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

[Anny Ballardini]

Cris, if you wish Boek sent "I" for the Corner:
http://www.fieralingue.it/corner.php?pa=printpage&pid=1941


From: "Crisman Cooley" <ccooley at overdomain.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 20, 2007 4:39 PM


>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.
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
> 
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