Doll Baby: A Tale

Everyone has a story about a doll:

these babies came wrapped up like little mummies

 each with its own piece of webbing: cocooned

 asleep, waiting to be something different

coming out of the dark box, the grey gauze lovingly taped down

to be an object desired again

when do we enjoy the gaze, 

at the moment of looking

or of looking away

when the lights flash and dim in the bedroom

as I unwrap you

are you speaking to me

what are you saying

our deep silences together

sacred in the piece

and then of things we shall not speak about

floundering in this deep water

what will happen will not be gentle

words as they carve down to bone

but about beauty, less than

but about the caress of eyes upon

more so, and I will pour out 

                       (religious tract packed in the box about being saved)

at the bottom//belief 

be not unbelieving

 make// you// something// to// sing// about

Dario Robleto at NOMA

There are some obvious reasons why I like Robleto's work, but it's not all bones. His exhibit Prelives of the Blues has a wide range of displays, but the core of what he is doing is always manifested in the words that describe how these final projects came to be. I find that a bit fascinating that as an artist, part of the art lies in the telling. For instance, the making of the bone sculptures below. Not in the why, but in the how: so a very specific kind of telling.

I'm also intrigued by the title of the show: "Prelives." What is a prelife and how do these objects created after the fact inhabit the space of "pre." In a way, it's as though Robleto moves through time as a seer and is assuring us that in fact he can pull the template from the final: the end song. So that his works pre-date what we know temporally as the "blues" or more specifically what ends in song and rhythm. I think too, being shown in New Orleans, the show is confronting a historical attachment to the blues and its place in this region with a completely new approach to what we think of when we think 'blues.'  Robleto is attempting to tread in that space that comes from-- but in a more spiritual sense dwells before-- in the heart of what makes the magic of the blues resonate so deeply. Why else would one do these incredible complicated structures. Why would one play Muddy Waters to seashells for 48 hours, if not for the fact that it allows one to sit in the space of construction. The patient, meditative space that allows the subtext of sound and experience to begin to dictate a new way of seeing. Robleto is a poet in that sense, traveling in obscure lands and returning with a translated language that he then builds for us to also walk those paths. Here the language is of bone:

I like too that these two pieces are companion pieces, but this is the first time that they have been shown together. The hands are under glass while the pelvis is exposed (albeit protected by alarm if you get too close). I like to imagine them in conversation deep in the night held in the belly of the park and it's slumber music.

As we should, since the pieces desire our continued involvement in the drama of their post-blues lives. For instance, what of these seashells paired and then separated after being exposed to 48 hours of music by particular musicians? Aren't they being forced to hold the echo, to engage in a call and response that is at the heart of the blues, to be both in a state of longing and yet imbued with the particular mode of release from that sorrow. Aren't we all inhabited by loss that is shaped by the music that makes up our particular formations? Music in that sense is the medium excised from time, able to contain the past when we hear it and also in the initial hearing able to project a future-- in one sense, pre-lived in its very conception.

More information about Robleto and his exhibit at the New Orleans Museum of Art:

Video by Doug Maccash of Robleto discussing his bone sculptures: 


June 1st: Lecture by Dario Robleto at NOMA


NOMA's press release for the exhibit: The Prelives of the Blues

Exhibition highlights:

• Inspired by Robleto’s autobiography, Sin was in Our Hips, 2001-2001, consists of male and female pelvic

bones made of bone dust that was ground together with melted vinyl from his mother and father’s Rock ‘n’ Roll record collection. The piece refers to the importance of Rock music to his parents’ generation, and music’s role in his own conception.

• The series, Melancholy Matters Because of You, 2010, was conceived as a “B-Side” companion to the piece Sin Was in Our Hips, and the works will be exhibited together for the first time. Melancholy explores the transference of music across generations and is comprised of bone dust combined with melted vinyl and shellac records, and shaped into fetal hand bones (using his grandmother’s 78 rpm vinyl records), adolescent hand bones (made from his mother’s 45 rpm vinyl records), and adult hand bones (made from artist’s 33 rpm vinyl records).

• The Sun Makes Him Sing Again (Brown), 2012, is a new piece inspired by funk singer James Brown. For the past two years, Robleto has been making cyanotypes focusing on the creative process of songwriters. In these pieces, he exposes original handwritten lyrics by deceased pop stars, using sunlight to illuminate the songwriters’ words. In this new piece, Robleto creates a cyanotype using original notes written by James Brown. The Sun resurrects Brown’s moment of inspiration, when he inscribed his lyrics onto the page.

