January 28, 2010
written January 25, 2010
So when you move to a new place, you have to get a new internet connection. In China that involves getting the neighborhood (I won’t call them officials, because from what I can tell they are retired volunteer old bitties from the compound) folks involved. You think it would take a day, but it takes several days planning to re-turn on a connection that was previously connected, and Sha needs to give them her National ID Card number (even though it’s my account). I think the last thing is because they don’t know what to do with foreigners yet, as this is still a Chinesey part of Beijing (ironically located between the two least Chinesey areas—the Central Business District and Sanlitunr [the n is somehow silent]).
My addy on the sidebar works, as Mr. Paul Deppler sunshined my day with four books the other day. I will write about all four singularly in the near future, as without knowledge of how my TV system works and no internet, I have come back to the book in a way I haven’t since I was the only one teaching on the campus of the University of Georgia in the mid-90s that had no idea of the Rachel and Ross conversations my students were having.
Amazon found my house as well, later than Paul. I’ll deal with the books I ordered singularly as well.
But I will simply say that poet-critics need to read Donald Judd’s Complete Writings. Biased yes, calling a shovel a shovel, yes. Telling us the good and bad qualities of the shovel in discussion, yes. Putting the shovel under discussion into a context where we, the readers, feel like we might know something about the tradition of shovels and this particular shovel’s worth in that tradition, yes. Simply solid, clear, useful criticism.
So when you move to a new place, you have to get a new internet connection. In China that involves getting the neighborhood (I won’t call them officials, because from what I can tell they are retired volunteer old bitties from the compound) folks involved. You think it would take a day, but it takes several days planning to re-turn on a connection that was previously connected, and Sha needs to give them her National ID Card number (even though it’s my account). I think the last thing is because they don’t know what to do with foreigners yet, as this is still a Chinesey part of Beijing (ironically located between the two least Chinesey areas—the Central Business District and Sanlitunr [the n is somehow silent]).
My addy on the sidebar works, as Mr. Paul Deppler sunshined my day with four books the other day. I will write about all four singularly in the near future, as without knowledge of how my TV system works and no internet, I have come back to the book in a way I haven’t since I was the only one teaching on the campus of the University of Georgia in the mid-90s that had no idea of the Rachel and Ross conversations my students were having.
Amazon found my house as well, later than Paul. I’ll deal with the books I ordered singularly as well.
But I will simply say that poet-critics need to read Donald Judd’s Complete Writings. Biased yes, calling a shovel a shovel, yes. Telling us the good and bad qualities of the shovel in discussion, yes. Putting the shovel under discussion into a context where we, the readers, feel like we might know something about the tradition of shovels and this particular shovel’s worth in that tradition, yes. Simply solid, clear, useful criticism.
posted by Mr. Horton at 12:13 PM
1 Comments:
I like that Donald Judd criticism because he just explains how everything is made. He never resorts to stringing together tired names of genres but actually describes how objects look,and behave in space. Each one gets to be an individual.
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