========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 06:56:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: dunno but Tenney--I wasn't actually saying that it was a BAD or DECADENT or IRRSPONSIBLE thing that "the sort of conjecture [you] brought up is akin to the solipsism of a purely aestheticizing discourse" only that in recognizing the similarities between so-called "aesthetic" and so-called "responsibly social" poetries is itself an interesting conjuncture (oops, I said conjecture above--I meant conjuncture)--and an important one if the "personal (and the impersonal for that matter) is the political"-- Because, for instance, perelman foregrounds money and the culture industry so much, it's hard to resist the temptation to see that as but his OSTENSIBLE subject--just as when a blues song ostensibly about a woman mistreating almost DEMANDS to be read as ALSO (if not "REALLY") about the injustice a black (and, in some instances, lower-class white) man is victim of in American society. Perhaps this is because I've "been trained" (though not by my institutional teachers per se) to look for "hidden meanings" too much. But doesn't the poetics of "FACE VALUE" assume that? ED (Foster)-- I am not entirely sure I understand you, but it seems you prefer an economy of "essentialism" to an more "relativistic" or at least "perspectival" economy that you claim dominates poetics today as it dominates "late capitalism." Yet you seem to link "essentialism" to "laissez faire economics"(?!?) and eventually "alchemy". How does THE ESSENTIAL justify LAISSEZ-FAIRE economics? I know it has been USED this way ideologically in the past--but if you are claiming to prefer such a poetical mode, and contradting it with the arbitrariness of value in late capitalism, doesn't your distinction ultimately collapse on itself (insofar as both "economies" ultimately support exploitive economic relations)? Then you claim that THE MOVE FROM NOUN TO VERB (which you recognize as a historical shift of emphasis; which I may not want to claim but that's partially because my idea of "history" when it comes to poetry is probably more emersonian than poundian; more steinian than olsonian) is somehow analogous to the move from ESSENTIAL economies to more arbitrary ones. But, as I wrote in a poem once, "VERB IS A NOUN" and even though Stein, for instance, distrusted NAMES and to a lesser extent NOUNS, boy did she USE them (though was also USED by them, and in the process USE became a trope and information-bearing language co-exists with more "musical" elements---though I think it's an open question which ULTIMATELY gets the "upper hand" in both Stein as well as Shakespeare). As for "alchemy"---Again, I appeal to THE MERCHANT OF VENICE-- an absolutely intriguing play for anyone interested in the "intersection" of poetry and money--and though there's way too many issues there to get into here, let me consider the CHOICE OF THE LEAD CASKET over gold, etc. When rejecting the Lead casket Bassanio calls Gold "HARD FOOD FOR MIDAS" and in such is recognizing (at least verbally, though of course his ACTIONS in the play contradict, or fail to live up to this insight-- which may ironically comment on the "insight" as well) one of the problems with Alchemy. It seems to me that many poets are very interested in the same thing Shakespeare is here: the idea that even if you "choose lead," that which threatens most, like Dickinson choosing Death because (in part) the name of God has been debased, like Blake's marriage of heaven and hell, like Stein's and Riding's and Loy's projects of de-alie- nating "beauty" from the "irritating" (and even in the contemporary climate say harryman's attempt to "distribute narrative rather than deny it"), the problem is that this "lead" can always turn back into "gold" that one rejected. Whether the significance of this can be as effective on a "vulgar political" plane as well is something I must save for another time. At present I see a certain incommensurability that perhaps could be called "the contradictions of capitalism"--- Later, chris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 08:38:11 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: the Hypertextual possibilities beth, intriguing notes on landow!... i esp. liked your sense of repetition in his text as "an ironic commentary on the nature of computer replication itself "... you might wanna check out the more recent collection of essays he edited, _hyper/text/theory_ (johns hopkins, 1994)... perhaps the most thorny *theoretical* critique of ht offered in this latter volume is martin e. rosenberg's "physics and hypertext: liberation and complicity in art and pedagogy"... this argument is taken up within the volume in stuart moulthrop's piece, "rhizome and resistance: hypertext and the dreams of a new culture"... but all the essays are worth having a look at... and while i'm at it, i simply must mention michael joyce's _of two minds: hypertext pedagogy and poetics_ (u of michigan, 1995), perhaps the most elegant treatment to date of many of these issues... all best// joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 10:57:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: "Net Work"/Langton/S.F. ............. . . S A N . . F R A N . C I S . C O ............. . . N E T . W O R K : . . EXPERIMENTAL WRITING ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB . . . 10/21/95 ............. . . Loss Pequen~o G l a z i e r ............. I PARTICIPATED IN THIS READING AND TALK, along with Steven Shaviro, as part of Small Press Traffic's "Small Press Partners Series." The series is a great idea, promoting the work of small presses by sponsoring readings of persons involved with the presses in different venues in the Bay Area. Future events in the series will include Chax, Hard Press/House of Outside, Kelsey Street, O Books, and Talisman House. I think it quite visionary that the organizers, Dodie Bellamy specifically, thought of the electronic press as a "bona fide" small press and thus included us. A geographic digression: Let the rest of this nation be envious yet once again, the weather was unbelievable, with delicate sun and clear blue skies. The swimming pool at the hotel was still swimmable and I was whisked to the evening reading by my friend Robert Anbian, dashing through streets south of Market in a Fiat convertible. All he could say, short of bragging about the weather was to snicker, "I hope your hair isn't getting mussed." At the reading, the New Langton Arts space (downstairs gallery) was really terrific. Good lighting, a great sized room with seating (do you call this "bleacher" seating when the seats are on successively higher steps?) on two sides. The turnout didn't surpass, say the average Rolling Stones concert, but the people who came were terrific. The way the reading was arranged allowed for a lot of dialog between the presenter and the attendees. It was quite remarkable how the audience was so attentive, incredibly so, during the reading and then--was it the space or more a fact of this reading culture?--that afterwards the gathering opened into conversation as natural as if in someone's living room. Kevin Killian (who hosted the event for Dodie. She was fulfilling a residency in Milwaukee on this date) was a consummately gracious and charming host. More than simply introducing the readers (which he did with great style and warmth), his presence and interest truly contributed to the ambiance of the evening. I read my piece-in-progress "Jumping to Occlusions," a call for electronic space to be seen not only as a mode of poetic production but (thinking, for example, of the way the xerox influenced the making of poetic texts a generation earlier) AS A POETICS IN ITSELF. I discussed the EPC, hypertext poetry, partly in the context of my online poem, __E__ (http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/authors/glazier), and read from the recently issued _The Parts_ (Meow Press, 1995--published by Joel Kuszai in Buffalo). Steven Shaviro discussed, then read from his online novel "Doom Patrols" (http://dhalgren.english.washington.edu/~steve/doom.html) a novel or writing constantly weaving through fictions and the discourses of postmodernism. Very interesting is the fact that Shaviro, who has had a couple of significant book publications from major publishers (_Passion and Excess_ and _The Cinematic Body_) decided to issue his latest work for free on the Net, declining the academic accolades that come from major press issuance of a work. I got the sense that one of the principle reasons for this was speed of publication. The question and answer period--or maybe better put--"after-reading conversation" was extraordinary. People still sat as a group in the gallery space and questions branched out from the technical to the speculative. What was the place of this "new" writing? How is Net discourse a different discourse? (One woman made a strong point of having encountered much more abusive casual conversation in her Net experiences.) And how do people *read* here? (One man mentioned that research had shown--for people are already doing marketing and system analysis research on how consumers "read" on the Net) that it has been determined that information should be located no deeper than four screen in, otherwise people will give up the search.--And I took this to mean, unless he also said this, that texts should only fill one screen--you know, as opposed to those screens that scroll forever downward.) And there were others--especially younger attendees--that worried about the future of reading and its cultures in the electronic environment. Of course the only answer to this last question is to READ the work-- rather than simply be absorbed into the hypnosis of its flickering light--which was why we'd gathered. ~It must be read as work,~ was my argument. The discussion period went on for some time. It was especially useful to get so many different perspectives. My strongest feeling--something perhaps we don't have on this list--was that people had radically different Net experiences (Usenet groups, commercial providers, the Sausalito stuff--maybe in the absence of an apparent "center" for West Coast electronic writing??), as if each person inhabited totally different *extremes* of the Net, with little overlap. For the moment, however, I would be content to get back in the convertible. After all, it was Saturday, and North Beach was not far off, with its temperate and delicious night air. Enough of the Net, I thought, for one evening. Time for some deep fried lemon calamari, and pile the plate high... ............. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 10:15:29 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: the Hypertextual possibilities >And I agree that there are differences between traditional _text_ >and hypertext and Landow does talk a bit about the Hypercard program >"by opening the text-processing program [Hypercard], or editor, as it is >known, you can take notes, or you can write against my interpretations, >against my text. Although you cannot change my text, you can read the >readerly text in two ways not possible with a book.." > >Beth Russell You can annotate books as you read, and even go back and argue with your own previous comments -- Fermat's last theorem is perhaps the most famous annotation by a reader ("I do not have the space to put the proof in the margin...") Nothing against hypertext. But books can do some of that stuff too. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 09:37:27 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: more flamingos FLAMINGO MESSAGES 50 Flaminos secretly set up before 6 am for the ultimate surprise (home or work). Includes personalised sign. Lasts all day at $70. Any Occasion. Ph: (64 09) 0800 42 5050 all hours ---- ad in (NZ) The TV Guide this week Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 15:42:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: dunno but chris: my claim is that there is always something essential; it may be change as such or a particuilar kind of change (alchemy). as for preference, it's true that i'm very interested in that which remains constant in a given system, whether a poem, mathematics, or what have you. it's that one often finds the flaw (or, in much contemporary poetics, bad faith) as opposed to simple inadequacy. my sense that certain poetics and capitalism are linked comes from a suggestion in mallarme. alchemy in this case means simply that the result is more than the sum of its parts, which can be as true of money in certain circumstances as it is in (to choose examples at random) of montage or collage. -- once again, i have to apologize: this ridiculous computer (we're very primitive here) doesn't allow revision, so i can't go back and slip a "there" between the "it's" and the "that" in the fourth. the computer, operating on more conservative princciples, knows nothing of alchemy, only simple inadequacy. likewise, i can't remove the "of" in the 10th line or correct "princciples." ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 15:50:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: dunno but chris: you suggest i'm defending laissez faire economics and a certain corresponding poetry. i protest; it is not so. but i do enjoy watching the devil at work, and enjoy watching poems move in a realm they ostensibly deny. and what, essentially, is hypertext, for instance? when do we really get to escape? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 15:51:01 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: Re: more flamingos 50 Flaminos secretly set up before 6 am for the ultimate surprise (home or work). Includes personalised sign. Lasts all day at $70. Any Occasion. "Any Occasion," as in, can you think of any occasion where you would pay someone to do this? Perhaps the ultimate surprise would be if the flamingos came alive and attacked your pets. That might be interesting. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 16:01:40 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: more flamingos >50 Flaminos secretly set up before 6 am for >the ultimate surprise (home or work). >Includes personalised sign. Lasts all day at >$70. Any Occasion. > > > "Any Occasion," as in, can you think of any occasion where you would pay >someone to do this? Perhaps the ultimate surprise would be if the flamingos >came alive and attacked your pets. That might be interesting. > Actually, when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin in the late 1970's and the student senate of the University of Wisconsin was controlled by a comic group, one morning all awoke to find the extremely large hill leading up to the main administration building being covered with pink flamingos, probably several thousand of them. I thought it was a grand occasion. charles ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 17:07:28 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X From: Alan Golding Subject: Rich Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Does anyone have an address/number for Adrienne Rich? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 20:25:40 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jorge Guitart Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: renga report I (By Cris Cheek, Tom Bell, George Bowering, Jordan Davis, Jorge Guitart, Sheila Murphy, and Gabrielle Wexford, as of November 1, 1995) Does this ever happen to you? The rose was blue,opaque,low,light,narrow,and rectangular Although they although they seemed randy seemed randy Over hill&dale they wore galoshes slowly By the time I get to Ypres you may be Victor the Vector but I am Pierre Par Excellence Random rhinos know little or care exercised How homilies are revivified, sacrosanct lunch: Grownups say of themselves before very short takes: What child is this, who laid to rest Togas on the baseboard, the three-ring dodgems filled because the unspeakables are piling up I just knew that events would couple with dependency: Tiny kings of our dance port the lodging and Isn't that just like a fern. You know, I've never been on a helicopter raid On the off-off-chance, memorial gematria, On the lip of leaving the firm boggles her yet not severance but bits of icy names. Lonely rhinos only prance primrose and fell They say my horse is all in my temples and Captain Tomorrow's raving covered the walls By the excelling disbelief of whateverness she sells Cshells and gelcaps the acid edge away and/or did they radiate bagness over the fragments of blots, or ramrod strait-laced hoping for a jolt of lightning out or exchanged their blind letter for a parapetal posture but like the strong and weak forces mostly they gossipped of souvenirs of deliriums of proctors & priests and they too were skeptical of the value of the face of the calcined sheriff and each to each tongues and balls a face to sell a magazine, a face to turn to the side unavoidably becomes an image of a nation without a true face a rubble of history in the grass where a decapitated statue of scar tissue recording the grain of farm house timbers behind the exterior of the city was an interior composed falling on the Concerns box & a sob distant as adventure capital diverts attention from wars in three voices and the steady rain of hemlock completely set on the sea as so much crabbiness passacaglia without the prefab little knobbed things on them where wrote was written, stepping one four nine nutting nothing a-merrily over my dead bodies in abandon or tremolo, finding the shores awash with alphabet, proclaiming nothing libretti, salted with much, much more than roughage added to taste empowering scores of liberated mozos intent of Lacanian of Palookaville & the dead heroes of Guadalajara. In the books were dreams and in the dreams were books which have been fumigated. Silverfish blue rockets sourdough that the essential unity is pissed off about unless we're a bit of rough tatti totalizing the egress of shimmering luck data to boot. Sack me down with a mess of points vertical short-changers, beesting exchequers by providing the type of diffidence no one writes about rhinos today who sang elegaically in tuinol the moth, and the long wooden staircase to a white vertebral in mines vertical. But do not climb the flagpole during the tourney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 02:13:39 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: dunnot but / late capitalism Chris wrote to Ed- > ED (Foster)-- > I am not entirely sure I understand you, but it seems you prefer an > economy of "essentialism" to an more "relativistic" or at least > "perspectival" economy that you claim dominates poetics today as it > dominates "late capitalism." Yet you seem to link "essentialism" to > "laissez faire economics"(?!?) and eventually "alchemy". How does > THE ESSENTIAL justify LAISSEZ-FAIRE economics? I know it has been USED > this way ideologically in the past--but if you are claiming to prefer > such a poetical mode, and contradting it with the arbitrariness of > value in late capitalism, doesn't your distinction ultimately collapse > on itself (insofar as both "economies" ultimately support exploitive > economic relations)? Excuse my ignorance of both economics and post-whatever theory, but isn't the contemporary idea of relativism closely related to capitalism? I.e., there is no "essential" moral yardstick by which one can judge one culture to be superior to another; and there is no "essential" value inherent in any object, just its exchange value, which is subject to the vicissitudes of the market. Value in the marketplace is fundamentally relative, so I'm also puzzled by the idea that the "essential" justifies "laissez-faire economics" - or that it _can_ be "justified". It's like justifying gravity or natural selection. Which is why I'm also puzzled by the term "late capitalism". It's one of those terms that pretends to establish its speaker's point simply by existing - for capitalism to be able to have a "late" period, it has to be a phenomenon of finite duration, and by using the term "late" capitalism (as opposed to "recent" or "contemporary" capitalism) one implies that that duration is nearing its end. I presume that whoever coined this term had already convincingly established the demise of capitalism - can anyone give me a reference to the origins of this phrase? Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@metdp1.met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://metcon.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 22:48:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: List Maintenance Services Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Getting current e-mail address of subscribers If you need the current address of a Poetics List subscriber send a message to listserv@ubvm.cc.buffalo that says simply: review poetics you will get back a complete subscriber list, with currently active addresses (bad or old addresses are quickly deleted from a list of this volume). Though you haven't heard from most of them, there are currently 280 subscribers to the list. ALL subscribers are reminded to post information about their new publications, as are publishers; people who coordinate reading series are also asked to post information. Loss has also compiled a directory of poets at the EPC, from which you can send messages directly. Over time, some of these addresses may no longer be valid, so notify Loss of any changes of address if you want to keep this listing accurate. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 23:58:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: dunno but Don't all poems move in a "realm" they obstensibly deny? Surely some more, or better than others. Having and enjoying a brief and rich discussion a month back with Rae Armantrout (here is an intertextual hello, Rae) about irony and we both agreed, or well, I suggested that the only good irony is that that don't capitulate to rhetoric, that gets back to that "use" thing. Work that we can use. Perelman is good at this. Armantrout is good at this: the irony of a street sign she talked about along the CA/Mexico border depicting a small family running - a family crossing sign - doesn't get stuck in the mill of the said. It goes out quickly to the social and the economic and to the economy of language and the social. It seems to me a task of poetry to de-essentialize language/diction so that it goes out to use. It sometimes, or always in some very real measure fails at this, either at the beginning, or after its been around awhile. But there really is a reason and a material need for that sign - and not just so you avoid running them down. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 21:57:13 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: latter day lateness In-Reply-To: <199511020459.UAA00777@sparta.SJSU.EDU> The term "late capitalism" is no more dependent upon the end of capitalism being already in sight than the term "late evening" is dependent upon evening's in fact being over. It does, no doubt, indicate some form of faith on the speaker's part that this will not turn out to have been "middle capitalism" after all. It is a form of wishful thinking, no doubt, but does not require proof that capitalism has ended or will next week. I am still unsure how the general understanding that poststructuralist theories are "relativist" came about. To claim that value is produced by social activities, not inherent as a property in an object as such, or to argue that there is no transcendant a priori realm of truth by which human utterances may be measured, is not necessarily to assume what is popularly known as an absolute relativism. This is really more an argument about what truth and value _are_ than a claim that it's all relative. In _Limited Inc_, Derrida, sounding a bit exhasperated, remarks that "from the point of view of semantics, but also of ethics and politics, 'deconstruction' should never lead either to relativism or to any sort of indeterminism." Derrida, and I only use him as an example because he is so often blamed for having loosed this relativism upon criticism, argues not against the value of truth; instead he reinscribes it in "larger, more stratified contexts." He does not say, anywhere that I can find in his writings, that there is no reality, no referent, but that one cannot refer to this "real" except in an interpretive experience. The antiessentialist position is generally easily confirmed by the existence of items taken by speakers of the language to belong to the same category that do not, at the same time, seem to share that "essential" characteristic. Thus, to use one immediate example, if Clarence Thomas is not "really" a black person, then the color of a person's skin must not be an essential trait of social blackness; and if he _is_ really a black person, then many of the cultural traits taken by people too numerous to mention as being "essential" to blackness must not be essential after all. Admittedly a bad example -- but it was Genet who once asked "what color is a black man?" and he hadn't been reading Said, Fish, or Foucault on that day either -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 07:45:33 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: relatively late Thanks for the reply, Aldon - it's answered some of my questions and, not unexpectedly, raised a few more. >I am still unsure how the general understanding that poststructuralist >theories are "relativist" came about. Maybe through reader-centred theories of literature, at least in my case. I got the impression that (at least in their most extreme varieties) these theories hold that every reader's viewpoint is as valid as any other's, including that of the author. This seemed to parallel the idea, borrowed from Special Relativity, that "there is no privileged frame of reference". >To claim that value is produced by >social activities, not inherent as a property in an object as such, or to >argue that there is no transcendant a priori realm of truth by which >human utterances may be measured, is not necessarily to assume what is >popularly known as an absolute relativism. This is really more an >argument about what truth and value _are_ than a claim that it's all >relative. I guess that I assumed a binary opposition between "absolute" & "relative", based upon the dictionary definition of "absolute" being "not relative", whereas poststructuralist thought attempts to bypass this division. Is that what you're saying? What _are_ truth & value, if they are neither "[a] transcendent a priori realm of thruth" nor dependent upon the perceiver? Or is my definition of "relativism" astray? I have friends who would claim that we all have our own "truths", each as valid as any other - perhaps this is more a New Age belief, based upon second-hand misreadings of Quantum Mechanics, rather than any form of poststructuralist theory. >Derrida ... argues not against the value of truth; instead he reinscribes >it in "larger, more stratified contexts." I'm intrigued by this. Could you elaborate upon what he means by these contexts? >The antiessentialist position is generally easily confirmed >by the existence of items taken by speakers of the language to belong to >the same category that do not, at the same time, seem to share that >"essential" characteristic. It could be argued that, in a crude sense, the speakers are not speaking the same language. Of course, the reductio ad absurdum of that argument is that we _all_ speak different languages, but the borders of what constitutes "a" language are impossibly fuzzy. If one person defines "blackness" by purely genetic or chromatic criteria, and another by purely cultural criteria, then they are speaking different languages (of course this happens all the time); when the cultural criteria have been associated with chromatic ones, and then both sets of criteria start to blur and (literally) blend, we end up with real confusion. In the case that you mentioned, "blackness" might be treated in fuzzy logic terms - the extent to which person A can be described as "black" depends upon the number of those "essential" traits that he or she exhibits. We could certainly do with a less "black & white" (so to speak) view of ethnicity and cultural belonging. I have certain characteristics that would lead me to being culturally identified as an Englishman, others that would classify me as a New Zealander, an still others that fit nowhere. It might be simplistic, but can we view someone as being neither "really" black nor "really" white, and not somwhere inbetween; but as an individual with personal traits that hail from (say) Africa, England, ancient Athens and Japan, independent of their own cultural upbringing and genetic composition? Tom Beard, late in the evening (which is going to end soon). ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://www.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:29:11 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: dunno but Of recent postings I am most intrigued by Pat Phillip's (in part because I know of the sign of which you and Rae spoke, Pat---Hey Pat, does RAE have a POEM on this sign? If so, I'd love to see it.) Though this sign of an illegal immigrant family crossing may not get stuck in what you call "the mill of the said," it has been MADE INTO a T-SHIRT (I'm absolutely serious about this) and the irony here assumes an idea of authorial intention. I don't quite know how to "read" it--IS the sign designed to be analogous to DEER CROSSING signs ("WARNING: ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS---like those "SLOW CHILDREN signs) or is it blatantly sinister in intention (as if to say STOP YOUR CAR AND PLEASE ENGAGE IN VIGILANTE ACTIVITIES and round up these "nonpersons" so the price of fruit may go up, etc). Anyway, your point is well taken Pat, A point of poetry is to de essential- ize. Of course, that's not the only point, and Aldon's reading of Derrida's non "relativism" is astute (I mean "task" not "point"). As is the complexity Pat points to through his recognition of inevitable failure in going "out to use". Part of the problem is that the word "use" in Pat's formulation is implicitly contrasted with "exchange" and thus seems it must be read as similar to "essential" in contrast to the relativity of exchange. This is useful (sorry) up to a point, but then the word "use" has been used in so many ways--and though it may seem to be some kind of archimedian point beyond "the mill of the said",in other contexts the word has decidedly more negative connotations. When Stevie Wonder sings "where he lives they don't use colored people" there is on one level a complaint about unemployment and on another level a critique of the systematic USE of employees in general. As if to say "THEY DON'T EVEN USE US" and calling attention to the doubly disen- franchised status. To the extent, that the political implications here are seen in opposition to each other--in sofar as wanting to be USED and wanting to DO AWAY WITH USE as such are contradictory urges foisted upon people by "economic necessity" poetry may seem to fail--but the double meaning in Wonder's use of USE may be said to be a kind of Alchemy (as Foster understands it): the sum greater than the parts. chris s. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:02:57 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: dunno but >the irony of >a street sign she talked about along the CA/Mexico border depicting a small >family running - a family crossing sign - This sign appears on I-5 between LA and San Diego, where I-5 goes through Camp Pendleton. Its combination of caring (don't run over these people) and condemnation (these people are *aliens*) goes far beyond irony, well into that brilliant hell where good people who work in bureaucracies -- your average social worker, for example -- construct their daily, necessarily compromised lives. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:09:03 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: more flamingos Tony Green writes: >FLAMINGO >MESSAGES > >50 Flaminos secretly set up before 6 am for >the ultimate surprise (home or work). >Includes personalised sign. Lasts all day at >$70. Any Occasion. > >Ph: (64 09) 0800 42 5050 > all hours > > ---- ad in (NZ) The TV Guide this week > Anyone the list know how much Eleanor Antin "charged" for 100 boots, an art precursor to this, um, business venture? But I guess this is just another example of popularizing (or commercializing) an art form. Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 13:32:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: ...too much magic bus... on the scenic south side of chicago, where the only visible artistic endeavors are graffiti, some of the city buses have a poster series called "street stories" or something very much like that. In the last two weeks i've seen Michael McClure, Lorine Neidecker, and Wallace Stevens on the bus while riding through the projects... ...beats the shit out of flamingoes! eryque ___________________________________________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd be 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 problems... Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:04:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: dunnot but / late capitalism tom: you're absolutely right; the connection is real. as for the "late" in "late capitalism," so far that's wishful thinking, tho you'll find argument to the contrary. in any case, the oddity is that such claims, unless they be merely wishful, return one to logos, logic, history, and other muddied realms of the essential. i love foucault but wish he'd been a poet. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:10:08 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: dunno but ah, yes, irony: for some, and as a late device, when the rhetoric is set, but it can be precious and cloud the particular. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:31:14 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Beth Russell Subject: hypertextual understanding Judy, yes, of course there are things one can _do_ with the _physically_ tangible book; the marginalia, drafts, notes and arguments via notes, seems to me to be very significant methods of _challenging_ a text. HT/hypermedia certainly extend these possibilities. My particular problem (and it may not even be a problem, but more an inevitable dilemma) concerns the movement of technology (gies) within society, before _we_ (as a social body enacting laws or rules) have had a chance to understand the theoretical implications of what it is we are doing...what I'm trying to get at is an understanding of how we can _look_ at these _new_/moving technologies w/out becoming blindly accepting of the mediums; it seems that there has been an anti-analytical tradition going on in pre-capital--through--late-capital social structures, which ignores the implications of the theoretical--and then, it is too late to analyze...for example, the television has radically changed the world, but was there ever any questioning of tv at its be- ginning stages, of potential problematics? or the washing machine, or microwaves or electric blankets....absurdly speaking, perhaps. It seems that we move after the technology, rather than before or _with_ it, in understanding. beth ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:38:17 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: Re: hypertextual understanding beth, part of what you say reminds me of the old anon. saying, that "science owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine to science"... another way of putting which is to observe that the steam engine predates the science of thermodynamics, that theoretical practice, as it were, often lags behind other sorts of practice... the anxieties you allude to have been with 'us' for a long while... one resurfacing occurs in eisenhower's allowance, during the fifties, that our technologies, esp. the atomic bomb, have outstripped our capacity for dealing with same (see that midnight madness flick, if you haven't already, _the atomic cafe_)... artists in this century seem to me to have in many cases expressed a profound ambivalence about alla this... all best// joe ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 16:06:44 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Judy Roitman Subject: Re: hypertextual understanding >It seems > that we move after the technology, rather than before or _with_ it, in > understanding. > > beth I think that's a given, I think it's true for everyone in all cultures, and I think it's true not just for technology but for anything (even the attempts of people to hang on to old stuff has unanticipatable consequences). Which is not of course saying that we shouldn't try to at least think about it. We just need a little humility is all. (Those of us who lived through the fifties may remember those incredibly self-assured comics that predicted the future -- got any monorails suspended up in the air in your neighborhood? -- and managed to completely miss major changes then under way such as the near-death of the inner city and the growth of exurbia.) ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 22:45:05 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: signs taken for wonders In-Reply-To: <199511030504.VAA02837@sparta.SJSU.EDU> on my way to Santa Barbara, so only have time for a couple quick notes -- --that sign of the nuclear family in flight is also the cover art for the anthology from Duke edited by Alfred Arteaga and titled, if I remember it right, _In Other Words_ -- a good read My own wonder was always elicited by that other crossing icon, the striding profile pedestrian that appears on signs beside the road -- some of these symbolic pedestrians seem to be missing hands and feet, which has always caused me to take them more as a warning to walkers than to drivers -- Quickest place to see Derrida trying to be clear about that larger context for truth is in the cited _Limited Inc_ -- Haven't actually seen the question of "validity" crossed with the question of "relativism" in much reader response work that I've read -- For American reader respondnets of the Holland type, the question of "validity" doesn't really apply -- It does apply very much within European reader response critics, such as Iser, but there, given the background of phenomenalism, "relayivity" doesn't have much currency. In any event -- part of the confusion seems to arise from people assuming that because there are an infinite number of possible interpretations, any interpretation can be "valid." I don't know of anybody who makes that claim seriously (which does not mean that such people don't exist.) There is an infinite number of possible prime numbers, but not all numbers can be prime numbers -- for example -- The problem with the "it's all relative" stance is that it essentialy brings a halt to any useful conversation about the interpretations -- We can examine interpretations in relationship to their own inner logics, and we can certainly place "competing" intepretations alongside each other in varying reading contexts and ask ourselves how they do the work that they perform, all of which can lead to interesting discussions that have the effect of causing us to rethink and recontextualize our modes of reading -- But the upshot of this is that the folks who complain that poststructuralist theories are relativist aren't really interested in having that kind of conversation -- they want, instead, to make one of the parties to the conversation go away -- Now I have to go away for the week-end -- but the various ghosts in my machines will collect the digests for me and I'll weigh in again soon -- ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 09:04:45 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: Re: magic bus In-Reply-To: <199511030510.FAA13821@hermes.dur.ac.uk> Those poetry posters on the buses: would that be STREET FARE JOURNAL? If so I've seen several of them - they're edited/designed by George Evans and there's been some good'uns. Decently designed - which puts them way ahead of our "Poetry on the Underground", which look as if they were selected by the Department of Education and Employment and designed by the Department of Transport. I'd still prefer the flamingos: saw one solitary one once (an escapee) on an estuary in East Anglia, grazing next to "native" waders (avocet, redshank etc) which would have looked gaudy in any other company... I'd like to have made up "Department of Education and Employment", but I didn't. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 12:16:51 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: signs taken for wonders Aldon - >In any event -- part of the confusion seems to arise from people assuming >that because there are an infinite number of possible interpretations, >any interpretation can be "valid." I don't know of anybody who makes >that claim seriously (which does not mean that such people don't exist.) Most of my high school English teachers claimed this, saying that "everyone has their own truth, each of which is equally valid". I don't know if they learnt this through some form of theory, or whether it is part of the Zeitgeist that grew up along with the theory. There was also a controversy here recently when the Museum of NZ had an exhibit ("Voices", I think) portraying the origins of NZ, and the "voice of the Maori" was presented alongside the "voice of science" as equally valid thruths about the origin of the earth and its landforms. This seemed akin to the Southern state (Alabama? Tennessee?) that decreed in the 80s that "Creation Science" had to be taught alongside evolution in classrooms. Anyway, it seems that the distinction between "response" and "interpretation" is vital here. There is no such thing as an "invalid" response - to claim so would be nonsense. When a reader/perceiver projects that response back upon the text and attempts to draw conclusions about it, then questions of (in)validity come into play. As a very crude example, I might read a poem as making a comparison between an apple and a lightbulb, and I might be struck by this image. This response cannot be judged as valid or otherwise. If, however, I then interpret the poem as meaning that apples & lightbulbs share the property of edibility, I might be in for a painful demonstration of the invalidity of this interpretation. >But the upshot of this is that the folks who complain that >poststructuralist theories are relativist aren't really interested in >having that kind of conversation -- they want, instead, to make one of >the parties to the conversation go away -- Perhaps ... but that's just you're interpretation. But seriously, as you say, _both_ extremes (_I'm_ right & _you're_ wrong; vs. well, we're all right in our own ways, aren't we?) will end the conversation. Perhaps we need some sort of Popperian approach to interpretation: each viewpoint is tentative & cannot be proven, but should be open to falsification if it is to be considered. This might keep the dialogue open. Tom Beard. ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://www.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 07:14:55 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: do know but? (no I don't know but I'm getting embarrassed at seeing over & over again a title I originally slapped on a message to designate fumblings or fake fumblings, who knows at this point....) >Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 10:29:11 -0500 >From: Chris Stroffolino >Subject: Re: dunno but > > Of recent postings I am most intrigued by Pat Phillip's.... > Part of the problem is that the word "use" in Pat's formulation > is implicitly contrasted with "exchange" and thus seems it must be read > as similar to "essential" in contrast to the relativity of exchange. > This is useful (sorry) up to a point, but then the word "use" has been > used in so many ways--and though it may seem to be some kind of archimedian > point beyond "the mill of the said",in other contexts the word has > decidedly more negative connotations. Right, I think, on the supposed archimedian point. I think the term "use" got abused pretty badly in some early euphoric Language-writing theory for just that reason. The use/exchange dyad got marshaled in strange ways in the seventies. The hasping to "use" strikes me as odd, too, in Pat Phillip's post since so much of it hovers over the Derrida interchange w Searle, where the use/mention dyad Searle clings to from Austin comes in for Derrida's most manic dissecting. So, Pat: if not (?) use versus exchange or use versus mention, then use versus what? Or do you have use/exchange in mind? Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 07:33:12 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: too, too late ? >Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 15:04:50 -0500 >From: Edward Foster >Subject: Re: dunnot but / late capitalism > >tom: you're absolutely right; the connection is real. as for the "late" in >"late capitalism," so far that's wishful thinking, tho you'll find argument >to the contrary. in any case, the oddity is that such claims, unless they >be merely wishful, return one to logos, logic, history, and other muddied >realms of the essential. i love foucault but wish he'd been a poet. -ed so that even the disclaimers in Jameson's pomo book sound disingenuous ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 09:47:56 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: hypertextual understanding who you gonna bomb hum bomb i think about technological anxiety and autism - a shutting off of feeling and adoptation of mechanical/robotic function. in the case of bettelheim's study of Joey, a boy who needed the idea of machines in order for him to live. he ate by hooking up his "wires" to the table, slept with a steering wheel, etc. When do machines run us? The collaboration between human and machine, perhaps an alternate cyborg, is both deadly and promising. when I read the listserv mostly i am struck dumb, wish to revert to a silent blob, feel hostility towards others - I hate this reaction - don't understand whether i bring my own bad mood to the screen, or whether i want talk about poetry to mean more. or whether i get bumbed out because there are virtually less women contributors and wonder whether the forum and the way in which most examples are spoken is something I am just less interested in than writing poetry, in which case i should probably take the listserv less seriously. knowing it is not gender specific language, but a strange world in which speaking is constructed via machine waves. much more satisfying for me this goes back to an earlier comment, to communicate - instead of pass information along - although i definitely think passing information is important. hmmm. I may just be caught in the dreg. spring ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 10:07:18 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: ASJA Contracts Watch (fwd) Forwarded message: From majordom@runner.jpl.utsa.edu Thu Nov 2 09:06:05 1995 Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 09:03:52 -0500 (EST) From: Lucy Komisar To: PEN Listserv Subject: ASJA Contracts Watch (fwd) Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Content-Length: 7790 Sender: owner-pen@runner.jpl.utsa.edu Precedence: bulk ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: 02 Nov 95 01:05:45 EST From: Dan Carlinsky <102026.3143@compuserve.com> To: Lucy Komisar Subject: ASJA Contracts Watch I don't know if you see our occasional dispatches on rights matters for freelancers. Here's the most recent. Can you tell me if there's an Echo spot for such news to be posted for interested writers? Dan Carlinsky Chair, Contracts Committee American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA) ASJA CONTRACTS WATCH CW951101 Issued November 1, 1995 [The American Society of Journalists and Authors encourages reproduction and distribution of this document for the benefit of freelance writers. Reprint or post as many items as you wish, but please credit ASJA for the information and don't change the content.] + + + + + + + + + + + + Pandemonium on the Thames: A planned copyright grab by EMAP BUSINESS PUBLISHING, a leading UK house of business and computer magazines and professional journals, may be in for rough sledding. Internal memos just leaked by the UK's National Union of Journalists detail the publisher's plan to force freelance contributors to give up "copyright and all other rights throughout the world ... in all media." Editors were summoned to an October 26 "seminar" to chat about the move with management and receive instruction in the fine points of coercing writers. Instead, according to a report from the NUJ, virtually every editor in attendance spoke against the copyright grab, and just an hour into what was scheduled to be a three-to-four-hour session, the meeting "closed in an uproar with 30-40 editors shouting for their questions to be answered" as senior management beat a hasty retreat. At the NEW YORK TIMES, editors are perhaps somewhat less demonstrative but clearly unhappy-bordering-on-angry over how they're being forced to treat freelancers; a staff meeting on the plan to take copyright and all rights from outside writers was described by a participant as "raucous." Since then, disgruntled editors at several sections have been dealing with certain reluctant writers by ignoring the management directive and allowing them to write without a signed contract. Management, for its part, is stepping up its strategy of Divide and Conquer. Originally, the Magazine, Book Review and op ed section were declared exempt from the rights-grab order; now, the editors of Travel and Arts & Leisure reportedly have been told they may spare important contributors. The form of dispensation for the favored few varies. Most of those who write for Book Review, for instance, are left very nearly as bad off and insulted as the mass of Times freelancers; they're expected to let the publisher sell and resell their property via syndication and electronic means forever, without being cut in. Other writers get a pretty clean, almost bare-bones contract. At the Times, one size does not fit all. Meanwhile, more and more publications seem to be doing it right. SKI Magazine (of TIMES MIRROR MAGAZINES), has begun a World Wide Web venture called SkiNet, consisting of articles from the magazine and daily reports from race circuits and elsewhere in the ski world. Writers happily report that Ski has agreed to pay an extra fee equal to 10 percent of the article price for the right to include a work in the new venture. And an editor confirms that the magazine will take a fair approach by limiting the license to SkiNet only, for just one skiing season. "If we want to do something else, like a CD-ROM," says an editor, "we'll come back to you." Visits to the Web site are already being tracked per article; as traffic and revenue increase, editors say, the magazine will raise the fee for SkiNet or start paying a per-hit royalty. Freelancers' paperwork from GENERAL MEDIA (which publishes PENTHOUSE, LONGEVITY and others) arrives with a cover letter warning: "Please do not make changes to our contract." Not everyone listens and behaves. Some Penthouse writers report making contract improvements, including changes to the warranty and indemnity, addition of author consultation on editing, and earmarking of 10 percent of the fee for electronic rights. The editor of a sister General Media magazine, FORUM, is more generous with contract fixes. One recent deal reported by a Forum freelancer eliminates some of the extra rights requested and calls for negotiated payments for all others, including electronic. Add CHILD (a GRUNER + JAHR title) to the list of magazines that try to get writers to accept a work-made-for-hire contract, then retreat and mail "the right contract" on request. The second-try contract needs fine-tuning; as with other G + J titles (such as McCALL'S, FAMILY CIRCLE and YM), writers who stand firm with CHILD can make substantive changes in several clauses. Hardest for G + J to give up, apparently, is the claim for free electronic rights. The boilerplate asks for a three-year license, and editors routinely try to insist on a "compromise" of one year for free. Writers who won't back down, however, are able to cancel the clause entirely. Absent proper compensation for the rights, that's just what they should do. THE GLOBE AND MAIL, the national newspaper of Canada, has released a new freelance agreement demanding permanent nonexclusive world rights for all media. The Periodical Writers Association of Canada has blasted the rights grab with a blunt statement accusing the publisher of "bullying," calling on writers to refuse, and urging those who have signed without thinking to rescind their OKs. John Mason, PWAC's national president, quotes with irony a line from Junius on the Globe masthead, which urges that loyal subjects "neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures." Mason suggests writers protest to executive editor Earle Gill, 444 Front Street West, Toronto, ON M5V 2S9, fax 416-585-5070. ASJA president Janice Hopkins Tanne has joined PWAC's effort by writing to Gill: "Writers have no problem with granting you the extra rights beyond first use that you may need, but not for free." Yet another writer has told Contracts Watch of turning down a request from a READER'S DIGEST editor to submit story ideas. After reading the Digest's contract demands, the writer responded: "As a professional writer, I simply cannot sign a contract that demands `all rights' on print and electronic media as well as `the right of first refusal' on all other rights." Other RD magazines--AMERICAN HEALTH, NEW CHOICES and TRAVEL HOLIDAY--do not ask all rights. And on electronic rights, they offer, for example, either a share of income or a flat fee for restricted e-rights. And a writer passes on this comment from a READER'S DIGEST BOOKS editor trying to line up a large number of contributors to a group effort: "Every time I talk to a writer, all he wants to talk about is the contract." [The American Society of Journalists and Authors is the national organization of leading freelance writers. Inquiries from all are welcome: Contracts Committee, ASJA, 1501 Broadway, New York, NY 10036, tel 212-997-0947, fax 212-768-7414, e-mail 75227.1650@compuserve.com [To receive each edition of ASJA Contracts Watch automatically by e-mail, send the following e-mail command: TO: MAJORDOMO@ESKIMO.COM TEXT: SUBSCRIBE ASJACW-L [You'll receive only occasional official dispatches: no reader responses or junk mail, no flooded mailbox. [Many ASJA members and others send a steady stream of contracts, information and scuttlebutt so that these ASJA Contracts Watch dispatches can be as informative as possible. To thank all contributors individually would be impossible. You know who you are. So do we.] ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | "Poems are sketches for existence." Dept. of English | --Paul Celan SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Revisionist plots tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | are everywhere and our pronouns haven't yet email: | drawn up plans for the first coup." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --J.H. Prynne ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 09:44:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: magic bus >Those poetry posters on the buses: would that be STREET FARE JOURNAL? Those are the ones... if anything as colorful as a flamingo ever showed up at 22nd and State, no one would know what to do with it. Busload of flighty creatures? Sounds like the mall bus to me... _____________________________________!________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 be problems. Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 11:05:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: EPC.Live ------------------------------ Poetics Live and in Real-Time E P C * L i v e ! November, 1995 ------------------------------ What is EPCLive! POETICS LIVE & FACE-TO-FACE (well, in temporal sync that is), that is the promise of EPC's new venue, EPCLive! What is it? Through a couple of simple commands (no more than four, really) to connect -- and through the use of about two to four commands while in the EPCLive, real time gatherings are now at your doorstep. Call it a virtual coffee house, a town hall for the town of Poetics, or just a place for you when you want to hang out with other Poetics folk, this space now extends the possibilities of the EPC and RIF/T magazine. Thanks to Kenneth Sherwood who, as a special project, has arranged for the use of an IRC channel as this private public space for the EPC, we now have access to the live "community center" for our community on the Net. Live, Volume 1 Last night, a test virtual gathering -- the first test of this space -- was undertaken as a local event. Everything went off without a hitch. Though the turnout was less than say, your average Rolling Stones concert, and there were occasional small lags in response time, the "live" feeling, and the actual interactivity of the Net were full swing in the service of Poetics. (We are just one of many live forums, of course. Interesting that other "live forums" occupy such different social space. There is one called "Hot Tub." There are others that are openly based on differing fetishizations of sexuality, human and otherwise. The list is endless. Having EPCLive however, is like having our own coffee house on a street where there are no zoning restrictions. Where freedom of "circulation" has its own poetic foothold.) The energy was intense as those of us present fired poetic statements, questions, possibilities into this shared space, the umbrella of this electronic writing environment. The possibilities for a number of simulataneous interested voices were astonishing. Testing 1-2-3 I would like to offer, for those of you would might want to try out this space, my availability for any "test" sessions. Simply backchannel me (lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu) and we can set up a time (I will coordinate with Ken. Or feel free to write directly to Ken at v001pxfu@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu) Our feeling last night was that there might be some who are a little uncertain about slinging quatrains in this new medium. So my thought is, just let us know what time might be good for you. We can be there. Let's run a couple of very informal test excursions into EPCLive. Stay Tuned And this, of course, as a prelude to many marvellous events forthcoming in this space. ***A LIST OF EVENTS SOON TO BE POSTED!*** There will be interviews, public gatherings, questions and answers (LIVE of course) with those working on recent major poetics projects. It is my own hope to have EPCLive open for an hour weekly, in addition, so that we may, in the pure space of poetics, informally chat with each other there, talk about particular events, themes, authors. It's here. Let's extend our sense of community into this newly dedicated town hall--standing above the municipality of poetics. As public space, it's there for us all. Respectfully submitted, Loss Pequen~o Glazier for Loss Glazier & Ken Sherwood in collaboration with Ch. Bernstein ------------------------------ _Appendix I_ EPC.Live! Directions for signing on (by Ken Sherwood): UNIX >From your system prompt, type: irc Then type the following two lines: /serv undernet.org /join #EPCLIVE (you should now be able to type and read whoever is there) VAX Type: telnet telnet1.us.undernet.org 6677 Return several times and follow prompts; when asked for which channel you want to join, choose '0'. Then type: /serv undernet.org /join #EPCLIVE (you should now be able to type and read whoever is there) ------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 11:28:40 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Nonlinear paradigms I am forwarding this message from a book arts list, and, given recent discussions of hypertext here on Poetics, I am hoping someone (Jim Rosenberg or Loss Glazier or Joe Amato or John Cayley or others) may be able to point this message-sender in some helpful directions. >Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 09:25:18 -0500 >Reply-To: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, > collecting" " >Sender: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, > collecting" " >From: Grendel >Subject: Re: Nonlinear paradigms >To: Multiple recipients of list BOOK_ARTS-L > >X-UIDL: 815418671.009 > >Hello, I am in the process of writing a book-length creative work in >hypertext form. I have been largely unsuccessful in finding suitable >examples of hypertexts (electronic form please) to use as references or >source material. It seems like the readers of this list are quite >familiar with not only the principles of hypertext (which everyone seems >to have an opinion on) but actual hypertexts, which I had come to think >were very rare. (Please note that I am not interested in things like the >Talmud, which may display principles of hypertext; I am interested in >things which were written self-consciously as such, preferably by a >single author.) Please point me toward some hypertexts. > >-Gregor Delisle > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 14:07:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: epc Subject: Re: Nonlinear paradigms Comments: cc: lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu In-Reply-To: <199511031728.LAA25730@freedom.mtn.org> from "Charles Alexander" at Nov 3, 95 11:28:40 am Why don't we compile a list of very striking hypertexts (and I will send a copy to Gregor and post to this list.) I like this distinction, hypertexts consciously conceived as such. Would Jim, Joe, John, Ken, and others like to send me their recommendations back channel? I'll make a little bibliography, just ten or twelve items total, put it on the epc and also post here. You folks interested? -- Loss ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > I am forwarding this message from a book arts list, and, given > recent discussions of hypertext here on Poetics, I am hoping someone > (Jim Rosenberg or Loss Glazier or Joe Amato or John Cayley or > others) may be able to point this message-sender in some helpful > directions. > > > > > >Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 09:25:18 -0500 > >Reply-To: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, > > collecting" " > >Sender: "The Book Arts: binding, typography, > > collecting" " > >From: Grendel > >Subject: Re: Nonlinear paradigms > >To: Multiple recipients of list BOOK_ARTS-L > > > >X-UIDL: 815418671.009 > > > >Hello, I am in the process of writing a book-length creative work in > >hypertext form. I have been largely unsuccessful in finding suitable > >examples of hypertexts (electronic form please) to use as references or > >source material. It seems like the readers of this list are quite > >familiar with not only the principles of hypertext (which everyone seems > >to have an opinion on) but actual hypertexts, which I had come to think > >were very rare. (Please note that I am not interested in things like the > >Talmud, which may display principles of hypertext; I am interested in > >things which were written self-consciously as such, preferably by a > >single author.) Please point me toward some hypertexts. > > > >-Gregor Delisle > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 20:28:04 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: signs taken for wonders >My own wonder was always elicited by that other crossing icon, the >striding profile pedestrian that appears on signs beside the road -- some >of these symbolic pedestrians seem to be missing hands and feet, which >has always caused me to take them more as a warning to walkers than to >drivers -- which reminds me of the ped crossing signs i saw in saudi arabia many years ago, which were headless. the reason being, a muslim taboo on representation of human form (an act reserved for allah); but doubly visioned fr me, 14 years old, being exposed to a culture that still practiced capital punishment by public decapitation... lbd ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 23:26:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Poetics Log Files Poetics log files through Oct. 1995 are now available via the EPC. I have divided recent log files into two sections due to their large size. You may still need to leave and re-enter your browser each time you wish to view one. (They are *big*!) ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 20:46:25 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: hypertextual understanding spring, i think that there is a great deal of significance in what you are saying - i don't think it is a gender issure - however i would not call it technological anxiety but rather anxiety technological - anxiety leads to the resort to technologies as a way of coping with the anxieties of the times - the difficulty arises when technol;ogy is used to avoid the feelings rather than express or make them meningful. Tom spring writes: >who you gonna bomb hum bomb >i think about technological anxiety and autism - a shutting off ... >feel hostility towards others - >I hate this reaction - don't understand whether i bring my own >bad mood to the screen, or whether i want talk about poetry to >mean more. or whether ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 3 Nov 1995 23:50:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Poetics Log File -- a note For those who have asked, the log file for January 1994 has been rebuilt (there were some portions of it missing) and is now available and complete. > Poetics log files through Oct. 1995 are now available via the EPC. > I have divided recent log files into two sections due to their large > size. You may still need to leave and re-enter your browser each time > you wish to view one. (They are *big*!) > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 00:13:03 +0000 Reply-To: jzitt@humansystems.com Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Authenticated sender is From: Joseph Zitt Organization: HumanSystems Subject: Wilmington, Hardcopy, and Chainsaw Flamingoes I've just plowed through about 1.5 Meg of stacked up Poetics posts. *Whew*! A few things popped out (aside from the general fascinatingness of the conversation when viewed in a more compact mode): Ron Silliman asks whether amy poets have ever lived in Wilmington. Assuming you mean Delaware, errrrr, yeah. I was there for five months last year -- and the damn city was so stifling that I fled back to Texas. The state of Delaware is designed and run BY business FOR business, and the fact that there are *residents* seems to be viewed as, at most, a minor detail. The only arts there are those which businesses like to contribute to; thus there is an opera company, ballet, Broadway-like theatre, and very close to absolutely nothing on a grassroots level. (The one exception was a very good community-based dance/theatre piece that Liz Lerman did in a church downtown.) When I described my arts activities in Texas to my coworkers, they asked if that's what people do when they have too much time on their hands. The only poetry in the state, it seems, was a once-a-month slam in Claymont. (To compound the disaster of the entire experience, the "friend" who I trusted to help finish my move (since I didn't have a chance to finish packing), quickly disappeared, along with my VCRs, my microwave, my collection of about 500 CDs, and my guitar... but i can't necessarily blame him on Delaware, since he lived in Philadelphia.) Reading the talk of writing in the margins of books and hypertext, I got to wonder if any libraries anywhere had a section of their collection in which the readers were *encouraged* to write in the margins, as a form of community conversation. Probably an old idea, but fun to consider. I also wonder who would be stuck with the damage bill if someone on whose lawn a flock of flamingoes (flamingos? flamingi? Mr Quayle?) was inflicted would humorlessly take a chainsaw to them. (Well, odds are the flamingim (?) would no longer be stuck to *their* bills..) ---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------1---------- |||/ Joseph Zitt ==== jzitt@humansystems.com ===== Human Systems \||| ||/ Organizer, SILENCE: The John Cage Mailing List \|| |/Joe Zitt's Home Page\| ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 11:42:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: do know but? Tenney and Chris and others, my hope in "Re:dunno but" was to point to a knot. Irony, a rhetorical mode, is at once bound by rhetoric and, in Rae Armantrout and others, rejects it. Irony is used in a kind of exchange that is intent on questioning that process of exchange, but also is bound by the frame of its argument argument as a self-satisfying and in some ways unquestioning thing -- word as both liberatory and vain. But this is not a clear examination of exchange-value vs use-value. I do want to see rhetoric as an instance of self-satisfaction that can be likened to the moment use-value is made distinct from exchange-value. Word as vehicle for argument, argument as commodity. But in Armantrout's work I see rhetoric's bag turned inside out. Language is de-privatized, made social, all-the-while moving in the contour of thought, ear, the personal. The personal as social - exchange as indistinct from use. In many ways this is a vital mode of lang-po. But it is also a marker of a problem poetries that are particularly liberatory. In many ways we are hemmed in when we go out to use. The liberatory moment of language is in many ways kept - an irony. By not capitulating to rhetoric, poetry that persists in calling out the social allows the word to persist - we tactically use. Rhetoric introduces exchange value. In this I want to reject rhetoric in-as-much as I would like to reject form. Perhaps an impossibility. As to mention/exchange and the Searle/Derrida thing, Tenney I'd like to know more about it. I can only assume, perhaps wrongly, that some of the "exchange" can be collapsed into Derrida's notion of gift. That at the moment of exchange, before the pact is set, before the hands part, there is evidence of the impossible. I sense this "impossible" too as an extrapolation from the intent of the gift. The exchange here only being a before- and after-image of the flash of the impossible. Bah, Counterfiet money. I would guess "mention" takes up a similar space, and inter-spoken space, kind of like Barthes hiatus. I think the fabrication of these spaces a post-structuralist dance of desire and that use super-imposes itself upon such spaces - or, it's better that we go out into the social, and take our licks. Chris, I don't think Rae has a poem about that sign. She just mentioned it in the course of her reading. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 12:03:55 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: signs taken for wonders >Aldon - > >>In any event -- part of the confusion seems to arise from people assuming >>that because there are an infinite number of possible interpretations, >>any interpretation can be "valid." I don't know of anybody who makes >>that claim seriously (which does not mean that such people don't exist.) > Tom Beard: >Most of my high school English teachers claimed this, saying that "everyone has >their own truth, each of which is equally valid". I don't know if they learnt >this through some form of theory, or whether it is part of the Zeitgeist that >grew up along with the theory. Gilles Deleuze points out, in both _The Fold_ and _What Is Philosophy?_ (probably elsewhere as well), that what the partial observer in Einstein represents is "not a relativity of truth [which is what Tom's teachers claimed], but, on the contrary, a truth of the relative." This is elaborated on in terms of Deleuze's interpretation of monads, each of which, he says, "express the entire world, but only clearly express one particular area." >There was also a controversy here recently when >the Museum of NZ had an exhibit ("Voices", I think) portraying the origins of >NZ, and the "voice of the Maori" was presented alongside the "voice of >science" as equally valid thruths about the origin of the earth and its >landforms. This seemed akin to the Southern state (Alabama? Tennessee?) that >decreed in the 80s that "Creation Science" had to be taught alongside evolution >in classrooms. There seems to be a difference in the mode of presentation here, though, in that "the voice of the Maori" doesn't present itself as science but myth, with a mythical truth that IS as valid in the realm of myth as the voice of science is in the realm of science. What creation science wants to do is to present mythical truths AS scientific ones; and further, as BETTER scientific truths than evolution attains to. >Anyway, it seems that the distinction between "response" and "interpretation" >is vital here. There is no such thing as an "invalid" response - to claim so >would be nonsense. When a reader/perceiver projects that response back upon the >text and attempts to draw conclusions about it, then questions of (in)validity >come into play. > >As a very crude example, I might read a poem as making a comparison between an >apple and a lightbulb, and I might be struck by this image. This response >cannot be judged as valid or otherwise. If, however, I then interpret the poem >as meaning that apples & lightbulbs share the property of edibility, I might be >in for a painful demonstration of the invalidity of this interpretation. Yes, if you were to interpret the poem as saying that apples and lightbulbs share the property of edibility *outside the frame of the poem.* Within that frame, the distinction between a response and an interpretation (which would seem to me to always begin at the response--correct me if I've neglected something--) is much blurrier. >But seriously, as you say, _both_ extremes (_I'm_ right & _you're_ wrong; vs. >well, we're all right in our own ways, aren't we?) will end the conversation. >Perhaps we need some sort of Popperian approach to interpretation: each >viewpoint is tentative & cannot be proven, but should be open to falsification >if it is to be considered. This might keep the dialogue open. This makes good sense. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 4 Nov 1995 19:13:10 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Transbluesency Just picked this up off the new titles rack at 57th St. Books... Transbluesency: The Selected...Amiri Baraka 1961-1995 272 pages for eighteen bucks, starts with "Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note" and ends with "Wise, Why's, Y'z" _____________________________________!________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 be problems. Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 13:06:25 +-100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "William M. Northcutt" Subject: Jameson... Been doing a lower GI recently on Jameson's Marxism and Form--for the first time--and I came across an interesting section in which he praises the ideals behind Surrealism, even if he finds the ideals much more interesting than the content. And on the other hand, he rips Perelman's China, in Postmodernism. Jameson says in Marxism and Form, to paraphrase, that since the world has been fragmented by commodification, the sort of fragmentary of the 20s can't work today. At least that's his explanation in Marxism and Form, and I suppose that's what he's thinking when he calls Perelman's work "schizophrenic" in Postmodernism. As I've read through Marxism and Form, I thought of Charles B's "...and the Artifice of Absorbtion," and it occured to me that perhaps Jameson is hung up terribly on "use value" in a very literal way. I've read only one rebuttal of Jameson's theories about language poetry, but I'm interested in what some of you who are familiar with Jameson think about his particular stance on the "new" poetry. Wm Northcutt ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------ "If you want to get laid, go to college. But if you want an education, go to the library." --Frank Zappa "Damn, these onion rings make my tongue bleed." --Ukelele Dave begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT M>)\^(AT,`0:0" `$```````!``$``0>0!@`(````Y 0```````#H``$-@ 0` M`@````(``@`!!) &`$0!```!````# ````,``# #````"P`/#@`````"`?\/ M`0```%4`````````@2L?I+ZC$!F=;@#=`0]4`@````!50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1I M``,P`0```!P```!03T5424-3 M0%5"5DTN0T,N0E5&1D%,3RY%1%4``P`5# $````#`/X/!@```!X``3 !```` M'@```"=50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1IKN@$>`' ``0````L```!*86UE`!X,`0````4```!33510```` M`!X`'PP!````(@```&)T#$N:')Z+G5N:2UB87ER975T:"YD M90````,`!A#(:T%V`P`'$"P$```>``@0`0```&4```!"145.1$])3D=!3$]7 M15)'25)%0T5.5$Q93TY*04U%4T].4TU!4EA)4TU!3D1&3U)-+2U&3U)42$5& M25)35%1)344M+4%.1$E#04U%04-23U-304Y)3E1%4D535$E.1U-%0U1)```` M``(!"1 !````* 0``"0$``!S!@``3%I&=1CV$7'_``H!#P(5`J@%ZP*#`% " M\@D"`&-H"L!S970R-P8`!L,"@S(#Q0(`<')"<1'B$@9&\+@&<@80H@%]!W!) @1TD@A1A 8PGP=&QY( (@6"!*80>!`B G M!"!-%0K > 0`;1V@;F0@8D8%L&TM+0(0!\=TA(F\A(07 M*P%D)[ A,6L%$00@4".A; .!'Y%#K2;!82>P)+%0(P!T!&3O( $K\!\6)"!A M$[ DHA_.&2>P=&\E8 K 87!HOR6 $; R41& !4 `D&X>@/4A$W<%L&P@8!& M)H(=(;D#4&%G!X C@2!@8A[0_06@;01A!I E`#. )'$S0O\A0!]@`" >X"@P M-48*P![1_R@P(2(!T 0@(H ?@ 5 -%%J:S)A9##@+@J%"H5!_05 ;"90(9(S M<1^1)/ $(/QE> M1+N D9C%?(#,>0/!S=7!P(P`S\CP#).#?,X$A,!^1(2 + M@&L=P5+%&$2 @(W8UP>\DLS."`W!+(WD(8"31,H#_"L A M01\P`Q ', 7 `_ A(/\P1T"35G4\4@JQ(P9S* ,G'O%[$[@%= *_!"5K$H(6AW?P.1"8 IH#;%:=0A M(B=P8F\E@%]Q0^ @P$8E@%QQ6N Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: hypertextual understanding Excellent, Tom. Yes. I agree. Thank you! Spring ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 12:28:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Yunte Huang, your Comrade" Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Re: Jameson... I'm not too familiar with Jameson's particular stance about "new" poetry, but I once heard him making some judgment about Amwrican "new" poetry in relation to another poetry culture, which I think might be helpful to understanding his real take if he has one. Two years ago I translated a collection of American Lang. poems into Chinese, and managed to take two of the poets across the P Ocean for some real Chinese food (see our report in the current issue of _Central Park_). We met Jameson in Beijing when we were holding a discussion with some Chinese poets, critics and scholars. I can't remember if Jameson said anything particular about Lang poetry because I was busy translating for everyone (I still have dreams about the content of that meeting which I will never be able to recuperate). But at the dinner table, Jamson (Jameson, typo) said to me over the wine glasses and chicken feet dishes: " In China, this kind of poetry you've just translated will only be liked by hooligan poets." By "hooligan," in the ci By "hooligan," in the context, I think he meant "bohemia," referring to a group of young and rebellious Chinese poets and artists who are doubly marginalized: first by the Communist establishment and official verse culture, second by the first generation of anti-commu and "humanitarian" poetry which is now well represented in the West (such as Bei dao's). But as a Chinese who might loosely belong to the category of "hooligans," I don't see Jameson's comment as correct. First, his categorization of that group of Chinese poets as Hooligans is questionable; it might indicate his take on American poets (?). Secondly, in terms of what kind of poetry will be liked or not liked by Chinese, it's not just a matter of the nature of the kind of poetry, it has a lot more to do with the imperialist power of American culture (including poetry) and the change of cultural environment in China (structure of feelings?). Well, this is too vague, but I don't want to dig into the details here since it's already a digression. But I hope the jamesonian anecdote might be helpful. Long live hooligans! --Yunte Huang ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 13:47:24 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rae Armantrout Subject: Re: dunno, but Dear Pat, Hi, the poem Chris was referring to is "Visibility" in MADE TO SEEM. I refer indirectly to the infamous sign in the last section of that. Oh, and thanks for your book. I probably won't be able to read it until Winter break so more anon Dear Wm Northcutt, I've written an essay which is partly about Jameson and his attack on Perelman. It's called "Irony And Postmodern Poetry." It hasn't been published yet, but I think it will be. Yours, Rae Armantrout ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 19:56:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: Jameson... There are other treatments of this "now notorious essay" as George Hartley put it, but you may want to see his "Jameson's Perelman" in _Textual Politics and the Language Poets_ for a post-Lacanian interpretation. In a nut-shell, Hartley contrasts J.'s schizophrenia analogy with the position that Perelman is suggesting, among other things, that "there are alternative ways of structuring (constituting) our experiences. Such alternatives "foreground" our social relations, not reify them. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 11:13:04 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Banton Rolins Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 30 Oct 1995 to 31 Oct 1995 In-Reply-To: <199511010504.NAA26447@ccunix> Does anyone have an email address for info about the Orono conference? Please post it if yes. Many thanks. Bart ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 22:38:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Beth Russell Subject: gory story Dear poetics folks, this may seem strange however it really happened today on sunday november fifth 95 and i dont know if anyone will care, but i'm sure you will be sensitive to this. outside of my window at about eleven thirty in the am i witnesses a sorry, that was "i witnessed" a rotweiler (sp?) rip to shreds a fluffy white dog, about the same size as the violent beast-- went right for the jugular and wouldnt let go i ran to the phone, called 911, called my local division police--panicked, didnt know what the hell to do. the owner of the white fluffy dog being ripped apart at the neck was an older lady (seemed very mild mannered) she didnt know how to get the "rot" off of her dog. the owner of the "rot" was banging the rot w/a chair, didnt apparently know how get the teeth off of fluffy. neighbors came to the street, staring in horrific amazement what to do what to do..i was angry..i ran out into the street and yelled at the owner of the rot and said "you should know that those dogs have been known to kill people and other animals, its fucked up!" he didn;t make eye contact with me. blood running down the public sewer hole. fluffy's snout poking out from a back in his yard. animal control van takes him away. fluffy is gone. this was kurtz's horror right in front of my very eyes. this was carnage in the street. this was horror. violence seeming to _breed_ violenzia. beth russell ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 23:12:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Giles Deleuze 1925-1995 Date: Sun, 05 Nov 1995 22:55:44 -0500 From: Ben Friedlander Subject: Deleuze Sad news-- > Group clari.living.books > article 2255 > > PARIS (AP) -- Prominent French philosopher, writer and university > professor Gilles Deleuze committed suicide by leaping from the > window of his Paris apartment, his family said Sunday. > Deleuze, whom French philosopher Michel Foucault once called > ``the only philosophical mind in France,'' died Saturday. He was > 70. > The author of one of the world's best selling philosophy books, > ``The Anti-Oedipus,'' had suffered for years from a serious > respiratory illness and recently underwent a tracheotomy. > Deleuze was born in 1925 into a conservative Paris family, but > spent his life as a leftist and considered himself almost > militantly so. He became a familiar figure in the city's bohemian > Latin Quarter, his trademark felt hat cocked at a rakish angle. > Deleuze began his academic life in 1955 as a teaching assistant > at the Sorbonne and taught later at the university at Vincennes, > retiring in 1987. > In 1972, he and longtime friend Felix Guattari published ``The > Anti-Oedipus,'' a scathing look at the concepts and > ``schizo-analysis'' of Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein. > In 1993, he published ``Critic and Clinic,'' in which he > explored the works of Herman Melville and Lewis Carroll, among > others. > Throughout his long career, Deleuze refused to appear on > television, but he agreed earlier this year to develop a > philosophy-oriented program for France's arts-oriented Arte > channel. > Details on Deleuze's survivors were not immediately available. ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 20:31:28 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: bulbous In-Reply-To: <199511040458.UAA23198@sparta.SJSU.EDU> Just back from my week-end with Saint Barb, and reading posts accumulated -- absolutely agree with last paragraph of Tom Beard's reposnse to my last response -- but confused again by distinction there betwixt response and interpretation -- reading a poem as being about light bulbs certainly strikes me as an act of interpretation -- one with particular currency in my Department -- recent MA exam candidate read Robert Lowell's "La Lumiere" as being a poem about the invention of the light bulb -- Which, for me, is where the importance of your last paragraph comes in -- I think it is possible to have an illuminating (sorry!) discussion about how that response arises and what it is in the poem that makes me want to reject that response -- what is required of both in the discussion is a willingness to examine our readings, our ideologies, our aesthetics,,, and how we go about locating ourselves in relationship to the text we're both reading -- validity doesn't hover ober the text or in the text,,,, we make intepretations valid as a social act encompassing ourselves, the texts, and other readers -- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 00:03:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: gory story In-Reply-To: <01HXATIV6DCIHV1ZLH@cnsvax.albany.edu> And Deleuze died yesterday, throwing himself from a window. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 23:42:00 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: EPC.Live Dear Loss & Ken, For Mac users, can't we just use the program Homer (rather than using telnet) and get on the undernet to join channel EPCLIVE? Dodie Bellamy > EPCLIVE > Directions for signing on (by Ken Sherwood): > >UNIX >>From your system prompt, type: > irc >Then type the following two lines: > /serv undernet.org > /join #EPCLIVE >(you should now be able to type and read whoever is there) > >VAX > >Type: > telnet telnet1.us.undernet.org 6677 >Return several times and follow prompts; when asked for >which channel you want to join, choose '0'. Then type: > /serv undernet.org > /join #EPCLIVE >(you should now be able to type and read whoever is there) > > ------------------------------ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 04:14:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Pierre Joris Subject: Final deterritorialization In-Reply-To: from "Alan Sondheim" at Nov 6, 95 00:03:39 am > >Subject: Deleuze is dead >Sent: 11/05 1:31 PM >Received: 11/05 2:30 PM >From: Melissa McMahon, mcmahon@pratique.fr >To: shaviro@u.washington.edu > >Tonight it was announced on French radio that Deleuze has committed suicide >(one report said that he 's'est defenestre'). > > ======================================================================= Pierre Joris | "Poems are sketches for existence." Dept. of English | --Paul Celan SUNY Albany | Albany NY 12222 | "Revisionist plots tel&fax:(518) 426 0433 | are everywhere and our pronouns haven't yet email: | drawn up plans for the first coup." joris@cnsunix.albany.edu| --J.H. Prynne ======================================================================= ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 10:47:44 +-100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "William M. Northcutt" Subject: Re: Jameson... Many thanks to Rae, Patrick, Juliana, and to Junte Huang--yes, long live the hooligans! My problem with Jameson is that I agree with him in the big picture, but I think he wraps himself up in a literalism that clashes with his admiration for Benjamin and Adorno. It seems to me that there's some anti-intellectualism underneath it--puritanism or just Lukacs? At any rate, thanks for the responses. William begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT M>)\^(BX)`0:0" `$```````!``$``0>0!@`(````Y 0```````#H``$-@ 0` M`@````(``@`!!) &`$0!```!````# ````,``# #````"P`/#@`````"`?\/ M`0```%4`````````@2L?I+ZC$!F=;@#=`0]4`@````!50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1I M``,P`0```!P```!03T5424-3 M0%5"5DTN0T,N0E5&1D%,3RY%1%4``P`5# $````#`/X/!@```!X``3 !```` M'@```"=50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1ILLK+H!'@!P``$````+````2F%M97-O;BXN+@```@%Q``$` M```;`````;JK=R$MF>PF"1=P$<^HQP``P!8890`M31J1`!X`'@P!````!0`` M`%--5% `````'@`?# $````B````8G1S-# S0&)T7)E=71H+F1E`````P`&$%7P+:X#``<03@$``!X`"! !````90```$U!3EE4 M2$%.2U-43U)!12Q0051224-++$I53$E!3D$L04Y$5$]*54Y414A504Y'+2U9 M15,L3$].1TQ)5D542$5(3T],24=!3E--65!23T),14U7251(2D%-15-/3DE3 M5$A!5$D``````@$)$ $```#[`0``]P$``-$"``!,6D9U#^K!O/\`"@$/`A4" MJ 7K`H,`4 +R"0(`8V@*P'-E=#(W!@`&PP*#,@/%`@!P)S=&5M`H,S MMP+D!Q,"@S0#QA3(-0-%=Q,U!VT"@'T*@ C/"=D[\1EO,C4U`H *@0VQ"V#@ M;F2!T$8!N$FL$('1O!_!A92R0(%!A= 408VL? M4$A*=6P',&YA'U @'0!P9![B( `",&4@2.)U'&$M+7D'D!]0&0!S'' B(&EV M(5 >@"%0:-)O!O!I9P!Q(0J%"H6V31Y@$U!O`F 3X" #\-L>@!_P80>!`B @ M! `>@ N M:R,`<2;Q$"$ 7 0@GP3FHEH"KB(+%!9 6P;O1O+B" 205 M$; 3X![3[P> )C0BT1EP)P0@)= P4=L`<"V@+0N $]!L)0`H`#T``0````4```!213H@ &`````#?K ` end ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 11:15:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: EPC.Live dear dodie, being a mac user, can you tell me what homer is and where i can get it? eryque _____________________________________!________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 be problems. Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 10:02:20 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: Transbluesency Express In-Reply-To: <199511061105.DAA04403@sparta.SJSU.EDU> If these last minute phone calls I'm getting work out, I'll be in New York over the week-end for a retrospective program on Baraka and his work at the Schomburg Library. Whether I'm there or not, y"all New Yorkers should know that this program goes on Friday & Saturday with readings, interviews etc. -- If I make it, I'm to conduct a discussion with Baraka and the audience about fiction from 2:00 to 4:00 on Friday -- Don't know where I'm staying yet, but will try to post that info. in case anybody wants to try to meet for breakfast sunday or maybe get together Sat. night -- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 19:26:41 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: the pusher SOUND & LANGUAGE present:- rhythm, language, sound and light s l a n t CRIS CHEEK PHILIP JECK SIANED JONES JON WILKINSON sonic glimpses from their forthcoming CD 'mono lake' 'a beautiful sweet and sour chaos' ~ guest drummer / percussionist NICK MURCOTT who featured on 'the canning town chronicle . . .' CD ~ CAROLINE BERGVAL and KAFFE MATHEWS live text-sound 'Don't push it' ~ premier screening of ROS MORTIMER'S film ''BLOOD SPORTS FOR GIRLS' ~ balcony film installation TIM FLITCROFT all at THE UNION CHAPEL Compton Ave Islington London N1 23D Box Office 01712261686 (nearest tube - Highbury & Islington) =46riday 10th Nov 8.00pm in the studio Tickets. =A37 (=A35 concs) ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 12:55:03 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Items of Interest on the ABAA-booknet Web Server I'm forwarding this from a book arts list, just that the first item listed may be of interest to any Charles Olson scholars. charles alexander > http://www.abaa-booknet.com/ > > > WHAT'S NEW ON THE ABAA-booknet SERVER? >> >> Here are recent changes or updates that you may not have seen. >> Offerings by various ABAA members are "hot-linked" directly to their >> ABAA-booknet home page. >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------- >> >> TEN POUND ISLAND BOOK CO. (11/4/95) >> >> Ten Pound Island Book Co. of Gloucester, MA announces Maritime >> List 100, a special catalog of old, scarce and out-of-print >> maritime books with many exceptional 18th and early 19th >> century titles to mark this, their one hundreth list in >> eighteen years of operation. >> >> -------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 11:45:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: EPC.Live Eryque Gleason wrote: >being a mac user, can you tell me what homer is and where i can get it? Homer is a program that allows you access to the IRC, the internet live chat channels. Homer has a lot of neat features, including sound and color. The undernet is sort of an alternate IRC, smaller, but basically the same as the large one. You sign on to it in Homer using an undernet server, such as: davis.ca.us.undernet.org sanjose.ca.us.undernet.org There are other servers too. Homer is available from many ftp sites. I did a search for it on Anarchie, and this is what I found. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 12:28:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: new terrific talisman book NEW ARRIVAL! SIMON PETTET'S _SELECTED POEMS_ from talisman house, for $9.95 in the terrific bookstores now or soon, or from INBOOK or SPD ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 14:56:16 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: do know but? Dear Pat Phillips--thanks for elaborating on your poetics-- but what are these non lang-po "problem poetries that are particularly liberatory"? I am curious if you might want to be more specific. Feel free to backchannel. Chris S. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 14:51:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: EPC.Live gravy, thanks dodie _____________________________________!________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 be problems. Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 21:31:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: EPC.Live > For Mac users, can't we just use the program Homer (rather than > using telnet) and get on the undernet to join channel EPCLIVE? Dodie, Did you try this and it works? If so, we will go ahead and append this to our instructions ... Thanks! Loss ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 21:27:56 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: Giles Deleuze 1925-1995 This from Jack Sinclair, and containing his message which came to him from Melissa McMahon, appeared on the book arts list in response to my forwarding the note there about Deleuze's death. charles alexander >My introduction to Deleuze was in a critical theory class trying to >ascend A Thousand Plateaus, co authored by Felix Guattari. Interestingly *the >book*, was likened to a record in that we were told there would be parts that >we would like or understand and might repeatedly return to, while other parts >we would want to skip over and completely ignore. Forever. Thinking back it was >sort of a hypertext use of the book. Anyway, it was noted in the forward by >translator Brian Massumi that Deleuze felt that as artists we are all >philosophical thinkers to the extent that we explore the potentials of our >respective mediums and break away from the beaten paths. Ideas that certainly >coincided with his concept of nomadic thought, and, seem to be just as >relevant today in our ongoing discussions of the future of *the book*. > >As a follow up to Charles' post regarding the suicide of Deleuze I offer >the following which was forwarded to me. For those of you that find this off >topic I would only suggest that you read *the book*. > >Date: Mon, 06 Nov 1995 10:36:38 +0100 >From: Melissa McMahon > >Below is a translation (rapidly, stutteringly done this morning) of a piece >included in the issue of _Philosophie_ dedicated to Deleuze. Obituaries >give me the horrors a bit - something _fatal_ about them, like wanting to >end death, or silence it with endless words. This, importantly, was written >before his death, thus is not an obituary, and has a taste for the >singularities (rather than molar categories) and the power of the false >(rather than that of 'summing up') that are so lacking in the newspaper >articles... > >SUIDAS >Andre Bernold >_Philosophie_ no.47, September 1995 (issue dedicated to Deleuze) > >_Deleuze_, philosopher, son of Diogenes and Hypatia, spent time in Lyon. >Nothing is known of his life. He lived to a very old age, even though he was >often very sick. He illustrated what he himself said: that there are lives >where difficulties approach the extraordinary. He defined as active all force >which goes to the limit of its power. This is, he said, the opposite of the >law. It is thus that he lived, going always further that he would have >thought possible. Although he explained Chryssippus, it is above all his >constancy which makes him worthy of the name Stoic. > >He was one of the most remarkable orators of his time, and the greatest of >those who made it their profession to teach philosophy. He was only >understood by a few. He was persecuted; the object of a jealousy which never >disarmed him. He despised these miseryguts, because of the joy of his life, >which was to philosophise. > >Of a lofty temperament, he tolerated only the people. But formidable was his >irony. His voice was one of the most extraordinary. Athena compared it to a >grater, then to a torrent of pebbles. His elocution was of an extreme >distinction, a little tired, his diction slow and sweet. Appollodorus >compares his voice to that of a wizard. He was a man of perfect nobility, >who had a horror of all that belittled. > >He wrote much, perhaps more than anyone, when one considers the density >of his works. While he treated amply the subjects of logic and morality, he >must be placed among the ranks of physicists, indeed among the first >rank. He left behind him an _Of Nature_, that Stobee ranked with those of >Heraclitus and Lucretius, relating an oracle: in a very distant future, >nothing so great will have appeared, if not a certain _Ethics_, which is not >Aristotle's. > >He said that three anecdotes are enough: the place, the time and the >element. His own place found him towards the east. As for the time, it is >that of the deepest twilight: for there is much terror in his books. Even >the sky suffers of its cardinal points and constellations, he says. As for >the element, we can permit ourselves to hesitate, for he speaks of all of >them with a rare splendour. He passionately loves the earth; Aratos says >that he was a troglodyte. He celebrates the hairy lines of the waters, and >fire, according to him, is soluble. His element however is aerial, >overhanging, suspense, and profound fall. > >He was also a doctor, the last to treat medicine as an art. We can cite two >books on monsters, two on wounds and the most famous, on the oedema of the feet. > >We read in Aristoxena his _Treaty of the Refrain_, whose boldness is extreme. >One can also find _De linea_, and _Of sublime images_. > >Proclus copies out a very obscure passage on "the Virgin, the one who was >never lived, beyond the lover and beyond the mother, coexisting with the >one and contemporary with the other." In the same place, he says that all >reminiscence is erotic. Strabo maintains that he was an astonishing >"geologist". With Felix, he composed, besides _Against oedema_, which also >contains a _Politics_ and a _Geography_ of which it is said that never >have such mad ones been seen: _On strata_, which also contains a _Strategy_. >This latter seems never to have been understood by anybody, among >philosophical circles. > >In geometry, he discovered the pulsation of spirals. He professed that the >love of children for their mother repeats other loves of adults, in regard >to other women. > >There was a multitude of other Deleuzes. > >Here is a list of his works: _Of the event_, in 34 books. _Of the >constellations which run through us_. _Of the impassibility of >incorporeals_. _On the wounds received while sleeping_. _Symptoms_. _On the >jump of demons_. _Of tubercules_. _Of the noble man_. _On the ugliness of the >human face_. _Of idiots_. _Of the invisible witnesses_. _The Prince of >philosophers_. _On degrees_. _Of the three testaments_. _The Galician_, or > _Of cold_, or _Of cruelty_. _Of larvae_. _Of the Idea which watches us_. >_Misosophy_. _Of the egg_. _Of the clear and obscure_. _Of the universal >spider_. _That allintensity is tearing_. _Of the sardine_. _On the question >"who?"_. _Of the orgy_. _Of nobody_. _On universal foundering (effondrement)_. >_Eulogy of Lucretius_. _Of viscera_. _Of complication_. _Resume of twists_. >_That it is better to not explain oneself too much_. _Of the singularities >which ruffle us_. _Of the cloacal_. _Of the triumph of the slaves_. _The >hammer_. _What belongs to us upon a subtler prompting_. _Of absolute depth_. >_Of unknown joy_. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 04:01:07 GMT Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tom Beard Subject: Re: signs taken for wonders Hi, this is in response to both Steve & Aldon's posts, Steve wrote- >Yes, if you were to interpret the poem as saying that apples and lightbulbs >share the property of edibility *outside the frame of the poem.* Within >that frame, the distinction between a response and an interpretation (which >would seem to me to always begin at the response--correct me if I've >neglected something--) is much blurrier. & Aldon - >[I'm] confused again by distinction there betwixt response and >interpretation -- reading a poem as being about light bulbs certainly >strikes me as an act of interpretation I guess I was sloppy with my defn of interpretation. Yes, in most cases (the exceptions being sound poetry, some langpo etc) a response presupposes an interpretation, eg by mapping the words "apple" & "lightbulb" onto objects outside of the poem. I was counting this "small" sense of interpretation as being a response, and using the term "interpretation" in a "larger" sense, meaning the drawing of conclusions "outside of the frame" of the poem from the poem itself. What becomes blurry here is the frame - how do we define what is inside & outside of the poem? Going back to my rather clumsy example, I'll try to show what I meant by "response" vs "interpretation". Let's say that a poem contained the line "The apple glowed - it was a low-watt light-bulb" (please god don't let me write a line like that!). To nod with appreciation, to shiver with fear, or to suddenly remember a moment 10 years ago when an apple glowed thus on your windowsill; these are all responses. They depend upon the "low-level" interpretation of the terms "apple" & "lightbulb" - if you think that an apple is actually a breed of dog, then these responses will not be possible for you. But to then draw conclusions _outside_ of the frame of the poem, by thinking "this poet's obviously nuts - he thinks apples are the same as lightbulbs", or "Hmm, I could use a Granny Smith to replace the 100W bulb in the hallway", or "Hey, this poet must have been in my room with me 10 years ago", or "this guy's read far too much Craig Raine"; this is what I mean by interpretation. In a less artificial, and more loaded, context, consider the following. A reader comes across a line that offends her - it appears racist to her. This feeling of being offended is a response; to conclude that the author is racist is to make an interpretation. The latter is (to some extent at least) open to falsification, but the former is not. In some cases a person may change his or her response in different circumstances, but the original response was neither valid nor invalid - it just _was_. A more personal example: when I first read _The Hollow Men_, I was struck by the lines "waking alone, at the hour when we are trembling with tenderness, lips that would kiss form prayers to broken stone" (approximate rendition from memory). To me as I was - a lonely, rather sentimental adolescent - these lines were extremely powerful, and spoke to me. Later, when I read Southam's notes, I discovered that the poem was supposed to be about Guy Fawkes, Conrad's _Heart of Darkness_ and the asassination of Caesar. This doesn't invalidate my original response (and I carry it with me still), but if I'd written in an essay that "This poem was written by a lonely 18-year old boy desparately in need of a good bonk" then I could expect my interpretation to receive an F. Aldon wrote - >"the voice of the Maori" doesn't present itself as science but myth, >with a mythical truth that IS as valid in the realm of myth as the voice of >science is in the realm of science. I'd still view this as a form of relativism: the assertion that the realm of myth is as valid as the realm of science. To _respond_ to a text (our land & its lifeforms) by telling a story that fits within the realm of myth is neither valid nor invalid, and is not open to disproof. But to _interpret_ the land this way leaves one open to more rigorous questioning. For example, believing that there is a god called Ruamoko who lives under the ground and causes earthquakes is a personal response. But to act upon this belief by attempting to appease the god (for example) brings one into conflict with a scientific view that might attempt instead to predict high-risk