• Survival Does Not Lie In The Heavens, 2012, is a new work inspired by New Orleans. Part of one of Robleto’s most recent bodies of work, this constellation of stars is comprised of the stage lights from various record album covers. Focusing on the lights that once illuminated musicians in the midst of their performances, the piece pays homage to moments of musical creation. In this new work, Robleto draws from albums that relate to the rich history of New Orleans music.

About Dario Robleto

Robleto, a native of San Antonio, Texas, has become internationally known for his use of unusual materials, instilled with conceptual significance. The subjects and materials he uses express his interest in history, music, and universal human desires. Past works have included dinosaur bones, wartime memorabilia such as bullets, letters, hair wreaths, and carefully chosen melted vinyl records and audiotapes.

His work has been the focus of numerous of solo exhibitions, most recently at Des Moines Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver, the Francis Young Tang Teaching Museum at Skidmore College, the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and the Contemporary Art Museum in Houston. His pieces are in museum collections across the United States, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York.

New Chapbook from Dancing Girl Press

a city/ bottle boned by Megan Burns



I'm very happy that this chapbook came out on Bob Dylan's birthday. So happy I sang Song to Woody last night at 17 Poets! after reading some Bernadette Mayer poems to celebrate May Birthday poets. Some other May Birthday poets that were read aloud by our community of writers included Robert Creeley, Robin Blaser, Theodor Roethke, Arthur Cravan and others.

There's a great Jacket essay on Arthur Cravan and his relationship to Mina Loy here. 

Kittens and Skittles

I love the use of the umbrella here.

Claude Cahun: Aveux non avenus

from Disavowals or Cancelled Confessions (translated by Susan de Muth) originally published in Paris, 1930 and limited to 500 copies (translated & published by MIT press, 2007)

Translator's note: "The reader will note that two titles are proposed in this edition, the original Aveux non avenus presenting an abundance of possible meanings, allusions, associations etc. that neither Disavowals nor Cancelled Confessions fully conveys" (XVIII).

From the introduction by Pierre Mac Orlan: "I think that adventure here is, by its very nature, interior; but it is presented to us in a series of cinematic glimpses which insists on the cerebral, rather than the plastic, nature of the enterprise" (XXIV).

From translator Agnes Lhermitte who assisted Susan de Muth in this translation: "Claude Cahun's 'poem-essays and essay-poems' (as described by Mac Orlan) do not claim to construct either the psychology of a person or the narrative of her life, but imply 'the invisible adventure' of a scalpel's investigations into the dark zones of the psyche, the painful gaping of a cracked being" (XXI).

Section I

"I welcomed young monsters into myself and nurtured them. But the make-up I had used seemed indelible. I rubbed so hard to remove it that I took off all the skin. And my soul, like a flayed face, naked, no longer had a human form."

Section II

"Tendency to push everything to the absolute, and thus: to the absurd." 

Section V: 

"What does a well behaved child dream about, apart from the inhumane, the monstrous, the impossible? The ordinary."

Section VI

"it is only when we resign ourselves to necessary partialities, 

that we can allow our mask's moulds to set" 

Section VII

Section VIII

"May the birds not expect any speeches about aviation from me."

Section IX

"Angels with patched wings, sails: flirtations, last-minute modesties...let's use up heaven down to the dregs, the verb down to the insult, the espadrille and the lyre down to the last string."

Post Note:

"If the adventuress has managed to get rid of the whole paraphernalia of facts, has made herself invisible man and invisible woman, it's due to the indispensable collaboration of the reader" -Claude Cahun, from Ephémérides

Pierre Joris on Paul Celan: poetry, politics, & translation

Pierre Joris on Paul Celan in the 21st Century:

[Film Description from Youtube: A video recorded at the Edison-Newman Room, Houghton Library, (Harvard Nov. 2011) with a multimedia show, produced by Nicole Peyrafitte, the event integrates a range of elements including live narrative and translated poems, and a slideshow of visual materials including photographs, manuscript pages, etchings by Gisèle Celan-Lestrange, historical documents and other relevant and resonant materials. ]

This video captures Pierre Joris' nearly life-long engagement with Paul Celan's poetry and politics. He begins with an introduction to Celan's life and work and explains his relationship with Celan's poems from his earliest memory: a "cutting into the soul" memory, that begins his long relationship with Celan's words. Joris goes on to describe his history of translating Celan along with his meeting of Celan's wife and their subsequent relationship. Joris says he once said to her in regards to allowing more Celan translations to emerge: "Let 1,000 translations bloom."

