[New-Poetry] Re: Re: Bok, Goldsmith, et al

[Crisman Cooley]

I haven't read Leftwich at all-- I'll look into him further.  Wanted  
to thank you for your post a few months ago of Christian Bok's  
_eunoia_ -- I read one section ("a", I think) a truly startling piece  
of work in the Oulipoian mode.  I plan to read the other sections as  
time allows.

Between your discoveries and Bok's in Goldsmith, I went to ubuweb.  I  
read as much as I could stand of _Traffic_ (exact transcription of a  
24-hour segment of NY traffic radio broadcast, once every 10  
minutes), and _Weather_ (complete report of NY weather on four days,  
two solstices and equinoxes).  These are of course grindingly dull,  
the language-- "uh's" included-- as flat and factual and lifeless as  
can be imagined, having been torn unedited from daily life.   
Goldsmith turns the mirror back on us, showing us a complete and  
perfect picture, as if to say: "This is your life."  The dada element  
is recontextualizing these readymade texts as poetry, as Duchamp  
signed the bottlerack.  Goldsmith, I believe, makes the unfortunate  
choice between stateside Duchampian proteges Cage and Warhol in favor  
of the latter.  One reason I think Cage is one of the most important  
artists of 20C is that he moves through Dadaism to pure perception,  
pure attention to nature in its full complexity.  Of course that  
leads him out of art-- a fact he readily admitted-- and therefore he  
provides no direction for any artist to follow him (though some have  
tried).  Warhol, on the other hand, leads straight into culture,  
glitz, style-- remaking his art in the image of culture to the point  
where the two become indistinguishable.  For example, I remember  
picking up a copy of the magazine he started called "Interview".  It  
is a magazine of full-page designer ads: beautiful bored models  
lounging around or striking languid poses in designer clothing.  This  
"look" is now ubiquitous in glam mags. The "interviews" (as I recall)  
were vapid conversations with celebrities.  Now there is no glitz or  
style in _Traffic_, _Weather_ or _Day_ -- just the blank stare of  
"factual" media.

In _Head Citations_, Goldsmith follows another dada thread (from  
Roussel to Duchamp) of use of puns and homophonic sentences.  Drawing  
from pop culture (a la Warhol), Goldsmith rewrites 800 song lyrics--  
mostly from rock-and-roll.  Many of the lines become almost instantly  
recognizable as the song lyric, and the results to me are hilarious.   
Here are some examples:

10.3. Oh, we are sailing, yes, give Jesus pants.
12. I've got an eye on Kendra, I'd love to take her for a ride, mama  
don't take my motor home away, mama don't take my cordless phone away.
15. The Pope don't work cause the vandals took the candles.
34. A filleted woman ain't got no soul.
64. Debbie with a glue dress gun.
88. Hey little thing, let me light your chemicals, 'cause mama I'm  
sure hard to henna now, mess around.
94. Blew out my flip-flop, stepped on a pop-tart.
107. I'll light the fire, while you place the bodies in the car that  
we bought today.
108. We are starving, we are frozen, and we've got to get ourselves  
back to the garden.
113. You fill up my census like a sleep in the washer.
124. Life in the Bat Plane.
135.2. I'm the god of Velveeta, baby.
138. Her heavy head turned to ice cream, being the one.
153. Burning all the shoes off Avalon.
155.1. Count the head lice on the highway.
203. Hit me with your pet shark.
211. Warm smell of the wheat dust, rising up through the air.
221. I can see Shirley now Lorraine has gone.
263.4. I'd rather dance with your mother.
273. Like Frankenstein I did it my way.
286. I want a new truck, one that won't make me sick.
292. Don't let your life pass you by, whiffle balls of memory.
303.5. Big old jet and a rhino.
341. Let's get biblical, biblical.
350. Little goose poop.
358.4. Oh Lord, I'm stuck in Ohio.
369. That's me with the mower, that's me with the frostbite.
370. I started school in a worn torn dress and somebody threw up.
380. Four hundred children and a clock in the field.
380.1. Four hundred children and the turnips won't peel.
380.2. Four hundred children and a dog with no wheels.
405. I'm standing in the middle of life with my pants behind me.
458. I'm gonna step to the side, say I'm sorry, stomp on your  
fingers, then blame it on me.
463. Is it any wonder, I'll reject your verse.