zones by mapping fault lines, identifying land that is prone to liquefaction and designing buildings to cope with earthquake stresses. There are areas where these two interpretations are incompatible, and at least one of them is invalid. (No prizes for guessing where I stand on this issue). Thanks for your responses and interpretations, Tom Beard ______________________________________________________________________________ I/am a background/process, shrunk to an icon. | Tom Beard I am/a dark place. | beard@met.co.nz I am less/than the sum of my parts... | Auckland, New Zealand I am necessary/but not sufficient, | http://www.met.co.nz/ and I shall teach the stars to fall | nwfc/beard/www/hallway.html ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 21:26:59 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: bearded In-Reply-To: <199511070509.AAA27806@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> actually, tom, it was not aldon who wrote the response about the voice of the maori, though it "sounded like him," and, being myself aldon, my first response was that I could have written something like that -- but i didn't as you redefine "response," i don't see how "validity" ever would be a question when discussing "response" -- but I'm sure there would be many questions to pursue looking at why some responses occur in the presence of some poems -- i don't think there is ever a non-interpretive moment, and your clarification does, in fact, clear that up for me -- I'm not sure _any+ statements about the origins of the earth would be truly falsifiable; but most statements about processes which "might" have resulted in the earth's origin should be falsifiable in a way that such statements as "god made man in his own image" is surely not -- ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 11:46:00 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: cris cheek Subject: welcome the worlds of lost renga posted as 'work in progress' currently being developed by: Jorge Guitart / Gabrielle Welford / Jordan Davis / Sheila E. Murphy cris cheek / Thomas Bell / George Bowering in the books were dreams and in the dreams were books. "It's a small world" ripe for macroscopes to pump or slice or butterfly away from that ardent bugged heliotrope and pledge allegiance through ostension--we stopped short of the shortstop's hot stigmatum this time pencilled in as tangly wisps instead of memory detonations: but don't forget to dismember the doloroso I left in the rain by mistake whilst on business vocation the night I told you to stop referring to me as Ontology Boy and you replied all shrouded in epistemology that it was glue we lacked "ckab oups frert cdl-fdl!!" with elvis projecting "uhhhh, daarlin' I'm all stuck on metaphors that the folks at the contagious hospital thought we might be weaned of early, late, whatever, but I am taking the broken glass as a token of my first epiphany to split scintillas in the mist of lathering first frost blue noon comes on like torqued weed sucking on the indescribable and taking the ineffable, for a walk to Paris via seed cigars and chicory and plantain butts mixed with automaton condolences nixed by Dr. Reynolds crecheward into sweet line drawings clothed to world our words for water, falling four blocks away, finally, a gulf between perceived and rinsing wafered, shroud and comforter, flogging proud wet stones with patchwork flags making tenement hum and let it get too cold, "Hey, tell us apart", "The name is trace, pal" spun on painted heels, then "vanishing, not varnishing!" her smile made by Chevettes sliding off the I5 south of Tacoma monikered bellwether of the pall top crash, whose running gag was meat leaf stems whirl about as hobbyist pauses to consider lunch as a pearl of sanitized dung in relation to mythology's transference of lettuce, permission to unleash in the epoxy I used to cement my relationship w/ Thou, the Dead Quaker who who traipses a paradigm sweat under lights and then fixes doughboys & doughgirls, behaving like superfluous enigmas puzzling in contagious ways over the simplest rides to the grotto of our Lady of Corollaries during the Feast of the Enormity with widgets handprinted by obvious mistakes in limited editions shrink-wrapped to keep-out dangerfields unfurled before "The hell we were!" a seachange to order as happy as money could meld me a rope pitchpipe with its squeal subtracted and the dotted-line relationships that sing "I Love Time but I love Your Spatial Simulacra So Much More" for brevity inferred and for the latchkey touch more like a feather drizzling ribs trained sultry moments gathering to migrate south no one so maybe-ed became an ornament maimed, my parents won't let me play with density because its quantity is known, and they prefer unknowns to Belarus stockmen deflowering everything in sight, grim Homolkaesque behaviourists - buttoned quality refrigerators: forensically "I seem to be a verb" but meteorologically i am an anominal clitic the empress of rice dream, wrote impossibly relaxed when thinking about pain beside the capability of boredom by the volcano that was sacred on the basis of size and not-on merit "books were closed, dreams were cancelled, the inverted poplar was set right, the cardinal was killed" looking for false grit and the dogma of autonomous syntax overwhelmed 'em when striking from base-camp their paraffin tongues in the cauldron of sylvia's morning during the time that ted was devising a way to narrate implied memory for newly-learned novel objects well, now we've met the eremite and he is sour where wrote was written, stepping without the prefab little knobbed things on them completely set on the sea as so much crabbiness diverting attention from wars in three voices and the steady rain of hemlock falling on a Concerns box & bull sobbing distant as adventure capital behind the exterior of the city was an interior composed of scar tissue recording the grain of farm house timbers a rubble of history in the grass where a decapitated statue unavoidably becomes an image of a nation without a true face ugh gotta change that line creased, cemented, spun from claustrophobia the way that glitches suggested themselves as sexuation near the border of profundity where drudges still are visible but begin to matter less than duality or the boyishness of dusk. I, too, miscast as a hand-me-down protractor caught out napping on the boss's desk feel the sign Aliens make for "concocted in the lability of H.P.Grice" who serendipities all morning after frost has cinched its lag time comes humming by the torment wing of the museum of facades where remedies steam windows other than our own and we immerse ourselves in voice of ice loud as the night priest convenes gnomes who weather what they do in disbelief because abstraction crushes their palpitations as preambles to the rust we might someday finagle into the market of dwarfs' shortcomings that are longgoings in the thrust of memorized vibrati larkish and unpoised though frequently amiss in the slump of confetti being so much the memento that we cried under the dandelions where no pulse was original enough for the dog to be plankton or the nurse a gate in an iron dress as pressed as any moment striped with platitudes and pain When gaze is glass and deletion is tossing scouring the housings for meaningless dripping. How pleasure moves in and through the breath of anyone is a division problem, and how the grammar of namely formed water & spark a face to sell a magazine, to turn to the calcined sheriff and each to churn through tongue and balls they too were skeptical of the value of their face of souvenirs of deliriums of proctors & chests but like the strong and weak forces mostly they gossipped in deference to regression to the mean, interpreted as law a million roses can't subtract from the effect of reference leaking from mention as we all do when evaporating on the line in an unfocused row just as the embassy bequeathed bones to every sailor the penitent dragged his textbooks in burlap over concrete. soldering the fatherly clavicle to a theory of colors wounded round and playful although never sleek swimming in the northblood channel and evening being a paperweight we sift the rough as fingers reek a favorite color in the lettering of gestures, from a meadow we attract like breath mint severally fastened to our angels and our motors of romance. What can cut across the lake of secretion when speaking as the reflection that the diving frog shatters the wave mechanics of a clam's locomotion as her masters thesis no wonder she now finds rinds lascivious, or bipeds oleaginous, hawaiaan geese, I'm trucked to fleece numismatic events and there collect ideas on ash and lime for their own appeasements sake or exchanged their blind letter for a parapetal posture a pine forest, travelling as daughters through the lines of clattering chat, minds to fill and erase a peaceable that confers with waters thin and deep varnishing enthusiasm, till the propitious flames lie still the way we have entrusted them to lie, pink flavored little rhomboids that prove Euclid a yellowish garment plus scatteredness wounded round and playful although never sleek Parliament? the punchlines might have faded but the words sound 'good' with the kind of sand that words make during spasms skittering and thanking tonal textures for the wash and for the winged ram that hoards awareness as we turn during the dustfest, yet you pinch yourself to test how far the dust can be removed from you and propelled toward us in sadness by the plateful for the sake of voice but I doubt it. I find a library card is enough To bind agency moving the passionary in the direction of the skid is like character taking possession of land during colonisation. Fear is much like a possession & a handful of rust is locative-like Frozen fish chutney, subsumed in the task of motherhood relates How we played baseball with the performance artists! knocko socko in the terrible neighborhood of implants Opening festivities, 12:00 o'clock noon. The glass fish bakes like a brick and sings: for acting like a lexical structure after puberty shuffle? I can't even deal, Betty and then I says "I am outa here: I'm tired of recurrences of semblances" The glass dish struck with a bannermaker sings "We were bequeathing our sports skills to the jailor "Just as the embassy bequeathed bones to every sailor "the penitent dragged his textbooks in burlap over concrete. with sentences that even score on score in little subtexts which also mispredict the transfer of affection after glossing laminating, defacing, reimposing, embossing, buffing, eliding. There was a written residue down at the corner, where a car had passed that way Lately all my drams have been going north, my dreams I mean. It all boils down to motors, mobiles, and places: If you look closely at the surface of this puddle, you'll see From a truculent butcher whose soaking came clean Film presaged in humidland. Film also Weening drawn one drum that time presents Continue now, that the angel storm has passed. Film the books were dreams and in the reams were latex books What travel we could scrounge from the newspapers did they radiate bagness over the fragments of blots, or did they call home once a week, did they walk to work by dint of rod, glove and puppetry that cauterized my mobile phone or am I the sealant in the shape you take? a mere preface to playtex? Trickster melodies trying to feel belief in the teeth of induction or bellwether combed, cleaned, fortified toward the scene where the parrot of intention lies ice cold long freighted. Authenticity a crevice for the playful heart which to be palpable requires a science of daze. And the continuous murmur he wrote above the buddhist hot dog vendor "make me one with everything" and yet proceeded to tear his tongue with her wine-grained books of the rank and file traced back analysand of yearly planners by forensic crockers with water jaws and aspectual extensions beyond the pale frontier made reprobate. With more than a tweaking of late tomorrowing the mouth that can't be taped with indulgence planned more than incised from gestural redress according to the swami standing at a fatal distance as an emblem of residency, conducted without proper documentation, aprostituted calming down in the wrong latitude. The lapdog speaks succintly: when it was a joke >>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >(privatized) beyond autonomous behaviours plonked against oblong sleight if you live in a miner's cottage marking, not having, organs that ignorant armies crush by night our rush huts flattered by reintegration into ironic worship totalizing the egress of shimmering luck data vending machines and mad hookah notwithstanding, all for a bit of sorghum, wheeze, and tantrums to replace the tangibles like Massive delusion. 'in snowy weather I photocopy my resistance scrapbook against better times than multiplication tables half erect and blind to caterwaul, drizzle, and penury' and pavement rectifies the long wade through dabble the merits of solitude tongue with it piqued apostrophes and slum coats on the edge of being wings This this this pow! scared me but I can't grape juice hastening the use of gingerbread to signify torpor see see see wrigleys on a dot but don't you mind because I've got your snicker bar soliloquy of sorts. Second on the left and then you Don't gimme none o that lip! Standing around with the flamingoes we realized the gnomic is not what it used to be, and hanging out with the clones we drizzled clothing wasn't a question of necessary, As we climbed along the rocky shore The set of all beliefs did not include any about us. With thoughts already darkened by broken clocks We walked through, turning off the lights In a clearing tacked up to terraces of glue houses rooved with Pepper smoke. The majority cleared the room and nutmeg, I know how nauseating the word 'poignant' can be, but will the representative from Indiana please sit down? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 03:06:21 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: RFC822 error: TO field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. Comments: RFC822 error: TO field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. Comments: RFC822 error: TO field duplicated. Last occurrence was retained. From: Ron Silliman Subject: Fwd: EFFector Online 08.18 * Net Censorship & Surveillance Alerts! Comments: To: sixties-l@jefferson.village.virginia.edu FYI, The proposed legislation, discussed in lengthy detail below, potentially could impact many of us on this list. Ron Silliman ======================================================================= = ________________ _______________ _______________ /_______________/\ /_______________\ /\______________\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||||||||||||||| / //////////////// \\\\\________/\ |||||________\ / /////______\ \\\\\\\\\\\\\/____ |||||||||||||| / ///////////// \\\\\___________/\ ||||| / //// \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\/ ||||| \//// ======================================================================= = EFFector Online Volume 08 No. 18 Nov. 6, 1995 editors@eff.org A Publication of the Electronic Frontier Foundation ISSN 1062-9424 IN THIS ISSUE: ALERT: Net Censorship: Christian Coalition Tops Even Exon The Latest News What You Can Do Now The letter & suggested legislation from Ed Meese and the Christian Right Chronology of the CDA For More Information List Of Participating Organizations ALERT: Digital Telephony Action - Nov. 15 Deadline! Background: FBI Draft Capacity Requirements What You Can Do Now Congress May Just Not Buy It House Rejects First DT/CALEA Funding Attempt Sen. Leahy Definitely Not Buying It Canadian Law Enforcement Taking the FBI Hint The Text of the FBI's Federal Register Notice Newsbytes EFF Relocation Complete EFF Rated in Top 5% of the Net by Point Survey Commerce Dept. IPWG Report on Online Intellectual Property Meets Resistance IPWG Report's Suggested Legislation: Passed and Pending (+ Canada Tie-In) Upcoming Articles Upcoming Events Quote of the Day What YOU Can Do Administrivia * See http://www.eff.org/Alerts/ or ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ for more information on current EFF activities and online activism alerts! * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: ALERT: Net Censorship, and Christian Coalition v. Human Rights Watch ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----- CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE EXON/COATS COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT (SEE THE LIST OF CAMPAIGN COALITION MEMBERS AT THE END) Update: -Latest News: The Christian Coalition is pushing Congress to censor the net more heavily than even Sen. J.J. Exon ever imagined. There is the very real possibility that they may succeed. You should be very worried. We are. -What You Can Do Now: Follow the directions below and call House Speaker Gingrich and Senate Leader Dole. Implore them to allow parents to make choices for their children, instead of government censors. Volunteer to join the fight by helping organize in your home town. CAMPAIGN TO STOP THE UNCONSTITUTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT Nov 2, 1995 PLEASE WIDELY REDISTRIBUTE THIS DOCUMENT WITH THIS BANNER INTACT REDISTRIBUTE ONLY UNTIL December 1, 1995 REPRODUCE THIS ALERT ONLY IN RELEVANT FORUMS ________________________________________________________________________ CONTENTS The Latest News What You Can Do Now The letter & suggested legislation from Ed Meese and the Christian Right Chronology of the CDA For More Information List Of Participating Organizations ________________________________________________________________________ THE LATEST NEWS Since the very first day that Senator J.J. Exon (D-NE) proposed censorship legislation for the Internet, the Christian Right has pushed for the most restrictive regulations they could think of. The Religious Right (which does not necessarily speak for all religious people concerned with this issue) recently tipped their hand in a letter to Sen. Larry Pressler (R-SD) and Rep. Thomas Bliley (R-VA) requesting a new and more restrictive net censorship proposal. There are essentially three new dangerous elements of their campaign to shut down cyberspace: INTERNET PROVIDERS, ONLINE SERVICES, AND LIBRARIES CRIMINALLY LIABLE FOR EXPRESSION ONLINE The Religious Right has proposed to hold anyone who provides access to the Internet or other interactive media, including online services providers, ISP's, BBS's, Libraries, and Schools, criminally liable for all speech carried on the network. In order to avoid liability under this provision, service providers would be forced to monitor user's electronic communications to be assured that no "indecent" material is transmitted across their networks. This proposal is MORE RESTRICTIVE than the Exon Communications Decency Act, or any other net censorship legislation currently in Congress. In their letter to Congress, the Religious Right says: [Providers] would simply be required to avoid KNOWING violations of the law. [emphasis added] However, the "knowing" standard is vague enough that the mere knowledge that such material exists could be sufficient to trigger criminal liability. A single complaint or even a news report could force a service provider to take down a web page, remove posts to chat rooms or other discussion forums, or shut down listservs in order to avoid going to jail and facing huge fines. A STANDARD FOR INDECENCY The proposals pushed by the Christian Coalition relies on the unconstitutional "indecency standard". Like the Exon Communications Decency Act, the Christian Coalition seeks to regulate all indecent speech online. Indecency is a broad category that includes everything from George Carlin's "seven dirty words" to such classic novels and "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Lady Chatterly's Lover". The Supreme Court has ruled that restrictions on indecent speech are Constitutional only if they rely on the "least restrictive means". Broad indecency restrictions on interactive media do not satisfy the "least restrictive means" test, because interactive media allows users and parents tremendous control over the information they receive. Any legislation which attempts to apply an indecency restriction to the Internet is unconstitutional on its face. The Christian Coalition's proposal that relies on an indecency restriction contemplates dumbing down every conversation, web page, newsgroup, and mailing list on the Internet to the level of what is not offensive to children. What kind of discussions between adults are possible in an arena where everything has been reduced to the level of the Lion King? UNPRECEDENTED CONTROL OVER ONLINE SPEECH FOR THE FCC The Christian Coalition would give the FCC broad jurisdiction over cyberspace. It would allow the FCC jurisdiction over your online speech, and over the design Internet software, such as web browsers and filtering programs that parents can use to control their children's access to the Internet. The Internet has developed from a government project to a market-driven economic boom for thousands of businesses. Giving the FCC authority over this medium would significantly hinder the growth of this new industry. ________________________________________________________________________ WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW 1. The proposals from the Religious Right will literally destroy online speech as we know it. The odds of stopping this are not certain. There is a very real chance that this legislation will pass, and we will experience a period of uncertainty and chilling of speech while an appropriate test case attempts to reach the Supreme Court (should it even get there!) The Religious Right has a strong grass-roots network. We need to counter their energy and ensure cyberspace is not lost due to them. IMMEDIATELY CALL House Speaker Gingrich (R-GA) and Senate Leader Dole (R-KS) and urge them to oppose the Christian Coalition's proposal. Name, Address, and Party Phone Fax ======================== ============== ============== R GA Gingrich, Newt 1-202-225-4501 1-202-225-4656 R KS Dole, Robert 1-202-224-6521 1-202-224-8952 If you're at a loss for words, try one of the following: Please oppose the recent proposal from the Religious Right to censor the Internet. The only effective way to address children's access to the Internet is through parental control tools outlined by the Cox/White/Wyden approach. or As a religious person and a parent, I oppose the Religious Right's attempts to censor the Internet. I am the best person to monitor my child's access to the Internet using parental control tools as outlined in the Cox/White/Wyden approach. 