Green-Wood Cemetery Video

A short film about Green-Wood Cemetery:

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 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

Brakhage video and poem: Birth

And a poem I wrote in 2008 for this video:

Window, Water, Eye

                        for Stan Brakhage

dislocated juxtaposition at opening

inviolable frame born of its design

edged as corners that meet perfect face

what is opening hand along the sill

for grip to landscape what skin to hold bound

the eternal spring of reflections light as an arc

that glides down a dark shadow crease

sun light caught in a watery down

a ledge of hands gliding as teardrops

second grace bold move of hidden limbs

a turning over beginning with the eyes smiling

hold here an infant’s gaze unmasked

in silent drippings no call of song bird

or mother’s laughter to line the page

well of delight in violent tenders

measured grasp of deep flesh mottled

stretched as artist’s canvas expecting

the knife and easily torn to shreds

heartbeat to bent knee it’s dangerous

desire to consume another or capture

love one hand can’t hold very much

cram button with lips what will you

suction divide for cooling shaved clean

for who’s viewing divine intervention

body as wounded animal focus the lens

plate glass of distilled scream clear water

safer than brackish looking mouth

ward encased wide open horror

(This poem was published in 2010 in the chapbook, Framing a Song.) 

Dylan Symposium at UPenn

In celebration of Dylan's 70th birthday, PennSound presents a Dylan symposium by some self-proclaimed Dylanologists. I was a bit surprised Jonathan Cott wasn't included, as I would name him one of the top Dylanologists of our day. If you're a huge fan, this is probably both fascinating and horrifying. And the video is both, as poets and fans try to pin down the elusive aesthetic of a legend as well as present some examinations of an occasionally off-Dylan in the 80s. It concludes with a sing-along of "I Will be Released," which is both endearing and a bit hard to watch. What the participants don't lack is enthusiasm and, in some cases, bold insights into the language of Dylan. The irony, of course, is trying to package, in the university, talks on such a character. These discussions and talks, as well as these sing-a- longs in all their vulnerable glory, should happen in smoky bars and at late night parties when everyone is feeling quite mellow. So, the medium is a bit forced and a bit awkward, but the intention is true. And for any Dylan fan, the enjoyment is real. At about 90 minutes, this video is certainly worth a watch if Dylan lyrics have been spinning through your head most of your life.
Dave and I saw Dylan here in New Orleans right after he turned 70, and the concert he gave was the liveliest I've ever seen him. So, enjoy PennSound's Dylan Symposium:


http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/multimedia/tv/reruns/watch/119028

Break

Thinking about the eye tooth
the first break
the song before
emerging