This is not just a lecture on Celan poetics; this is an example of how 20th century poetry is ushered into our 21st century and how our current technologies can be used to breathe a form of "new life" into the poems. Maybe not "new life" but certainly a new form of living, a new way of getting readers excited and interested in this work, which itself is timeless. This multimedia presentation with films edited and produced by Nicole Peyrafitte captures the viewer's gaze on many levels, from the cerebral deconstruction of the word at its most basic level in discussing translation to the aesthetic beauty of hearing Celan's words against a visually explorative backdrop with the use of the films. The collage of sound, image, and Joris' live discussion of Celan provides a multiple sensory response to Celan's poetry. Joris' talk is about translation and the presentation itself becomes its own form of translation, creating an amalgam of entries into Celan's work for the novice reader. Celan's poems, Joris attests, are a "threshold," a gate ushering us into the 21st century. It stands to reason then that one way of seeing Celan, of engaging with his work is in this 21st century medium of video, sound, images, and also the amazing opportunity of being present in the audience, (somewhat) at this event via the internet.

It's really beautiful as well to capture the passion and energy (and frustrations) of the translator as Joris really delves into specifics in word construction and language about 45 minutes into the film. This video captures Joris' concentrated involvement in the dissection of Celan's often complicated and exhilarating stretching of what the German language can do and how this informs both the poem and the translator's task. Joris lights up on the stage as he describes the "dark 'o' sounds" and "light 'a' sounds" of the poem "Todtnauberg" and the incredible task of ushering the poet Celan into the english language in this our 21st experience of his imperative works.

But I'll let Pierre Joris tell you:

Power, Minstrel Shows & Nicki Minaj Masks

The Nicki Minaj Project is not an attempt to discover a truth, but an attempt to gain entry into a mirage. 

As it shifts, we lose focus and yet a horizon is a plane of stability. What is this new trend of white privileged poets using the mask of inner-city gangsta rap to infuse their poetry with a sense of street and music? What is the mask and how tightly does it constrict? When one voice rises to the top, how many others fall silent? I am not interested in answers but in constrictions. I am not interesting in layers, but in a sheen of glossy images. I am not attempting to convey but attempting to collage to the point of distortion so the underneath can become a point of excavation. I am not interested in forgetting the discomfort of America as images of residents from New Orleans were led by gun point from the Superdome in August of 2005 in an attempt to rescue/ resist/ contain/ cage/ control/ suppress/ save/ or where does the line of discontent draw itself in the sand. 

“Fantasies are my reality”- N.M.

“Man, in effect, knows how to play with the mask as that beyond which there is the gaze.”

                  –Jacques Lacan, The Four Fundamental Concepts of Pyscho-Analysis

“Assuming power is no simple process […] for power is not mechanically reproduced when it is assumed. Instead, on being assumed, power runs the risk of assuming another form and direction.”

                                             –Judith Butler, The Psychic Life of Power

“black minstrels could initially not but reaffirm the ‘distorted black spectre already dominating the stage'  and offer white audiences a kind of ‘comfort and resistance’ in their beliefs about blacks’ natural inferiority”

  

                                                 –Mel Watkins, On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying, and Signifying—The Underground Tradition of African American Humour that Transformed American Culture, from Slavery to Richard Pryor

Huggins notes that black performers “tried to use the stereotype as an instrumental satire” by distancing themselves from damaging representations through exaggeration. (Huggins, Nathan Irvin. Harlem Renaissance)     -" Of Blackface and Paranoid Knowledge: Richard Wright, Jacques Lacan, and the Ambivalence of Black Minstrelsy" by Mikko Tuhkanen

“I say girls are beautiful and girls are sexy and they need to be told that, and if they don’t have anyone to tell them that and mean it, I’m gonna tell them that.”   -N.M. 

