On a theme ...

*

rainerillke

*

me&her

*

exstreamly

*

damnpend

*

'r'a'i'n'i'n'g'

*

c,l,o,u,d

*

dr,p

*

And today ...

• animadversions (no. 12)
• nounsense (no. 14)
• thread (no. 17)

plus a taster (from animadversions):

Nothing exemplifies British hypocrisy better than the current furore over yesterday's gaffe by Gordon Brown. Not - as the British media would have you believe - on Gordon Brown's part but the prevailing culture of double standards, prurience and holy-than-thouism.

To explain: Brown made some comments about a member of the public. Particularly damaging was the term "bigoted". As I understand it, his comments were made to his immediate aides and - as he believed - in private. Little did he know but his microphone was still attached and (worse) working.

Obviously this is a 'regretable incident' as political spin doctoring would have it and suggests that Brown is not very media savvy. However, I challenge anyone - in the BBC, journalism, medical professions, teaching professions, etc. etc. - to admit that they have never made similar off the cuff remarks on closing the door or putting down the phone. It's what's known as being human.

And, supposedly that's what we want 'our' (note the possessive) politicians to be. Later that afternoon BBC's PM programme ran an interview with Nick Clegg where he was grilled not so much on policy as "when did you last cry". You could feel (and share) his embarrassment. The tone of the questioning was cajoling, vulture-like - as if waiting for a reply that could be wilfully misinterpreted or quoted against him later. This isn't finding out about a person - it's setting traps.

I wonder who left the mic on Brown (was this a set-up?). I wonder whose PR agency is working with Mrs Duffy (and who they 'work' for?). I listen with increasing bile to the repetition of the incident in the news headlines - it is assuming ever more distorted proportions.

Just maybe it will backfire: that enough people will feel that this actually proves Gordon Brown does have some recognisable human traits.

Somewhere I have an interview in which Allen Ginsberg talks of the 'distance' of words. How - in his contemporary American poltics - language was becoming ever more filtered in the culture of the political speech writer. Before Mr President spoke, the many mouths and hands the words had gone through.

So I'm rather pleased to hear some words coming - genuinely - out of the mouth of one of 'my' politicians. Unpleasant as they may be.

I've just come across this - new to me, perhaps not to you. Anyway, it's worth putting up on the Blog. I sourced it from: http://www.brucemaudesign.com/112942/

...

1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to
be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study.
A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere.
John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader.
Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas.
Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas
to applications.

12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions.
Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks.
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders.
You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software.
The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk.
You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

26. Don’t enter awards competitions.
Just don’t. It’s not good for you.

27. Read only left-hand pages.
Marshall McLuhan did this. By decreasing the amount of information, we leave room for what he called our “noodle.”

28. Make new words.
Expand the lexicon. The new conditions demand a new way of thinking. The thinking demands new forms of expression. The expression generates new conditions.

29. Think with your mind.
Forget technology. Creativity is not device-dependent.

30. Organization = Liberty.
Real innovation in design, or any other field, happens in context. That context is usually some form of cooperatively managed enterprise. Frank Gehry, for instance, is only able to realize Bilbao because his studio can deliver it on budget. The myth of a split between “creatives” and “suits” is what Leonard Cohen calls a ‘charming artifact of the past.’

31. Don’t borrow money.
Once again, Frank Gehry’s advice. By maintaining financial control, we maintain creative control. It’s not exactly rocket science, but it’s surprising how hard it is to maintain this discipline, and how many have failed.

32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.

33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.

34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea – I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.

35. Imitate.
Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.

36. Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.
37. Break it, stretch it, bend it, crush it, crack it, fold it.

38. Explore the other edge.
Great liberty exists when we avoid trying to run with the technological pack. We can’t find the leading edge because it’s trampled underfoot. Try using old-tech equipment made obsolete by an economic cycle but still rich with potential.

39. Coffee breaks, cab rides, green rooms.
Real growth often happens outside of where we intend it to, in the interstitial spaces – what Dr. Seuss calls “the waiting place.” Hans Ulrich Obrist once organized a science and art conference with all of the infrastructure of a conference – the parties, chats, lunches, airport arrivals – but with no actual conference. Apparently it was hugely successful and spawned many ongoing collaborations.

