Sunday, June 17, 2007
I want to talk here directly about Alan Sondheim whose work I have seen now for some years. I am in fact building a sub file of his works. He has worked in many media including film and performance - lives in NY and is engaged on a huge project which is a 'Meditation on the Internet' (in one sense one could see it as huge poem.) He moves through all "disciplines". But he is not "disciplined". He is not so much a poet as a person who is interested in - well just about everything (Computer science and philosophy of Cybernetics, philosophy, science, nature, literature, film, music, and many many other things) - there is a lot of philosophy as well as "art" in his work.
His texts will be best seen at the URLS I will provide shortly but I will be writing a lot more about Alan who is a writer/philosopher/artist./filmaker/etextualiser?/performer/textualiser
/theorist?/ of great ability...he has done thousands of files in making his enormous Internet Text.
This is a challenging and sometimes disturbing "text" but it is also full of joy as well as darkness! But it also has techinical brilliance...Alan knows his media - his main concentration has been on the Internet but he uses music and other media and has been an art teacher, critic (he 'subverted' - for good reasons, not by malice - the art world - when he was a critic!) and other things - he was associated with the Language poets briefly, but his work makes even the most prolific of them look like pathetic doodlers writing on muddy sand!
[[Of course this is a bit unfair - as Alan is very very different kind of 'writer'/or textualiser (say than Ron Silliman whose work I also admire very much) - whatever you will.]]
His main work is actually called: Philosophy and Psychology of the Internet.
In fact his great work is unclassifiable. Or it is creating it's own classification.
He has a List called Wryting...more info as I get it...
I am talking about a man (an "artist"?) of immense energy creativity and originality.
For me if I focus on his writing: I am always amazed at the enormous range and diversity of how he works and his ability to 'do' any kind of writing (his constant formal experimentation and subversion) - some of his stuff is elegaic - almost as if he is outdoing Ashbery outdoing Matthew Arnold others. But then he writes like someone - someone one cannot name..
Much of Alan's work - as writing per se - rivals that of any poet I have ever read....
(BUT he is not a poet! he is an"ideas man!" A thinker - a philosopher...)
...and his other works are like a lectures on philosophy (there is a great range) - now there is a lot of ideas attached to his work so I will for now just give links so that anyone coming here ( and or My Space when I get over there and put some links up - I will do the same) can look at what he has been doing.
This is a short interjection as I have only just recontacted Alan.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
The Red
The blocks of red on red on red by black around
by black by black by line by line by round. The
red in red of red in red where black by back the
white around. Around the bound about the
white the red more red comes up the red. It
rears its head. The eye the see the sight to see.
The eye the see the light the sight.
And light,
The light not light not bright not dim not sun.
The sun not round not up not down. The blue
not there not green not grey. The g rey ungrey
not grey not black . The up not down the down
not up.
And the black not black not black on night. The
light alight but light not light.
The clock is dead.
The clock awake alive like head. The head like
blood like hot is red.
The squares the slabs the reds the blocks are
chops of chunks: the chunks the chunks the bits.
The monks. And the red the red and round the
black. (There is no black).
To you my red my square my thing: I fall
and blubber like a sun-struck king.
The red on red of red the blocks. The orange
the green the blue. The see the sight the
steel the grey. The shape the tall the dark the
great. The high the high. The finger like a finger
on the sky.
The eye the seen.
The green.
O my Blocks my reds my Reds my blocks: orange
is not is gNomes is gone.
And the rEd in red. (There is no red)
The square that's not thAt's never that's there.
If red be red nOt is not green:
Then red on red of red is you my thing.
aNd
if that is you by blocks by b l a c k are red around.
And black is black as black is black.
And red is red is red.
The Red
The blocks of red on red on red by black around
by black by black by line by line by round. The
red in red of red in red where black by back the
white around. Around the bound about the
white the red more red comes up the red. It
rears its head. The eye the see the sight to see.
The eye the see the light the sight.
And light,
The light not light not bright not dim not sun.
The sun not round not up not down. The blue
not there not green not grey. The g rey ungrey
not grey not black . The up not down the down
not up.
And the black not black not black on night. The
light alight but light not light.
The clock is dead.
The clock awake alive like head. The head like
blood like hot is red.
The squares the slabs the reds the blocks are
chops of chunks: the chunks the chunks the bits.
The monks. And the red the red and round the
black. (There is no black).
To you my red my square my thing: I fall
and blubber like a sun-struck king.
The red on red of red the blocks. The orange
the green the blue. The see the sight the
steel the grey. The shape the tall the dark the
great. The high the high. The finger like a finger
on the sky.
The eye the seen.
The green.
O my Blocks my reds my Reds my blocks: orange
is not is gNomes is gone.
And the rEd in red. (There is no red)
The square that's not thAt's never that's there.
If red be red nOt is not green:
Then red on red of red is you my thing.
aNd
if that is you by blocks by b l a c k are red around.
And black is black as black is black.