What is the line between beauty and absurdity, the mask of the ideal and the undercover where the mask slips and the last line of defense becomes an attack. When the character of the character and then the character: Note my expression. Note my facial expression. Note my expression in contrast to what I deliver. Note my expression in contrast to the body. Note my expression. 

"swollen clitties wander cities/ shadow and conventions from/ the whole of photography" 

                                                       -Rachel Blau Duplessis, Draft 48, Being Astonished

object: central complex for the collision

to interpret alone or in a group

at the rate at which outside of the mind

determines

& begins to order the external 

cut down and formed by the first impression

whittled away by every subsequent thought

body-in-pieces vs. body without pieces

tangled in the trespass place

              lips against

a line not unknotted

Poetry and 2 years out from the BP Disaster

Last Friday, I was invited to the New Orleans Museum of Art along with poet Gina Ferrara and Artist Tricia Vitrano to talk about poetry and art. I talked about my new chapbook from Fell Swoop Press called irrational knowledge and showed a series of slides by Surrealist women artists including Claude Cahun, Alice Rahon, and Ithell Colquhoun among others. irrational knowledge is based on a Surrealist game called irrational knowledge of the object, and I also discussed other Surrealist games. The video of the reading is below, and you can also find on our 17 Poets! Youtube Channel the other presenters as well as a two part discussion moderated by Susan Larson where we all discussed how art and poetry overlap and influence our respective works.







Poet Nathan Hauke wrote a nice letter in response to irrational knowledge over at the OPEN Reviews section at Horseless Press's website.

I also have two new poems in the latest Horse Less Review #11 along with great poems from Paige Taggert, Jess Rowan, kathryn l. pringle, Curtis Perdue, Jesse Morse, Rob MacDonald, Valerie Loveland, Mike Gross, Kit Frick, Maurice Burford, Ark Codex, Stephanie Anderson, Kimberly Alidio, and Kristin Abraham. Cover art by Dagan McClure-Sikkema.

ALSO in breaking news Nicki Minaj dropped her twitter account for a week but has reemerged on the social media site. Once at 11 million followers, she now only has 9.2 million followers.

Oh, finicky, finicky public. How shall we ever appease your incessant needs?

I'm pretty sure this news event received better coverage than the 2 year anniversary of the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster.

One engineer has now been arrested due to his role in the BP recovery after the explosion.

As I'm pretty sure no one was ever arrested in the Federal Levee Failures in New Orleans; this actually signals an upsurge in prosecution in criminal activity cloaked in the form of corporations and/ or federal bodies. And remember the magic microbes that cleaned up the oil in the fantasy land of media spin and BP output: well, they're not done wreaking havoc on the Gulf. Seems that microbes eat not just oil, but also crustaceans. BP oil is the event that keeps on giving. Health concerns for children are still not recognized by the Federal Gov't or covered by insurance companies.





From the Surreal to the absurd. We can drink oil, people.

Yoniphobic Language: Azealea Banks

Between costumes:

     and between the desire for:


       and who decides what spins:

             here's a snip/ snip: the

a woman's body is a tableau for war













Azeala Banks says in an interview that this is not a Nicki Minaj diss song.

She told Vibe magazine:

“I don’t think Nicki necessarily opened the door for anyone else but herself.” 

“I don’t think the door was ever closed for urban female artists,” said the “Needsumluv” MC. “There has always been a female killing it. Have we forgotten about Eve? Eve had hot records, movies, a TV show, fashion line, ad campaigns, etc. Right before Remy Ma went to jail, she was killing it, and was well on her way to the top. She had bars on bars on bars. Lil Mama also made a splash with ‘Lipgloss.’ Plus all the other alternative chicks like M.I.A. and [Santigold]. I don’t think Nicki necessarily opened the door for anyone else but herself,” she laughed.

She continues: “I think she’s doing a great job with what she’s doing. But I don’t think any of the current female rappers’ success’ are contingent upon anything Nicki Minaj did. It’s contingent upon our talents and creativity.”

She goes on to praise Pink Friday‘s beats, hooks and lyrics, and even calls Nicki “mad sexy”. But her main criticism is the “Stupid Hoe” rapper’s wild style. “I think a lot of the things she started doing with her look were distracting,” she says. “I think she’s talented enough to sustain a very fruitful career without the ugly wigs and ugly costumes.”

