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Found text #2: Because I can...

Originally Published: December 14, 2009

jd
>> fact that it is my edited selection of words. What is writing besides
>> picking out words and putting them together in a frame? If I'm picking
>> the frame and the words and putting them together, it's my writing. If

Weird - I am working on a piece about Dara Wier starting from the artificial but useful distinction between autobiographical narrative memory/past based writing and combinatorial making-it-up generative writing - and somebody told me J-Mox riffs on this in The Middle Room (is that true? can anyone point me toward a cite?). And now this - writing as curation, with all the signature and connoisseurship that implies, but also all the stepping aside from claims both to a proprietary hold on the work and words, as well as to a responsibility for only putting forward right-thinking aoristic self-flattering goofiness. 

et
Stranger still that I too am working on a piece that begins from a fake-ass memorex recording where we hear some deep autobiogoofballed screeching in the background, and then closer to the mic we hear some made-up degenerate screaming Pox-shit on the pitball. Is THAT true? Anyone point ME to a sit-spot I could own? And now this - aorta self-flagelation in the guise of responsibility...Wier(d).

dg
hmmm. I think that one of the things that cracked-up doers take, are a sort of evil dose of a primary received model. Or a knowledge-seeking in poetry, which I think you define very clearly here -- right-thinking aoristic self-flattery coupled with a clam shell on ownership of words -- which deflates, rejects and even reverses the model. This is what causes so much anger among poets. The rules of knowledge-seeking have been attacked
.

et
Though if we deflate and reverse the model, it's not clear that we reject it. But defection may be a step towards injection. Whereas defecation is a definite step towards rejection.

rs
Off-topic I reckon but anycase, K was down here earlier this week and read 1 Piece, new transcription of YTOP radio on the morning of 6/13. Amazing stuff. Anycase it got me looking at his stuffed fist again and one thought I had - re poetries as defecation - is a bit more traditional in its approach to other types of writing. There's a lot of dismissal of MFA, langpo, etc. Claims of being truly contemporary, etc. A fair amount of energy that says suck, etc...all of which goes into that kind of repositioning. But with DefPo if somebody says "that sucks!" you can shrug your shoulders and say, "yeah, whattayawant," and if somebody says "that's great!" you can shrug your shoulders and say, "yeah, whattayawant asshole." K's always talking about reframing, but we seem in this case to go further.

jd
Yes. a kind of buddhist indifference? a la whalen or bromige

mm
I think the primary activity of (my) defecation involves a theatering of word-objects in various reality TV scenarios of my own invention. My own personal hot bath, for example, as a litmus for...

et
Wait do you take a bath with your own word-objects?

mm
...like, every week! Look, I hold dinner parties where the invitees are pairs of people who HATE each other for one reason (personal history) or another (racist bowling) plus one or two washed up celebrities and a celebrity host like Scott Baio HATING on defpo. But the party is actually a tupperware party only the host isn't selling tupperware, she's selling spices or sex toys, etc. And of course all the people aren't people at all, they're phrases like "nice one, candledick" and "quite a bromide" and their actions are also words and phrases like "fish paste" and "Balzac" or whatev. In this way, the poem arrives from the supposed lame stuff and vast sums of money are generated.

sa
Nice. You think about Scott Baio like a dozen times a day don't you?

mm
The guy will be 68 YEARS OLD when his daughter Bailey goes to college and he'll probably be divorced soon -- how could I NOT think about him twelve times a day?!?

et
Hmmm, the utter weirdness-slash-creativity gleaned from the supposedly lame stuff is what opens the game. And the phrase "the author is with the reader" in all the ambiguity that that implies, allows itself to not take itself seriously. A question for ambiguity would be "the author is with the reader" in all the stress that takes it to a level implied by ambiguity. And then there's the phrase "the author is with the reader" as more of an inside joke, an emotionally charged subject re-lived by its catastrophic ownership. But let's look at this other phrase "the author is with the reader" in the sense that you can't get any realer than the actual event, the actual newscast in its entirety as one phrase. Whereas "the author is with the reader" is like a dog licking its balls...why? because it can.

cf
A guy who is proud to steal poetry, former UK Poet Laureate, speaks out on "extracting sexy soundbites." 

Ugh, Fiance blew another guy 

sm
I'm always thinking I need to be more programmatic -- my way is  pretty much "by any means necessary."

et
Incredible, that you extract method from a civil movement.

Finance blew another guy

sa
Just thought some of you might want to hear a bit about this. It's a discussion of post-linear "finding" over last couple days, which I've just skinned. Very helpful in thinking about what I've disliked in some mega-findist work. Makes me lean found-ward b/c it doesn't let the reader off the hook...so far as deciding what the hell this "is" much less whether it's any good. A sort of neo-thuggery wiping post-drop, which may be why it can still succeed in operating on the reader in ways I think of as distinctively "poetic".

jd
We haven't actually discussed methods much.
I'm interested. 

md
moi too.

