Fact Finder: Non-event # 7

George W. Bush declares an emergency George W. Bush is declared an emergency The emergency declares: George W. Bush

Proto-Surrealist Non-event # 6

Ingest one spoonful of medicine Medicate an ingested spoon.

Non-Event #5

Lane after lane. Cars stop for a red light. Breathe

Non-Event #4

Become aware (of your breath)

Non-Event #3

Inhale Expire

non-event #2

Imitate the frame of a hand-fan with your right hand. Close the fan with your left hand

Non-Event #1

Blink

overheard conversation

A: Can I buy you a drink? B: Yeah, black, hot, perfect. A: O.K. Sure. B: Thanks.

///////////////////////////////////// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< <><><><><><><><><><> <+<=<_<)<(

“WOAH! Like I watch you watching me and..”

I thought about what to write next.

Blahphorisms The telephone rings. Another phone call. I slid the ‘in’ tray out… I forgot to push it back in. I don’t really care so much for cufflinks It got dark before S’s plane flew out last night. (This is conjecture) Children are like algebra. They multiply. This cake was sweeter yesterday. The dictionary was open for a short while. I realize boring is not so easy.

ANNOUNCEMENT: Next week is non-event week. Nothing will happen on this blog. We’re going boring. Watch or don't watch this space. Either way, you won't miss anything.

O.K. I realized yesterday that my archives are virtually empty! So you can’t link to the entry from a few months ago about Kent Johnson.. Argh, oh well. I did find the entry in a word doc on the computer but it is currently in web transit after I was asked to make a little space on my hard drive. I’ll put it up when I can… anyhow, good news about the archives. I have less to be embarrassed about.

I had intended to write more on the below, but ran out of time.. a disadvantage to blogging over a lunchbreak. I could continue today, but other things agitate my mind, namely: Kent Johnson’s interview over at VeRT magazine. I’m pretty sure I kept my comments on Kent Johnson in here somewhere. I’m an irregular blogger so you shouldn’t have trouble finding them should the desire take you. Anyhow, while I generally agree with him, I do wonder whether he has a low self-esteem. Why on earth does he keep going on about the Language poets and Yasusada? I can see both are tied to his idea that Lang Po didn’t go far enough and question actual Authorial authority.. Surely an important point to make, but in the same terms over and over again?? Kenny Goldsmith quoted the Brion Gyson about poetry being 50 years behind art in his short essay about being a post-language poet (can’t find the link, sorry). And perhaps on this issue poetry is even further behind? But we’re talking POETRY, not just language poets! -- Some people reason that LP is a fair target because it has become hegemonic. Oedipal episodes are understandable I guess... it would be nice to prove Freud wrong though-- As for Kent Johnson, I really hope he moves on. He has some interesting points that won't be made because he seems to be repeating himself. Even worse, he continuously names those close to the Yasusada affair. If I’m not mistaken, Eliot Weinberger, David Rosenberg, and Mikhail Epstein all supported Johnson during the height of controversy. I know for sure that Johnson quotes from Epstein in his correspondence with the Japanese scholar (I forget his name) interested in the Yasusada affair. Yasusada is not the only case of authorial challenge. Yes, there’s the Ern Malley case etc. but how about those smaller things like Duchamp blacking out the lines of a poem he had written – what was authorial becomes anonymous – Sol Le Witt sending instructions for art through the mail?? Nevertheless, it’s good to upset people and get called nasty things. On that account I am very jealous of Johnson because I doubt I could ever piss someone off quite so much and so publicly. I’d like to see him do it again. I do like a spectacle!

Can poetry challenge militarized language and propaganda? Are textual critique, parody, and satire adequate responses or do they reify these abuses? This question was over on Ron Silliman’s blog and interests me partly because it is a silly question and because it’s a question I often answer to myself (being inherently, biologically silly). Silliman, I guess, has given up or rescinded upon his communist past (well, I was lead to believe he was a communist) as he answers this with heavy commentary on American politics. Being a nominal American only, I just can’t understand the typical American response of outing the Republican Party in favor of the Democrats. Outside of America, it seems to make little difference in real terms (i.e. the number of bombs and big business dropping on foreign countries) who is in office. What I think is at stake is more of a cosmetic PR issue at best. George Bush is a moron and is an embarrassment to Americans who believe in America. Democrats are, on the whole, better spoken. Sadly, the greens, Ralf Nader, are not terrible well spoken either… But this isn’t what I intended to write about at all. Can poetry challenge…? Well, yes it can and it's not really a question of whether we should combine this with direct action - that's like asking can a car move? and getting the answer "yes, if we give it some gas". As far as I’m concerned this question is asking us more about the challenge itself. Since poetry can challenge, what type of challenge can it pose? Textual critique, going back to the car question, needs factual critique as well. A semiotic analysis of political speeches and jargon does have it’s place, but that is a fairly narrow following. … But parody and satire?? This must have been asked by a humorless group of people. Parody and satire are the lifeline of the ability to challenge “militarized language & propaganda”. Much of Swift’s writing, for example, or even some of Lee Ann Brown’s Oulipo National Anthems are testament to the effectiveness of parody and satire. Moreover, magazines like Private Eye in the UK keep this traditional alive.. Apparently, even Michael Moore is capable of satire. Certainly, a certain caliber of parody and ‘satire’ is counter-productive. The late night talk show variety (Jay Lenno, etc), from what I’ve seen (very little) is complicit in the comedian’s own celebrity and is almost always counter-productive. I’m out of time, but want to add that the only response capable of reifying these abuses is the militarized language itself. “Shock and Awe” reifies abuses. Any intelligent parody or satire of Shock and Awe exposes the shallowness and reification. …