Link to Article: 
http://idolator.com/6217852/azealia-banks-talks-nicki-minaj-to-vibe

Green-Wood Cemetery Video

A short film about Green-Wood Cemetery:

Days: To Write "of"

OF

Rachel Blau Duplessis: Draft 3: Of

http://media.sas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/DuPlessis/Robins-1988/DuPlessis-Rachel-Blau_05_Draft-3-Of_Robins-Books_Philadelphia_5-11-88.mp3



Please note that material has been removed from some of these papers, with regret, as a result of this demand from Paul Zukofsky: “I am the only child, and sole heir, of Louis and Celia Zukofsky. I am also the person with sole control over all their copyrights, including works both published and unpublished. Jacket 30 is in gross violation of those copyrights. [....] I demand that you remove all Louis (and Celia) Zukofsky material forthwith, from Jacket 30, as well as any other material that you may have posted. Please be aware that I reserve all options in the vigorous defense of my property. Sincerely, Paul Zukofsky

Language is Disappointment: A Series of Days

listen:


http://mediamogul.seas.upenn.edu/pennsound/authors/People-Like-Us/Stifled-Love_%5B2002%5D/People-Like-Us_05-Dolly-Pardon.mp3

Excerpt from:

Louis Armstrong and the Syntax of Scat

Brent Hayes Edwards

Critical Inquiry Volume 28, Number 3, Spring 2002
©2002 by The University of Chicago. 

"But is it possible to read this scene in terms of "transcendence"? Does one really forget or forgive the leopard skin, the handkerchief, the bugged eyes, the grin, the gaping "satchel mouth," the soap bubbles, the lyrics ("I take troubles all with a smile ... that's why they call me Shine") as soon as Pops picks up the horn? Or is Armstrong's "absurdist humor" ultimately a tricky willingness to inhabit all these trappings and more? He is the grotesque jester who preens and gapes, disturbing in his willingness to echo the melodramatic performance styles of minstrelsy. He is also the self-assured modernist, who negotiates the trumpet parts with brilliant technique and injects self-reflexive commentary into his vocal performance as well. (In one spoken aside during "You Rascal You," he tosses a line that slyly equates sexual contest with an access to recording technology: "You gave my wife a bottle of Coca Cola so you could play on her Victrola.") Moreover, Armstrong's mugging might not be simply "a way of acting out the music." What's striking about his movement is that he's acting out so much more than what's in the music: facial contortions, chest convulsions, head nods, even mouth movements, shadow pronunciations, that don't correspond to any discernible development in the production of sound. This is not at all "body English" or direct address; instead, one sees a spectral presence that seems to jerk and twitch and bulge in the somatic excess of that body. That excess outlines other possibilities, not taken, not voiced. There is no transcendence here; all these elements (at the very least), all these implications coexist in the performance, which is driven throughout by what Giddins more usefully terms Armstrong's "beguiling knowledge of the anomalous" (S, p. 37). The effect forces the viewer to confront a swinging incommensurability
an untamable, prancing set of contradictory indices that seem to be saying all too much at once.

This deictic complexity is not unique to Armstrong; indeed, it is a key component in black traditions of musical performance."















Copyright Notice from by PZ forbidding people to quote L. Zukofsky on their blogs.
A warning to all wishing to quote from LZ's works:

Copyright Notice by PZ

from Paul Zukofsky

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN

Far too many people, especially perhaps-innocent grad. students, have been misled into thinking that, in terms of quoting LZ or CZ, they may do what they want, and do not have to worry about me. These people are then suddenly faced with the reality of an irascible, recalcitrant MOI, and are confronted with the very real prospect of years of work potentially down the tubes. I therefore wish to post an obvious "do not trespass" sign where LZ aficionados may see it.

All Louis and Celia Zukofsky is still copyright, and will remain so for many many years. I own all of these copyrights, and they are my property, and I insist upon deriving income from that property. For those of you convinced that LZ would find my stance abhorrent, the truth is that he kept all copyrights (initially in his name) as he had the rather absurd idea that said copyrights would be sufficient to allow for the economic survival of my mother, and their son. My stance is congruent with that hope.

Despite what you may have been told, you may not use LZ’s words as you see fit, as if you owned them, while you hide behind the rubric of “fair use”. “Fair use” is a very-broadly defined doctrine, of which I take a very narrow interpretation, and I expect my views to be respected. We can therefore either more or less amicably work out the fees that I demand; you can remove all quotation; or we can turn the matter over to lawyers, this last solution being the worst of the three, but one which I will use if I need to enforce my rights.