40. Avoid fields.
Jump fences. Disciplinary boundaries and regulatory regimes are attempts to control the wilding of creative life. They are often understandable efforts to order what are manifold, complex, evolutionary processes. Our job is to jump the fences and cross the fields.

41. Laugh.
People visiting the studio often comment on how much we laugh. Since I’ve become aware of this, I use it as a barometer of how comfortably we are expressing ourselves.

42. Remember.
Growth is only possible as a product of history. Without memory, innovation is merely novelty. History gives growth a direction. But a memory is never perfect. Every memory is a degraded or composite image of a previous moment or event. That’s what makes us aware of its quality as a past and not a present. It means that every memory is new, a partial construct different from its source, and, as such, a potential for growth itself.

43. Power to the people.
Play can only happen when people feel they have control over their lives. We can’t be free agents if we’re not free.

Quickly ...

*

ab((( )))yz

*

inferno

*

and today's crop ...

• poeworms (no. 9)
• punishment (no. 10)

Off to get stuff for dinner.

Meanwhile:

*

kyrgyzollie

*

errorwin

*

and for the overhasty reader:

*

foreskim

*

Today's printing:

• anatome (no.4)

Not sure how strictly the 'one a day' rule is applied - whether a spate of pwoermds in one go can be 'banked' and carried over for other days.

Still, here are some more that are emerging as I put the volumes together and need new titles or extras to justify a sequence:

*

gnatural

*

hypnopotamuse

*

fl(oral)

*

gnugatory

*

aleghater

*

antelimp

*

the fullcrumb series of pwoermds ...

Now available:

• nulojism (no. 3)
• signusingnosis (no. 5)
• extinglish (no. 7)
• newsense (no. 8)
• cygn (no. 11)
• or/th/or (no. 15)
• quotidiom (no. 16)

The first of the pwoermd volumes comes off the press.

More details on the Sticky Pages site.

Fourteen groupings - so perhaps fourteen little volumes - plus nine sets that haven't yet declared a logic.

Three of the vols.:

*

flawers & faunications

*

or/th/or

*

quotidiom

*

Spent yesterday afternoon cutting up and arranging the pwoermds of the past three weeks. It looks like they'll fall into several little 'togatherings' but the exact format is still to be decided. In the meantime:

*

Shapesphere

*

nibbledible

*

rinciples

*

three months/three years/three months/three years/more lectures/yes it's them again/you've heard blob 59/we're gonna move on 3 years/music centre irritant/get yer suits off/get yer jeans on/i can see, i have dreams/i was by the fireplace at home/the date was 2010/all england was a university town/all you could get was wine/I do brainless as energy alternative/but I don't go for this death on a plate stuff/so I'll cheer you up/forget the act/read the lit-crit first/they wouldn't even know the sun was up/unless there was a press release on it/oh dear friends/i can't continue this/Arthur Askey's just been shot/maybe we should do a tribute/we'll do you got to hassle schmuck/will you let me play/if i patronise you today

(The Fall, 'C n C')

Four for breakfast:

*

sprink

*

criminimalist

*

s(if)t

*

expunential

*

Just now:

*

thaumatropoetic

*

tropey

*

endorphinish

*

In the car driving to work listening to The Fall:

*

chune

*

r*sk

*

ap'str'phe

*

errhotic

*

/s/l/i/t/s/

*

gruve (or simply: grve?)

*

Arcadear

*

industreal

*

sphunky

*

(Mark E. Smith does the trick ...)

This morning:

*

( )mit

*

alternatively ...

*

om't

*

First thing:

*

writualistic

*

be.muse.sing

*

mistheard

*

circumspectacle

*

mccn

*

And so to bed:

*

punconscious

*

squibbles

*

sceptacles

*

anext

*

at 6 am:

*

certain'ty

*

on waking:

*

vaci-l-i-l-i-l-i-late

*

manufracture

*

injurnear

*

discovary

*

fingernai(

*

(for Bruce Conner)

*

psychedelicate

*

Antwerp

There's a remainder/secondhand bookshop along from the Rubens museum and it's delivered one or two surprises in the past (Jonathan Williams' Mahler, a collection of Joseph Cornell dreams, an Olson or two). However, today was beyond expectations: first, 2000 BC The Bruce Conner Story Part II (a sumptuous catalogue of the Walker Art Show), second - amazingly - Jess, To and From the Printed Page with contributions by John Ashbery, Lisa Jarnot and Thomas Evans (frankly, a book I thought I'd never get hold of).