I want to say a little more about herbs/spices and poetry. Before you even consider that I was on to something, I wasn’t. As I stated it – when? last week? – the poem pot is little more than you’d find in most British bookstores (now that Compendium is closed). Herbs/spices engage our olfactory, gustatory, and mnemonic senses in a very direct way. I’m curious about the senses poetry engages. The writing of it certainly involves a great deal of senses (ever been in the middle of a great – possibly stoned- thought and had the doorbell ring?) and this sensory material certainly channels into the poem itself. Thinking of Jackobson’s axis of selection, one must concede that selection is not a mental process but an environmental one. But all that goes into writing is seemingly stripped away the moment another reader opens the book and what enters is the environment of the reader. It’s on this level that herbs and spices meet poetry. Herbs and spices also have ‘environmental lives’ and in fact are more extreme – being earth-bound products – in that they are in constant need of verification (what better word is there? Who knows the smell of the cinnamon tree without a being around?) moreso than poems. At any rate, I like to wonder what the possibilities are that we poets give up on the method of making ‘reader oriented’ texts and think more about the fabric of the reader? That is, making the reader aware of the process of meaning making rather than thatshe is making meaning. Instructions?? I will be submitting my postcards to the mail art expo in Buenos Aires.

Before I go off and not make usual sense, I’ll admit to corporeal presence, but don’t tax me.

Preventative medicine is what, oranges and fresh fruit? We shouldn’t joke about medical conditions. Topics deemed acceptable would be fruit oranges vegetables and meat when the company admits to omnivorous consumption.

Ah, homemade Giyoza and rice. Fantabulous. Shiso giyoza, I should add. Aside from Baudelaire, I’m not aware of many poets who have written about food, although I’m sure there are some. Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons does include the headings (such as roast beef) and in fact my father has a recipe book that may be Stein’s or Toklas’ (we used the hashish brownies recipes a few times), I can’t remember. Food and cooking, and in fact the whole gustatory “thing” is really important for me. However, I can’t say I’ve ever really written about food or eating… I’m not sure how to approach it. My interest is more in the raw materials: herbs, spices, bare ingredients. Being most interested in Indian cooking (there is a cute story behind my predilection for Indian food, but not now), the ingredients I tend to appreciate are primarily used in South East Asian Cuisine. The only exception is Jalapeños, which are terrible in Indian food. Were I to make a poem out of spices, a good balance of Cardamom, about one black to five green, would form the rhythmic base. Ginger would no doubt carry most of the melody. Garlic would certainly be the most complex to include. In poem such as this, the garlic must be barely perceptible but still present. In keeping with the general trend of omitting the ‘in additions’, ‘therefores’, and as many articles and prepositions possible – in short the novelistic spices – I would leave out most European garden herbs: basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary etc.

Ah, homemade Giyoza and rice. Fantabulous. Shiso giyoza, I should add. Aside from Baudelaire, I’m not aware of many poets who have written about food, although I’m sure there are some. Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons does include the headings (such as roast beef) and in fact my father has a recipe book that may be Stein’s or Toklas’ (we used the hashish brownies recipes a few times), I can’t remember. Food and cooking, and in fact the whole gustatory “thing” is really important for me. However, I can’t say I’ve ever really written about food or eating… I’m not sure how to approach it. My interest is more in the raw materials: herbs, spices, bare ingredients. Being most interested in Indian cooking (there is a cute story behind my predilection for Indian food, but not now), the ingredients I tend to appreciate are primarily used in South East Asian Cuisine. The only exception is Jalapeños, which are terrible in Indian food. Were I to make a poem out of spices, a good balance of Cardamom, about one black to five green, would form the rhythmic base. Ginger would no doubt carry most of the melody. Garlic would certainly be the most complex to include. In poem such as this, the garlic must be barely perceptible but still present. In keeping with the general trend of omitting the ‘in additions’, ‘therefores’, and as many articles and prepositions possible – in short the novelistic spices – I would leave out most European garden herbs: basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary etc.

I’m hoping one day to be obnoxious. By the laws of probability, moving to America will increase my chances. Moving to America and watching the flickering TV through endless mindless episodes of pop culture gunk. Moving to America watching pop culture gunk and eating endless calories of weight watchers chips, weight watchers ice cream, weight watchers beer (as if the American isn’t light enough). There is something sinister about weight watchers, something tautological about being in America and being a weight watcher; I can’t put my finger on it. Moving to America: the obnoxious landscape of made in Taiwan vs, Made in the USA. What is not pop in the USA aspires to be. What is pop everywhere else, aspires not to be. Think chewing gum and roller skates. Think “Roller Girl”, think ‘Tank”. GOP smacks of SMACK, of gob and liberal; (put your right hand on your heart) the color white and blue, or white and red, or red and blue, or white and white, blue on blue is still two. Two will be enough for me and not much you. It’s all based on equations. Wind on a windy day blows me to the end of it somewhere near the beginning. By the end of it it’s war time. Miller the terrorists. What I say is true in a pretzely kind of way. I know I’m not obnoxious END OF LUNCH