Useful Things to Know in Life

Number One Hundred and Five

2010-04-09T10:24:00.001-04:00

Blues Traveler's "Hook," Crash Test Dummies' "God Shuffled His Feet," Charles Bernstein's "Don't Be So Sure (Don't be Saussure)," and Bernadette Mayer's "Epigram on Epigrams" are all deeply connected.

Number One Hundred and Four

2010-04-08T22:20:00.001-04:00

Blues Traveler's "Hook" is a language poem.

Number One Hundred and Three

2009-11-18T10:24:00.000-05:00

"He thought it woozily, with a vaguely bewildering, vaguely tiring sense of scale--a secondhand sort of epiphany, removed from its source, smudged, moved elsewhere, experienced now without clarity or context, therefore less insight, really, than mood swing...." p. 208.

Number One Hundred and Two

2009-11-17T10:06:00.004-05:00

"A world without right or wrong was a world that did not want itself, anything other than itself, or anything not those two things, but that still wanted something. A world without right or wrong invited you over, complained about you, and gave you cookies. Don't leave, it said, and gave you a vegan cookie. It avoided eye contact, but touched your knee sometimes. It was the world without right or wrong. It didn't have any meaning. It just wanted a little meaning." pp. 179-80.

Number One Hundred and One

2009-11-16T17:07:00.002-05:00

"There was an enjoyment to being alive, he felt, that because of an underlying meaninglessness--like how a person alone for too long cannot feel comfortable when with others; cannot neglect that underlying the feeling of belongingness is the certainty, really, of loneliness, and nothingness; and so experiences life in that hurried, worthless way one experiences a mistake (though probably the awareness itself, of nothingness, was the only mistake; some failure of optimism or illusion, to be corrected, somehow)--he could no longer get at." pp. 170-71.

Number One Hundred

2009-04-16T06:57:00.000-04:00

Number One Hundred! Time for a Caesura! A Lacuna if you Will! A Blogging Break if you Won't!

Number Ninety-Nine

2009-04-15T06:54:00.000-04:00

Number Ninety-Eight

2009-04-14T10:13:00.000-04:00

and I haven't even mentioned Carolee Schneemann or Sherrie Levine

Number Ninety-Seven

2009-04-13T10:15:00.000-04:00

Never mind the why, worry about the how, says Billy Connolly.

Number Ninety-Six

2009-04-12T06:49:00.000-04:00

Number Ninety-Five

2009-04-11T06:46:00.000-04:00

Marclay: vinyl is a medium: for what?: for playing music?: yes: for sculpture?: sure: what else?
a guitar is a medium . . . .
. . . to be used how?. . . .

Number Ninety-Four

2009-04-10T06:45:00.000-04:00

a gearing up for the gearing up.

Number Ninety-Three

2009-04-09T06:42:00.000-04:00

Soon after we can see, we are aware that we can also be seen. They eye of the other combines with our own eye to make it fully credible that we are part of the visible world.
If we accept that we can see that hill over there, we propose that from that hill we can be seen. The reciprocal nature of vision is more fundamental than that of spoken dialogue.

---John Berger, cribbing from Winnicott.

Number Ninety-Two

2009-04-08T06:29:00.000-04:00

to reflect is to redirect?

Number Ninety-One

2009-04-07T06:27:00.001-04:00

Number Ninety

2009-04-06T06:21:00.000-04:00

A proper charm bracelet, like this one, is both overcrowded and unreadable, a jangle of details that refuse to coalesce into an explanation. . . . The fish, the typewriter, the acorn (to scale), the globe (not) are not words in a sentence, but objects from the real world fallen down the rabbit hole and brought together by a conspiracy of fortune and design.

—The Collections of Barbara Bloom, p. 118.

Number Eighty-Nine

2009-04-05T06:20:00.000-04:00

you and me both.

Number Eighty-Eight

2009-04-04T06:18:00.000-04:00

John Cage, Gertrude Stein, Wittgenstein, Ezra Pound.—Still?

Number Eighty-Seven

2009-04-03T06:17:00.000-04:00

Number Eighty-Six

2009-04-02T07:21:00.000-04:00

George Brecht's

TWO SIGNS

SILENCE
NO VACANCY

Number Eighty-Five

2009-04-01T07:17:00.001-04:00

Excerpts from
Gloss For An Unknown Language by George Brecht

Tablet 3

Line Character

17 9 Image formed by a moving object for the duration of one breath.

31 7 An object formed by the intersection of an imaginary sphere with
objects of the reference language. (Here used to describe
a plano-convex section of flesh/earth).