It's one of those occasions when you feel as though your hand is being guided - why did I think of going upstairs? Why did I think of looking down at the very bottom shelf under 'J'? What the hell are these books doing in a bookshop like this in Antwerp of all places? "Of all the bookshops in all the towns ... ".

Once again I'm reminded how books can be occasions - or rather constellations. The pleasure is not one of acquisitiveness or of the bargain hunter (neither volume was cheap). It's something else - as of names, energies and forces being focused. Text + time + space = .



Later, at lunch, I notice the 'bolleke' of de Koninck bears a hand (palm facing) on the base and inner rim.

Midway:

*

/lf&ha/

*

before getting up:

*

intimid

*

"... When publishers, concert organizers, or anyone else interested in performing or distributing his music asked him for a reproducible portrait, Scelsi surprised them by submitting a signed abstract drawing consisting solely of a circle and a horizontal line beneath it." (From the booklet accompanying Natura Renovatur, ECM).

during a conversation:

*

mediochre

*

during an e-mail:

*

un(ear/eye)thed

*

togather

*

during this afternoon:

*

naybores

*

during this week:

*

frequ(in)tly

*

and during this post:

*

eith/or/ght

*

*

Infusions (IV) comes off the press today. More details on the Sticky Pages site.

coming soon ...

*

flier for the collection of pwoermds (when I've worked out how to select and sequence them - it might take a while)

sendings:

gh
rc
at
sn
the w
lf

mss

Still no one to jump to Bolano's defence ...

In the meantime, a few more pwoermds that arrived during lunch:

*

selluststeal

*

planitinerary

*

elephantasist

*

sintillate

*

(post e-mail):

*

nurdge

*

A confession ... I don't read many novels these days - at least beyond those I am obliged to teach. So it was something of an event to begin Roberto Bolano's (forgive the absent tilde) The Savage Detectives: nearly 600 pages with lines that went all the way across. Characters, places, dialogue ... a story to get my teeth into. Except ...

If there's anyone reading who's a big Bolano fan, please let me know what I am missing. Why is there such a - it seems - unanimous critical and public acclaim for his writing?

I read the first part thoroughly. A few pages into the second part my attention began to wander. By Chapter 5 I was starting to wonder whether it was worth continuing. At page 200 I decided to resort to the old student ploy of skimming. Part three I was back to good behaviour when - once again - I lost interest.

How to account for this? Overindulgence in poetry has atrophied my ability to sustain narrative development? Ignorance of Spanish - specifically Mexican - literature, politics and culture means that my reading is deprived of context? Just one of those things - the book, the time, the reader in misalignment?

I'll admit to being disconcerted. Might this be some sign of forty-something waning literary taste? The palate becomes jaded with age? A gradual mutation into a Kingsley Amis old fart perched on the bar stool?

Here, then, are some counter arguments:

1) Bolano's mythologizing of The Poet and Poetry. I'm immediately reminded of Kerouac - On The Road is so obviously a text haunting The Savage Detectives - and Jack Spicer - Lorca alone would justify this connection but I see John Latta is delving into subtler affinities.

However, with both Kerouac and Spicer you feel some genuine energy, the voice of and from Inside (accepting that Spicer would reverse this very term to Outside). In Bolano's case, it feels as though he simply asserts - almost as if convincing himself. Again, I have to counter my own objections - I acknowledge Bolano's personal suffering in The Cause of Art; I accept, too, that the premise of the novel is that of delusion and disenchantment. And yet ...

... what does Poetry come down to in Bolano's novel? Buying - no, stealing - books; listing titles and authors*; in Part Three a pre-Finals type of rhetorical terms cross-examination; and - above all - lots and lots of fucking. The narrative voice of Parts One and Three and the various Poet-types of Part two are so signally lacking in anything resembling a creatively interesting take on the world. And yes, maybe that's the point - he's exposing wannabes, failures, also rans. Yet to sustain that over 500 plus pages ... Is it worth the candle?

