Tuesday

February 26, 2007

Philip K. Dick, Humpty Dumpty in Oakland (Victor Gollancz, 1986). 199 pages.

The last non-sci-fi novel Dick wrote, published posthumously.

Much like the city and times that the novel is set in Humpty Dumpty poses questions of class and race. Classwise, there is the capitalist (the shady record label owner and financier Harman), the petit bourgeois in Jim Fergesson (garage owner and small landlord), the working class in Al Miller (used car salesman), and then the under class in Al's Black neighbor Tootie who trained his dog to perform tricks to get some extra scratch at the bar.

While race isn't a central theme, it is ever-present. For example Jim flatout refuses to take any advice given by a African-American regardless of how sensible it might be. Al's neighbor Tootie & his wife are two of the few characters who seem to have a sense of what is going on with Al's deterioriating state of affairs. And not once but twice, it's Al's Black real estate agent, Mrs. Lane, who bails him out of a desperate spot.

Humpty Dumpty has the trademark Dick unreliable (paranoid?) anti-hero protagonist, complete with the muddled knot as all the threads of the story converge into one event. The reader is left to deduce what Al's motives were, just as Al is left with the same question.

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Monday

February 25, 2007

I am always confused at readings when a poet feels the need to explain the visual elements of a poem. I'm always left thinking that this isn't the best poem to read to an audience who've come to hear the poet read her poems. That is, if it's the visual element that drives the poem and makes it interesting, then perhaps a visual exhibition of the work rather than an auditory performance is in order.

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Sunday

February 24, 2007

Kiyomitsu Odai, Music for Found Objects at Signal Flow, Mills College, February 23, 2007.

I normally wouldn't comment on student productions, but Kiyomitsu Odai's piece blew me away last night. Mixing all of the criteria for new music with aspects of theater (Anantha Krishnan's elbow diving the cardboard box, for example), the piece used common objects--wood, tools, paper, a vacuum--set to stopwatch timed actions to create a piece that intensified these usually banal (and annoying) sounds. The fact that all of these objects are used in various working class environments (conctruction, warehouses, butchers/deli, hotel domestics) hints at a larger discussion than just a Fluxus-inspired exultation of the bathetic.

Philip White, wood I
Peter Musselman, wood II
Luke Selden, suspended paper
Kiyomitsu Odai, vacuum
Anantha Krishnan, cardboard box & pipe

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Saturday

February 23, 2007


February 23, 2007

It's the Signal Flow weekend at Mills.

Friday

February 22, 2007

Saturday in Chicago

Red Rover Series {readings that play with reading}
Experiment #11:Forth Sound Back

Featuring: Christopher Alexander, Rheim Alkadhi, Tara Betts, Dan Godston, Elizabeth Harper, Topher Hemann, Lisa Hemminger, David Harrison Horton, Toni Asante Lightfoot, Elizabeth Marino, Eneida Martino, Ryan "Shmedly" Maynes, Wang Ping, Matthias Regan, Joris Soeding & Duane Vorhees

7pm Saturday, February 24th
suggested donation $3
at LOCUS 2114 W. Grand -- Chicago, IL

(enter via the alley behind the building at Hoyne) new home of the Spare Room

Forth Sound Back features writers and artists presenting their long distance collaborations with each other. Their pieces include poems, sound collages, and other creative responses that use exchanged artifacts as their grist. Local poet and musician Dan Godston is a guest curator for this special Red Rover event.

Tuesday

February 19, 2007

I had my first baseball dream of the year. Lawson Moore of Athens, Georgia and I walked out to the back yard, which was in the front yard, and found two mitts and a ratty baseball. Then we just played catch until the alarm wet off. I have this vague memory of trying out some revolutionary new grips on the ball that were successful to varying degrees.

Sunday

February 17, 2007

新年快乐

Saturday

February 16, 2007

Can anyone hazard a guess & how to fix the fact that my sidebar now appears below my posts?

I haven't tweeked my template recently; at least, not since it was working right, so I'm confused.

Thursday

February 14, 2007

Clayton Eshleman ended his talk on Artaud at CCA with a requested reading of a few of his Vallejo translations. If you're in the area you really should try to make it out to Mills to catch his Vallejo reading.

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February 14, 2007

Tuesday

February 12, 2007

roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar roar

Wednesday

February 6, 2007

via CA Conrad:

Frank Sherlock EMERGENCY FUND

This link is for everyone to use on blogs and other online media.

Our good friend Frank Sherlock was rushed to the hospital January 22nd with a sudden and mysterious illness which turned out to be a serious case of meningitis. He needed emergency surgery, and also suffered a heart attack and kidney failure as a result of symptoms related to the illness.

The timing could not be worse as this attack of meningitis happened during the two month window in which Frank is without health insurance.

His friends have come together to help raise money at this critical time. We are reaching out to other friends and the poetry community on Frank's behalf. Please consider sending donations for his hospital bills, physical therapy, as well as his very expensive medications and other needs.

If you can make a donation by check or money order at this time please send it to Frank's longtime friend Matthew McGoldrick.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please make check or money order out to Matthew McGoldrick, and send to his address:


1504 Morris St.
Philadelphia PA 19145


We will be having a benefit show in Philadelphia in the very near future.

If you would like to be notified of that event please e-mail
CAConrad13 (at) aol (dot) com for the details.

Frank's poetry page can be found here: http://FrankSherlock.blogspot.com, and he can also be found at http://phillysound.blogspot.com .

THANKS SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT, AND PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD,
from the Friends of Frank Sherlock

Monday

February 4, 2007

Cutting the poet to fit the jersey?

Sunday

February 3, 2007


February 3, 2007

Spencer Selby, Twist of Address (Shearsman, 2007). 78 pages. $15.

"Section A" is a process piece that uses repeated a aliteriation while slowly going through the alphabet of a words: "Action like an actor who is adamant about adherence" (20, l.4).

"Text From My Visual Book" reads like we are peeking into Selby's noteboook (56-74):

Page 21

I think this ambivalence in art today, suspect involvement is luxury to a clean conscience. Like people turning from a world of anguish that resonates hard within possibility to make creative understood (62).

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Saturday

February 2, 2007

assuage reflects in and of itself an unbearable condition

Friday

February 1, 2007

Circumference: Poetry in Translation 5 (2006). 167 pages. $10.

This came in the mail yesterday and I am still working my way through these translations of poems from around the world. One immediately striking section is the "Homophonic Feature" which collects 15 Zukofskyesque sound transltions of 2 poems (134-51). This feature let's the reader see how different poets hear & utilize the sounds of language. Very interesting.

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February 1, 2007

Not thrilled about the forced migration over to new blogger, but everything seems to have stayed in tact.