2. Join the online fight by becoming a volunteer for your district! Check to see if your legislator is in the list below. If they are not, consult the free ZIPPER service that matches Zip Codes to Congressional districts with about 85% accuracy at: URL:http://www.stardot.com/~lukeseem/zip.html The conference committee legislators are: House: Barr (R-GA), Barton (R-TX), Berman (R-CA), Bliley (R-VA), Boucher (D-VA), Brown (D-OH), Bryant (D-TX), Buyer (R-IN), Conyers (D-MI), Dingell (D-MI), Eshoo (D-CA), Fields (R-TX), Flanagan (R-IL), Frisa (R-NY), Gallegly (R-CA), Goodlatte (R-VA), Gordon (D-TN), Hastert (R-IL), Hoke (R-OH), Hyde (R-IL), Jackson-Lee (D-TX), Klug (R-WI), Lincoln (D-AR), Markey (D-MA), Moorhead (R-CA), Oxley (R-OH), Paxon (R-NY), Rush (D-IL), Schaefer (R-CO), Schroeder (D-CO), Scott (D-VA), Stearns (R-FL), White (R-WA) Senate: Burns (R-MT), Exon (D-NE), Ford (D-KY), Gorton (R-WA), Hollings (D-SC), Inouye (D-HI), Lott (R-MS), McCain (R-AZ), Pressler (R-SD), Rockefeller (D-WV), Stevens (R-AK) If your legislator is on the conference committee, you have a chance to influence their vote on this issue with your power as a constituent. Volunteer to help educate your legislator by sending mail to volunteer@vtw.org. A coalition volunteer will be in touch with you. You can starting working to help spread the word in your district by sending this letter to five friends. Ask them to call Dole and Gingrich as well. 3. The People for the American Way (PFAW) and the American Civil Liberties Union are organizing a letter from ORGANIZATIONS to the Conference Committee to oppose the censorship provisions. If you are a representative of an organization that would like to signon to this letter, you should contact jlesser@pfaw.org IMMEDIATELY. 4. We can't suggest relaxing at this point. The stakes are too high, and the risk is too great. Everything now hangs in the balance. ________________________________________________________________________ THE LETTER & SUGGESTED LEGISLATION FROM ED MEESE AND THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT October 16, 1995 The Honorable Thomas J. Bliley, Jr. Chairman Committee on Commerce United States House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 The Honorable Larry Pressler, Chairman Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Re: Computer Pornography Provisions in Telecommunications Bill Dear Mr. Chairmen: We are writing to urge the conference committee seeking to reconcile the telecommunications bills passed by the House and Senate include in the final bill the strongest possible criminal law provisions to address the growing and immediate problem of computer pornography without any exemptions, defenses, or political favors of any kind accorded to those who knowingly participate in the distribution of obscenity to anyone or indecency to children. While there is no perfect solution to the problem of computer pornography, Congress could not hope to solve this problem by holding liable only some who are responsible for the problem. The recent Justice Department prosecution project targeting those who violated federal child pornography law using America On-Line is instructive in this regard. More than ninety individuals were targeted for prosecution although many others, perhaps as many as 3,000 according to one press report, were originally targeted by the Department of Justice as potential violators of child pornography laws. Apparently due to a shortage of investigative and prosecutorial resources, the project was limited. Since there are insufficient resources to investigate and prosecute but a fraction of those that are trafficking in child pornography by computer, then there will likely be even fewer resources available to investigate and prosecute those involved in obscenity and indecency. Thousands of individuals both in this country and abroad are regularly placing obscenity and indecency on the Internet. It is not possible to make anything more than a dent in the serious problem of computer pornography if Congress is willing to hold liable only those who place such material on the Internet while at the same time giving legal exemptions or defenses to service or access providers who profit from and are instrumental to the distribution of such material. The Justice Department normally targest the major offenders of laws. In obscenity cases prosecuted to date, it has targeted large companies which have been responsible for the nationwide distribution of obscenity and who have made large profits by violating federal laws. Prosecution of such companies has made a substantial impact in curbing the distribution of obscenity, with many such offenders going out of business altogether. So too will prosecution of access providers which _knowingly_ traffic in obscenity have a substantial impact, a far greater impact than just the prosecution of a person who places one or a few prohibited images on the Internet. Such a person could not traffic in pornography without the aid or facilitation of the service or access providers. Indeed, if Congress includes provisions protecting access or service providers in whatever bill is finally passed, it is likely that most in this country who are trafficking in indecency to children or obscenity would continue to do so since the threat of prosecution would be minuscule, given the numbers of those currently involved in this activity. It is also likely that those outside our country who are engaged in these activities would continue to do so since it would be nearly impossible to extradite them to the United States for prosecution. Thus, unless all who knowingly participate in such matters are subject to the law, the Internet will remain the same and Congress will have failed in its responsibilities to the children and families of America. Federal law has traditionally assigned equal liability both for those who commit a crime and those who aid and abet a crime. See Title 18 U.S.C. Code Section 2: "(a) whoever [sic] commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, councils [sic], commands, induces, or procures its commission, is punishable as a principle [sic]." Service or access providers who knowingly participate in the distribution of indecency to children or in obscenity to anyone are aiders and abettors in the commission of those crimes and thus should have liability under any law Congress passes. Current federal law on child pornography provides no no exemption or defense for access providers. Thus, the child pornography law provides a strong deterrent against trafficking in child pornography for those who would otherwise knowingly participate in its distribution by computer whether pedophile or access provider. The changes in law which we support would not hold an access provider criminally liable for all illegal pornography on the Internet which their services may be used to obtain. Nor would it require that access providers check all communications to ensure that no violations of the law are occurring. They would simply be required to avoid knowing violations of the law. This is an obligation imposed on all citizens. Technology exists today for access providers, through a simple process, to target or flag and remove files containing objectionable material. We support the House-passed language insofar as it addresses obscenity by amendment Title 18, Sections 1462, 1465, and 1467 of the United States Code. The provision restricting transmission of indecency in the House-passed bill, an amendment to Section 1465, is inadequate, and we urge that it be substantially revised. Attached is the specific language we support which includes the House passed language on obscenity and includes revisions on both the House passed language on indecency, which would amend Title 18 and the Senate-passed language on indecency, which would amend Title 47. The combination of these provisions, we believe, would provide effective laws to curb obscenity and indecency on the Internet by establishing that all who knowingly participate in the distribution or facilitation of obscenity to anyone or indecency to children would be subject to the law. Thank you for your concern and attention to this matter. [signed] Edwin Meese III Ralph Reed Christian Coalition Donald E. Wildmon American Family Association Alan Sears, Former Executive Director Atty General's Commission on Pornography Phyllis Shafly Eagle Forum Beverly LaHaye Concerned Women for America Reverend Louis P. Sheldon Traditional Values Coalition Jay Sekulow American Center for Law and Justice Paul Weyrich Free Congress Foundation Paul McGeady Morality in Media Len Munsil National Family Legal Foundation Robert Peters Morality in Media Kenneth Sukhia Former United States Attorney, N.D., FL Former Chairman, Atty General's Advisory Committee Subcommittee on Child Exploitation and Obscenity __________________________ Section 1465 of Title 18, United States Code, is amended to punish distribution by computer of indecent material to minors by adding at the end the following: Whoever knowingly communicates, transmits, or makes available for communication or transmission, in or effecting interstate or foreign commerce an indecent communication by computer to any person the communicator or transmitter believes has not attained the age of 18 years of age, knowing that such communication will be obtained by a person believed to be under 18 years of age, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. TITLE IV -- OBSCENE, HARASSING, AND WRONGFUL UTILIZATION OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITY SEC. 401. SHORT TITLE This title may be cited as the "Communications Decency Act of 1995". Sec. 402. OBSCENE OR HARASSING USE OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITIES UNDER THE COMMUNICATIONS ACT OF 1934 Section 223 (47 U.S.C. 223) is amended -- (1) by striking subsection (a) and inserting in lieu of [sic]: ``(a) Whoever-- ``(1) in the District of Columbia or in interstate or foreign communications -- ``(A) by means of telecommunications device knowingly-- ``(i) makes, creates, or solicits, and ``(ii) initiates the transmission of, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication which is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent, with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person; ``(B) makes a telephone call or utilizes a telecommunications device, whether or not conversation or communication ensues, without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person at the called number or who receives the communication; ``(C) makes or causes the telephone of another repeatedly or continuously to ring, with intent to harass any person at the called number; or ``(D) makes repeated telephone calls or repeatedly initiates communication with a telecommunications device, during which conversation or communication ensues, solely to harass any person at the called number or who receives the communication; ``(2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under his control to be used for any activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity, shall be fined not more than $100,000 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.''; and (2) by adding at the end the following new subsections: ``(d) Whoever-- ``(1) knowingly within the United States or in foreign communications with the United States by means of telecommunications device makes or makes available any indecent communication in any form including any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, or image, to any person under 18 years of age regardless of whether the maker of such communication placed the call or initiated the communication; or ``(2) knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under such person's control to be used for an activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity, shall be fined not more than $100,000 or imprisoned not more than two years or both. ``(e) Defenses to subsections (a) and (d), restrictions on access, judicial remedies respecting restrictions for persons providing information services and access to information services-- "(1) It is a defense to prosecution that a person has complied with regulations designed to restrict access to indecent communications to those 18 years old or older as enacted by the Federal Communications Commission which shall prepare final regulations within 120 days of the passage of this bill. Until such regulations become effective, it is a defense to prosecution that the person has blocked or restricted access to indecent communications to any person under 18 years of age through the use of verified credit card, adult access code, or adult personal identification number (PIN). Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to treat enhanced information services as common carriage." "(2) No cause of action may be brought in any court or any administrative agency against any person on account of any activity which is not in violation of any law punishable by criminal or civil penalty, which activity the person has taken in good faith to implement a defense authorized under this section or otherwise to restrict or prevent the transmission of, or access to, a communication specified in this section. (f) Nothing in this subsection shall preclude any State or local government from enacting and enforcing laws and regulations which do not result in the imposition of inconsistent obligations on the provision of interstate services. Nothing in this subsection shall preclude any State or local government from governing conduct not covered by subsection (d)(2)." (g) Nothing in subsection (a), (d), or (e) or in the defenses to prosecution under (e) shall be construed to affect or limit the application or enforcement of any other Federal law. (h) The use of the term 'telecommunications device' in this section shall not impose new obligations on (one-way) broadcast radio or (one-way) broadcast television operators licensed by the Commission or (one-way) cable services registered with the Federal Communications Commission and covered by obscenity and indecency provisions elsewhere in this Act. Sec. 403. OBSCENE PROGRAMMING ON CABLE TELEVISION. Section 639 (47 U.S.C. 559) is amended by striking "10,000" and inserting "$100,000" Sec. 404. BROADCASTING OBSCENE LANGUAGE ON THE RADIO. Section 1466 of Title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking out "$10,000" and inserting "$100,000". Sec. 405 SEPARABILITY "(a) If any provision of this Title, including amendments to this Title of [sic] the application thereof to any person or circumstance is held invalid, the remainder of this Title and the application of such provision to other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby." ________________________________________________________________________ CHRONOLOGY OF THE COMMUNICATIONS DECENCY ACT Sep 26, '95 Sen. Russ Feingold urges committee members to drop Managers Amendment and the CDA from the Telecommunications Deregulation bill Aug 4, '95 House passes HR1555 which goes into conference with S652. Aug 4, '95 House votes to attach Managers Amendment (which contains new criminal penalties for speech online) to Telecommunications Reform bill (HR1555). Aug 4, '95 House votes 421-4 to attach HR1978 to Telecommunications Reform bill (HR1555). Jun 30, '95 Cox and Wyden introduce the "Internet Freedom and Family Empowerment Act" (HR 1978) as an alternative to the CDA. Jun 21, '95 Several prominent House members publicly announce their opposition to the CDA, including Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), Rep. Chris Cox (R-CA), and Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR). Jun 14, '95 The Senate passes the CDA as attached to the Telecomm reform bill (S 652) by a vote of 84-16. The Leahy bill (S 714) is not passed. May 24, '95 The House Telecomm Reform bill (HR 1555) leaves committee in the House with the Leahy alternative attached to it, thanks to Rep. Ron Klink of (D-PA). The Communications Decency Act is not attached to it. Apr 7, '95 Sen. Leahy (D-VT) introduces S.714, an alternative to the Exon/Gorton bill, which commissions the Dept. of Justice to study the problem to see if additional legislation (such as the CDA) is necessary. Mar 23, '95 S314 amended and attached to the telecommunications reform bill by Sen. Gorton (R-WA). Language provides some provider protection, but continues to infringe upon email privacy and free speech. Feb 21, '95 HR1004 referred to the House Commerce and Judiciary committees Feb 21, '95 HR1004 introduced by Rep. Johnson (D-SD) Feb 1, '95 S314 referred to the Senate Commerce committee Feb 1, '95 S314 introduced by Sen. Exon (D-NE) and Gorton (R-WA). ________________________________________________________________________ FOR MORE INFORMATION Web Sites URL:http://www.vtw.org/exon/ URL:http://epic.org/ URL:http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ URL:http://www.cdt.org/cda.html URL:http://outpost.callnet.com/outpost.html FTP Archives URL:ftp://ftp.cdt.org/pub/cdt/policy/freespeech/00-INDEX.FREESPEECH URL:ftp://ftp.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ Gopher Archives: URL:gopher://gopher.panix.com/11/vtw/exon URL:gopher://gopher.eff.org/11/Alerts Email: vtw@vtw.org (put "send alert" in the subject line for the latest alert, or "send cdafaq" for the CDA FAQ) cda-info@cdt.org (General CDA information) cda-stat@cdt.org (Current status of the CDA) ________________________________________________________________________ LIST OF PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS In order to use the net more effectively, several organizations have joined forces on a single Congressional net campaign to stop the Communications Decency Act. American Civil Liberties Union * American Communication Association * American Council for the Arts * Arts & Technology Society * Association of Alternative Newsweeklies * biancaTroll productions * Boston Coalition for Freedom of Expression * Californians Against Censorship Together * Center For Democracy And Technology * Centre for Democratic Communications * Center for Public Representation * Citizen's Voice - New Zealand * Cloud 9 Internet *Computer Communicators Association * Computel Network Services * Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility * Cross Connection * Cyber-Rights Campaign * CyberQueer Lounge * Dutch Digital Citizens' Movement * ECHO Communications Group, Inc. * Electronic Frontier Canada * Electronic Frontier Foundation * Electronic Frontier Foundation - Austin * Electronic Frontiers Australia * Electronic Frontiers Houston * Electronic Frontiers New Hampshire * Electronic Privacy Information Center * Feminists For Free Expression * First Amendment Teach-In * Florida Coalition Against Censorship * FranceCom, Inc. Web Advertising Services * Friendly Anti-Censorship Taskforce for Students * Hands Off! The Net * Inland Book Company * Inner Circle Technologies, Inc. * Inst. for Global Communications * Internet On-Ramp, Inc. * Internet Users Consortium * Joint Artists' and Music Promotions Political Action Committee * The Libertarian Party * Marijuana Policy Project * Metropolitan Data Networks Ltd. * MindVox * MN Grassroots Party * National Bicycle Greenway * National Campaign for Freedom of Expression * National Coalition Against Censorship * National Gay and Lesbian Task Force * National Public Telecomputing Network * National Writers Union * Oregon Coast RISC * Panix Public Access Internet * People for the American Way * Republican Liberty Caucus * Rock Out Censorship * Society for Electronic Access * The Thing International BBS Network * The WELL * Voters Telecommunications Watch (Note: All 'Electronic Frontier' organizations are independent entities, not EFF chapters or divisions.) ________________________________________________________________________ End Alert ------------------------------ Subject: ALERT: Digital Telephony Action - Nov. 15 Deadline! ------------------------------------------------------------ In Oct. 16's Federal Register, the FBI published a request for public comments *due November 15 1995* and a request for surveillance capacity. This is the first major step, since passage of the Digital Telephony legislation in 1994, in setting up the FBI's dream and our nightmare: forced compliance with law enforcement and intellegence demands to make all communications networks wiretappable. * Background: FBI Draft Capacity Requirements The 1994 "Digital Telephony and Privacy Improvement Act" (DT), passed as the more honestly-titled "Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act" (CALEA), did add significant statutory privacy protections and public oversight provisions for surveillance actions, but in essence requires telecommunications carriers including "plain old telephone service" companies and related telphonic services, to make their networks wiretap-friendly. There are several steps to implementation: 1) Approval of capability requirements (can the network be tapped?) 