2) Part Two and the decision to work the narrative through multiple narrative voices. I thought that this was going to be interesting - challenging, conflicting points of view, subtle reframings. Sadly no. After a few chapters you realise that everyone sounds the same and pretty much thinks the same. One critic justifies this as the effect of "spoken language". That seems pretty lame to me - and special pleading for Bolano. Yes, there's the American woman - Barbara Patterson - who swears a lot but surely this voice verges on caricature?

Can this be put down to reading a translation - that nuances of language are lost either intentionally or unintentionally by the translator. Another 'and yet' ...

3) Bolano's style. Part One had some interesting features - the narrator's repeated dislocations and qualifications; some of the one-liners about writers and writing. However, into Part Two and the writing is - well - dull. Here again Bolano admirers rally to his defence: it's what he doesn't do that's so impressive ... it's deliberately 'anti-literary' ... etc.. The writing rarely lifts above the functional. Flat - that's my overriding impression. And that over 500+ pages ...

4) The drawings. Amusing Mexicans frying eggs and so on - but I'd guess known to most readers and the kind of thing you'd do on school bus trips. Four pages of them, though? Where was the editor? However, the closing two pages with the three squares are just embarrassing. A final attempt at pathos - or perhaps a deliberate final fling towards bathos. Either way it misfires (and badly).

5) A dawning suspicion that Bolano is writing the kind of novel people think they should like - a sort of literary shibboleth to announce whether you're 'in with it'. The kind of person who goes for Suffering (artistically speaking), identifies with The Marginal (safely on paper), keeps in with South American lit. (and the wines are good and so affordable, too), is broad-minded enough to read hardback novels with words such as "dick" and "blow-job" in them as this is Art (capitalised). And there's the added frisson that it's kind of breaking the rules (which have already been broken and broken better ...).

So where does this leave me? Yearning for the rhythms and energies of a Kerouac, the real grit and illumination of an Iain Sinclair, the ability to dislocate sentences of a Patrick Hamilton or Henry Green, the concision of a Beckett, the exhilirating sprawl of a Pynchon, the recondite knowledge of a Borges.

Yep, I remain mystified at the claims made for this novel.

Anyone ... ?

___

*Bolano name checks Sophie Podolski - a Belgian poet/artist I'm going to explore further ...

scrypt (i)

*

This had been hanging around on the desk for over a week. A different version is up on the foffof site.

Half awake ...

*

thumbpd

*

crumbpl

*

solipsexisted

*

mssplet

*

ub

*

Monday not so early (written below the English Channel):

*

abjective

*

+verb

*

nounsense

*

glis

*

pugn

*

shuther

*

Sunday morning (early):

*

poeworm

*

To get the day going ...

*

atension

*

catechrisis

*

vacuumulate

*

... in town with the girls and my parents. One of those mornings when the Sablon is bathed in sunshine and Belgium pretends to be Mediterranean.

Park the car without any trouble. Stumble across a shop selling tea (I knew it was there but had forgotten) and get 50 gr. First Flush Darjeeling and 100 gr. of an Earl Grey with flecks of blue the salesman recommended. Then, next door, Ut Pictura Musica, the CD shop (I discover later I've bought the wrong one and have to drive back in to change it). Did I need it? No more than two more packs of tea but the combination of being out and about, April sunshine, the sumptuous minimalist packaging ... it's as good a way of marking the day as any other. We have coffee in Le Pain Quotidien and buy cakes for later. Finally, a quick tour of the museum - taking the luxurious lift up to ground level is the highlight for the girls. Not for them the Carl Andre.

By the time we're heading back to the car people are eating lunch at little tables along the pavements. As always I'm envious: eating out at lunchtime seems so much more delicious. Stuff Masterchef and gastronomic pyrotechnics. A simple salad, glass of wine and a basket of bread - that's all you need. More or less ...