And red is red is red.
he R ??
he blocks redredred black around
by blckbyblackbylnebylnerunnd.
r d r d r d r d black b ck
white around Ar o un d bo d !?about the
white the red more red comes up the red It
rears h ad. ey e e see e sight see.
eye see e igh t e sigh
nd light
lightlightbrightdim sn
SUNrnd p nt dwn bl
n t th r n t green not gry he gy ugy
n t gr y not bl ckh up not d n the d n
t p
nd th bl ck n t bl ck n t bl ck n n ght h
l ght l ght b t l ght n t l ght
h clck s d d.
h c l ck w ke l v l k h dh h d l k
bl d like hot s r d
hetquaresheslbstheredsheblocksre
chps of cnks: the chunksthe c hnks the bits.
h moksnd the red the r d and r d the
blackhere is no black).
oyou my red MY square my thing: I fall
and blubberlikea sun-struckking
h red on red red the blocks The orange
hegreentheblueseheighh
steel the greyhe shape the tall the dark the
greathe high the highhe finger like a finger
on the ?
eye the seen
he gren
O-OO mylcs my eds my eds my blocksorange
is notis gNomes iz gonz
et the rEd in redThere is no red)
he squre tht's not thAt's never that's there.
If red be red nOt is not green
hn rd onrd of rd is yu mythng
&))}
i a i ou o a c a e e aou
a i a a a i a
e i e i e
Poem 29
The sounds were gritty, gratey, because I
got a herd of cows with cowbells
and their tinklings went thru an electronic
gate. Pure resonance and grainy grittiness.
Then by accident, a fluctuating series of harmonics,
so that the tip of these waves would trigger
the sounds. The gate: rushing into the storm
of ideas, the electro-acoustic, shattering
down-curve.
The tired, metallic beast,
wounded, struggles in civilisation’s mass,
the great moral clamour.
the scraping awakening, where he is
red-eyed with his robotic sorrow.
How to inveigle the meaning, the concept blocks,
the wriggle-writhe - here: dab yellow,
dab black. (Dab).
Go back thirteen paces.
The god of music
spits his teeth into the wind.
What have we achieved?
The children are surely safe
and the stories of the mangled parabolas
secrete inside themselves..
The blaxities charcoal soft swirls
and the jaggeries, or the coiling resplendence -
the bare, tapered bone of intuition’s precision.
Update on EYELIGHT
EYELIGHT update showing special
characters
anyone can play this game the point is to have
some fun in the process
no one fails in my universe
as Dr Wayne Dyer said, failure is essential
it is error which makes us human
that which is perfect is dead
Charles Ives' father allowed the poor singer
John Bell in his choir even though he was off tune:
everyone is a part or can be he said to Charles who
was to become a great musician and innovator and
winner of the Pulitzer: he mixed music
remembering two bands walking towards each
other creating a kind of 'intermodulation' distortion:
a new kind of strange beauty where anything can
happen in any order as is the way of the universe
or so it seems.......
Nothing of which can be "proven"...people just keep on living and doing and hoping....
↻ 座 ^^~~~****~~~~ 躕 Ҝ
♚ ♚ ♚ ♚
♚ ♚ ↻ ↻
♚ ♚ ↻ ↻
sent heaving gesticulate couldn’t, put mits and then wake. dead bright. |
WORK IN PROGRESS |
wonders stain, dress. wavers and wave, off. cut to the dotted, it wood, |
i not you. dog. pobbled of course, once twice once. since semantic |
degrades the swish, her him, possible or moglich. nought. crouch under |
by we distributed, light, then a shoulder, shudder, run hand, knife |
blade to lobelia, even he. wanted wonky. sing yet diamonds and bong. |
career. i would like to carry. since you sprang i rolled, are you you |
or fool. persuasion, very good. rich by nose or a rose. indeed |
speculation, thousands, they sang as if disappear, not. oh whang, twine |
is comfortable, its hard being, time, down easy go. slip slap grease |
perceptive appropriation, local, spring and glee into glee yet glum. i |
took did the awful sangfroid, yet perfect because camera, all. under |
milk, a kid i. abra, boats. up and down, up and down, flog, many |
options red. did was elephant to three down. no to yes. ifly. better. |
not antiestablishmentarianism we were or wernt there case may be. of |
course you steak. stick stuck stuckle stock, toad. and. technophobjc |
technocrat, brat light. beetroot and cool to propriocentric. lob to |
thud, sticks and gone. dizzy dicklicking dictocrats. bop. suffering |
sickering Socrates!. light, sticks and gone. lately cool. infant into |
inferno yields delineation, soon to open. pop factor belies disgrace. i. |
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wonders stain, dress. wavers and wave, off. cut to the dotted, it wood,
degrades the swish, her him, possible or moglich. nought. crouch under
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wonders stain, dress. wavers and wave, off. cut to the dotted
wonders stain, dress. wavers and wave, off. cut to the dotted
Room 15
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Room 43A