In general, as a matter of principle, and for your own well-being, I urge you to not work on Louis Zukofsky, and prefer that you do not. Working on LZ will be far more trouble than it is worth. You will be far more appreciated working on some author whose copyright holder(s) will actually cherish you, and/or your work. I do not, and no one should work under those conditions. However, if you have no choice in the matter, here are the procedures that I insist upon, and what you must do if you wish to spare yourself as much grief as possible.

1-- people who want to do their dissertation on LZ, or want to quote from him in their diss., must, if only as a common courtesy, inform me of their desire to use this material, and obtain my permission to do so. If you do that, and if I agree, the permission will be only for the purposes of the diss. and there will be no charge for limited use within the diss. You will not be allowed to distribute the diss. publicly. Distribution via on-line publication is not allowed. I urge you to keep quotation to a minimum, as the more quotation, the less likely I am to grant permission.

2-- people who quote Louis Zukofsky in their dissertations without having had the courtesy to request my permission, and who do so without having obtained my permission to quote LZ, do not have permission to use LZ quotations, and will, in the future, be refused all permission to quote any and all LZ in their future publications, and I promise to do my utmost to hamper, hinder, and preferably prevent all such quotation.

3-- people who obtain copies of LZ manuscripts, marginalia, etc. etc. such as at UTexas or elsewhere, and who have not first requested and received my permission to have such copies made, will thereafter be refused permission to use any such materials in any of their future publications. Note that fair use is far more restrictive on unpublished material than on already published material.

4-- people who wish to perform LZ or CZ (“A-24”; the “Masque” etc) require performance rights from me. A fee will be charged. People who wish to set LZ to music also require permission to do so.

5-- I forbid so-called electronic "publication". People may not quote LZ in their "blogs".

6-- if you proceed to the point of publishing articles in journals, books etc, or if you publish a book, you must obtain my permission to quote, and fees will be charged. Once again I urge you to quote as little as possible. That will minimize your cost.
Final points.

I can perhaps understand your misguided interest in literature, music, art, etc. I would be suspicious of your interest in Louis Zukofsky, but might eventually accept it. I can applaud your desire to obtain a job, any job, although why in your chosen so-called profession is quite beyond me; but one line you may not cross i.e. never never ever tell me that your work is to be valued by me because it promotes my father. Doing that will earn my life-long permanent enmity. Your self-interest(s) I may understand, perhaps even agree with; but beyond that, in the words of e.e.cummings quoting Olaf: “there is some s I will not eat”.

Next, other than for the following, I am not trying to censor you. I hardly give a damn what is said about my father (I am far more protective of my mother) as long as the name is spelled properly, and the fees are paid. My interest is almost purely economic. That being said, I do not approve of delving into the personal lives of my parents. If you wish to spend your time worrying if LZ did or did not shtupp alligators, that is your problem, but I will not approve quotation. That is not scholarship. That is gossip, and beneath contempt.

Third, do not lie, or try to dissemble. If I ask for something, and you agree, be certain that you do it. If I find out after the fact that you have not, there will be trouble.

Finally, when all else fails, and you remain hell-bent on quoting LZ, but you really, really REALLY do not want to deal with me, or you have been stupidly advised to try to circumvent me -- remind yourself again and again, and yet once more, what Lyndon Baines Johnson’s said about J. Edgar Hoover i.e.: “I’d rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in”.

PZ

Hong Kong
Sept. 17, 2009 

The Nicki Minaj Project: Mask

Masking: Subliminal Tricks

the art of posing:

what the eye gets, in other words

how the world is refracted/ reflected back

The use of the mask both subverts identity and draws attention to it.

To remove one’s face is an intensely personal act, the body becomes a mirror offering back in many ways the norms and cultural neuroses of the times.

“Under this mask, another mask. I will never finish lifting up all these faces.”

 –Claude Cahun

Claude Cahun

The mask is the “escape valve.” It plays as a child does with the notion of singularity, of unity, of wholeness. In adults, the mask signals a break with normalcy. It’s a signal, a cipher that notes the movement from expectation to realization from the world of the real to the world of the unreal; the mask creates a bridge. The elaborate display of the body enacts first and foremost the promise of the elaborate display of the narrative, of the action and of the imaginary world.