31 8 Used by an observer standing at the edge of a body of water
to denote an area of water surface in front of the observer
and the area of earth of equal size and shape behind the observer,
considered as one surface.

Tablet 10

6 4 Everything within the bounds of an imaginary cube having its center
congruent with that of the observer, and an edge of length equal to
the observer's height.

23 9 A verb apparently denoting the motion of a static object. (The
meaning is not clear.)

Tablet 13

19 3 A unit of time derived from the duration of dream events.

45 2 The independent action of two or more persons, considered as a single
action.

Number Eighty-Four

2009-03-31T07:35:00.001-04:00

Steinski is the DJ Spooky of music.

Number Eighty-Three

2009-03-30T07:34:00.000-04:00

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

Julio Cortazar telling you not to.

Number Eighty-Two

2009-03-29T07:33:00.000-04:00

One must not forget Nabokov.

Number Eighty-One

2009-03-28T07:31:00.000-04:00

Number Eighty

2009-03-27T10:06:00.000-04:00

David Markson

Number Seventy-Nine

2009-03-26T10:03:00.000-04:00

Barbara Bloom

Number Seventy-Eight

2009-03-25T10:01:00.000-04:00

Number Seventy-Seven

2009-03-24T07:21:00.000-04:00

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

2009-03-23T12:07:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-22T12:06:00.000-04:00

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

Number Seventy-Four

2009-03-21T10:20:00.000-04:00

Cole Swensen is the David Markson of poetry.

Number Seventy-Three

2009-03-20T10:52:00.001-04:00

It's a gearing-up process.

Number Seventy-Two

2009-03-19T11:49:00.000-04:00

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

2009-03-18T06:47:00.000-04:00

DJ Spooky is the Andrea Fraser of music.

Number Seventy

2009-03-17T08:04:00.000-04:00

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

2009-03-16T08:02:00.001-04:00

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

2009-03-15T07:56:00.000-04:00

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

2009-03-14T11:26:00.001-04:00

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

2009-03-13T10:34:00.000-04:00

“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

2009-03-12T09:47:00.001-04:00

Number Sixty-Four

2009-03-11T19:50:00.002-04:00

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

Number Sixty-Three

2009-03-10T00:56:00.003-04:00

Christian Marclay, Raymond Pettibon, and Laurie Anderson

Number Sixty-Two

2009-03-09T12:59:00.002-04:00

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

2009-03-08T21:02:00.000-04:00

Oulipo in general, Ponge, Calvino

Number Sixty

2009-03-07T11:33:00.000-05:00

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

Number Fifty-Nine

2009-03-06T19:55:00.001-05:00

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

Number Fifty-Eight

2009-03-05T13:19:00.000-05:00

"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

2009-03-04T19:22:00.002-05:00

"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

2009-03-03T21:32:00.000-05:00

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

Number Fifty-Five

2009-03-02T17:25:00.003-05:00

Deep

stir

power

the—

low

harm

art

Number Fifty-Four

2009-03-01T18:30:00.001-05:00

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….

Number Fifty-Three

2009-02-28T10:37:00.000-05:00

A Deleuzian, Poundian, Antinian prose. Fluid, other-oriented, skeptical, open, outwardly directed.

Number Fifty-Two

2009-02-27T10:35:00.001-05:00

"Painting that is almost possible, almost does not exist, that is not quite known, not quite seen."

Number Fifty-One

2009-02-26T22:32:00.002-05:00

"The one standard in art is oneness and fineness, rightness and purity, abstractness and evanescence. The one thing to say about art is its breathlessness, lifelessness, deathlessness, contentlessness, formlessness, spacelessness, and timelessness. This is always the end of art."

Number Fifty

2009-02-25T06:57:00.000-05:00

There are no Google results for " Look, an approaching camel!"

Number Forty-Nine

2009-02-24T18:55:00.001-05:00

"The nothingness of art is not nothingness."

Number Forty-Eight

2009-02-24T11:06:00.001-05:00

"I heard someone say that it is easy to attack everything, and I have been thinking about how difficult it is. I would like to attack almost everything."

Number Forty-Seven

2009-02-23T10:29:00.001-05:00

"any use is a misuse"

Number Forty-Six

2009-02-22T07:54:00.002-05:00

Number Forty-Five

2009-02-21T17:56:00.001-05:00

"lettristic landscape"

Number Forty-Four

2009-02-20T20:40:00.001-05:00

Water and shaving in the morning.
Is this what people do?

If so,
What people?

And why?