> Date: Sat, 19 May 2007 11:05:06 -0500
> From: "Skip Fox" <skip at louisiana.edu>
> Subject: RE: RE: [New-Poetry] Academy-Award Winnning Sad Thought
> To: "'NewPoetry: Contemporary Poetry News &amp;	Views'"
> 	<new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> Message-ID: <002201c79a2f$7dbb5d40$f4954682 at win.louisiana.edu>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="US-ASCII"
>
> I don't know (that I know) of any tv show writers.
>
> Let me expand a bit. My take on Goldsmith is much the same as  
> yours. I'm
> glad someone has done this, not that I need study it deeply. But I  
> reached
> out to see it (I think all of his Coach House works are available  
> on the
> web) and made some interesting discoveries. When Christian Bok came  
> this
> spring, he spoke to a class on mine about other discoveries: levels of
> self-reflexivity in _Day_, etc. I'm glad someone like Bok has read him
> closely and reports on it (I also found much of this on the web).
>
> I recently dove into a Jim Leftwich book which at first appeared rich
> nonsense. I wondered how anyone could keep going at such writing  
> for long,
> so I decided to read 50 pages. I found out the text I was reading  
> was only
> interspersed with the apparent dadist soup of words (and I'm not  
> convinced
> they are, or at least at times I have more than a moderate sense of  
> sensible
> groupings) are long passages of quotation and disquisition, always
> orchestrated.
>
> Leftwich has a ready payoff. Goldsmith doesn't have enough to  
> warrant a
> thorough investigation, but I'm glad he did what he did, am willing to
> attend to it moderately, and hope he keeps doing work in the future  
> which is
> surprising, provoking, funny, heartfelt, etc.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> [mailto:new-poetry-bounces at wiz.cath.vt.edu] On Behalf Of Crisman  
> Cooley
> Sent: Friday, May 18, 2007 8:31 PM
> To: new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu
> Subject: Re: RE: [New-Poetry] Academy-Award Winnning Sad Thought
>
> My sentiments too.  When I first started reading new-po I wondered
> "Where is the true Dadaist?  Where is the silent piece?  Where is the
> readymade?"  Then I read about Goldsmith's _Day_, and as you report,
> the more interesting _Fidget_ and I felt at ease.  No surprise that
> Goldsmith (I believe) started as a visual artist well schooled in
> Duchampianism.  It is telling in the conceptual nature of his work
> that I haven't actually sought out the text of _Fidget_.  Simply
> accepted the necessity of the gesture and felt relief that I didn't
> have to make it.
>
> Skip, pardon me, I think many of your posts are interesting and
> thought provoking-- I couldn't help being very surprised that you
> were lauding a television show screen writer (at least I think you
> were-- don't have the post at hand).  Can you explain?  I live in the
> media shadow.  We get one station here-- badly-- and it's Mexican tv.
>
> Cris
>
>
>> Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 14:56:59 -0500
>> From: "Skip Fox" <skip at louisiana.edu>
>> Subject: RE: [New-Poetry] Academy-Award Winnning Sad Thought
>>
>> Nice. But I'd argue that _Fidget_ is worth a look. He tries to
>> capture every
>> movement of his body that he can (aware there's always selection, a
>> fiction
>> of sorts) for a 18 hour period (or 16?). A book without a head.
>> During the
>> book he masturbates, has a strongly anxious reaction to his own
>> recording,
>> takes a walk, and gets drunk. (The last chapter is a letter-reversed
>> word-by-word "copy" of the first, which he has trained himself to
>> read . . .
>> it's on ubu.com).You're right, a conceptual artist, in words, yet
>> one who is
>> pushing some conditions in interesting ways. I'm glad he's doing it.
>>
>>
>
>