Number Eighty-Four

Steinski is the DJ Spooky of music.

Number Eighty-Three

Kathy Acker not expecting her books to be read from beginning to end.

Julio Cortazar telling you not to.

Number Eighty-Two

One must not forget Nabokov.

Number Eighty-One

Number Eighty

David Markson

Number Seventy-Nine

Barbara Bloom

Number Seventy-Eight

Number Seventy-Seven

From New York Times review of Hiding Man:

As a writer, Barthelme was deeply alert to what was happening in the visual arts, reading the criticism of, say, Harold Rosenberg with the same enthusiasm he brought to Beckett's work as it began to appear in English. Painters like de Kooning seemed to enter his spirit as much as any authors he read; there is a sense in his work, as in that of certain painters, that the human form or presence is worth treating as merely an exiting aspect of line and gesture, tone and texture.

Number Seventy-Six

Which is to say. . .

Surprised by joy—impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport—Oh! with whom
But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find?
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind—
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Number Seventy-Five

Though it's updated every day, sometimes I forget this blog exists.

Number Seventy-Four

Cole Swensen is the David Markson of poetry.

Number Seventy-Three

It's a gearing-up process.

Number Seventy-Two

Which voice do you choose?
--with the bank teller
--with your boyfriend

Which voice do you choose to talk to yourself with?
Different voice--different things to say.

--adapted from a Laurie Anderson interview on the 'tube.

Number Seventy-One

DJ Spooky is the Andrea Fraser of music.

Number Seventy

ANDERSON: Every night, he woke up calling, "Fred! Fred! How could you do this to me? How could you go now, after all we've been through together?" And when he woke up, he always said he had never known anyone named Fed, or even Ned, or Ted.

Number Sixty-Nine

ANDERSON: A couple of months ago, an earthquake was reported in parts of the Bronx and New Jersey. It registered 3.5 on the Richter scale, and it was the largest quake of this magnitude since 1927. The scientists at nearby Princeton, however, missed the quake. They said, "At the time of the earthquake, we were changing our chart paper."

Number Sixty-Eight

When I look I am seen, so I exist.
I can now afford to look and see.
I now look creatively and what I apperceive I also perceive.
In fact I take care not to see what is not there to be seen
(unless I am tired).
--Winnicott, "Mirror-role of Mother and Family in Child Development."

Number Sixty-Seven

He doesn’t believe in the cosmic significance of coincidence. But whenever he deviates from his routine, something beyond his control goes haywire. He changes outfit unexpectedly before leaving the house and his train is out of service or he gets a bad phone call.

He's also the quintessential Aquarius.

Number Sixty-Six

“Hey man, can I ask you something?”
“Mmhmm”
“Look, I’m homeless. . . I’ve got no place to go. . .”
“And I’ve got no cash”
“Look, man, can you wait to hear what I’ve got to ask you?”
“Ok”
“There’s a crackhead down the street. . . and he’s got my jacket. . . and he’s selling. . .”
“I’m sorry, I can’t help you”

Number Sixty-Five

Number Sixty-Four

Christian Marclay, Raymond Pettibon, and Laurie Anderson walk into a bar.

Number Sixty-Three

Christian Marclay, Raymond Pettibon, and Laurie Anderson

Number Sixty-Two

A person, another person, and a third person walk into a bar.
The bartender says, "Hey, what are you, all together or something?"

Number Sixty-One

Oulipo in general, Ponge, Calvino

Number Sixty

I've changed my mind: David Antin all the way.

Number Fifty-Nine

I don't think there is a number fifty-nine. I have a buck-fifty. Do you want a buck-fifty?

Number Fifty-Eight

"He’s sitting there just as I remembered him, next to the neat little marble-topped table, with its prim lamp in gilt bronze mounted by simple white shade, and behind him a painting that might be by Kenneth Noland but is hard to identify in the tightly held shot that frames him. His face is much the same, flabby and slack, although time has pinched it sadistically, and reddened it. Whenever I would try to picture that face, my memory would produce two seemingly mismatched fragments: the domed shape of the head, bald, rigid, unforgiving; and the flaccid quality of the mouth and lips, which I remember as always slightly ajar, in the logically impossible gesture of both relaxing and grinning. Looking at him now I search for the same effect. As always I am held by the arrogance of the mouth–fleshy, toothy, aggressive–and its pronouncements, which though voiced in a kind of hesitant, stumbling drawl are, as always, implacably final."

Number Fifty-Seven

"And what about little John Ruskin, with his blond curls and his blue sash and shoes to match, but above all else his obedient silence and his fixed stare? Deprived of toys he fondles the light glinting off a bunch of keys, is fascinated by the burl of the floorboards, counts the bricks in the houses opposite. He becomes the infant fetishist of patchwork. 'The carpet,' he confesses about his playthings, 'and what patterns I could find in bed covers, dresses, or wall-papers to be examined, were my chief resources.' This, his childish solace, soon becomes his talent, his great talent: that capacity for attention so pure and so disinterested that Mazzini calls Ruskin's 'the most analytic mind in Europe.' This is reported to Ruskin. He is modest. He says, "An opinion in which, so far as I am acquainted with Europe, I am myself entirely disposed to concur.'

"Of course, it's easy enough to laugh at Ruskin. The most analytic mind in Europe did not even know how to frame a coherent argument. The most analytic mind in Europe produced Modern Painters, a work soon to be known as one of the worst-organized books ever to earn the name of literature. Prolix, endlessly digressive, a mass of description, theories that trail off into inconclusiveness, volume after volume, a flood of internal contradiction."

Number Fifty-Six

Brick, Concrete;
Asphalt, Mortar;
Some Wood;
Some Leaves;
Plastic;
Everyone I know is spastic.

Number Fifty-Five

in

Deep

stir

power

the—

low

harm

art

Number Fifty-Four

If I am only what you think of me --

When is a story not a cover-up?


My naked roommate asks me to place two trash bags in front of his bedroom door.


If stories are lies we tell in order to live --
If stories are lies we tell in order to cohere --


As he strums on another’s guitar in another’s room, is he....


If I am only what you think of me --

'I' is to forwarding address as….