Number Forty-Three

2009-02-19T08:33:00.000-05:00

"carob glaze"

Number Forty-Two

2009-02-18T21:51:00.001-05:00

"preobjective"

Number Forty-One

2009-02-17T16:33:00.002-05:00

One, two
Two birds.

Three, four

But, I had it.

Five, six

Then again.

Number Forty

2009-02-16T10:57:00.001-05:00

Birth day!

Number Thirty-Nine

2009-02-15T10:56:00.000-05:00

Day after VD!

Number Thirty-Eight

2009-02-14T21:29:00.000-05:00

Happy VD to us all.

Number Thirty-Seven

2009-02-13T19:54:00.000-05:00

"semiotic economy"

Number Thirty-Six

2009-02-12T23:40:00.000-05:00

"hegemonic discourse"

Number Thirty-Five

2009-02-11T12:39:00.000-05:00

"interpretive frames"

Number Thirty-Four

2009-02-10T13:36:00.000-05:00

"ascendant culture"

Number Thirty-Three

2009-02-09T15:02:00.000-05:00

Pinks are punks who are into glam rock.

Number Thirty-Two

2009-02-08T14:52:00.001-05:00

Slapdashical doesn't come up with any results either.

Number Thirty-One

2009-02-07T10:10:00.000-05:00

A month of blogging! Time for vacation!

Number Thirty

2009-02-06T14:24:00.001-05:00

I think I'm doing Twitter all wrong.

Number Twenty-Nine

2009-02-05T12:40:00.000-05:00

People who say beauty is only skin deep: do they not know about bone structure?

Number Twenty-Eight

2009-02-04T12:40:00.000-05:00

If everyone is a tourist at Disneyland, is anyone a tourist at Disneyland? Why do news reports call them tourists? What if they're locals? Park visitors? But calling Disneyland a park is stretching the concept about as far as calling its visitors tourists. Ban everything is the answer.

Number Twenty-Seven

2009-02-03T07:52:00.000-05:00

There is only one result for "luckily the cat didn't land on its feet this time" and you're looking at it, baby.

Number Twenty-Six

2009-02-02T10:40:00.001-05:00

If Ron Silliman competed in the Satanic Olympics with Hiroshige in the bacon sex and death triathlon held in Los Angeles at the Mary Cassatt fish and chips wildlife enclosure, would this blog generate more hits from Google?

Number Twenty-Five

2009-02-01T23:18:00.000-05:00

Resistance is good because it gives shape to things. -Armantrout

Number Twenty-Four

2009-01-31T10:49:00.002-05:00

Everybody's heard of the butterfly effect. Rube.

Number Twenty-Three

2009-01-30T19:08:00.001-05:00

If you don't now, you never will, unless you do, in which case you have.

Number Twenty-Two

2009-01-29T14:07:00.000-05:00

The beauty of being a degenerate is that no one invites you to speak at the local high school.

Number Twenty-One

2009-01-28T16:12:00.000-05:00

I'm only allergic to three things: liquids, solids, and gases.

Number Twenty

2009-01-27T12:24:00.001-05:00

Lunar New Year!

Number Nineteen

2009-01-26T07:33:00.002-05:00

Number Eighteen

2009-01-25T19:56:00.001-05:00

Don't be a shmendrick; try to be a mentsh.

Number Seventeen

2009-01-24T20:39:00.001-05:00

There are no Google results for "sexy bitches named Fred"

Number Sixteen

2009-01-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

Number Fifteen

2009-01-22T23:35:00.001-05:00

There is no number fifteen.

Number Fourteen

2009-01-21T14:03:00.001-05:00

It was behind the radiator.

Number Thirteen

2009-01-20T22:17:00.001-05:00

I've lost the will to live.

Number Twelve

2009-01-19T14:58:00.001-05:00

Some people know more than others. Some people have more than others. Some people are more than others. In that they are fatter, more alive, or taller.

Number Eleven

2009-01-18T23:19:00.000-05:00

What is needed is a world-directed buddhism. Like Nietzsche's.

Number Ten

2009-01-17T19:28:00.002-05:00

The most satisfying relationship is the one in which the other person's version of you is the one you like best.

Number Nine

2009-01-16T10:20:00.000-05:00

location, location, location

Number Eight

2009-01-15T23:21:00.000-05:00

Photographers tend to kill themselves; I don't know why.

Number Seven

2009-01-14T12:45:00.002-05:00

For the theatre one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture. --Roland Barthes

Number Six

2009-01-13T15:00:00.000-05:00

Muji notebooks are the best of all in all respects.