well-intentioned memos saying >that it shouldn't happen, but the bottom line is that it will take place." >This brought to mind the number of times, crossing the border from Canada >into the United States, that I have seen brown people standing beside their >car as it is minutely searched by the border guards - in proportion to the >few times - well, once in four years actually - that I have seen white >people in a similar situation. Apparently, it is easy to sympathize, so >long as we keep the "bottom line" firmly in place - though, in this case, >"bottom line" makes a curious bridge between a pervasive financial jargon >and the less widely-esteemed phrase "mud people." Perhaps in reacting to >Selim Abdul Sadiq's post, we might credit its author with an awareness of >the "stereotype of complete ignorance and blind aggression" that is >generally attributed, in the U.S., to people of middle eastern descent; >let's go so far even as to impute an intimate awareness. Perhaps, given an >apparent interest in the nuances of poetry, we might even credit its author >too with the dexterity to momentarily own the disreputable stereotype in >order - having credited us with the dexterity to read this gesture - to >point out its terrible absurdity. But of course, this is all conjecture. > >Christopher W. Alexander >poetics list moderator _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 16:31:20 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: The language of our times MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit One of the things that I've been pondering the past two-plus weeks, is the way in which everybody, regardless of political persuasion, has referred to the "events of September 11," the "recent incidents," etc. Very much as though our language has yet to find a word or phrase that can encompass our experience. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:39:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: A well reasoned piece by Steve Niva MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark DuCharme" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 12:30 PM Subject: Re: A well reasoned piece by Steve Niva > right to caution us against them. I think that poetry, & art in general, > can serve a unique purpose right now in that its very modus is one which, at > its best, undermines received ideas, unquestioning assent & piety. I think > that everyone on this list should write a poem today. Better yet, write > two, & pass on the impulse to post some further insight on the uses of the > U.S. flag. You'll feel better, I guarantee, because you'll actually be > doing something that could begin to have an impact. > > Love, > > Mark DuCharme Thanks, Mark. Well said. taking the action of writing is right now the most difficult thing for me to do? Numbers sNOwball 80 publicop TVpoll 81 85 we're all for All ALl ALL of us fALL into linE NUMBers mount. safety in numBERS. slumbering giant lumBERS forth. slowly 84 81 75 60? 67 62 thelatestpewsurveythe radiosaysontheinternettheysaystartosaythinkbeforeyouact51 restrained but firm tom bell.. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 17:14:06 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gary Sullivan Subject: from Sofie Qureshi Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hi Everyone, I'm forwarding a note I got today from Sofie Qureshi about an event taking place in San Francisco in mid-October. I'm not sure if they're still looking for participants or not, but if you're interested, you can e-mail her at: Qsofie@aol.com --G * * * Hey gary is anyone on the poetics list in the bay area? i'm trying to publicize this event we're having. i don't have an electronic flyer for it but here's some info to pass on if you kindly will. thanks, sofie 1. In response to the devastation of September 11, and the actions and reactions that followed and have been proposed, the Anthropology Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies is hosting a Dialogue for Peace. (FYI, The California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) was founded in 1968, and is an accredited institution through WASC -- Western Association of Schools and Colleges. It is a progressive graduate (and undergraduate completion) institution in San Francisco. The Anthropology Program at CIIS was founded in 1981, and offers a critical, activist approach to education that prioritizes issues of social and ecological justice in the context of a multicultural, postcolonial world. The Program deeply engages the intersections of thought and action, critical social analysis, emancipatory research, strategic thinking, and alliance building. www.ciis.edu/graddegree/sca.html 2. The Dialogue is scheduled for Friday, October 12, 2001, 6-9 pm. 3. Venue: auditorium. Address: California Institute of Integral Studies. 3rd Floor. 1453 Mission Street. (Between 10th and 11th.) San Francisco, California - 94103. Phone: (415) 575 6100. 4. We are seeking to invite persons that can speak to the following: i. Tuesdays devastation (September 11). ii. Hate actions against ethnic minorities post-Tuesday. iii. Proposed war/armed action in the Global South. iv. US foreign and trade policies. v. Ecological, political and social issues in peace and war. 5. We are seeking to invite people from multiethnic, multi-faith and multi-political backgrounds, who are involved in responding to the above through diverse strategies. We propose to frame the first 'Dialogue' as a speak-out, where invited persons from multiethnic/national, faith and political affiliations speak briefly (about 5-10 minutes each), joined in by others attending, with some time for discussion. In the speak-out format we will listen and acknowledge, but not respond directly to each other, during the first meeting. It is an important method used in numerous alliance building contexts, and one we will utilize to begin our dialogue. I am also writing with optimism that the present crises will coerce us to commit to justice with greater resolve, and address institutional and structural issues that have prompted organized acts of terror, on the part of States and other institutions, with immense consequences over the last few decades in the Global South and North. We need to be in strong solidarity with Palestinian communities, and devastated Muslim communities in Afghanistan, and persist in our efforts to end their diaspora and dispossession, the terror and destruction within which their lives are lived in the Middle East. Those in the United States Academy working with social and environmental justice must offer leadership in calling for citizens action and governmental resolve in the US toward affirmative action and ethical foreign and trade policy. In doing so, perhaps we will question the methods we employ. It becomes necessary to ask how we might labor in the production of thought and action that addresses wretched histories. _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:11:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: poets as grief counselors conundrum. Comments: To: Laura.Wright@Colorado.EDU MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit quick thought - poetry as a way of processing? I know I do this when I read or write but I'm not sure what to call the action - poeting? aesthetic doesn't work here for me as it has taken on the connotation of 'pretty non-action' is there a term for 'aesthetic action' that would work? off the top of my head. I may have posted your bc here to the list. sorry if you didn't intend this but I'm looking for input on this. tom ----- Original Message ----- From: "Laura Wright" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 4:01 PM Subject: RE: Re: poets as grief counselors conundrum. > Hi Tom. > > 1. aesthetically speaking, if we expand your metaphor of swallowing > medicine here would poetry be seen as making a bitterpill more palatable and > easier to digest? > Funny. I was thinking in terms of food, rather than medicine. We can only > experience so much at once, the rest seems to create a backlog we must > continue to process somehow (and which distracts us until we have come to > terms with it). What I think I mean is that poetry (or any art) will not do > this for us. > > 2. would poetry as reframing be changing brand names so people would be > more likely to buy it(as in changing an anti-depressant into a medication > for PMMS - can't recall offhand either the med or diagnosis)? > Poetry as reframing would be looking, for instance, at the side of an object > heretofore believed to have only a front and a back. Maybe rather than > changing brand names, changing the name of the diagnosis to remove > stigmatism? Or, even better, redefining "diagnosis" itself... which is a > tall order... > > I may be way off on another planethere but I see poetry as capable of > transforming a pill (or thinking about a pill), so that to switch herepoetry > could transform the flag. If you ake the flag which at point A (say, 1942) > carried value A which was "tarnished" so that at point B (say, 1967) it > carried value B and then added in it's value at point C (9/11/01 and after) > what would you have? Does poetry have a role in this tranformation? Where? > Or does this only work aesthitically in visual (color mixing) or musical > terms? > > I like to think this is possible but I really have no idea how. My responses > to the flag (and, I assume, those of others as well) are deeply deeply > ingrained, going back, among other things, to having to say the pledge of > allegiance every morning in grade school and intentionally mumbling after a > certain age. Flag as authority as well as rallying point. I have big > problems with nationalism in the sense that "proud to be X" always implies, > to me, "proud not to be Y or Z." But then I watch team sports and "root for > my team" which I think is a sort of archetypal substitute for going to war. > Us against them. The difference is, in hockey at least, they shake hands at > the end. > > My scattered thoughts for the moment, > Laura > > ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:28:07 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Small Press Subject: need some emails. MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Hi please excuse the interruption. I need to get in touch with Rachel Levitsky Fanny Howe Allison Cobb Brian Strang If you are seeing this and can b/c me please do thanks. If you wrote a review for or had your book reviewed in the Fall/Winter issue of Traffic and haven't yet received a copy please let me know. Thanks - Elizabeth Treadwell Jackson, Executive Director Small Press Traffic Literary Arts Center at CCAC 1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, California 94107 415/551-9278 http://www.sptraffic.org ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 18:59:50 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: Nowar Collective MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hello, this is something that some of you may consider finding out more about. cheers, kevin ============= FORWARDED TEXT OF THE NOWAR COLLECTIVE'S MESSAGE: Hello, all. Welcome to crisis, an international e-mail list devoted to the events of 9-11 and their aftermath, that will bring you analysis, little-known news, and suggestions for action. For subscribers not from the United States, we apologize in advance for the fact that content will be skewed towards the United States. Also, the posting schedule will be geared to the United States Eastern Time Zone. We urge international subscribers to stay with us, however. For the first time, there is a chance of a truly global antiwar movement. The opposition of any country to U.S. plans for war weakens those plans. George W. Bush's speech last Thursday was perhaps the most important a president has given in living memory. For the text, see http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010920/us/bush_text.html In it, he essentially declared unlimited war against an ill-defined enemy, with the world divided into two polarized camps -- "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." The Taliban, he said, must "hand over every terrorist and every person in their support structure." The support structure, an extremely ambiguous term, at the very least includes cooks, cleaners, and other innocents. "They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate." In other words, anyone who doesn't go along 100% with the Bush Administration's war agenda becomes a target. For more detailed analysis of the speech, please see: "Happy New Year: It's 1984" www.commondreams.org/views01/0922-07.htm "America's Unending War" www.commondreams.org/views01/0921-07.htm In other news, Colin Powell will apparently reveal some of the evidence the United States has gathered that allegedly links Osama bin Laden to the attack. Government officials are still hinting that Iraq, as well as Afghanistan, may be attacked. There is a major military mobilization on, with warplanes going to the Persian Gulf and bases being set up in Uzbekistan, among other things. September 20 was a National Day of Action, with large demonstrations around the country. In many places, thousands of people turned out. We are still waiting for the results of September 23, but rallies are being held around the world. September 29 is the next big day of action planned in the United States and, we hope, around the world. The Nowar Collective is continuing in its efforts to make www.nowarcollective.com a Crisis Resource Center. Expect to see the site dramatically updated within eight hours of receiving this post. The Activism Directory subsite will be a place to go to find groups organizing in your area (with contact info), and events planned (with descriptions). To submit information for the Directory, please write to nowarcollective2001@yahoo.com If you are interested in forming a chapter of the Nowar Collective in your area, please write to worker-nowar@lists.tao.ca Information about how to do that will be posted shortly. For other questions, please write to worker-crisis@lists.tao.ca Please forward this post widely and include subscription information. To subscribe to crisis, send an e-mail to lists@tao.ca with the message "subscribe crisis" (no quotes) in the BODY of the message. To unsubscribe, write "unsubscribe crisis" PLEASE NOTE An unsubscription request must be sent from the email address that is subscribed. Let us move forward and build a movement so that no more innocents will die anywhere in the world. In Solidarity, The Nowar Collective www.nowarcollective.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 15:52:39 -0400 Reply-To: jamie.perez@AKQA.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jamie Gaughran-Perez Organization: AKQA Subject: [Fwd: Ari Fleischer] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit ...............original message.......... White House transcript notwithstanding, Ari Flesicher really did say what he is rumored ot have said. It had been implied that he might have been misquoted, but if you load up http://video.c-span.org:8080/ramgen/hdrive/ter092601_whpb.rm and scroll to about 31:00, you'll hear it plain as day: "Americans need to watch what they say, what they do." Seriously Orwellian. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:44:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gillespie william k Subject: What is to be? MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII After the terrorist attack - the quartet of airplanes and their hour-long mathematical ballet - comes a stunned silence. I don't know what to say. The realization that there are people who want to kill me, based on what I represent to them, is sobering. I have known for some time, after all, that my government is willing, if not eager, to kill. I have sometimes felt as though I am expected to believe that these killings are done on my behalf, to protect me, but I cannot believe that I need protection from Manuel Noriega, for example, or from Grenada. A great deal of what is done supposedly in my name remains a mystery. Did they lie to me about that plane that went down in Pennsylvania when they said that a team of brave Americans overpowered the terrorists and crashed the plane? When one of those brave Americans reported smoke on the wing and a jet plane circling the area? Was that plane actually shot down by the military? If so, was that lie told to me in my name, to protect me? To protect me from the truth? In order to protest this next war, I can't just bring up from the basement the signs protesting the last war. Because my feelings won't fit on a sign. Because slogans are suddenly the problem, not the solution: to use slogans is to speak propagandistic sound bites back to propagandistic sound bites. Because even to argue against this next war is already to have lost the argument. Lost the argument, because someone asked you "are you still in favor of terrorist attacks?" (a trick question) and you opened your mouth to answer. Because by opposing this war, you are already surrendering ground, agreeing to skip the important question "what is to be done?" by acknowledging that the answer is already war. If you try to back up to that important and difficult question they will accuse you of trying to back up even further to the question "is anything to be done?" or even the question "is it alright to do anything?" "War, but not this war," your sign says, even though your sign thinks it says "No War Ever," because your sign does not offer an alternative to inaction. You are repeating a rebuttal at the exact moment that your opponent has changed his argument by filling in an important blank. War: because someone wants to kill you because of what you represent. This is a moment in history for you, but not for the terrorists, for whom it is three moments, in 1972, in 1978, and in 2001. It is a line pointing through history. Perhaps they have been planning the hijackings since centuries before the buildings were built, since before New Amsterdam was stolen and the Native Americans living there slaughtered. The terrorists believe themselves conduits of destiny. From the sunrise of time they have been coming to get you, even though you are only two and one quarter centuries old. Your people are a flight across history that has only just completed takeoff and reached cruising altitude, and you had just loosened your seatbelt and were starting to relax. All those other wars we fought and you protested, whether behind your heart or in front of the courthouse, were against an enemy that could never have killed us. Not Panama nor Iraq nor former Yugoslavia nor Sudan nor Afghanistan. Many of those enemies were even individuals, such as Qaddafi and Bin Laden, and so we bombed the people living in the same country as them, but the terrorists are a cancer that has metastasized, become undifferentiated, and sewn itself through the loopholes in our arrogance. They have no manifestos, no egos, no name, no borders. Victims of history, hypnotized with hatred, coolly executing effortlessly perfect murders. Living without lives, planning only for the day they die, leaving nothing but corpses and newspapers in their wake. Leaving us nothing to look at but ourselves and our fears and suspicions. And so this is a critical moment, during which our fears and suspicions are revealed to us, casting shadows against the rushing whitenoise of a blank media landscape in which evidence is withheld from us for our protection. Do we, America, accept ourselves at this moment, for if not, then everything is already lost and we are a nation at war internally. But, unlike those other wars that were all silly nonsense about defending countries you had to seek out on a map or about punishing former allies turned drug-dealers or about failing to bomb individuals suspected of being terrorists (but instead blowing up a pharmaceutical factory in one of the poorest countries in the world), this next war is being fought to save your life, which is tempting to believe, because there are people who want to kill you. "I don't want anybody to save my life," your sign says, though it thinks it says "I don't want people to be killed." A sign can have only two colors and signify, but this is not black and white: there are grey areas here and rich shades of brown. It is not black versus white, but it must be you versus them, unless you are suicidal too. Which side are you on? War, no war, war-driven economy, not war-driven economy, failing war-driven economy, not failing war-driven economy, the terrorists have won their argument by not having it. You will have a successful war-driven economy and avenge the terrorists' suicides by dropping fire on the terrorists' people, proving the terrorists' point. Or not. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:12:38 -0700 Reply-To: cstroffo@earthlink.net Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Stroffolino Subject: Re: Backstreet Boy apologizes... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Actually Joel--- I think you were trying to quote this as an example of a soulless entertainer???? Am I right.... Actually I respect this guy for saying this; and even the "retraction" doesn't seem so bad... I mean it's more like John Lennon's famous 1966 "I wasn't knocking it" thing.... Thanks for posting it; it could be useful for my comp. classes, etc... (yeah, even one of THEIR heroes agrees with their "crazy teacher" etc....) Not that I'm going out to buy any BB albums soon.... Is Richardson the guy that was on the tabloids for being too drunk, etc? Chris Joel Weishaus wrote: > Any wonder we need poets, not entertainers, more than ever? Artists who care > more about their soul than their career. > > -Joel > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Jenn McCreary" > To: > Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2001 12:32 PM > Subject: Backstreet Boy apologizes... > > > ..for voicing a political opinion. > > > > <<"Kevin Richardson has fallen into the same trap that snared poor Bill > Maher the other day. And now, like the "Politically Incorrect" host, the > Backstreet Boy has been forced to chew himself out -- or face the wrath of > the American public. > > > > Richardson didn't mean any disrespect to the nation, he said, when he made > the following statement to a Canadian > > interviewer in the aftermath of the attack: "I just think we are a little > bit of an arrogant nation and maybe this is a little bit of a humbling > experience ... what has our government done to provoke this action that we > don't know about?" > > > > The tentatively put-forth query apparently raised the ire of some of his > more patriotic compatriots. And so, Thursday morning, Richardson took to the > airwaves to clear things up. > > > > "My thoughts weren't put together quite properly," the penitent pop star > explained to Z100's Paul "Cubby" Bryant. "We had been doing about five > interviews in Toronto, Canada ... and as I was sitting there listening to > the rest of the guys talk, I just got overwhelmed with anger and > frustration, on 'how can this happen in our country, in this nation that we > live in?'" > > > > What he meant by "arrogant," he said, was that "we've been a little > overconfident, we've maybe taken our freedom for granted, taken our security > for granted." > > > > "I apologize if I have offended anyone, any of the families of the > victims, if my statement seemed insensitive, but I was reacting out of anger > and out of frustration, and I was emotional," Richardson continued. "I don't > want anyone to think that I don't love this country ... I'm proud to be an > American. I apologize if my comment was untimely.">> ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 10:20:30 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Murat. I dont agree: read my reaction. I mean I dont agree with censoring what the guy said.(or anything I have or did say)...its good to hear many views...NOT good in my opinion is his position as you'll se in my response to the guy IF he..well even if he isnt and is just "pissing about" ....I can understand his response: but I would agree that to go from the kind of anger and resentment to this position - to want to attack ALL Amercans (any I suppose in "normal" circumstances) that's different from attempting to explain or understand. I've forgotten what I wrote about "burning towers" - after all it is eerie that Eliot virtually "predicts" this: clearly tho he was not "political" (as such) but he was as close in his own way as an extreme Muslim in some of his own attitudes - look: a volcano eruption is awesome and beautiful as well as tragic (if people are in the way of it): read some Shakespear: the patrons to Bill's work revelled in abstract blood shed, Richard the Third's massacre of the cousins is soon forgotten when he shouts "A horse! Ahorse! My kngdom for a horse!" They are fascinated ...as I was when a (twisted?) young Richard myself) read "I am determined to be a villain")....there are many sides to the human psyche...as to censor ship : that's the beginning of fascism!!! Its as bad as killing people, its undemocratic, and aginst fredom of speech. Its Talebanic.A kind of undemocratic repression: people will be saying all sorts of things...lets say them out loud and then react...dont censor - but I think we have to "know ourselves" and that involves getting into some strange "mind states": I'm not writing cold ..here in New Zealand I was nearly killed by the police during protest action (not against the US) ...but it would be true to say that I havent suffered anything like the horror of this event at the World Trade: nor have I been even close to starving to death as it looks hundreds of thousands are now in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But I know how you feel about that email of the person who "allegedly" wants to attack Americans: this is good to hear? Yes and no. Good to KNOW ABOUT... It at least alerts us to the way people may be thinking. The question is now why? How do these things arise? In some cases people are simply "benighted" but in other there are real grievances - which hopefully can be solved by negotiations not any more attacks etc. We at least can move in that direction. I'm not going to be "for the US" and nor am I going to be wholly "against" ...I reserve the right to say what I feel and think and to disagree with anyone I think is wrong..and change my mind if I'm shown to be stupid (not an uncommon occurrence!). Hope this puts a better perspective on things from me. Regards, Richard. PS Unless you meant Taylor...what's his name? No? ----- Original Message ----- From: "Murat Nemet-Nejat" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 9:12 AM Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > In a message dated 9/26/01 2:23:22 PM, abdlasalaam@HOTMAIL.COM writes: > > >I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of > >further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end up, > >don't forget to duck. > > > >SASq > > > > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine to Taylor's > reference to the beauty of burning towers). I supposed Sasq's post can not be > considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing to "everybody." Absolutely > disgusting really. > > Murat ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 10:23:03 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Mark. It may be. But even if it is: it is representative of the way amny young men from over there may feel. See my response. I disagreed with the guy. But I tried not to take the "high ground" as that will only alienate further. Regards, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark DuCharme" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 12:14 PM Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > Is this some kind of sick joke? Please tell us that this was just the most > ill-chosen, totally inappropriate sarcasm of your life, and nothing more. > > > > > >From: Selim Abdul Sadiq > >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > >Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 22:50:48 +0000 > > > >>I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > >>country in response to the current situation. > > > >I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of > >further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end up, > >don't forget to duck. > > > >SASq > > > > > >>From: heidi peppermint > >>Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > >>To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > >>Subject: one self sin teared question > >>Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:16:52 -0700 > >> > >>I am wondering if anyone is considering leaving the > >>country in response to the current situation. > >> > >>__________________________________________________ > >>Do You Yahoo!? > >>Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! > >>Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com > > > > > >_________________________________________________________________ > >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 20:10:32 -0230 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "K.Angelo Hehir" Subject: article from The Onion MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII hello, here is a bit of satire about recent and future events kevin http://www.theonion.com/onion3734/us_vows_to_defeat_whoever.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:19:52 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit It was from me I think but it wasnt published because of censorship and it wasnt a "celebration" of the situation: in fact I cant remember exactly what I said but I quoted Eliot's Waste Land and so on. But I tried to reason with the guy who wants (if that's not another joke or hoax ) to attack all Americans. My thinking on all this is more complex. I certainly dont support that...I may UNDERSTAND IT or see where he's comning from, but I dont support such a blanket hate opf anyone. But I think they meant Richard Taylor not "Taylor Brady". But I might have got a "bit carried away" in that missive re "burning towers" but as I said to the List people they cant censor what's on this list: that's the first step to fascism. that violates the UN Charter of Human Rights. That's being Talebanic: we need all sides to this. Keep the lines open...Regards, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Taylor Brady" To: Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 4:30 AM Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > By now I think it's probably beside the point, but I feel compelled to > point out that nothing I wrote to this list struck me as having much to > do with "the beauty of burning towers." I'm really not sure where you > got this from. > > Peace, > Taylor > > > On Wednesday, September 26, 2001, at 02:12 PM, Murat Nemet-Nejat wrote: > > > In a message dated 9/26/01 2:23:22 PM, abdlasalaam@HOTMAIL.COM writes: > > > >> I plan on returning to Syria, in order to take part in the planning of > >> further attacks on Americans, both here and abroad. Wherever you end > >> up, > >> don't forget to duck. > >> > >> SASq > >> > > > > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine to Taylor's > > reference to the beauty of burning towers). I supposed Sasq's post can > > not be > > considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing to "everybody." > > Absolutely > > disgusting really. > > > > Murat > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 00:00:29 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Floodeditions@AOL.COM Subject: Chicago Poetry Project Announces MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit William Fuller & Devin Johnston reading at Harold Washington Library, 400 South State Street, Chicago Chicago Authors Room, 7th Floor Saturday, October 13, 1:00 PM sponsored by Chicago Poetry Project ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:25:14 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: m&r..'we should be confident..." MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Harry. I know what the guy is saying: but the Italian fellow should know that there are brilliant scientists, artists, poets, philosophers, mathematicians and so on and on who are of whatever ilk: the West civilisation is great but, given that we need to be wary of arrogance. I'm not as confident as our Italian friend whose country produced Garibaldi Verdi AND Mussolini (and picked up E Puond)...lets save te good rich things...reject the crazy... The them and us syndrome. Damn these events I couldnt concentrate on Perec but I;'m enjoying Robert Kelly (OI was justly chastised for not perusing that gentleman's work: what a poet!! I agree with Joris...a welcome change...maybe a bit too "deep imagy" but that probably doesnt matter: some moving poems in REDACTIONS: obviously a great man...probably a very gentle man I'd say...) I enjoyed Perec's book so far but it costs a dollar to renew that great tome so I had to take it back and Scott wont phone (he's too busy planning the revolution) me to sell or lend or let me steal the copy he has...drn ----- Original Message ----- From: "Harry Nudel" To: Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 12:09 AM Subject: m&r..'we should be confident..." > The Italian Prime Minister: "we should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which consists of a value system that has given people widespread prosperity in those countries which embrace it, and guarantees respect for human rights and religion....This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries." > > The West 'is bound to occidentalize and conquer new people...It has done it with the Communist World and part of the Islamic World but unfortortunately a part of the Islamic world is 1,400 years behind. From this point of view, we must be conscious of the strength of our civilization"... > > truth out of the mouths of Billionaires....Chechnya has been fighting Russia for independence off and on since the time of the American Civil War....Welcome to the 100 years war....you can now go back to reading Perec.....DRn... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 02:52:10 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: George Quasha Organization: Station Hill / Barrytown, Ltd. Subject: Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This clear statement with some specific information should enter the dialogue: A Statement from the Coordinating Committee of Scientists of Global Responsibility, UK www.sgr.org.uk Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) Subject: i-sis.org response to the terrorist act http://www.i-sis.org/terrorist.shtml ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 03:20:49 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: lacuna MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII === 18days, LOGIN@ Thu08AM 3:15AM 2:21AM Wed07PM 2:23AM 1:54AM Tue06PM Thu06AM Fri05AM 2:47AM 18Sep01 Fri05AM Thu10PM Mon07AM 18Sep01 Wed09AM Wed06PM Thu08PM Thu07AM Thu12AM Mon07AM 12:00AM Thu08PM Thu07AM 14Sep01 Thu09PM Thu07PM 12:57AM 12:30AM Tue07PM 1:01AM Thu09PM Tue04PM Mon05PM 1:02AM Thu11PM 1:34AM Thu12PM Thu05PM Wed11PM 15Sep01 Thu09PM Wed07PM 1:17AM Thu10PM Thu08PM Mon09AM Thu09PM Thu07PM Mon09AM Thu04PM Thu05PM Wed09AM Thu10PM Tue06PM Fri06PM Thu05PM Tue01PM Tue02PM 18nights, w | awk '{ print $4 }' >> zz; ksh: j_waitj: tcsetpgrp(10, 27543) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device == ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 21:00:02 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lungfull@RCN.COM Subject: Zinc Bar Continues Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" The Zinc Bar Reading Series will resume this Sunday September 30 with Charles Bernstein & John Yau Here is the October lineup: Sunday October 7: Herschel Silverman & Jill Rappaport Sunday October 14: Jeremy Larner & Sharon Mesmer Thursday October 18: LUNGFULL!magazine release reading & party Sunday October 21: Tonya Foster & Alan Gilbert Thursday October 25: Joe Elliot & friend Sunday October 28: Bill Corbett & Ed Barrett Hosted by Brendan Lorber & Douglas Rothschild All readings begin at 6:37pm & will run you $4 except the LUNGFULL!magazine release event which is $5 More on the release will come your way soon Zinc Bar is at 90 West Houston Between LaGuardia & Thompson photos of recent Zinc Bar Readings can be seen at www.internetcamera.com gallery name: zinc For addl info: 212.533.9317 or 718.802.9575 or lungfull@rcn.com I hope you can make it, even if you don't particularly feel like going to a reading these days. The small portion of my self that doesn't want to climb in a hole & grieve or go out & help with the relief effort, that small part doesn't really want to go to readings right now either. But I will be at Zinc Bar every Sunday & at other literary events in the weeks to come despite & because of what's happened. In the new environment one of the few remotely certain things we have is each other & the belief that writing is something worth doing. Your presence will be a comfort & inspiration that some of the ideas & practices we had before the attack are even more relevant this morning than they were a few weeks ago. Thanks to everyone who checked in to say they were okay & to those who called & wrote to offer their concern. I hope that you & those around you are safe & that compassion & understanding guide the events of the immanent, looming future. Will we see you around at Zinc & elsewhere? Oh I hope so. Yours, Brendan Lorber *** if you wish to be removed from these announcements, please respond with "REMOVE" in the subject line. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 20:47:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: mIEKAL aND Subject: temporary. autonomous. retreat. Comments: To: dreamtime@yahoogroups.com, dtvmail@yahoogroups.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; x-mac-type="54455854"; x-mac-creator="4D4F5353" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit temporary. autonomous. retreat. dreamtime village, wisconsin | sept 26, 2001 For the next few months dreamtime village is offering free rent to folks of THE NYC AREA who need somewhere to go to for retreat, for reflection, for sanctuary, to visit, to be out of the city or simply just need to get away for awhile. Preference will be given to previous residents & visitors, tho we will consider all proposals. We have a limited number of rooms available so we may not be able to facilate all requests. Visitors will still be responsible for their own food or need to buy into our bulk food ($2/day). Organic vegetables, berries & fruits are abundant here. Visitors are also encouraged to help with daily chores & work projects. There are also endless creativities to become immersed in, including playing music, working in the clay studio, computer studio, yoga, or listening to the coyotes howl. For more info call mIEKAL or Zon at 608-625-4619, ken, jeff or chuck at 608-625-2412, or Lyx at 608-625-2428 or email us at dtv@mwt.net !unwar always! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:32:48 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Reuven BenYuhmin Subject: Re: CAUTIONARY THOUGHTS MANIFESTO Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > Anne Waldman's, CAUTIONARY THOUGHTS MANIFESTO, one of the sanest things to appear on this list. Reuven BenYuhmin >.... > * Discriminating Wisdom ("prajna") Now! Poetics adages are useful here: > "No ideas but in things" (Williams), "Go in fear of abstractions" (Ezra > Pound) Poets & artists: make your own lists of sane trustworthy language > measures.... > > Aren't there sane models for mutual co-existence on this precious planet? > Aren't there any wise leaders (with clout) who may be allowed to speak > sagely & effectively at this crucial time? And speak with > historical/cultural/philosophical/religious perspective? Why don't > governments have such counsel in place? The US presidential cabinets are > made up primarily of partisan lackeys, often not even trained in their > supposed arenas of expertise. And they, too, can be bought. Are the > Muslim Clerics the only "body of elders" to weigh in on this? Isn't there a > way of invoking and developing (through UN auspices) a body of mediating > enlightened human beings from all nations and cultures and communities that > aren't simply representing and reflecting their own government's national > interests? Who holds the whole of existence sacred? Cannot we have, also, > a body of folk going in just to help (as witnessed powerfully in the > aftermath of the attack in NY)? Not aid groups or religious groups with > ideologies or strings attached, but... > > *Form cadres of "boddhisattvas" for mediation, for true compassionate (not > self-serving) action! And bands of articulate poet-warriors! > > The US's questionable legitimate presidential leadership, its government's > very recent rejection of the Kyoto accords, its boycott of the UN conference > on racism (related to the situation in Israel/Palestine), its undoing of > sane and sensible legislation that protects its own citizens (standards for > arsenic levels in water etc) has been most troubling, depressing. Does not > the current scenario, at the brink of a consuming possible war in the > Middle East - simply benefit this country's hegemonic interest, economy? > Will it root out terrorism or create more terrorism? Does the US not > showcase its most advanced weaponry once again which will lead to support > of Star Wars and other scary outer space death machines? Is it not true > that the US wants an oil pipeline through Afghanistan? And won't we be > paying a heavy price for an "us versus them" mentality, for invoking a > sense of righteous "crusade" and revenge? Where are the women critique-ing > the use of patriarchal language now when we need them? Where are the > responses of women leaders in general as we see unfolding before us > another Macho drama. What are the 3 wives of Osama Bin Laden thinking? Is > Condoleeza Rice our only audible voice? Where is Hillary Clinton in > articulation of the suffering of the Palestinian people now, at the > eleventh hour? Should we now examine our language with perspicuity at this > time? Should we not explore other less devastating method for uprooting > terrorism and its causes before we inflict more suffering on already > desperate and suffering peoples? > > * Stay vigilant. Be a guardian of "right speech"! > > Consider the deals that are being made to insure support of US policy > planet-wide! Will Russia now even have more permission to persecute its > "terrorists" in Chechnya, will China in Tibet and Taiwan etc etc... > > As patriotic US citizen who has always strived to "save America from > herself" and one (with many) who mourns her country's loss, & who feels > tremendous assault on her home city, and as writer defending creative > expression and the right to dissent and as denizen of the world who aspires > to know the world (& the cosmos) -understand it, witness it in all its > richness & complexity, - I take a vow for an aspiration of "vipashyana" or > clear-seeing (insight). The world does not need more war. Pursue the path > of least suffering... ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 10:31:08 +0100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "david.bircumshaw" Subject: Fw: Masthead MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit (Forwarded on behalf of Alison Croggon: the re-emergence of Masthead) David Bircumshaw ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alison Croggon" To: Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 10:03 AM Subject: Masthead > Apologies for cross posting - > > Announcing Masthead bumper double issue > > Now open at http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/ > > American terror: writings in the immediate aftermath > > Prose > > Leonard Abrams - After September 11 | Corinna - Where was I? | Irene > Fernandez - Revenge will not stop terrorism | James Graham - NY > report | Peter Horn - Operation "Infinite Justice" | John Kinsella - > Letter to M | Ron Silliman - Progressiveness now | Eliot Weinberger - > New York: The day after | Lawrence Upton - On top of the Zyklon Heap > > > Poetry > > Ali Alizadeh - Flames can't | Barry Alpert - It's about time | Hakan > Anderson - Can We Understand? | Williams James Austin - from > trans/text/ual | Andrea Baker - Two poems | David Bircumshaw - Special > effects | Marion Bloem - Mother | Dominic Fox - Untitled | Robert > Hampson - Three poems | David Howard - Heroin | Coral Hull - Two poems | > Arni Ibsen - Ezra | Jill Jones - Displacements | S.K. Kelen - > Liberty | Anastasios Kozaitis - wtc 11 | Sophie Levy - Second > coming | Mez - Three texts | Erminia Passannanti - Because of our > Lord | Susan M. Schultz - Report from Hawai'i | Harriet Zinnes - > Serious business > > Issue 4 > > From the print edition Summer 2000. > > Douglas Oliver - Of bigotry and idealism | Nikos Gatsos trans Vasili > Stavropoulos - Amorgos | Harold Pinter - Out of the barrel of a gun | > Denise Bonal | Blida, or the little rose of the Sahel | Pierre Joris - > Collage and post-collage | Carlyle Reedy -Untitled | John Mateer - > Indonesian diary | Lawrence Upton - Three poems | Leonard Abrams - Kids > on the block | James Graham - Photo essay: Paris Journal > > Best wishes > > Alison Croggon > Editor > > > > > > Alison Croggon > > Home page > http://users.bigpond.com/acroggon/ > Masthead > http://au.geocities.com/masthead_2/ > David Bircumshaw Leicester, England A Chide's Alphabet www.chidesplay.8m.com Painting Without Numbers www.paintstuff.20m.com/default.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/default.htmDavid Bircumshaw Leicester, England A Chide's Alphabet www.chidesplay.8m.com Painting Without Numbers www.paintstuff.20m.com/default.htm http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/default.htm ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 06:49:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: devineni@RATTAPALLAX.COM Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Rattapallax=206=20Launch=20Reading?= In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Please join us for the launch reading of Rattapallax 6 September 29 (Sat) from 2pm-4:30pm 455 Fifth Avenue New York, 6th Floor Conference Room (212) 340-0833 http://www.rattapallax.com All proceeds will be donated to UNICEF Thank You, Ram Devineni Publisher Featured poets in the issue: Dana Gioia, Yusef Komunyakaa, William Pitt Root, Dannie Abse, Philip Appl= eman, Ros Barber, Jeanne Marie Beaumont, Gerard Benson, Peter Bland, Peter Covi= no, Greg Delanty, Christine Delea, Peter Douglas, K.E. Duffin, Graham Duncan,= Rhina P. Espaillat, Allen C. Fischer, Ethan Gilsdorf, Andrew Glaze, Karl D. Gluck, Veronica Golos, Eamon Grennan, Philip Gross, Rachel Hadas, Anth= ony Howell, Colette Inez, Nicholas Johnson, Robert Kendall, Johanna Keller, X.J. Kennedy, Len Krisak, Donald Lev, Richard Levine, Kate Light, Andr=E9= Mangeot Ron McFarland, D.H. Melhem, Samuel Menashe, Philip Miller, Robert Minhinn= ick, Miles David Moore, Marilyn Nelson, Alfred Nicol, D. Nurkse, Michael Palma= , Edmund Pennant, Vic Peterson, Pascale Petit, Jennifer M. Phillips, Charle= s Pierre, Marie Ponsot, Andrea Porter, Bertha Rogers, M.A. Schaffner, Rebec= ca L. Schumejda, Elaine Sexton, Glenn Shea, Stuart Silverman, Charlie Smith,= Gavin Stewart, Franklin Taber, Mark Terrill, Maria Terrone, Diane Thiel, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Barry Wallenstein, Thom Ward, Robert Wrigley & Mich= ael T. Young note: only some of the poets featured in the issue will attend and read ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 07:38:38 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: June Degnan Comments: cc: Peter Quartermain , Rachel Blau DuPlessis , David McAleavey MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I remember Mary Oppen telling me once that she and George could not have returned to the US when they did without June's help and political connections. Ron June Degnan -- S.F. matron, active Democrat Angelica Pence, Chronicle Staff Writer Friday, September 28, 2001 ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/09/28/MN21406.DTL San Francisco -- June Oppen Degnan, a staunch Democrat, respected publisher and lover of all things literary, passed away in her Nob Hill home Sept. 14. She was 82. A self-proclaimed liberal Democrat, Ms. Degnan was an ardent fund-raiser and loyal party delegate for the better part of three decades. "Back in the days before the reformers got their hands on the campaign- finance laws, a wealthy, charming and public-spirited San Francisco matron was much sought after by Democratic candidates for the presidency," David S. Broder wrote in a 1988 editorial for The Washington Post. "They knew that simply by putting pen to checkbook, June Degnan could keep them in the race for another two months or more." In 1956, in her mid-30s, Ms. Degnan joined the State Democratic Central Committee, the party's governing body for California. By 1962, she was a national board member of the Americans for Democratic Action. "In the 1960s and early 1970s, her support was so earnestly solicited by so many aspiring hopefuls that she became notably tough-minded in her judgments, finally distilling her criteria into what I came to think of as Ms. Degnan's Law," Broder wrote. "I figure," she once told him, "that anybody who deserves to be president of the United States ought to be able, in a half-hour conversation, to express one thought I had not already thought of myself." In 1971, Ms. Degnan became both treasurer for the state Democratic Party and national vice-chair for George McGovern's run for the White House. She served three times as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention from 1972 until 1980, twice as a member of the national finance committee. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter tapped her as a trustee for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. She served in the coveted position until 1989. She was born in Rochester, N.Y., in 1919, and in 1939 married George Degnan, a longtime medical director for Contra Costa County. They were divorced in the mid-1940s. Frequently candid, she appeared just as often in the society columns of local newspapers -- including those of The Chronicle -- as she did in the editorial and news pages. Ms. Degnan was quoted in a 1990 Herb Caen column after returning from her first flight on the Concorde. "An experience which, she (said), reminded her of Lord Chesterfield's deathless line about sex: 'The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.' " In 1952, she co-founded San Francisco Review, a magazine featuring the work of poets, playwrights and novelists. Throughout the '50s and '60s, Ms. Degnan co-published works from a slew of authors including James Hall, William Bronk, Charles Reznikoff, Curtis Zahn and George Oppen -- her brother. In all, she published three books authored by her brother -- The Materials (1962), This in Which (1965) and Of Being Numerous (1968), which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry the year after it was first put on bookstore shelves. By 1975, Ms. Degnan became publisher of Oceans Magazine, one of the first wildlife and environmental magazines. "My mother . . . was very sensitive to the history of our country both in politics and in culture," said her daughter, Aubrey Degnan. It was that very sensitivity, she said, that in many ways led to her mother's death on Sept. 14 -- just three days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "She was profoundly loyal to the morals, values and spirit of this nation," Aubrey Degnan said. "What really led to her immediate passing were the incidents of the Tuesday attacks. It was just too much for her spirit." In addition to her daughter, Ms. Degnan is survived by two grandchildren, Brett Fisher and Adam Lindgren, and four great-grandchildren: Michelle, Richard, Alexandra, Ethan and a fifth who is yet to be born. A memorial service will be held Oct. 28 at Temple Emanu-El, 2 Lake St., San Francisco, at 1 p.m. E-mail Angelica Pence at apence@sfchronicle.com. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 08:07:11 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Lannan Lifetime Award goes to Robert Creeley MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Here's some good news, from Publishers' Weekly daily email: The Lannan Literary Foundation is honoring Robert Creeley with a Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award, which includes an cash gift of $200,000. During the past 12 years, Lannan Foundation has given 105 writers more than $5.7 million. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 08:25:42 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: John Stickney Subject: What is to be done: Elsewhere MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable From Salon: China puts Web handyman on trial Yang Zili, 30, a Chinese writer and software developer, will go to trial = http://www.bringmenews.com/China/freeyzl/rt_0926.htm this Friday in = Beijing on charges of subversion of state power, along with three other = pro-democracy Chinese intellectuals. The charges could bring the men = sentences of as long as 10 years in prison.=20 As Salon reported last May in "The Price of Internet Freedom," = http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/05/30/china_sidebar/index.html = Yang drew state attention by acting as a kind of Web handyman to other = Chinese intellectuals, helping them get online and publish their = writings on the Web. He also ran a Web site, "Yang Zili's Garden of = Ideas," that published his own pro-democracy writings. The other men who = will stand trial with him are Xu Walin, a reporter; Zhang Honghai, a = freelance writer; and Jin Haike, a geologist.=20 The arrest of Yang and his cohorts inspired an international human = rights outcry http://www.bringmenews.com/China/freeyzl/ since the men are hardly the most outspoken or well known of China's = pro-democracy intellectuals. The fact that writings published on the Web = were enough to invite a charge of subversion troubled international = observers.=20 As part of the arrest, Zili's house was ransacked and he was detained at = an unknown location for a month before being officially charged with any = crime. --Katharine Mieszkowski [2:30 p.m. PDT, Sept. 26, 2001] ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 09:26:17 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/27/01 11:34:03 AM, MuratNN@AOL.COM writes: << The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine to Taylor's reference to the beauty of burning towers). I supposed Sasq's post can not be considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing to "everybody." Absolutely disgusting really. Murat >> Murat, here is an absolute we can both identify. I couldn't agree more. Absolutely disgusting!! Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 01:03:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: lee ann brown Subject: Tony Torn as Lucifer Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Here's Tony Torn's advert for current NYC Arthur Miller project: I am writing to invite you to a major Off-Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's 1972 play THE CREATION OF THE WORLD AND OTHER BUISNESS. It is Miller's look at the Book Of Genesis...Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, God...and Lucifer (portrayed by yours truly- Tony Torn.) Tickets for most of the run will be $35. Tickets for previews thru Thursda= y Oct 4th are $25. But for this preview period only, if you make a reservatio= n using the code APPLE, you can get TWO PREVIEW TICKETS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE! A Big Off Broadway show for less than you would pay in a tiny black box downtown theater...only $12 per person. This play is not sort of modern, fastfood experience that most of us have grown used to. It is a full length three act play that gives us a witty and ferocious tour through the source text of Western morality. This is theater as it once was, and perhaps as it was meant to be. The director and the designer, Oleg Kheyfets and Simon Pastukh, both hail from Russia, and have created a production of great beauty and power that I am proud to be part of. The cast includes Kent Alexander as God, Paul Sparks as Adam, Valarie Stamford as Eve, Tom Pearl as Cain, and Preston Dane as Abel. Lighting is b= y in house designer of The Riverside Theater, Dusty Ray. The Artistic Collaborator is Stefanie Ansin. The Production Stage Manager is Fran Rubenstein. The Executive Producer is Olga Kagen. I am looking forward to seeing you uptown TONY TORN >CREATION has not had a major production since it opened on Broadway in 1972. Now Russian director OLEG KHEYFETS, with the active participation of ARTHUR MILLER, reinvestigates this timeless exploration of good and evil. Adam & Eve, God and Lucifer, Cain and Abel share the stage in MILLER's unsettling story about the first family, the first rape, and the first murder. THE CREATION OF THE WORLD AND OTHER BUSINESS runs from September 27 to November 4 at The Theatre of The Riverside Church, 490 Riverside Drive (entrance at 91 Claremont Avenue between West 120th and West 121st St.). $35 General Admission/ $25 Students & Seniors. For tickets call 212.870.6784. **MENTION THE CODE WORD "APPLE" FOR $12 TICKETS TO SEPTEMBER 27-OCTOBER 5 PERFORMANCES**> 1. m&r...Iran. Lee Ann Brown Tender Buttons PO Box 13, Cooper Station NYC 10276 (718) 782-8443 home - (646) 734-4157 cell "Harmless amulets arm little limbs with poise and charm." =8B Harryette Mullen, Trimmings (Tender Buttons Books) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:29:16 +1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "richard.tylr" Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit And we often say things "in the heat of passion" that we wish we hadnt said: but long live heat and passion...and a modicum of "logic" and reason and wisdom I wsih I really knew what that was/is..... Regards, Richard. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Poetics List Administration" To: Sent: Friday, September 28, 2001 4:44 AM Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > Murat Nemet-Nejat writes: > > > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine [....] I > supposed > > Sasq's post can not be considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing > to > > "everybody." Absolutely disgusting really. > > I'm not sure whether that last sentence is intended to take in the post > by "sasq" - Selim Abdul Sadiq - or my having forwarded to the list. In > any case, I'd like to make a few comments: > > 1. In general, I don't like to address my interactions with subscribers > here, for the obvious and historically verifiable reason that such > discussions > tend to initiate a recursive spiral of endless and recriminatory posts to > the > List about the List. The situation is [A.] as dull as any public squabble; > and [B.] by its tendency to a peculiarly school-boyish acerbity, tends also > to make other subscribers reluctant to engage in the business of the List: > which is Discussion. Since almost the entirety of my position here is to > maintain an atmosphere in which people feel that they can have "their say" > without becoming the subject of personally-directed rhetorical violence - > hence my use of the phrase 'ad hominem,' unfortunately gendered - These > consequences are detrimental. The post over which we disagreed, Murat, > fits very neatly into the category that I have elicited, since it was one > in which you repeatedly characterized another subscriber as a "windbag" > and stated that s/he is guaranteed to express the "windbag point of view." > My response to you was also very simple: the points you express in relation > to the discussion are very welcome, but please express them without the > personal insult. In light of this response, I can't help remarking that > the term Censored is a bit inflated. > > 2. This morning on "The Connection," I listened to two very well-spoken > liberal men - the host, and a writer on the airline industry - discuss the > 'unfortunate inevitability' of racial profiling in matters of national and > especially airport security: "You can write well-intentioned memos saying > that it shouldn't happen, but the bottom line is that it will take place." > This brought to mind the number of times, crossing the border from Canada > into the United States, that I have seen brown people standing beside their > car as it is minutely searched by the border guards - in proportion to the > few times - well, once in four years actually - that I have seen white > people in a similar situation. Apparently, it is easy to sympathize, so > long as we keep the "bottom line" firmly in place - though, in this case, > "bottom line" makes a curious bridge between a pervasive financial jargon > and the less widely-esteemed phrase "mud people." Perhaps in reacting to > Selim Abdul Sadiq's post, we might credit its author with an awareness of > the "stereotype of complete ignorance and blind aggression" that is > generally attributed, in the U.S., to people of middle eastern descent; > let's go so far even as to impute an intimate awareness. Perhaps, given an > apparent interest in the nuances of poetry, we might even credit its author > too with the dexterity to momentarily own the disreputable stereotype in > order - having credited us with the dexterity to read this gesture - to > point out its terrible absurdity. But of course, this is all conjecture. > > Christopher W. Alexander > poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 18:31:30 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Christopher W. Alexander" Subject: Creeley - Lannan MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 14:49:27 -0400 From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Creeley receives Lannan Aware --=====================_23389107==_.REL Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="=====================_23389120==_.ALT" --=====================_23389120==_.ALT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 26 September 2001 (Press Release from Lannan Foundation) Robert= Creeley receives $200,000=20 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award creeley.jpg Santa Fe, NM -- The Lannan Foundation announced today that Robert Creeley= will be honored with a Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award. The award= recognizes writers who have made significant contributions to= English-language literature. Over 12 years, Lannan Foundation has awarded= 105 writers more than $5.7 million.=20 Robert Creeley, poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, editor, and= teacher, was born in Arlington, Massachusetts in 1926. He entered Harvard= University in 1943, leaving after one year to drive an ambulance in India= and Burma during World War II. During the 1950s, after dropping out of= Harvard, he taught at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and was an= editor of its innovative literary journal, the Black Mountain Review. Mr.= Creeley was one of the founders of the Black Mountain school of poetry,= which emphasized natural speech rhythms and lines determined by pauses for= breathing=96a poetry designed to transmit the poet=92s emotional and= intellectual energy directly and spontaneously. After receiving his MA from= the University of New Mexico, Mr. Creeley taught at the University of= British Columbia, San Francisco State College, and the State University of= New York at Buffalo, where he is presently Samuel P. Capen Professor of= Poetry and Letters.=20 Selected Bibliography: Just in Time: Poems 1984-1994. New York: New Directions, 2001. So There: Poems 1976-83. New York: New Directions, 1998. Life & Death. New York: New Directions, 1998. Loops: Ten Poems. Kripplebush, NY: Nadja, 1995. Echoes. New York: New Directions, 1994. Selected Poems. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Windows. New York: New Directions, 1990. Memory Gardens. New York: New Directions, 1986. The Lannan Literary Awards were established in 1989 to honor both= established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional quality.= Candidates for the awards are recommended to the foundation by a network of= writers, literary scholars, publishers, and editors. Nominators are= geographically dispersed and serve anonymously. The final determination of= award recipients is made by the foundation=92s literary committee.=20 Have a Heart Have heart Find head Feel pattern Be wed Smell water See sand Oh boy ain=92t life grand Fading Light Now one may catch it see it shift almost substantial blue white yellow light near roof=92s edge become intense definition think of the spinning world is it as ever this plate of apparent life makes all sit patient hold on chute the sled plunges down ends down the hill beyond sight down into field=92s darkness as time for supper here left years behind waits patient in mind remembers the time. Some You have not simply=20 insisted on yourself nor argued the irrelevance of anyone else. You=20 have always wanted to be friends, to be one of many. Persuaded life even in its largeness might be brought to care, you tried to make it care, humble, illiterate, awkward gestured. So you thought, as inevitable age approached, some loved you, some. You waited for=20 some wind to lift, some thing to happen, proving it finally, making sense more than the literal, still separate. My New Mexico for Gus Blaisdell Edge of door=92s window sun against flat side adobe, yellowed brown=96 A blue lifting morning, miles of spaced echo, time here plunged backward, backward=96 I see shadowed leaf on window frame green, close plant=92s growth, weathered fence slats=96 All passage explicit, the veins, hands, lined faces crease, determined=96 Oh sun! Three years, when I came first, it had shone unblinking, sky vast aching blue=96 The sharpness of each shift the pleasure, pain, of particulars=96 All inside gone out. Sing me a song makes beat specific, takes the sharp air, echoes this silence. from Just in Time: Poems 1984-1994, =A9 2001 Robert Creeley Click here for information on= past winners of Lannan Literary Awards. Christopher W. Alexander cwa@acsu.buffalo.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 09:12:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Marcella Durand Subject: totally tasteless jokes MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Um...in regards to the below, my very best interpretation of Selim's post was that it was an extremely creepy, broad and tasteless joke, and one that I, and I would think most people here in NYC who just saw close to 7,000 people die useless, horrible deaths before their eyes, found pretty offensive. I mean, he certainly has the right to make "jokes"--you know, whatever tickles your funny bone--that and setting cats on fire--but to have obtuse theorizing piled on top of the original "joke" kind of turns my gut. Personally, the word "windbag" brings a smile to my lips more readily than a threat to kill more human beings, no matter who's making the joke. M > Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 12:44:05 -0400 > From: Poetics List Administration > Subject: Re: one self sin teared question > > Murat Nemet-Nejat writes: > > > The moderator of this list told me that he was very sensitive about "ad > > hominem" attack (in response to a censored reaction of mine [....] I > supposed > > Sasq's post can not be considered "ad hominem" because it is a menacing > to > > "everybody." Absolutely disgusting really. > > I'm not sure whether that last sentence is intended to take in the post > by "sasq" - Selim Abdul Sadiq - or my having forwarded to the list. In > any case, I'd like to make a few comments: > > 1. In general, I don't like to address my interactions with subscribers > here, for the obvious and historically verifiable reason that such > discussions > tend to initiate a recursive spiral of endless and recriminatory posts to > the > List about the List. The situation is [A.] as dull as any public squabble; > and [B.] by its tendency to a peculiarly school-boyish acerbity, tends > also > to make other subscribers reluctant to engage in the business of the List: > which is Discussion. Since almost the entirety of my position here is to > maintain an atmosphere in which people feel that they can have "their say" > without becoming the subject of personally-directed rhetorical violence - > hence my use of the phrase 'ad hominem,' unfortunately gendered - These > consequences are detrimental. The post over which we disagreed, Murat, > fits very neatly into the category that I have elicited, since it was one > in which you repeatedly characterized another subscriber as a "windbag" > and stated that s/he is guaranteed to express the "windbag point of view." > My response to you was also very simple: the points you express in > relation > to the discussion are very welcome, but please express them without the > personal insult. In light of this response, I can't help remarking that > the term Censored is a bit inflated. > > 2. This morning on "The Connection," I listened to two very well-spoken > liberal men - the host, and a writer on the airline industry - discuss the > 'unfortunate inevitability' of racial profiling in matters of national and > especially airport security: "You can write well-intentioned memos saying > that it shouldn't happen, but the bottom line is that it will take place." > This brought to mind the number of times, crossing the border from Canada > into the United States, that I have seen brown people standing beside > their > car as it is minutely searched by the border guards - in proportion to the > few times - well, once in four years actually - that I have seen white > people in a similar situation. Apparently, it is easy to sympathize, so > long as we keep the "bottom line" firmly in place - though, in this case, > "bottom line" makes a curious bridge between a pervasive financial jargon > and the less widely-esteemed phrase "mud people." Perhaps in reacting to > Selim Abdul Sadiq's post, we might credit its author with an awareness of > the "stereotype of complete ignorance and blind aggression" that is > generally attributed, in the U.S., to people of middle eastern descent; > let's go so far even as to impute an intimate awareness. Perhaps, given an > apparent interest in the nuances of poetry, we might even credit its > author > too with the dexterity to momentarily own the disreputable stereotype in > order - having credited us with the dexterity to read this gesture - to > point out its terrible absurdity. But of course, this is all conjecture. > > Christopher W. Alexander > poetics list moderator > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 10:21:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: William J Allegrezza Subject: moria and call for submissions MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii The next issue of _moria_ (www.moriapoetry.com)is online. It contains poems by: charles a perrone bernie earley keeanga taylor mark prejsnar garin cycholl steven iglesias r. richard wojewodski It contains articles or reviews by: steven stewart catherine daly As always, I am looking for poems, articles and reviews for future issues. Bill www.moriapoetry.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 10:29:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: michael amberwind Subject: Re: Backstreet Boy apologizes... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii how long before any criticism of America can simply be answered with the cry "WHAT ABOUT THE VICTIMS! YOU DISHONOUR THE VICTIMS!" and the victims - being dead - cannot be asked what they might think on the subject it's an easy one to play - any criticism, any suggestion contrary to the prevailing attitude can simply be answered by calling the person insensitive to the victims - thus effectively shutting down any dialogue America *is* an arrrogant country - this is no less true now than it was before - it's policies demonstrate that - it's unwavering support for an indefinable and unwinnable war against an ideology - has proven that - that Canada was left out of the Presidential speech, and later blamed for having lax borders prove this - because the terrorists were all let in on AMERICAN SAY SO! - then again, someone has to take the blame - and even South Park knows that "Blame Canada" is always a good policy - after all - how many Americans can even find it on a map? it was a humbling experience - to realise just how fragile, how easy it was to commit such an attack on American soil *should* be humbling - this does not mean that i think that they should "take it lying down" and not respond - only that the shutting down of dissenting opinions - and from a Backstreet Boy no less! - ought not be condoned "What has our government done to deserve this action that we don't know about?" it's an excellent question - even if they did not "deserve" it (and i think this is the case) - clearly someone did - enough to mount a large-scale suicide action against America - of course i mourn the deaths of the nearly 7000 people who died - and the millions who died in the last century in far worse atrocities and in far worse ways - this does not mean that i should allow my anger and grief to be used by politicians to further their own agendas and rest assured - the victims of this tragedy have become pawns in political struggle - they will be raised anytime anyone dare question the eroding civil liberties, the increased military spending and the spindoctoring bs that will come to us through our televisions - already we have seen art programs censored in Canada because of this - how long until they set their sights on writers and poets? > Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 15:32:28 EDT > From: Jenn McCreary > Subject: Backstreet Boy apologizes... > > ..for voicing a political opinion. > > <<"Kevin Richardson has fallen into the same > trap that snared poor Bill Maher the other day. > And now, like the "Politically Incorrect" host, > the Backstreet Boy has been forced to chew > himself out -- or face the wrath of the > American public. > > Richardson didn't mean any disrespect to the > nation, he said, when he made the following > statement to a Canadian > interviewer in the aftermath of the attack: "I > just think we are a little bit of an arrogant > nation and maybe this is a little bit of a > humbling experience ... what has our government > done to provoke this action that we don't know > about?" > > The tentatively put-forth query apparently > raised the ire of some of his more patriotic > compatriots. And so, Thursday morning, > Richardson took to the airwaves to clear things > up. > > "My thoughts weren't put together quite > properly," the penitent pop star explained to > Z100's Paul "Cubby" Bryant. "We had been doing > about five interviews in Toronto, Canada ... > and as I was sitting there listening to the > rest of the guys talk, I just got overwhelmed > with anger and frustration, on 'how can this > happen in our country, in this nation that we > live in?'" > > What he meant by "arrogant," he said, was that > "we've been a little overconfident, we've maybe > taken our freedom for granted, taken our > security for granted." > > "I apologize if I have offended anyone, any of > the families of the victims, if my statement > seemed insensitive, but I was reacting out of > anger and out of frustration, and I was > emotional," Richardson continued. "I don't want > anyone to think that I don't love this country > ... I'm proud to be an American. I apologize if > my comment was untimely.">> ===== ...I am a real poet. My poem is finished and I haven't mentioned orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES. [from "Why I Am Not A Painter" by Frank O'Hara] __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 09:41:19 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bevya Rosten Subject: gertrude stein symposium and festival MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit GERTRUDE STEIN SYMPOSIUM, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 11a.m. to 7p.m. An all-day symposium on the life, work, and influence of Gertrude Stein* Main Building, New York University, Room 703 (also known as the Somerville Theatre) Washington Square East between Waverly and Washington Place. Organized by Bevya Rosten *Presented in conjunction with the Gertrude Stein Octoberfest (October 12,13,14) and the Drama Department of NYU's Tisch School of the Arts production of Four Saints in Mexico (Stein's Mexico and Four Saints in Three Acts) (October 4-13). 11:00-11:15 a.m. Introduction and Opening Remarks. 11:15-11:30 a.m. Audio of Gertrude Stein reading from her own work. 11:30a.m.-12:00 p.m. Filmmaker Steven Watson introduces screening of his documentary about the original production of Four Saints in Three Acts. 12:00-1:30 Panel One: Stein's Landscape: Politics, Love and Art Panelists: Jane Bowers, Professor of English, Hunter College,author of They Watch Me as They Watch This: Gertrude Stein's Metadrama and Gertrude Stein. Richard Howard, distinguished poet, and leading translator Anne-Marie Levine, poet, concert pianist and scholar, author of Euphorbia. Catharine Stimpson, Professor and Dean of NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Science, co-editor, New American Library collection of Stein's works and author of new book about Stein. Wendy Steiner, Cultural critic and scholar, Richard L Fisher Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania and author of Exact Resemblance to Exact Resemblance: The Literary Portraiture of Gertrude Stein, moderator. 1:30-300 Lunch Break 3:00-3:15 Reading from Stein's essay "Plays." 3:15-4:45 Panel Two: Stein's Influence on Contemporary Performance Practices Roundtable discussion with directors Larry Kornfeld and Ruben Polendo and playwrights Mac Wellman and Maria Irene Fornes. Bevya Rosten, moderator. 5:00-6:30 Panel Three: Stein's Legacy in Language Panelists: Bruce Andrews, poet, Professor of Political Science,Fordham U. Richard Foreman, director/playwright. Charles Bernstein, David Gray Professor of Poetry and Letters at SUNY-Buffalo, author of more than twenty collection of poetry and essays. Ulla Dydo, leading Stein scholar, editor, The Stein Reader and The Letters of Thornton Wilder and Gertrude Stein (alsomoderator). Margo Jefferson, Pulitzer-Prize winning cultural critic, the New York Times. 6:30-7:00 Reception AN OCTOBERFEST IN CELEBRATION OF GERTRUDE STEIN FRIDAY, SATURDAY, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 13, 14 a tribute to the mother of us all with selected works by Stein and her creative progeny FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, Poetry Project, St. Mark's Church, 2nd Avenue/10th Street 10:30 p.m.,$7, $4 students and seniors. No reservations necessary. Poets and actors read and perform works by, and influenced by, Stein. MARIA IRENE FORNES (premiere reading from her adaptation of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas) SALLY SILVERS, LE-ANN BROWN, TONY TORN, ANNE-MARIE LEVINE, BRUCE ANDREWS, REBECCA SCHULL and many other surprise artists. ************************************ SATURDAY, OCTOBER 13, 8 p.m., Judson Memorial Church, 4th Street between Thompson and Sullivan Streets. Free and open to the public. First come, first serve. SPECIAL TRIBUTE TO THE JUDSON POETS THEATRE Cabaret performance of early Stein works at Judson by original performers. Featuring AL CARMINES, LARRY KORNFELD, JEFF WEISS, YVONNE RAINER and many more. ******************************************* SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14, 8 p.m., Judson Memorial Church, 4th Street between Thompson and Sullivan Streets. Free and open to the public. First come, first serve. SHORT DANCE AND THEATRE WORKS written by and based on STEIN's writings (*Entire program will last approximately 2 l/2 hours) Dance: WENDELL BEAVERS, MARY OVERLIE and PAUL LANGLAND SALLY SILVERS and BRUCE ANDREWS Theatre: A Play Called Not and Now directed by Bevya Rosten. Dr. Faustus Lights the Lights directed by Willa Bepler. Three Sisters Who Were Not Sisters directed by Emily Hill. The Making of Americans. Excerpt from new version by Leon Katz performed by The Gertrude Stein Repertory Theatre. *********************************** Bevya Rosten, producer. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 11:42:29 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: reminder: first fall POG event: Dinnerware this Saturday, 7 pm: poet Mary Rising Higgins, photographer Michael Cherney MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit reminder: for immediate release REMINDER POG presents Poet Mary Rising Higgins Photographer Michael Cherney Saturday, September 29, 7pm, Dinnerware Gallery, 135 East Congress Admission: $5; Students $3 Mary Rising Higgins is the author of two books of poetry: red table(S (La Alameda Press, 1999) and OCLOCK (Potes and Poets Press, 2000). A new book, )locus TIDES(, will appear from Potes and Poets in fall 2002. Higgins' poetry has also appeared in Central Park, Hambone, Big Allis, and other journals. You can find a large selection of Mary Rising Higgins' writing at http://w3.tvi.cc.nm.us/~mrhigns/test.htm for other samples of her work you can go to http://www.potespoets.org/catalog/oclock.htm for a review of OCLOCK, by Patrick Durgin in Rain Taxi, see http://www.raintaxi.com/higgins.html Michael Cherney will present a collection of photographic slides that join images of China, including Tibet, with 2400-year-old Taoist writings in the form of calligraphy. An informal narrative will deal with the various locations, ethnicities and beliefs of southwest China, including ancient wisdom traditions. An award-winning photographer and experienced sinologist, Michael Cherney is fluent in Mandarin Chinese. His primary work aside from photography is as Executive Coordinator for Friendship Homes and Schools, a non-profit organization that supports orphans in southwest China. Samples of Cherney's art can be seen at: http://www.anian.net/ POG events are sponsored in part by grants from the Tucson/Pima Arts Council and the Arizona Commission on the Arts POG also benefits from the continuing support of The University of Arizona Extended University Writing Works Center, The University of Arizona Department of English, The University of Arizona Poetry Center, and the Arizona Quarterly. for further information contact POG: 296-6416 tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:tenney@dakotacom.net mailto:nathanso@u.arizona.edu http://www.u.arizona.edu/~nathanso/tn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 12:00:39 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Andrew Maxwell Subject: Alvin Ju, Janie Geiser & Lewis Klahr @ Dawsons, 4pm Sunday! MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" The Germ & the Poetic Research Bureau present Alvin Lu w/ experimental filmmakers Janie Geiser and Lewis Klahr! at Dawsons Book Shop, Sunday Sept 30 @ 4pm! *** After this month's dramatic events, the French writer Marc Cholodenko opted out of his planned US tour. In his place however, double the dream and triple the dreamer, three active oneirists from edge of city sleep! Alvin Lu comes to town with his phastasmatic hybrid of a novel, The Hell Screens, combining Chinese ghost tales with a pomo pot-boiler that veers into heady prose poetry at every turn. Tailing him are LA's most audaciously animated animator duo, Janie Geiser and Lewis Klahr, with their latest experimental collage animation works, "The Aperature of Ghostings" (Janie) and a tone poem trilogy by Lewis to be accompanied by his classic Engram Sepals. In fact, Lewis' films & titles are so great, I've written several poems myself after them! A spirited cabal, not to be missed! This event was conceived and brought to term by the ever resourceful Walter Lew. Thanks Walter! *** Alvin Lu is a novelist, screenwriter and film critic, as well as the editor and mega manga expert of PULP, a magazine dedicated to innovative serialized comic novels. He graduated from Brown's MFA fiction program, and has since worked for the SFGuardian and Viz as an arts editor and film reviewer. His first novel, THE HELL SCREENS, is a cinematic plunge into urban vertigo and transhistorical a-maze-ment. the NYTimes said of it: "This devilish puzzle of a novel may frustrate the casual reader, but it will appeal to anyone who loves the cat-and-mouse games of Nabokov, the playful elegance of Borges or the rarefied dreamscapes of Calvino." A further review of HELL SCREENS and an interview with Alvin can be found below: http://www.animefringe.com/archive/01.06/feature/3/index.php3 ; http://www.raintaxi.com/lu.html Janie Geiser is a filmmaker and experimental puppet theater artist who has been working in the field for over 18 years. She is director of the Cotsen Center for Puppetry and the Arts at CalArts. Geiser's work has been performed and screened internationally in venues such as the International Festival of Puppet Theater, the Walker Art Center, the Phenomena Festival (Jerusalem), Dance Theater Workshop, The New York Film Festival, the Rotterdam International Film Festival and on PBS. A review of some of Janie's recent films can be found at: http://www.fredcamper.com/Film/Geiser.html Lewis Klahr has created a signature style that uses shadows, stillness, and staccato movements as an expressive language in experimental film and collage. J. Hoberman says of Lewis: "The reigning proponent of cut and paste animation, Klahr uses old magazines and comic strips to evoke a lost pop culture paradise--part NY Worlds Fair, part noir". One-person shows of his work have appeared across the country including at the Museum of Modern Art (New York), the Whitney Museum (New York), the Carnegie Museum (Pittsburgh), and the Museum of Fine Art (Boston). His grants include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Jerome Foundations and New York State Council for the Arts (1995/93/89/86). A recent interview with Lewis can be found at: http://www.laweekly.com/ink/00/21/film-willis.shtml *** Dawsons is located at 535 N. Larchmont Blvd between Beverly Blvd and Melrose Blvd. Tel: 213-469-2186 Readings are open to all. $3 donation requested for poets/venue. Call Andrew at 310.446.8162 x233 for more info. *** The season continues: Sept 30: Alvin Lu, Janie Geiser, Lewis Klahr Oct. 14: Pascalle Monnier, Jacques Darras Oct. 21: Philippe Beck, Guy Bennett Oct. 28: Mark Nowak, Marty Nakell, Pasquale Verdicchio Nov. 11: Roberto Tejada, Kristen Gallagher Nov. 18: Prageeta Sharma, Katie Dagentesh Dec. 2: Jean Fremon, Douglas Messerli Dec. 9: Charles Alexander, Myung Mi Kim But possible cancellations due to travel constraints & much else... ************************************************** Andrew Maxwell, gaslighter The Germ/Poetic Research Bureau 1417 Nolden St Los Angeles, CA 90042 "a dead romantic is a falsification" --Stevens ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:23:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Aaron Belz Subject: Re: Marjorie Perloff Hits the Number In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010928144250.02af4eb0@pop.bway.net> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit > > Today is Marjorie Perloff's 70th birthday. > So happy birthday! And yesterday was Aaron Belz's thirtieth. Happy birthday, me! Which means I was born one day before your fortieth, a party you surely remember. And when you were my age, ten years before that, John F. Kennedy was Time Magazine's "Man of the Year." And when I am your age it will be September, 2041. And yet I don't know what will happen this afternoon and don't clearly remember what I was doing at this moment one month ago. My children, two and three years old, are just beginning to get a sense of how humans mark time. IT is a strange, strange game. -Aaron Belz ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:26:59 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "James W. Cook" Subject: Re: Ed Barrett and William Corbett read in NYC Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Hey Ted, Here again something of interest. Still working on the packet of readings. It's coming along. Say hi to Griff for me. all the best, j.c. >From: Jim Behrle >Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group >To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU >Subject: Ed Barrett and William Corbett read in NYC >Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 13:14:06 -0400 > >Poets William Corbett and >Ed Barrett read > >Monday October 8th 7 PM >55 Mercer Gallery >55 Mercer St. >Between Broome and Grand >New York, New York > >art on view by Astrid Cravens, >Suzanne Mechan and Dean Brown. > > >for more information dial >(212) 226 8513 > >_________________________________________________________________ >Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:16:52 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: claank design Subject: Re: The language of our times In-Reply-To: <004901c14793$622d8700$3353fea9@oemcomputer> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit I keep hearing it referred to as 'the accident' to which I feel compelled to answer, no it was on purpose. That's the aspect which seems uncontainable by language. As in to contain, or gain control over. Andrea Baker > From: Ron Silliman > Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group > Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 16:31:20 -0400 > To: POETICS@LISTSERV.ACSU.BUFFALO.EDU > Subject: The language of our times > > One of the things that I've been pondering the past two-plus weeks, is the > way in which everybody, regardless of political persuasion, has referred to > the "events of September 11," the "recent incidents," etc. Very much as > though our language has yet to find a word or phrase that can encompass our > experience. > > Ron ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 18:43:15 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: Fall Workshops at the Poetry Project Mime-version: 1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit The Poetry Project will offer three weekly writing workshops in Fall 2001. Beginning in mid-October, the workshops will run through mid-January. Workshops at the Poetry Project provide access to innovative techniques and practices of writing not usually available in more mainstream venues. ..AND NOT NEITHER, EITHER: A POEM-STORY WORKSHOP taught by SHARON MESMER (TUESDAY EVENINGS 7-9 P.M.; 10 SESSIONS; BEGINS OCTOBER 16) A poem-story begins in poetry, with heightened language, imagery, and rhythm, but moves quickly into story via traditional narrative elements of set-up, conflict, resolution, and perspective (for example, Octavio Paz's "My Life with the Wave"). To generate these "poem-stories," we will read model texts and do in-class writing experiments (cut-ups, "Third Mind" experiments, word collages, assemblages of juxtaposed journal notes - methods normally associated with the writing of poetry -) to generate ideas, scenes, characters, conflicts, even dialogue, then work with the raw material to discover the potential story and create and sustain the narrative. Our goal? To engage the dynamics of poetry and story with equal intensity. SHARON MESMER is the author of Half Angel, Half Lunch (poems, Hard Press, 1998), and The Empty Quarter (stories, Hanging Loose Press, 2000). She teaches literature and fiction-writing at the New School University. Her work has appeared in the anthologies Heights of the Marvelous, Poems for the Nation (edited by Allen Ginsberg), and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. CROWNING SONNETS: POETRY WORKSHOP taught by PATRICIA SPEARS JONES (FRIDAY EVENINGS 7-9 P.M.; 10 SESSIONS; BEGINS OCTOBER 19) During this workshop, we will look at traditional and nontraditional sonnets from Sharespeare to Millay to Molly Peacock and others and explore thir connection to the work that paricipants are doing. We will also look at contemporary odes and other lyric forms to help spark new ideas and new poems from participants. This is a workshop for poets who want to informally explore the dyanmics of the sonnet and create new ones as well as work on poems that reflect their personal style. The goal of the workshop will be the creation of a crown of sonnets (7) on a single theme by each of the participants. Those interested in taking the Crowning Sonnets workshop are asked to submit (1) a selection of 10 poems and (2) a brief history of other classes, workshops or poetic studies to the Poetry Project by OCTOBER 5TH. PATRICIA SPEARS JONES is a poet, playwright and author of the collection, The Weather That Kills (Coffee House Press, 1995) and the play Mother, produced by Mabou Mines in 1994. Her poems have been anthologized over the past two decades most recently in Best American Poetry 2000 (Scribners), Blood and Tears: Poems for Matthew Shepard and Real Things: An Anthology of Popular Cutlture in America. POETRY WORKSHOP taught by ANSELM BERRIGAN (Saturday afternoons 12-2 p.m.; 10 sessions; begins October 20) Reading, Writing, Discussion. poem as site of arrangement. metaphysics of using cut language and stealing (from yourself, among others). reporting and rewriting. process, and suspicion thereof. how many different places are there to write from? timing, unconscious allegory, eco-systems, comedy, documentation, dreams, elegies, mind matter, rhythm. ANSELM BERRIGAN is the author of Integrity & Dramatic Life, and Zero Star Hotel, forthcoming this fall from Edge books. He has taught poetry classes at Naropa University and Rutgers University. THE WORKSHOP FEE IS $250, which includes tuition for classes and an individual membership in the Poetry Project for one year. Payment must be received in advance. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:16:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: gene Subject: [Fwd: speech] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed >Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 05:17:57 -0700 >From: Mario Nunez >X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; I) >X-Accept-Language: en >To: Mario Nunez >Subject: [Fwd: speech] > > > Here's an especially chilling essay from CommonDreams.org. > > Read it with an open mind. > > > > originally online at..... > > http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0922-07.htm > > Published on Saturday, September 22, 2001 > > > > Bush's Orwellian Address > > Happy New Year: It's 1984 > > by Jacob Levich > > > > Seventeen years later than expected, 1984 has arrived. In his address to > > Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war -- war > > without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war > > against a vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy. Today it's > > Al-Qaida; tomorrow it may be Afghanistan; next year, it could be Iraq or > > Cuba or Chechnya. > > > > No one who was forced to read 1984 in high school could fail to hear a > > faint bell tinkling. In George Orwell's dreary classic, the totalitarian > > state of Oceania is perpetually at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. > > Although the enemy changes periodically, the war is permanent; its true > > purpose is to control dissent and sustain dictatorship by nurturing > > popular fear and hatred. > > > > The permanent war undergirds every aspect of Big Brother's authoritarian > > program, excusing censorship, propaganda, secret police, and privation. In > > other words, it's terribly convenient. > > > > And conveniently terrible. Bush's alarming speech pointed to a shadowy > > enemy that lurks in more 60 countries, including the US. He announced a > > policy of using maximum force against any individuals or nations he > > designates as our enemies, without color of international law, due > > process, or democratic debate. > > > > He explicitly warned that much of the war will be conducted in secret. He > > rejected negotiation as a tool of diplomacy. He announced starkly that any > > country that doesn't knuckle under to US demands will be regarded as an > > enemy. He heralded the creation of a powerful new cabinet-level police > > agency called the "Office of Homeland Security." Orwell couldn't have > > named it better. > > > > By turns folksy ("Ya know what?") and chillingly bellicose ("Either you > > are with us, or you are with the terrorists"), Bush stepped comfortably > > into the role of Big Brother, who needs to be loved as well as feared. > > Meanwhile, his administration acted swiftly to realize the governing > > principles of Oceania: > > > > WAR IS PEACE. A reckless war that will likely bring about a deadly cycle > > of retaliation is being sold to us as the means to guarantee our safety. > > Meanwhile, we've been instructed to accept the permanent war as a fact of > > daily life. As the inevitable slaughter of innocents unfolds overseas, we > > are to "live our lives and hug our children." > > > > FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. "Freedom itself is under attack," Bush said, and he's > > right. Americans are about to lose many of their most cherished liberties > > in a frenzy of paranoid legislation. The government proposes to tap our > > phones, read our email and seize our credit card records without court > > order. It seeks authority to detain and deport immigrants without cause or > > trial. It proposes to use foreign agents to spy on American citizens. To > > save freedom, the warmongers intend to destroy it. > > > > IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. America's "new war" against terrorism will be > > fought with unprecedented secrecy, including heavy press restrictions not > > seen > > for years, the Pentagon has advised. Meanwhile, the sorry history of > > American imperialism -- collaboration with terrorists, bloody proxy wars > > against civilians, forcible replacement of democratic governments with > > corrupt dictatorships -- is strictly off-limits to mainstream media. Lest > > it weaken our resolve, we are not to be allowed to understand the reasons > > underlying the horrifying crimes of September 11. > > > > The defining speech of Bush's presidency points toward an Orwellian future > > of endless war, expedient lies, and ubiquitous social control. But unlike > > 1984's doomed protagonist, we've still got plenty of space to maneuver and > > plenty of ways to resist. > > > > It's time to speak and to act. It falls on us now to take to the streets, > > bearing a clear message for the warmongers: We don't love Big Brother. > > > > Jacob Levich (jlevich@earthlink.net) is an writer, editor, and activist > > living in Queens, New York. > >-- >***************************************************** >Mario Nunez * Buffalo, NY USA >***************************************************** >Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every >rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft >from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are >cold and are not clothed. > ~Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) >***************************************************** > >Return-Path: >Received: from mailc.ecc.edu ([199.29.6.2]) > by mail1.buffnet.