The body is intimate and vulnerable, offered up for sacrifice. The body is armed and hidden at the same time, layered in costume and personas, so that the true identity can never be pinpointed. It reveals by hiding. The “world” of the body becomes a theatrical display. As such, the promise of the body is one of pleasure, one of entertainment even in moments of discomfort and disgust.

The self is flexible. It is the quality of the illusion that counts. To be indebted to an “other” is less important than the act of embodying the mask. The mask is a tacit agreement between the wearer and the viewer; it promises to excite and the viewer in turn promises to enact the role of awarding attention, be it positive or negative. It is an art of seeing and then an act of choice in the gaze or the refusal to participate.

“feminists have used self-images to describe a gender specific phenomenon” –Joan Rivéres “Womanliness as a Masquerade”

Aggression contained within the personal odyssey.

Vulgarity is a display, a language mask that provides a barrier while also signaling what is inclusive and who is excluded. The adoption of racial slurs and sexist epithets draws a line between the user and the other, and it includes those who are willing to trespass. It handles the uncomfortable, and it abuses the standards by which any “body” of people decides what is acceptable in language. Aggression shaped by language and enacted in language allows the mask to remain armed. It accepts into it the rite of a culture of aggression and attempts to contain it, in the same way that the mask and rites of mourning and funeral practices attempt to contain grief.

self exploitation:

“it’s a subtle abyss that separates men’s use of women for sexual titillation from women’s use of women to expose that insult”  -Lucy Lippard, “Scattering Selves”

If we accept this as true, then we must also ask what is subtle and who defines the edges of the abyss from the actual descent into it, and also in bounding holes, who guards the borders. 

Day 5/6: Come Late & Never

Kurt Schwitters Collage:

1919 Das Undbild [The And-Picture]















1919 Bild mit heller Mitte [Picture with Light Centre]


Listen:


Kurt Schwitters on Ubuweb:

http://ubumexico.centro.org.mx/sound/schwitters_kurt/what-a-beauty/Die-Schwindlinge_01-What-A-B-What-A-B-What-A-Beauty.mp3


Make:

From Lafcadio Hearn's La Cuisine Creole

"Hard Soap for Household Purposes:

To seven pounds of tallow, or other clean grease, use three pounds of rosin, add six gallons of water to this, and stir in two pounds of potash; boil this together for five hours, then turn the soap, while hot, into  a washtub and let it stay all night; when cool cut into bars, and lay on a board to harden. This quantity should be sufficient for a family of four persons for one year. "


Watch:

Harry Smith: Early Abstractions

Day 4 Prompt: Rivered

   

The Mississippi River and its floodplain are home to a diverse population of living things:

At least 260 species of fish, 25% of all fish species in North America;

Forty percent of the nation's migratory waterfowl use the river corridor during their Spring and Fall migration;

Sixty percent of all North American birds (326 species) use the Mississippi River Basin as their migratory flyway;

From Cairo, IL upstream to Lake Itasca there are 38 documented species of mussel. On the Lower Mississippi, there may be as many as 60 separate species of mussel;

The Upper Mississippi is host to more than 50 mammal species;

At least 145 species of amphibians and reptiles inhabit the Upper Mississippi River environs.

"Rivers are controlled at their mouths..."  

-Lawrence Powell, The Accidental City

Day 3: Prompt, Netted

"the fact of being kept, the act of keeping" 

-Deborah Poe, "Keep"

-David Halliday, photographs

"we are in the net and we are the net"

Prompt 2: Brakhage

Examine Light:

"It isn't only what is unsaid, you see, we have very few words to express the scientifically recognizable phenomenon of life"   -Stan Brakhage, (from Brilliant Corners Interview, Spring 1979)









"Oh yes, you don't get angels without devils, because that's the nature of life." -Stan Brakhage, (B.C. Interview, 1979)

Read more about Mothlight

Surrealist Prompt: Claude Cahun

Write:


"It isn't enough to be good for clumsy sparrows, you must be able to help mechanical birds take flight"

-Claude Cahun "Captive Balloon"

"The root structure of the small molars forces the dentist to conclude that 'anatomy does not exist.'"

-Cahun, "Beware Domestic Objects"

Reading Claude Cahun:

http://quarterlyconversation.com/claude-cahun-disavowals