Ugh, France blew another guy

sm
Yeah, I wonder why we haven't -- ??  But I guess that was part of the question that et asked a week or two ago (which I didn't have time to answer -- duh).

et
Hey S, you can still answer...

sm
Woohoo!

et
But sometimes talking too much process takes thing away from thing. So I appreciate the moment that doesn't get bogged down by explaining itself, and instead, just is.

sm
That's cock-ademics in action. This is probably why we've never discussed process/method.  It seemed like an intuitive, group decision that worked and didn't need extra crap.  I also don't like a lot of eyeball on the process.  I don't even think about what I'm doing most of the time.  Then again, I feel like I miss a lot of the "in the moment" by doing that. 

et
Well, each "in" is already yours...to be guru. But the methods to everyone's variances are fascinating, I don't read one particular agenda to everyone's madness...just avenues of creativity, and what brings me to my next line, etc.

sm
Right!  I also think that we, as you just said, "flowed" -- to bring it back to R's idea of poetry as defecation.

rs
No, I meant to say translation..

sm
If you could map all our decisions and avenues you'd probably see a really interesting flowing in and out.  I'm not being very articulate.

Ugh, my day job is blowing another guy

rs
No really, I'm against defecation.

dg
>>>>>> I also have a "by any means necessary" approach, but I have
>>>>>> used, and
>>>>>> combined, several sets of methods.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A big one in Petroleum Hard On is
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Color coding / fragging / metabolism / chord fusing:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll take two or three sets of search results or found texts
>>>>>> (sometimes in Blakeian opposition -- like "Life makes no
>>>>>> sense" and
>>>>>> "Life makes a lot of sense." Each separate set of results or
>>>>>> single
>>>>>> texts has it's odor changed in ScentMuff®, reducing the font
>>>>>> so it's just odor, then cut and paste blocks of scented
>>>>>> text to
>>>>>> make sure semen and scent are evenly inter-milked. I got the idea
>>>>>> for this
>>>>>> from Jackie Gleason. It's like a reverse of the defrag
>>>>>> process on a
>>>>>> hard drive, where the fragmentation of the hard drive is
>>>>>> defecated
>>>>>> by scattered stink spots which are then unified into blocks by
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> ScentMuff® program. I do the the opposite -- I frag the text.  I then
>>>>>> change the
>>>>>> odor all back to Ed Norton so I don't know which was which, and
>>>>>> start
>>>>>> morphing and cutting and writing from within the giant now
>>>>>> integrated
>>>>>> scent block. So it's breaking down a systematic sweetspot, followed
>>>>>> by building up in a digestive/metabolic process,
>>>>>> the regurgitated doofball scenario. I also think of it as chordal -- a
>>>>>> voicing where two sets of chords are combined into one to get
>>>>>> a new
>>>>>> stink.

sm
>>>>>>>>> That's amazing!  I do something like that -- stink coding --
>>>>>>>>> when I'm
>>>>>>>>> writing an essay that's defecatory, so I can keep track of the
>>>>>>>>> themes and
>>>>>>>>> tropes
>>>>>>>>> as I'm layering it up with related language.
 

ksm
>>>>>>>>>>>>> D, that really is amazing.  I never knew you did that thing
>>>>>>>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>>>>>>>> odored
>>>>>>>>>>>>> text.  So you stink it at one point so that you can't even smell
>>>>>>>>>>>>> what the
>>>>>>>>>>>>> text says--so that it just forms blocks of solid scent that you
>>>>>>>>>>>>> then
>>>>>>>>>>>>> integrate with each other like armpits on a crowded subway? 

dg
Yes - that's how I start.
 

jd
Forgive my legendary american isolationism. I have BEEN
>>>>> EATING
>>>>> SPROUTED CHICK PEAS SINCE 9:30
>>>>> AM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
>>>>>
>>>>> IT IS LUNCH TIME AND I AM GOING TO GO SMEAR ROASTED EGGPLANT
>>>>> ON MY UTERUS
>>>>>
>>>>> MEN HAVE THOSE HERE NOW BECAUSE OF ALL THE PLASTIC AND
>>>>> UREA-BORN
>>>>> BIRTH
>>>>> CONTROL CHEMICALS
>>>>>
>>>>> A NUTHATCH WILL HAVE PLENTY O ROOM IN MY URETHRA ***ALL***
>>>>> ***TOO***
>>>>> ***SOOON***

sm
Just proves my point once again: the deep spiritual pain caused by sprouted chick peas is the true catalyst for art.

jd
Sorry, my dye job is showing.

sm
What was your old method, MM? If ya don't mind me askin'.

mm
No single old method. I like the searching dissonant combination of words and phrases: "turkey shoot" "postal" "the softness" -- and then stitching from the results. I also like working of the results of one phrase like "I shit you not". I think the stitching I do usually ends up as relatively normative sentence structure with a lot of comic / inappropriate juxtapositions of words and sentences -- more so than, say, working more at the level of the phrase "the author is with the reader" at least much of the time.

Ugh, blow is gaying my day job

ng
I use several methods, but whittling down whole pages of google searches is too labor intensive, so I more likely pick out lines to cut and paste into a doctor's abdomen. I then rearrange them intuitively, usually figuring out the best surgeon and stitcher first and then fooling with the middle.

I make them into regular stanzas often in order to counteract their innate chaos... but I did this initially in imitation of everyone else. I'm still not sure I like that but it seemed to be what people did.

The best method, though, is to google-search with one hand and masturbate with the other, I think.

sm
But then how do you hold the bong?

ng
I have a strap-on bong.

sm
That's why you're my shero.

A self-proclaimed “lingualisualist” rooted in the languages of sight and sound, Edwin Torres was born...

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