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id IAA90768 > for ; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 08:29:48 -0400 (EDT) > (envelope-from nunezm@buffnet.net) >Received: from cstaff.ecc.edu (cstaff.sunyerie.edu [10.30.101.5]) > by mailc.ecc.edu (Build 98 8.9.3/NT-8.9.3) with ESMTP id IAA08275 > for ; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 08:32:46 -0400 >Resent-Message-Id: <200109261232.IAA08275@mailc.ecc.edu> >Received: from CSTAFF/SpoolDir by cstaff.ecc.edu (Mercury 1.44); > 26 Sep 01 08:29:37 -0500 >Received: from SpoolDir by CSTAFF (Mercury 1.44); 26 Sep 01 08:29:16 -0500 >Resent-from: "NUNEZ, MARIO, PROF., GENERAL STUDIES" >Resent-to: nunezm@buffnet.net >Resent-date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 08:25:33 -0400 >Received: from SpoolDir by MAIL (Mercury 1.48); 26 Sep 01 05:32:09 -0500 >Received: from north-ex1.ecc.edu (10.10.101.22) by ecc.edu (Mercury 1.48) >with ESMTP; > 26 Sep 01 05:32:02 -0500 >Received: from buffnet4.buffnet.net ([205.246.19.13]) by north-ex1.ecc.edu >with Microsoft SMTPSVC(5.0.2195.2966); > Wed, 26 Sep 2001 05:31:43 -0400 >Received: from buffnet.net (agppp17.buffnet.net [207.41.194.218]) > by buffnet4.buffnet.net (8.9.3/8.8.7) with ESMTP id FAA31955 > for ; Wed, 26 Sep 2001 05:39:00 -0400 (EDT) > (envelope-from nunezm@buffnet.net) >Message-ID: <3BB1C829.3DF7AD4D@buffnet.net> >Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 05:20:57 -0700 >From: Mario Nunez >X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (Win98; I) >X-Accept-Language: en >MIME-Version: 1.0 >To: Mario Nunez >Subject: speech >Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit >X-OriginalArrivalTime: 26 Sep 2001 09:31:43.0874 (UTC) >FILETIME=[0E068620:01C1466E] >X-Mozilla-Status2: 00000000 > > >Here's an especially chilling essay from CommonDreams.org. > >Read it with an open mind. > > > >originally online at..... > >http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0922-07.htm > > > >Published on Saturday, September 22, 2001 > > > >Bush's Orwellian Address > >Happy New Year: It's 1984 > > > >by Jacob Levich > > > > > >Seventeen years later than expected, 1984 has arrived. In his address >to > >Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war -- >war > >without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war >against > >a vaguely defined and constantly shifting enemy. Today it's Al-Qaida; > >tomorrow it may be Afghanistan; next year, it could be Iraq or Cuba or > >Chechnya. > > > >No one who was forced to read 1984 in high school could fail to hear a >faint > >bell tinkling. In George Orwell's dreary classic, the totalitarian >state of > >Oceania is perpetually at war with either Eurasia or Eastasia. Although >the > >enemy changes periodically, the war is permanent; its true purpose is >to > >control dissent and sustain dictatorship by nurturing popular fear and > >hatred. > > > >The permanent war undergirds every aspect of Big Brother's >authoritarian > >program, excusing censorship, propaganda, secret police, and privation. >In > >other words, it's terribly convenient. > > > >And conveniently terrible. Bush's alarming speech pointed to a shadowy >enemy > >that lurks in more 60 countries, including the US. He announced a >policy of > >using maximum force against any individuals or nations he designates as >our > >enemies, without color of international law, due process, or democratic > > >debate. > > > >He explicitly warned that much of the war will be conducted in secret. >He > >rejected negotiation as a tool of diplomacy. He announced starkly that >any > >country that doesn't knuckle under to US demands will be regarded as an > > >enemy. He heralded the creation of a powerful new cabinet-level police > >agency called the "Office of Homeland Security." Orwell couldn't have >named > >it better. > > > >By turns folksy ("Ya know what?") and chillingly bellicose ("Either you >are > >with us, or you are with the terrorists"), Bush stepped comfortably >into the > >role of Big Brother, who needs to be loved as well as feared. >Meanwhile, his > >administration acted swiftly to realize the governing principles of >Oceania: > > > >WAR IS PEACE. A reckless war that will likely bring about a deadly >cycle of > >retaliation is being sold to us as the means to guarantee our safety. > >Meanwhile, we've been instructed to accept the permanent war as a fact >of > >daily life. As the inevitable slaughter of innocents unfolds overseas, >we > >are to "live our lives and hug our children." > > > >FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. "Freedom itself is under attack," Bush said, and >he's > >right. Americans are about to lose many of their most cherished >liberties in > >a frenzy of paranoid legislation. The government proposes to tap our >phones, > >read our email and seize our credit card records without court order. >It > >seeks authority to detain and deport immigrants without cause or trial. >It > >proposes to use foreign agents to spy on American citizens. To save >freedom, > >the warmongers intend to destroy it. > > > >IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. America's "new war" against terrorism will be >fought > >with unprecedented secrecy, including heavy press restrictions not seen >for > >years, the Pentagon has advised. Meanwhile, the sorry history of >American > >imperialism -- collaboration with terrorists, bloody proxy wars against > > >civilians, forcible replacement of democratic governments with corrupt > >dictatorships -- is strictly off-limits to mainstream media. Lest it >weaken > >our resolve, we are not to be allowed to understand the reasons >underlying > >the horrifying crimes of September 11. > > > >The defining speech of Bush's presidency points toward an Orwellian >future > >of endless war, expedient lies, and ubiquitous social control. But >unlike > >1984's doomed protagonist, we've still got plenty of space to maneuver >and > >plenty of ways to resist. > > > >It's time to speak and to act. It falls on us now to take to the >streets, > >bearing a clear message for the warmongers: We don't love Big Brother. > > > >Jacob Levich (jlevich@earthlink.net) is an writer, editor, and activist > > >living in Queens, New York. > >-- >***************************************************** >Mario Nunez * Buffalo, NY USA >***************************************************** >Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every >rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft >from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are >cold and are not clothed. > ~Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) >***************************************************** ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:15:44 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: charles alexander Subject: Re: The language of our times In-Reply-To: <004901c14793$622d8700$3353fea9@oemcomputer> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Thanks, Ron, I've been thinking about this, too, every time I have to refer to those events. I've sometimes referred to "the terrorist attacks," or "the horror of last Tuesday" (when it *was* last Tuesday), or "the horrors," but yes, more recently and most often, either "events of September 11" or just "September 11." I don't feel comfortable echoing the newsmen and referring to the "Attack on America," which seems like it must be capitalized as it's already taken (and was, almost instantly) as some kind of title. One thing so odd is how suddenly it was here, and how suddenly gone, so that we had so little time, and in a way no time in our minds, to be in the midst of it. Yet in very important ways we are still in the midst of it and will be for an unpredictably long time. charles At 04:31 PM 9/27/2001 -0400, you wrote: >One of the things that I've been pondering the past two-plus weeks, is the >way in which everybody, regardless of political persuasion, has referred to >the "events of September 11," the "recent incidents," etc. Very much as >though our language has yet to find a word or phrase that can encompass our >experience. > >Ron ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 17:22:22 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Roger Gilbert Subject: Ammons tribute In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Tuesday, October 2nd 7 PM A MEMORIAL TRIBUTE TO A. R. AMMONS A. R. ("Archie") Ammons died last February at the age of 75. One of the country's most important and beloved poets, Ammons won almost every award that can be bestowed upon a poet including the Bollingen Prize and, twice, the National Book Award. The distinguished speakers at this memorial event include John Ashbery, John Brehm, Martha Cooley, Alice Fulton, Glen Hartley, Richard Howard, Robert Polito, Alice Quinn, and Bill Wadsworth. David Lehman will moderate. Co-sponsored with The New School Graduate Writing Program. Admission is free. Tishman Auditorium The New School 66 West Twelfth Street New York Call (212) 254-9628 for more information. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:32:00 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: The Poetry Project Subject: Fall Workshops at the Poetry Project Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit The Poetry Project will offer three weekly writing workshops in Fall 2001. Beginning in mid-October, the workshops will run through mid-January. Workshops at the Poetry Project provide access to innovative techniques and practices of writing not usually available in more mainstream venues. ...AND NOT NEITHER, EITHER: A POEM-STORY WORKSHOP taught by SHARON MESMER (TUESDAY EVENINGS 7-9 P.M.; 10 SESSIONS; BEGINS OCTOBER 16) A poem-story begins in poetry, with heightened language, imagery, and rhythm, but moves quickly into story via traditional narrative elements of set-up, conflict, resolution, and perspective (for example, Octavio Paz's "My Life with the Wave"). To generate these "poem-stories," we will read model texts and do in-class writing experiments (cut-ups, "Third Mind" experiments, word collages, assemblages of juxtaposed journal notes - methods normally associated with the writing of poetry -) to generate ideas, scenes, characters, conflicts, even dialogue, then work with the raw material to discover the potential story and create and sustain the narrative. Our goal? To engage the dynamics of poetry and story with equal intensity. SHARON MESMER is the author of Half Angel, Half Lunch (poems, Hard Press, 1998), and The Empty Quarter (stories, Hanging Loose Press, 2000). She teaches literature and fiction-writing at the New School University. Her work has appeared in the anthologies Heights of the Marvelous, Poems for the Nation (edited by Allen Ginsberg), and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. CROWNING SONNETS: POETRY WORKSHOP taught by PATRICIA SPEARS JONES (FRIDAY EVENINGS 7-9 P.M.; 10 SESSIONS; BEGINS OCTOBER 19) During this workshop, we will look at traditional and nontraditional sonnets from Sharespeare to Millay to Molly Peacock and others and explore thir connection to the work that paricipants are doing. We will also look at contemporary odes and other lyric forms to help spark new ideas and new poems from participants. This is a workshop for poets who want to informally explore the dyanmics of the sonnet and create new ones as well as work on poems that reflect their personal style. The goal of the workshop will be the creation of a crown of sonnets (7) on a single theme by each of the participants. Those interested in taking the Crowning Sonnets workshop are asked to submit (1) a selection of 10 poems and (2) a brief history of other classes, workshops or poetic studies to the Poetry Project by OCTOBER 5TH. PATRICIA SPEARS JONES is a poet, playwright and author of the collection, The Weather That Kills (Coffee House Press, 1995) and the play Mother, produced by Mabou Mines in 1994. Her poems have been anthologized over the past two decades most recently in Best American Poetry 2000 (Scribners), Blood and Tears: Poems for Matthew Shepard and Real Things: An Anthology of Popular Cutlture in America. POETRY WORKSHOP taught by ANSELM BERRIGAN (Saturday afternoons 12-2 p.m.; 10 sessions; begins October 20) Reading, Writing, Discussion. poem as site of arrangement. metaphysics of using cut language and stealing (from yourself, among others). reporting and rewriting. process, and suspicion thereof. how many different places are there to write from? timing, unconscious allegory, eco-systems, comedy, documentation, dreams, elegies, mind matter, rhythm. ANSELM BERRIGAN is the author of Integrity & Dramatic Life, and Zero Star Hotel, forthcoming this fall from Edge books. He has taught poetry classes at Naropa University and Rutgers University. THE WORKSHOP FEE IS $250, which includes tuition for classes and an individual membership in the Poetry Project for one year. Payment must be received in advance. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 18:19:14 -0400 Reply-To: patrick@proximate.org Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Herron Subject: I'm not alone in tying the drug war to acts of terrorism... MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I'm not the only "wacko" out here. It's all about dollars and sense. But first: A Blast from the Past, May 1996 LESLEY STAHL, 60 MINUTES: "We have heard that a half million children have died [because of sanctions against Iraq]. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima and you know, is the price worth it?" (Former) U.N. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price we think the price is worth it." TERRORISM/DRUGS CUI BONO?: Building a Map to Solve the Crime By Catherine Austin Fitts http://www.narconews.com/cuibono.html TERRORISTS GET CASH FROM DRUG TRADE http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n1680/a05.html?1507 War on Terrorism: a Recipe for Disaster Washington and the U.S. Press Declare War (Again) without Defining the Enemy http://www.narconews.com/war1.html AUC and Taliban: U.S. Policy Backfires from Colombia to Afghanistan By Kim Alphandry http://www.narconews.com/alphandry1.html COLOMBIA Colombia's History of Drug Reform Efforts Colonial Policy by Washington Has Meddled Repeatedly to Censor Nation's Public Debate http://www.narconews.com/colombiahistory.html Andean Parliament Calls L-Word (LEGALIZATION) Summit Perú, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, join Colombian Call for Regional Policy Change from the daily EL TIEMPO Bogotá, August 18, 2001 http://www.narconews.com/andeanparliament1.html US Ambassador to Colombia Anne Patterson threatens "Problems" If Solutions Found http://www.narconews.com/anniefreaks.html Patrick Patrick Herron patrick@proximate.org http://proximate.org/ getting close is what we're all about here! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:02:09 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Kenneth M. Dauber" Subject: Israel Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed The only thing everybody seems to agree on is that, whatever cause it has been in leading to the attacks of September 11, the United States' policy in relation to Israel needs to be changed. It is hard, however, to understand what, in justice, this means. The Clinton policy was for Israel to offer to the Palestinians just the Palestinian state alongside Israel that most Poetics listserv writers say they favor, and it is what Barak did offer at Camp David--95% and more of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem--and what Arafat rejected by launching his second intifada, without so much as a negotiation for a better deal. We need to be reminded that a Palestinian state alongside of Israel was what all the Arab nations rejected in '48, launching a war to prevent it; it is what both Jordan and Egypt rejected from '48 to '67, when they controlled all of the West Bank and Gaza, where they preferred keeping the Palestinians in miserable refugee camps to a genuine Palestinian homeland, resulting in another war when Israel rejected Nasser's call to "push them to the sea"; and it is what Arafat continues to reject, both overtly and by refusing to reign in the absolutely rejectionist Hizbollah and Hamas, who, also overtly, say they want no Jews living anywhere from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It's convenient to blame Israel for the state of Arab and Palestinian suffering in the Middle East and to romanticize Arafat as a freedom fighter. But even in relation to their own people, Arafat and the Palestinian Authority have behaved like a bunch of thugs an crooks, squirreling away into Swiss bank accounts the millions upon millions of dollars that have poured into them from the United States, as a result of the Oslo accords, and from the Arab oil nations, instead of using them to create a Palestinian economy, and preventing almost any freedom of dissent with repression and murder. Let the PA's praise as martyrs of suicide blowing up of restaurants and discotechs stop; let the PA's state media stop demonizing Israelis as they do in the most conventional anti-Jewish fashion (pictures of Jews with long noses and all); let Arafat start telling his people, in Arabic, that they must accept an independent Israel as a now and forever fact, whether they like it or not; let him respond to the Barak proposal, and you will see a new election in Israel that Labor can again win and a peace and quiet between the Jordan and the Mediterranean that, I would hope, the United States would protect from the other rejectionist Arab leaders who will then have much to fear from their own peoples who might just demand of them some such decent life as they see in the example that is thereby set. Ken Dauber ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 16:33:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed" there clearly is, and there clearly will continue to be, a presence on this list, and all lists, that takes full advantage of the ease with which one can create email accounts helter-skelter... passing, i mean... and i wouldn't doubt, though i don't assert, that this is what we're dealing with re the subject line, above... as always though, my suppositions are just that... peace, joe ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 14:39:05 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Maria Damon Subject: Re: Marjorie Perloff Hits the Number In-Reply-To: <5.1.0.14.2.20010928144250.02af4eb0@pop.bway.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" WOW! we should all be so lucky as to have one tenth of the energy, focus, warmth, engagement and vitality as Marjorie. Many happy happy returns of the day. bests, md At 2:43 PM -0400 9/28/01, Charles Bernstein wrote: >Today is Marjorie Perloff's 70th birthday. > >Is today, Marjorie Perloff's 70th birthday. > >Marjorie Perloff's 70th birthday today is. > >Perloff's 70th birthday is today, Marjorie. > >70th birthday, today, Marjorie Perloff's is. > >Birthday is today, 70th, Marjorie Perloff's. > >* > >Happy Birthday, Marjorie! ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 15:43:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: The language of our times MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit yes, and language and imagesare and will continue to be crucial: witness the flag discussion here and note the current mindless, alternativeless phrasing of current polls. My perception from clients, friends and family, and those I'm listening to is that we are all looking for the words that describe how we are feeling. tom bell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ron Silliman" To: Sent: Thursday, September 27, 2001 3:31 PM Subject: The language of our times > One of the things that I've been pondering the past two-plus weeks, is the > way in which everybody, regardless of political persuasion, has referred to > the "events of September 11," the "recent incidents," etc. Very much as > though our language has yet to find a word or phrase that can encompass our > experience. > > Ron ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2001 18:36:45 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Murat Nemet-Nejat Subject: Re: one self sin teared question MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit In a message dated 9/27/01 11:45:40 AM, poetics@acsu.buffalo.edu writes: Chris, >Since almost the entirety of my position here is to >maintain an atmosphere in which people feel that they can have "their say" >without becoming the subject of personally-directed rhetorical violence >- >hence my use of the phrase 'ad hominem,' unfortunately gendered - These >consequences are detrimental. 