Visual poetry or public announcement? This image is being used to sign 'information' in the Museum of Ancient & Modern Art in Brussels.

make my day

i.

ii.

iii.

iv.

v.

vi.

(i.m. Mlclm McL):

sexpistles

*

bOwwOwOwt

*

(After an evening watching Jan Svankmayer)

*

peniscope

*

penisylindrical

*

psine

*

spine

*

snipe

*

pen(i)s

*

pen!s

*

pensill


*

pensle

*

penisillin

*

snip

*

this one's been staring me in the face ...

*

qwert

*

as well as ...

*

yui

*

and for today ...

*

vampyhrric

*

trwoth & trwooth & troofle

*

boredumb

*

twombly

*

and after wracking my brains for a pwoermd for this Blog, the best I can manage so far:

jumbleoffal

___


E. (while changing after swimming this morning): "you keep your ID card with you so you can have ideas, Daddy." Evidently, it's catching ...

Just one for today ...

*

wreckreation

*

and some more ...


1.

ventrickle

*

2.

qwhipped

*

3.

nodebook

*

4.

skullership

*

5.

incyst

*

6.

nv

*

7.

longwish

*

8.

qqqqq

*

9.

I've/ink/'afor/iamb

*

10.

ttts

*

11.

newsense

*

12.

perversify

*

13.

signus in gnosis

*

14.

scummery, parrotphrase & praysee

*

15.

thetis & thisbe

*

16.

intERUPT

*

17.

sourceror

*

18.

incomepoop

*

19.

extinkt & extinglishes

*

20.

inymphomaniac

*

21.

backdraw

*

23.

gnittink

*

24.

pursepickacious

*

25.

flhigh & flheight

*

26.

obknocksus

*

27.

qt

*

28.

flowt

*

29.

ptot & ctup

*

30. (& another dedicated to gh) ...

teatotaller

*

Twelve for breakfast ...

1.

spunge

*

2.

punnishmeant

3.

textcitation & textciting

4.

nibblc

5.

whitch

6.

rhinosnore

7.

ope

8.

cun't & qwhim

9.

fungle

10.

reelism

11.

wI've

12.

exwhom

and one more popped up:

22.

anow/once

and some more pwoermds ...

1.

or(bit(all)

2.

eyebrowse

3.

daylightful

4.

heavenescent

5.

x6tens

6.

IonIc

7.

kanguru

8.

chemystery

9.

xerov

10.

infelct

11.

eviden't

12.

astrognomic

13.

apoethesis

14.

ampers&

15.

sexoftenist

16.

phlegmish

17.

mundane

choosy

when say

thirsty

frighty

satyry & sundry

18.

mnml

19.

televiced

20.

myme

21.

epocheclipse

A set of pwoermds (perhaps):

1.

withpurr

*

2.

kneedles

llex

elbknows

twrists

thingers

*

3.

sawwww

*

4.

psilent

*

5.

debtknowtation

*

6.

opun

*

7.

noosepaper

*

8.

abreathiate

*

9.

truthbrush

*

10.

pubic convenients

*

11.

antagonostic

*

12.

ingenius

*

13.

=qual

*

14.

kakafkafkaka

*

15.

tuth

*

16.

swetter

*

17.

fullcrumb

*

18.

glowball warning

*

19.

nightingle

*

20.

thrhush

*

21.

ambiguess

*

22.

dailyers

&

twolips

*

23.

inksense

*

24.

neolojism

*

25.

empoorer

*

26.

zxylophone

*

27.

pppiano

*

28.

twyg

*

29.

wordth wordth

*

30.

chrys&themum&dad

*

31.

ayes

noes

errs

& throk

*

32.

itstchis

*

33.

ngh

*

34.

nmb

*

35.

inferstructure

*

36.

gruntled

*

37.

lss

*

38.

tilth

*

39.

complayend

*

40.

sighz & growns

*

41.

h2ot

*

42.

thiev

*

43.

gh st

*

44.

rhymthm

*

45.

naive & folk

*

46.

ttwoo

*

47.

t x t

___ =

e

and why not one more - 48. specially for Geof:

whoth

_______

apologies if I have inadvertently replicated any - I'm new to this style. And some, I'm sure, are bastard issue or mongrels ...