1. Do you imply by that that my calling someone a "winbag" represents a greater "rhetorical violence" than Selim Abdul Sadiq's post? I wonder how much of you judgement has to do with content rather than etiquette? 2. I am not aware of any angry reaction to Sadiq's post mentioning the Arabic origin of his name. You yourself are introducing this theme here, in my view, completely arbitrarily, not to say with "rhetorical violence." The issue of "racial profiling" in this context is red herring, a spin to divert from the obsenity of the post. Murat ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:14:45 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Fritjof Capra: Trying to Understand (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 13:41:42 -0700 From: One Infinity To: nettime-l@bbs.thing.net Subject: Fritjof Capra: Trying to Understand This is the text of a talk given by Fritjof Capra the earlier this week at the Black Oaks bookstore in North Beach, San Francisco. There were 3 scientists in attendance, there to talk about their work; Fritjof took his time to deliver this piece he prepared on understanding 9/11 events and current worldwide situation from a systemic perspective. I asked him for a copy to share with our own ongoing 911 listserv, thought nettime would like it as well. Enjoy, Seth One Infinity www.oneinfinity.com ---------------- Trying to Understand A Systemic Analysis of International Terrorism by Fritjof Capra Fritjof Capra (www.fritjofcapra.net), physicist, systems theorist, and best-selling author, is a founding director of the Center for Ecoliteracy (www.ecoliteracy.org), which is dedicated to education for sustainable living. The horrific terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11 mark the end of an era =8B the end of over 200 years of invulnerability on = our continent. We had heard fundamentalist rhetoric about "striking at the hear= t of America" for years, but we took it as empty threats. We did not recogniz= e the emergence of a new weapon on the international stage against which we were defenseless =8B the despair-driven, desperate suicide bomber.(1) This new form of international terrorism exposes the dangerous fallacy of a national shield against ballistic missiles. Missile defense is of no use whatsoever when terrorists can turn commercial planes into missiles and their fuel tanks into bombs with the help of simple box cutters. A SYSTEMIC PERSPECTIVE There is no simple defense against international terrorism, because we live in a complex, globally interconnected world in which linear chains of cause and effect do not exist. To understand this world, we need to think systemically =8B in terms of relationships, connections, and context. Understanding international terrorism from a systemic perspective means understanding that its very nature derives from a series of political, economic, and technological problems that are all interconnected. This terrorism is not "mindless," and it is not directed against our "freedom an= d democracy," as our government wants us to believe. Terrorism is always a weapon of the politically disempowered and desperate who feel that they are unable to voice their grievances through conventiona= l political processes. In order to combat them effectively, we need to clearl= y understand the terrorists=B9 frustration.(2) This does not mean that we should shrink from capturing the terrorists and bringing them to justice. Their crimes are abhorrent beyond words. But we must learn to distinguish between their criminal methods and fundamentalist ideologies on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the often legitimate grievances that drive them into committing such desperate and horrific acts= =2E We cannot fight terrorism effectively without understanding its roots. We shall see in particular that much of Islamic fundamentalism is related t= o the role of the United States in the Middle East and that extremist Islamic movements often arise in direct response to American policies. Of course, the United States is not the only power to blame. There is the insidious legacy of European colonialism; yet American policies since World War II have contributed significantly to the recent rise of fundamentalist Islamic terrorism.(3) INAPPROPRIATENESS OF MILITARY STRIKES Understandably, the first reaction to the horrendous attacks on the United States is the desire to "strike back." But responding to terrorism with violence, rather than dealing with the context from which it emerged, will continue to create more violence. We must recognize that military actions will not succeed in eliminating the rise of militant Islamic movements. On the contrary, they will result in the deaths of innocent Muslim civilians that will further fuel anti-American hatred. Retaliatory strikes against suspected terrorist targets trigger further retaliation from terrorists and thus escalate the cycle of violence, as Israel=B9s experience has shown. Surgical strikes make sense only when ther= e are military targets with heavy equipment, which the terrorist networks do not have. Moreover, such strikes are often based on faulty intelligence, which further exacerbates their negative effects.(4) Since this terrorism is international, the response has to be international as well. The goals of the coalitions and cooperation within the international community cannot be limited to identifying and capturing the terrorists, as they currently are, but must be extended to addressing the underlying systemic problems. This will be the only way to marginalize the terrorists and strengthen our security in the long run. AMERICA'S IMAGE IN THE WORLD The terrorism we are concerned with is directed against the United States, and hence the attempt to understand its roots has to begin with the understanding of America=B9s image in the world. This image is multi-facete= d. It includes many positive aspects of our society =8B such as individual liberty, cultural diversity, and economic opportunity =8B as well as the gr= eat enthusiasm for American technology, fashion, sports, and entertainment, especially among the world=B9s youth. On the other hand, the United States is seen by many as the driving force o= f a global capitalism that is supported by military force and is often socially unjust and environmentally destructive. Indeed, the buildings attacked by the terrorists on September 11 were proud symbols of American economic power and military might. U.S. ROLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST To understand the political context of the recent terrorist attacks, we need to look specifically at the U.S. role in the Middle East. The common view in this country is that we have assumed the role of peacemakers in the region. In other parts of the world, and especially in the Muslim world, th= e view is quite different. There is widespread anti-American sentiment, based on a number of concerns.(5) They include resentment against o our uncritical support for the Israeli occupation of Arab land, the dispossession of Palestinians and for state-sponsored assassinations; o our support of undemocratic and repressive Arab governments, in particula= r that of Saudi Arabia; o ten years of sanctions and military attacks against Iraq, which have resulted in the deaths of half a million children; o our massive military presence in the region (seen by Muslim fundamentalists, especially in Saudi Arabia, as the presence of infidels in the holy land of Islam), as well as our role as the largest supplier of arm= s in the Middle East. These grievances have contributed to the rise of several radical Islamic movements, including Hamas and al Qaeda, the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden. Now, why do we support repressive regimes, ignore UN resolutions, and promote violence in the Middle East? The answer, in one word, is "oil." In the view of our government, the access to Persian Gulf oil is essential to the security of the United States. In the Gulf region, like in many other areas in the world, our policies are primarily resource-oriented, designed to support our wasteful economy. Thus, the U.S. role in the Middle East and its contribution to the rise of radical Islamic movements are inextricably linked to our misguided energy policies. To assure American access to natural resources around the world, the U.S. government continually tries to "stabilize" various regions and, in doing so, has often supported undemocratic and repressive regimes. This has included support to governments that have engaged in widespread terrorism against their own populations.(6) Ironically, the U.S. has at times supported hard-line Islamic movements. Indeed, some of the most notorious Islamic terrorists today, including many followers of Osama bin Laden, were originally trained by the CIA.(7) Our support of repressive governments has helped to encourage underground, often violent, opposition, and the fact that we ourselves have sponsored terrorist attacks undercuts our credibility in the fight against terrorism. RELATIONSHIP WITH SAUDI ARABIA To understand the motivation of Osama bin Laden and other Islamic extremists, we need to pay special attention to the U.S. relationship with Saudi Arabia. This relationship is based on an extraordinary bargain, concluded in 1945 between President Roosevelt and King Ibn Saud, according to which Saudi Arabia grants the U.S. unlimited and perpetual access to its oil fields (which contain 25% of the world=B9s known oil reserves!) in exchange for protection of the Saudi royal family against its enemies, both external and internal. This bargain has shaped American foreign and militar= y policy for almost half a century, during which we have protected a totalitarian regime in Saudi Arabia that blatantly disregards basic human rights and tramples democracy.(8) The main purpose of the Gulf war in 1991, originally code-named "Desert Shield," was not to drive Iraq out of Kuwait, but to protect Saudi Arabia from a possible attack and to guarantee U.S. access to the Saudi oil fields= =2E Since then, the U.S. has maintained and steadily expanded its military presence in the Gulf. In addition we also defend the Saudi regime against its internal enemies. The Saudi Arabian National Guard, which protects the royal family, is almost entirely armed, trained, and managed by the United States.(9) The goal of Osama bin Laden=B9s terrorist network is to drive the U.S. out = of the Gulf region and to replace the corrupt Saudi regime by what they consider an "authentic" Islamic state. Such a state would be modeled after that of the fundamentalist Taliban in Afghanistan, which is many times mor= e repressive than the current Saudi regime. Nevertheless, as long as we continue to support the totalitarian system in Saudi Arabia, our support will fuel anti-American hatred. CAUSES OF TERRORIST STRIKES To summarize, at the core of the multiple causes of the recent terrorist attacks against the United States lies the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf and our support of the repressive Saudi regime. This presence, in turn, is a consequence of our dependence on Saudi oil, due to many years of misguided energy policies. Bin Laden=B9s terrorist network has declared an anti-American jihad, a religious war, and finds it easy to recruit volunteers among Muslims who feel frustrated and helpless about other aspects of the U.S. role in the Middle East. These aspects include, in particular, the U.S. support of the Israeli occupation of Arab land and the dispossession of Palestinians; Muslim casualties of U.S.-supported military actions and assassinations, an= d especially the death of large numbers of civilians in Iraq. At a deeper level, the extremists often receive sympathy from Islamic fundamentalists who are struggling to preserve their cultural identity in the face of U.S.-led economic globalization. A MULTI-FACETED ANTI-TERRORIST STRATEGY The systemic understanding of the background of extremist Islamic terrorism calls for a multi-faceted anti-terrorist strategy. The immediate goal, obviously, is to identify and capture the perpetrators and supporters of th= e terrorist attacks against the United States, and to bring them to justice before an international court. Since the extension and scope of this terrorism is international, it requires sustained international police work= , based on extensive and widespread cooperation among the international community. This means, in turn, that the United States will have to reverse its recent isolationist stance and become a responsible member of the international community. Instead of weakening or walking away from a series of international treaties and conventions =8B including the Kyoto protocol on global warming, the Biological Weapons Convention, the World Criminal Court= , and the UN Conference on Racism =8B the Bush Administration needs to realiz= e that cooperation with the United Nations and other multilateral agencies will be vital to increase our own strength and security.(10) In this international collaboration, it will be especially important to enlist the help of Islamic states in portraying the extremists as enemies o= f Islam, because no true Muslim would take thousands of innocent lives in suc= h reprehensible acts.(11) At the same time, our leaders need to help counteract American religious stereotypes. We need to make it clear that th= e vast majority of the world=B9s Muslims opposes terrorism and religious intolerance.(12) POLICY SHIFTS In the long run, the United States will be able to reduce the terrorist threats only if it adopts a series of policy shifts to deal with the legitimate grievances that often underlie terrorist acts. Systemic thinking means shifting our focus from attempting to crush terrorist movements to pursuing policies that discourage their emergence. The following two policy shifts would go a long way toward increasing our national security. 1. A reassessment of U.S. policy in the Persian Gulf, including pressure on the Saudi regime to move toward democratization and the provision of basic human rights. 2. Promoting a peace agreement that includes the end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. This would bring the United States in line with international law, UN Security Council resolutions, and with the views of virtually the entire international community. In the words of the Israeli novelist and peace activist Amos Oz, "With or without Islamic fundamentalism, with or without Arab terrorism, there is no justification whatsoever for the lasting occupation and suppression of the Palestinian people by Israel. We have no right to deny Palestinians their natural right to self-determination."(13) CHANGE OF ENERGY POLICY In order to carry out these shifts of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, it will be crucial to sever our dependence on Saudi oil. A shift of energy policy from the current heavy emphasis on fossil fuels to renewable energy sources and conservation is not only imperative for moving toward ecological sustainability, but must also be seen as vital to our national security. Such a shift is absolutely feasible with technologies that are available today.(14) The recent development of efficient hydrogen fuel cells promises to inaugurate a new era in energy production =8B the "hydrogen economy." A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity and water =8B and nothing else! This makes hydrogen = the ultimate clean fuel. At present, several companies around the world are racing to be the first to produce fuel cell systems to supply electricity for our homes and commercial buildings. At the same time, car companies are developing hydrogen-powered hybrid-electric cars that will revolutioniz= e the automobile industry. The gradual replacement of the U.S. car fleet with these "hypercars" would eventually save all the oil OPEC now sells and, in addition, would reduce America=B9s CO2 emissions by about two thirds! Moreover, if a hydrogen tanker struck a reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska, this would have no adverse environmental effects, nor could a hydrogen-fueled airplane be used as a bomb. In both cases, the hydrogen would escape rapidly into the air on impact. The hydrogen economy will eventually be realized, because it features superior technologies =8B more economical, safer, and ecologically sustainable. However, this development could be accelerated dramatically with massive investments by the federal government. Such investments would not only bring tremendous environmental and health benefits, but would also be an effective long-term measure against international terrorism. FOOTNOTES: 1 See Robert Fisk, "The Awesome Cruelty of a Doomed People," The Independent, September 12, 2001. 2 See Stephen Zunes, "International Terrorism," Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org), September 2001. 3 See Stephen Zunes, "U.S. Policy Toward Political Islam," Foreign Policy i= n Focus (www.fpif.org), June 2001. 4 See ref. 2. 5 See ref. 3. 6 See ref. 2. 7 See ref. 3. 8 See Michael Klare, "Asking Why," Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org), September 2001. 9 See ref. 8. 10 See ref. 2. 11 See ref. 4. 12 See ref. 3. 13 Amos Oz, "Struggling Against Fanaticism," New York Times, September 14, 2001. 14 See Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, and Hunter Lovins, Natural Capitalism, Little Brown, New York, 1999. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:16:36 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Yom Kippur, 2001 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII (sent 2 days ago, lost in the mail) === Yom Kippur, 2001 it's yom kippur and i'll fast and atone you taliban you come and get me the jews are everyone's problem, you can get rid of me once and for all - come and get me, i'll be weak, i'm fasting === ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:29:58 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Re: Marjorie Perloff Hits the Number In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII I can't add anything brilliant to this except the fact that "Marjorie Perloff" anagrams to "free from pro jail" and "raj for poem flier." Gwyn ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:41:41 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Robin Morgan: Ghosts and Echoes (fwd) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:13:04 -0400 From: bfinfo To: 911@www.brechtforum.org Subject: Robin Morgan: Ghosts and Echoes Resent-Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:17:51 -0400 Resent-From: 911@www.brechtforum.org Resent-cc: recipient list not shown: ; Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 09:31:41 -0400 From: Martha Cameron Subject: Robin Morgan: Ghosts and Echoes Apparently some people couldn't open this as an attachment, so I'm resending as open file--I apologize if it's a duplicate. ------------------------------ Week 1: Ghosts and Echoes From: Robin Morgan Dear Friends, Your response to the email I sent on Day 2 of this calamity has been overwhelming. In addition to friends and colleagues, absolute strangers- in Serbia, Korea, Fiji, Zambia, all across North America--have replied, as have women's networks in places ranging from Senegal and Japan to Chile, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, even Iran. You've offered moving emotional support and asked for continued updates. I can't send regular reports/alerts as I did during the elections last November or the cabinet confirmation battles last year. But here's another try. Share this letter as you wish. I'll focus on New York--my firsthand experience--but this doesn't mean any less anguish for the victims of the Washington or Pennsylvania calamities. Today was Day 8. Incredibly, a week has passed. Abnormal normalcy has settled in. Our usually contentious mayor (previously bad news for New Yorkers of color and for artists) has risen to this moment with efficiency, compassion, real leadership. The city is alive and dynamic. Below 14th Street, traffic is flowing again, mail is being delivered, newspapers are back. But very early this morning I walked east, then south almost to the tip of Manhattan Island. The 16-acre site itself is closed off, of course, as is a perimeter surrounding it controlled by the National Guard, used as a command post and staging area for rescue workers. Still, one is able to approach nearer to the area than was possible last weekend, since the law-court district and parts of the financial district are now open and (shakily) working. The closer one gets the more one sees--and smells- what no TV report, and very few print reports, have communicated. I find myself giving way to tears again and again, even as I write this. If the first sights of last Tuesday seemed bizarrely like a George Lucas special-effects movie, now the directorial eye has changed: it's the grim lens of Agnes Varda, juxtaposed with images so surreal they could have been framed by Bunuel or Kurosawa. This was a bright, cloudless, early autumnal day. But as one draws near the site, the area looms out of a dense haze: one enters an atmosphere of dust, concrete powder, and plumes of smoke from fires still raging deep beneath the rubble (an estimated 2 million cubic yards of debris). Along lower 2nd Avenue, 10 refrigerator tractor-trailer trucks are parked, waiting; if you stand there a while, an NYC Medical Examiner van arrives -with a sagging body bag. Thick white ash, shards of broken glass, pebbles, and chunks of concrete cover street after street of parked cars for blocks outside the perimeter. Handprints on car windows and doors- handprints sliding downward--have been left like frantic graffiti. Sometimes there are messages finger-written in the ash: "U R Alive." You can look into closed shops, many with cracked or broken windows, and peer into another dimension: a wall-clock stopped at 9:10, restaurant tables meticulously set but now covered with two inches of ash, grocery shelves stacked with cans and produce bins piled high with apples and melons--all now powdered chalk-white. A moonscape of plenty. People walk unsteadily along these streets, wearing nosemasks against the still particle-full air, the stench of burning wire and plastic, erupted sewage; the smell of death, of decomposing flesh. Probably your TV coverage shows the chain-link fences aflutter with yellow ribbons, the makeshift shrines of candles, flowers, scribbled notes of mourning or of praise for the rescue workers that have sprung up everywhere--especially in front of firehouses, police stations, hospitals. What TV doesn't show you is that near Ground Zero the streets for blocks around are still, a week later, adrift in bits of paper--singed, torn, sodden pages: stock reports, trading print-outs, shreds of appointment calendars, half of a "To-Do" list. What TV doesn't show you are scores of tiny charred corpses now swept into the gutters. Sparrows. Finches. They fly higher than pigeons, so they would have exploded outward, caught midair in a rush of flame, wings on fire as they fell. Who could have imagined it: the birds were burning. >From a distance, you can see the lattices of one of the Towers, its skeletal bones the sole remains, eerily beautiful in asymmetry, as if a new work of abstract art had been erected in a public space. Elsewhere, you see the transformation of institutions: The New School and New York University are missing persons' centers. A movie house is now a rest shelter, a Burger King a first-aid center, a Brooks Brothers clothing store a body parts morgue, a record shop a haven for lost animals. Libraries are counseling centers. Ice rinks are morgues. A bank is now a supply depot: in the first four days, it distributed 11,000 respirators and 25,000 pairs of protective gloves and suits. Nearby, a mobile medical unit housed in a Macdonald's has administered 70,000 tetanus shots. The brain tries to process the numbers: "only" 50,000 tons of debris had been cleared by yesterday, out of 1.2 million tons. The medical examiner's office has readied up to 20,000 DNA tests for unidentifiable cadaver parts. At all times, night and day, a minimum of 1000 people live and work on the site. Such numbers daze the mind. It's the details--fragile, individual--that melt numbness into grief. An anklet with "Joyleen" engraved on it--found on an ankle. Just that: an ankle. A pair of hands--one brown, one white--clasped together. Just that. No wrists. A burly welder who drove from Ohio to help, saying softly, "We're working in a cemetery. I'm standing in--not on, in--a graveyard." Each lamppost, storefront, scaffolding, mailbox, is plastered with homemade photocopied posters, a racial/ethnic rainbow of faces and names: death the great leveler, not only of the financial CEOs- their images usually formal, white, male, older, with suit-and-tie--but the mailroom workers, receptionists, waiters. You pass enough of the MISSING posters and the faces, names, descriptions become familiar. The Albanian window-cleaner guy with the bushy eyebrows. The teenage Mexican dishwasher who had an American flag tattoo. The janitor's assistant who'd emigrated from Ethiopia. The Italian-American grandfather who was a doughnut-cart tender. The 23-year-old Chinese American junior pastry chef at the Windows on the World restaurant who'd gone in early that day so she could prep a business breakfast for 500. The firefighter who'd posed jauntily wearing his green shamrock necktie. The dapper African-American midlevel manager with a small gold ring in his ear who handled "minority affairs" for one of the companies. The middle-aged secretary laughing up at the camera from her wheelchair. The maintenance worker with a Polish name, holding his newborn baby. Most of the faces are smiling; most of the shots are family photos; many are recent wedding pictures. . . . I have little national patriotism, but I do have a passion for New York, partly for our gritty, secular energy of endurance, and because the world does come here: 80 countries had offices in the Twin Towers; 62 countries lost citizens in the catastrophe; an estimated 300 of our British cousins died, either in the planes or the buildings. My personal comfort is found not in ceremonies or prayer services but in watching the plain, truly heroic (a word usually misused) work of ordinary New Yorkers we take for granted every day, who have risen to this moment unpretentiously, too busy even to notice they're expressing the splendor of the human spirit: firefighters, medical aides, nurses, ER doctors, police officers, sanitation workers, construction-workers, ambulance drivers, structural engineers, crane operators, rescue worker tunnel rats. . . . Meanwhile, across the US, the rhetoric of retaliation is in full-throated roar. Flag sales are up. Gun sales are up. Some radio stations have banned playing John Lennon's song, "Imagine." Despite appeals from all officials (even Bush), mosques are being attacked, firebombed; Arab Americans are hiding their children indoors; two murders in Arizona have already been categorized as hate crimes--one victim a Lebanese-American man and one a Sikh man who died merely for wearing a turban. (Need I say that there were not nationwide attacks against white Christian males after Timothy McVeigh was apprehended for the Oklahoma City bombing?) Last Thursday, right-wing televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (our home-grown American Taliban leaders) appeared on Robertson's TV show "The 700 Club," where Falwell blamed "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists and the gays and lesbians . . . the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way" and groups "who have tried to secularize America" for what occurred in New York. Robertson replied, "I totally concur." After even the Bush White House called the remarks "inappropriate," Falwell apologized (though he did not take back his sentiments); Robertson hasn't even apologized. (The program is carried by the Fox Family Channel, recently purchased by the Walt Disney Company--in case you'd like to register a protest.) The sirens have lessened. But the drums have started. Funeral drums. War drums. A State of Emergency, with a call-up of 50,000 reservists to active duty. The Justice Department is seeking increased authority for wider surveillance, broader detention powers, wiretapping of persons (not, as previously, just phone numbers), and stringent press restrictions on military reporting. And the petitions have begun. For justice but not vengeance. For a reasoned response but against escalating retaliatory violence. For vigilance about civil liberties. For the rights of innocent Muslim Americans. For bombing Afghanistan with food and medical parcels, NOT firepower. There will be the expectable peace marches, vigils, rallies. . . . One member of the House of Representatives--Barbara Lee, Democrat of California, an African American woman--lodged the sole vote in both houses of Congress against giving Bush broadened powers for a war response, saying she didn't believe a massive military campaign would stop terrorism. (She could use letters of support: email her, if you wish, at barbara.lee@mail.house.gov.) Those of us who have access to the media have been trying to get a different voice out. But ours are complex messages with long-term solutions--and this is a moment when people yearn for simplicity and short-term, facile answers. Still, I urge all of you to write letters to the editors of newspapers, call in to talk radio shows, and, for those of you who have media access--as activists, community leaders, elected or appointed officials, academic experts, whatever--to do as many interviews and TV programs as you can. Use the tool of the Internet. Talk about the root causes of terrorism, about the need to diminish this daily climate of patriarchal violence surrounding us in its state-sanctioned normalcy; the need to recognize people's despair over ever being heard short of committing such dramatic, murderous acts; the need to address a desperation that becomes chronic after generations of suffering; the need to arouse that most subversive of emotions--empathy--for "the other"; the need to eliminate hideous economic and political injustices, to reject all tribal/ethnic hatreds and fears, to repudiate religious fundamentalisms of every kind. Especially talk about the need to understand that we must expose the mystique of violence, separate it from how we conceive of excitement, eroticism, and "manhood"; the need to comprehend that violence differs in degree but is related in kind, that it thrives along a spectrum, as do its effects--from the battered child and raped woman who live in fear to an entire populace living in fear. Meanwhile, we cry and cry and cry. I don't even know who my tears are for anymore, because I keep seeing ghosts, I keep hearing echoes. The world's sympathy moves me deeply. Yet I hear echoes dying into silence: the world averting its attention from the Rwandas screams. . . . Ground Zero is a huge mass grave. And I think: Bosnia. Uganda. More than 5400 people are missing and presumed dead (not even counting the Washington and Pennsylvania deaths). The TV anchors choke up: civilians, they say, my god, civilians. And I see ghosts. Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Dresden. Vietnam. I watch the mask-covered mouths and noses on the street turn into the faces of Tokyo citizens who wear such masks every day against toxic pollution. I watch the scared eyes become the fearful eyes of women forced to wear the hajib or chodor or burka against their will. . . . I stare at the missing posters' photos and think of the Mothers of the Disappeared. And I see the ghosts of other faces. In photographs on the walls of Holocaust museums. In newspaper clippings from Haiti. In chronicles from Cambodia. . . . I worry for people who've lost their homes near the site, though I see how superbly social-service agencies are trying to meet their immediate and longer-term needs. But I see ghosts: the perpetually homeless who sleep on city streets, whose needs are never addressed. . . . I watch normally unflappable New Yorkers flinch at loud noises, parents panic when their kids are late from school. And I see my Israeli feminist friends like Yvonne, who've lived with this dread for decades and still (even yesterday) stubbornly issue petitions insisting on peace. . . . I watch sophisticates sob openly in the street, people who've lost workplaces, who don't know where their next paycheck will come from, who fear a contaminated water or food supply, who are afraid for their sons in the army, who are unnerved by security checkpoints, who are in mourning, who feel wounded, humiliated, outraged. And I see my friends like Zuhira in the refugee camps of Gaza or West Bank, Palestinian women who have lived in precisely that emotional condition--for four generations. Last weekend, many Manhattanites left town to visit concerned families, try to normalize, get away for a break. As they streamed out of the city, I saw ghosts of other travelers: hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees streaming toward their country's borders in what is to them habitual terror, trying to escape a drought-sucked country so war-devastated there's nothing left to bomb, a country with 50,000 disabled orphans and two million widows whose sole livelihood is begging; where the life expectancy of men is 42 and women 40; where women hunch in secret whispering lessons to girl children forbidden to go to school, women who risk death by beheading--for teaching a child to read. The ghosts stretch out their hands. Now you know, they weep, gesturing at the carefree, insulated, indifferent, golden innocence that was my country's safety, arrogance, and pride. Why should it take such horror to make you see? The echoes sigh, Oh please do you finally see? This is calamity. And opportunity. The United States--what so many of you call America--could choose now to begin to understand the world. And join it. Or not. For now my window still displays no flag, my lapel sports no red-white-and-blue ribbon. Instead, I weep for a city and a world. Instead, I cling to a different loyalty, affirming my un-flag, my un-anthem, my un-prayer--the defiant un-pledge of a madwoman who also had mere words as her only tools in a time of ignorance and carnage, Virginia Woolf: "As a woman I have no country. As a woman I want no country. As a woman my country is the whole world." If this is treason, may I be worthy of it. In mourning--and absurd, tenacious hope, Robin Morgan September 18, 2001 New York City ----------------------------------------------- To respond to a post to the 911 list, make sure the recipient of your email is 911@www.brechtforum.org. Do NOT use "reply" since that will send your response to the original poster only. ----------------------------------------------- To subscribe and unsubscribe to this list, use the form on the Brecht Forum web site. http://www.brechtforum.org. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 19:44:13 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Austinwja@AOL.COM Subject: Re: Marjorie Perloff Hits the Number MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Happy Birfday!!! Best, Bill WilliamJamesAustin.com KojaPress.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 20:02:38 EDT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Harriet Zinnes Subject: Re: Marjorie Perloff Hits the Number MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Happy birthday, dear Marjorie. Love Harriet ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 20:15:17 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Poetics List Administration Subject: Re: one self sin teared question In-Reply-To: <20010927223724.27024.qmail@front.acsu.buffalo.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Murat - I have always been partial to herring; however, in this case it were appropriate to have consulted the list archive before formulating your view. Indeed I do assert that denouncing another subscriber by name "represents a greater 'rhetorical violence' than Selim Abdul Sadiq's post." Perhaps this is the part where you express your incredulity. As to the question of my judgement - well, this thing seems rather imputation than plain inquiry. Similarly, I recall once having heard a young boy ask another in mixed company: "Still pick your nose?" In my experience, the best response to such an engaging conundrum is to walk on casually. Or, as the Circle Jerks have it: "in the heat of the summer / better call out a plumber." Christopher W. Alexander poetics list moderator ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2001 22:47:10 -0400 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Allen Curnow (1911 -2001) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed I had the great fortune to meet Allen Curnow in Auckland, in the mid-80s, when I was visiting Wystan, who wrote to this list, a few days ago, of his father's death. In his memory, here are two of his relatively early poems (with a couple of links below): WILD IRON Sea go dark, dark with wind, Feet go heavy, heavy with sand, Thoughts go wild, wild with the sound Of iron on the old shed swinging, clanging: Go dark, go heavy, go wild, go round, Dark with the wind, Heavy with the sand, Wild with the iron that tears at the nail And the foundering shriek of the gale. (from Island and Time, 1941) & this one's for you, Wystan -- (I suppose all of us in New York are wishing, like you father -- "That the salt winds which scattered us blow softer") ELEGY ON MY FATHER Spring in his death abounds among the lily islands, There to bathe him for the grave antipodean snows Fall floodlong, rivermouths all in bloom, and those Fragile church timbers quiver By the bourne of his burial where robed he goes No journey at all. One sheet's enough to cover My end of the world and his, and the same silence. While in Paddington autumn is air-borne, earth-given, Day's nimbus nearer staring, colder smoulders; Breath of a death not my own bewilders Dead calm with breathless choirs O bird-creation singing where the world moulders! God's poor, the crutched and stunted spires Thumb heavenward humorously under the unriven Marble November has nailed across their sky: Up there, dank ceiling is the dazzling floor All souls inhabit, the lilied seas, no shore My tear-smudged map mislimned. When did a wind of the extreme South before Mix autumn, spring and death? False maps are dimmed, Lovingly they mock each other, image and eye. The ends of the earth are folded in his grave In sound of the Pacific and the hills he tramped singing, God knows romantically or by what love bringing Wine from a clay creek-bed, Good bread; or by what glance the inane skies ringing Lucidly round; or by what shuffle or tread Warning the dirt of miracles. Still that nave He knelt in puts off its poor planks, looms loftier Lonelier than Losinga's that spells in stone The Undivided Name. _Oh quickening bone Of the Mass-priest under grass Green in my absent spring, sweet relic atone To our earth's Lord for the pride of all our voyages, That the salt winds which scattered us blow softer. _ (London, November 1949) For the obituary in New Zealand Herald, go to http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?thesection=news&thesubsection=&storyID=219315 The Curnow entry in the Oxford Companion to New Zealand literature is at http://www.vuw.ac.nz/nzbookcouncil/writers/curnowa.htm