2) Approval of capacity requirements (how many wiretaps can be done?) 3) Approval of funding to pay for this mess The subject of the FBI's request, reproduced below, is capacity. The capacity request specifies the number of simultaneous wiretaps (by which term we simplify a bit: it includes actual communications intercepts, pen register (dialed number) information captures, and trap-and-trace actions) the government estimates that it will need to conduct authorized surveillance. Telecom companies will have 6 months to respond to this final notice published after the public comment period, and outline what part of their systems are not wiretap-friendly, at which point the government may opt to pay for a system to be "upgraded" or decide to let it slide. The demanded capacities range from .05% of "engineered capacity" (which according to the FBI initially means the maximum number of subscribers to a particular service or facility) to a full 1% of engineered capacity. In a worst-case scenario this could mean that 1 person on every residential city block could be wiretapped at all times - or, enough to wiretap 20,000 people at the same time in New York City alone - one of the cities targetted for the higher capacity. According to industry executives, there have never been more than 7 simultaneous wiretaps conducted from a single US telco location. Current wiretapping activity is roughly one tap per 170,000 phone lines. Isn't increasing wiretapping capacity more than a thousand times over a just a wee bit excessive? Clark Matthews, writing for _The_Spotlight_ estimates that under the current proposal, as many as 500,000 to 1,500,000 simultaneous wiretaps could be conducted nation-wide, given sufficient law enforcement resources. Compare this to the average of less than 1000 court-authorized wiretaps annually (though up to 1730 in 1994), less than half of them done for federal law enforcement. Recent reports indicate that there may have been an error in someone's figures somewhere (perhaps even in the Fed. Register notice, which pretty clearly states "1%"), and that the real number is 1 out of 1000 *lines*, but 1 out of 100 phone *calls*. Even if this is true, that's a staggering increase in wiretapping capacity. Considerably after-the-fact, the FBI revised its statements of what "engineered capacity" means, saying it means "total number of simultaneous phone calls" rather than subscriber lines. This appears to be a smokescreen, and is irrelevant anyway: the capacity to tap 1% of all ongoing phone calls is still frighteningly Big-Brotherish. And EPIC claims that the FBI's estimate of how many calls correspond to how many lines may be at least 100% less than the real figures. Even using the lowest of the percentages, .05% in rural areas until 1998 (five times that, later), the Bureau wants the capacity to conduct surveillance on 1 out of every 20000 lines, and one out of every 2000 calls. Again, the current ratio is 1 to 170,000 or thereabouts. Even in the deepest woods of Maine or the deserts of Nevada, the FBI wants to tap more than 8 times as many people as it currently can spy on - 40 times as many in 1999. FBI director Louis Freeh continues to deny, deny, deny, saying "We have not and are not asking for the ability to monitor 1 out of every 100 telephone numbers or any other ridiculous number like that. To obtain that many court orders and conduct that extent of wiretapping would be nearly impossible." His denials, however, simply don't match the Fed. Register notice, and furthermore ignore the fact that warrants only need be sought when the evidence to be gained from the surveillance is to be used in court (to quote from the statute itself: wiretaps conducted "pursuant to a court order *or other legal authorization*", emphasis added.) Not to mention that this legislation isn't for this year, it's for the future. Who knows what will be possible under a bloated FBI budget in future years? An AP article quotes Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick as saying, "There is no intention to expand the number of wiretaps or the extent of wiretapping ... . I don't think the American people should be worried about that." Well, please forgive us if we "worry". The capability to tap one out of every 100 or 1000 phone lines simultaneously, even in "high crime areas", is truly wretched excess, even presuming that wiretaps are a good idea in the first place. As Brock Meeks reported ("Riding a Straw Horse", _Cyberwire_Dispatch_, Sept. 13 1994), "In 1991, the latest year figures are available, most Americans, across all age groups, disapproved when asked the question: 'Everything considered, would you say that you approve or disapprove of wiretapping?' Some 67% of all 18-20 year olds gave the thumbs down, as did 68% of the Gen[eration]-X crowd...Boomers disapproved of wiretapping almost 3-to-1 while 67% of those 50 and over disapproved." The _New_York_Times_ reports that the FBI refuses to elaborate on its internally perceived need to increase wiretapping capacity to this extent, saying only that "The full implementation is absolutely essential for law enforcement and public safety. We are in ongoing discussions with the communications industry. Therefore it would be inappropriate to comment further at this point." Apparently the FBI considers their discussions more imporant than your rights. And those discussions may even be on the subject of negotiating, outside of public review, for even *more* wiretapping capacity that the Bureau has already asked for in the Federal Register. Enough is enough. DT/CALEA's *capability* requirements are still under development. In short, the FBI will state what it wants, and the industry must try to comply with this, within certain limits, including the right of members of the public to challenge the requirments before the FCC. The funding issue: Congress authorized but did not appropriate US$500million to implement CALEA in 1994. The Justice dept. has proposed that a 30%-40% extra fine ("surcharge") be attached to all civil and criminal penalties and fines to pay for this, and has attached this proposal to both the stalled and in many cases unconsitutional anti-terrorism legislation, and a pending appropriations bill. EFF is committed to opposing any such funding efforts for the wiretap bill's provisions. * What You Can Do Now See the FBI Federal Register notice below. It includes instructions on how to submit comments. Remember, these comments are part of the public record. The FBI cannot hide them, and they *do* matter. THE DEADLINE IS NOV. 15! Act now, or perhaps forever hold thy peace! Remember that FBI director Louis Freeh himself states: "There is no intention to expand the number of wiretaps or the extent of wiretapping. Those who use the public comment notice to argue the contrary are wrong." If your comments focus on a the (nonetheless quite reasonable) proposition that the FBI intends to wiretap an order of magnitude more people that they do now, your comments may end up being disregarded. Instead, criticize the ridiculous draft requirement for this much wiretap capacity in the first place if the FBI doesn't intend to use it. Remember, you have them, either way. The current proposal is simply senseless. Next steps: Contact your legislators, and keep an eye on the progress of bills that the FBI has attached DT/CALEA funding language to - sending letters to the members of committess examining such legislation is important. In your letter to your own Senators and Representatives, please stress that * the FBI has not shown that it effectively uses wiretapping to prevent domestic terrorism, despite its claims and despite this being the prime reason the FBI has expressed for this legislation; * the FBI has not provided the public or Congress any of the information that it claims supports its outrageous requests for wiretapping capacity, orders of magnitude greater than present-day capacity in some areas; * the FBI may be, counter to the specifications of CALEA, entering into negotiations with telecom industry leaders that are hidden from the public; * the FBI has shown no evidence to back up its claims that digital telephone technology is actually thwarting effective law enforcement; * FOIA-obtained documents from the FBI itself indicate that the above-mentioned Bureau claim is a complete fabrication anyway; * Citizen privacy is not to be stripped for the convenience of law enforcement. Congress contact information is available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Activism/Congress_contact/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Activism/Congress_contact http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_contact/ A list of Congress-member email addresses is available at: gopher://una.hh.lib.umich.edu:70/00/socsci/poliscilaw/uslegi/conemail * Congress May Just Not Buy It The FBI did not once seek a warrant for a wiretap in cases involving "weapons, arson, or explosives" since the 1980s. Yet they claim that one of the main motivations for CALEA is to combat domestic terrorism. Where were they when the Oklahoma City federal building was blown up? Investigations are also underway into the decidely poor law enforcement handling of several cases, such as the Waco incident and the Randy Weaver seige. In the wake of CIA honcho Aldrich Ames's rooting-out as a traitor, the same _NYT_ issue that covered the FBI Fed. Register notice also reveals that the CIA and other intelligence agencies - the same national security interests behind DT and crypto key "escrow" - have lied consistently to the President and Congress, and have been riddled with Soviet and other double agents for decades. The article suggests that the CIA is a "laughingstock" in Washington right now. The new Congress may at times be only too willing to censor, but we can hope they won't fall for this surveillance rigamarole. * House Rejects First DT/CALEA Funding Attempt On Oct. 25, the House of Representatives voted to *not* include the FBI's CALEA funding language in the Omnibus Budget Bill (which is expected to be vetoed anyway). This version of the measure called for a 40% "surcharge" to be added to all criminal fines, to raise US$500mil. to pay for implementation of the "upgrades" to telephonic equipment that the FBI hopes to require. Other versions of the FBI legislation are, however, still appended to various appropriations and terrorism bills - the Bureau can be said to be hedging its bets. The Electronic Privacy Information Center reported this event as a victory, though others have suggested that the reason the measure was rejected was not because of privacy concerns, but rather because some arch-conservatives consider the suggested funding measure to be a form of tax increase. The anti-tax conservatives may have been "thrown a bone" on a bill expected to die anyway, so they'll have already played their cards when the issue comes up in other bills. Whatever's really going on it Congressional minds, (and a _New_York_Times_ article tends to, believe it or not, support *both* viewpoints), the FBI's loss here certainly remains cause for very guarded celebration. But the issue *will* be back. * Sen. Leahy Definitely Not Buying It Nov. 3, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) sent a public letter to FBI Director Louis Freeh. It stated in part: The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently published in the Federal Register a proposed notice of law enforcement's capacity demands predicated upon an historical baseline of electronic surveillance activity and an analysis of that activity. The Federal Register notice did not include publication of those two documents. Please provide me with copies of those two documents, which I also urge you to release to the public and publish in the Federal Register to ensure the fullest dissemination of the information. I appreciate your prompt attention to this matter. EFF joins CDT in commending Sen. Leahy for his no-nonsense approach, and for his consideration of the public interest in making this request. EFF, EPIC, or any other organization could obtain this information via Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, but that could take years, and it'd be much better if the FBI released the information voluntarily. The full text of Sen. Leahy's letter is available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Privacy/Digital_Telephony_FBI/leahy_freeh_110395.letter gopher.eff.org, 1/Privacy/Digital_Telephony_FBI, leahy_freeh_110395.letter http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/Digital_Telephony_FBI/leahy_freeh_110395. letter * Canadian Law Enforcement Taking the FBI Hint Electronic Frontier Canada reports that Canadian police chiefs are clamoring for some kind of "back door" into citizen communications, right on the heels of many other governments put under pressure by the US Administration to support its privacy-invasive policies. Canadian law enforcement may be shying away from Clipper-like crypto key "escrow" (possibly because they realize what a ridiculous idea it is?), but are already considering a ban on cellular phones that prevent eavesdropping. The 90th Annual Conference of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (Regina, Saskatchewan, August 24, 1995) produced numerous policy recommendations and resolutions, including an unsupported decision that "violent" media programming has "no" value at all and should be banned (including an explict recommendation that online material that "exploits violence" be attacked); that "the Internet System [sic] is devoid of any standards and controls necessary to regulate the nature of information being disseminated worldwide", that anonymity should be banned, and that the Canadian government should "enact legislation that will effectively control and regulate the Internet System" [sic]; that roadway video surveillance be instituted; that crime *suspect* be subject to "DNA warrants" and have their genetic information added to a federal database; and (surprised?) that "new communications technology is threatening the ability of...police agencies to conduct court-approved electronic surveillance". This is the same, unsubstantiated, claim being made by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Canadian proposal continues: "the telecommunications systems and networks are often used to further serious criminal activities, including drug trafficking, terrorism, organized crime, extortion, corruption, and money laundering" [not unlike cars, fingers, shoes, etc. And they forgot that favorite buzzphrase: "child molestation and pornography".] The rest of the recommendations regarding police surveillance and modern communications is all but plagiarized from the FBI's statements and legislation, and concludes, "the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police urges the Government of Canada to enact the appropriate legislation requiring that all present and new telecommunications technologies contain capabilities that will provide law enforcement agencies with the technical assistance necessary to accomplish court-authorized interceptions pursuant to the applicable sections of the Criminal Code of Canada (s.184.2, 184.3, 186, 188, 487.01, 492.1, 492.2)." To our northern neighbors: Be afaid. The full text of the CACP recommendations can be found at: http://insight.mcmaster.ca/org/efc/pages/law/doc/cacp.24aug95.html * The Text of the FBI's Federal Register Notice [Federal Register: October 16, 1995 (Volume 60, Number 199)] [Notices] [Page 53643-53646] >From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov] DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE Federal Bureau of Investigation Implementation of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act AGENCY: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). ACTION: Initial notice and requests for comments. _________________________________________________________ SUMMARY: The FBI is providing initial notification of law enforcement capacity requirements as mandated in section 104 of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act. Comments regarding this initial notice will be considered in the development of the final capacity notice. DATES: Written comments must be received on or before November 15, 1995. ADDRESSES: Comments should be submitted in triplicate to the Telecommunications Industry Liaison Unit (TILU), Federal Bureau of Investigation, P.O. Box 220450, Chantilly, VA 22022-0450. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Contact TILU at (800) 551-0336. Please refer to your question as a capacity notice question. I. Background On October 25, 1994, the President signed into law the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA) (Public Law 103-414; 47 U.S.C. 1001-1010). This law presents law enforcement's requirements for the surveillance of wire or electronic communications. The primary purpose of the CALEA is to clarify a telecommunications carrier's duty to assist law enforcement agencies with the lawful interception of communications and the acquisition of call-identifying information in an ever-changing telecommunications environment. To ensure that law enforcement agencies can continue to conduct authorized surveillance of wire or electronic communications, the CALEA states that telecommunications carriers must meet the assistance capability requirements set forth in section 103 of the Act (and restated in Appendix A of this notice). Section 104 of the CALEA mandates that the Attorney General of the United States provide notice of estimates for the actual and maximum number of pen register, trap and trace, and communication intercepts that law enforcement agencies may conduct and use simultaneously. The definitions for ``actual capacity'' and ``maximum capacity'' are included below: Actual Capacity--``notice of the actual number of communication interceptions. pen registers, and trap and trace devices, representing a portion of the maximum capacity that the Attorney General estimates that government agencies authorized to conduct electronic surveillance may conduct and use simultaneously by the date that is 4 years after the date of enactment of the CALEA'' (CALEA, section 104(a)(1)(A)). Maximum Capacity--``notice of the maximum capacity required to accommodate all of the communication interceptions, pen registers, and trap and trace devices that the Attorney General estimates that government agencies authorized to conduct electronic surveillance may conduct and use simultaneously after the date that is 4 years after of enactment of the CALEA'' (CALEA, section 104(a)(1)(B)). This Federal Register announcement serves as the initial notice of the government's actual and maximum capacity requirements. These requirements will aid telecommunications carriers in developing and deploying solutions to meet the assistance capability requirements set forth in section 103 of the CALEA. A final notice will be issued in accordance with the CALEA requirements after considering comments to this initial notice. The actual and maximum capacity requirements were developed by the FBI in coordination with law enforcement. By order of the Attorney General of the United States, as codified in 28 CFR 0.85 (o), government implementation responsibilities under the CALEA were delegated to the FBI. The FBI, in turn, is establishing TILU to carry out the government's implementation responsibilities, including the publication of capacity notices. For the purposes of this document, the terms defined in section 2510 of title 18, United States Code, and section 102 of the CALEA (section 1001 of title 47, United States Code) have, respectively, the meanings stated in those sections. Additional clarification of terms is provided in Appendix B of this notice. II. Introduction The capacity figures in this notice reflect the combined number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions that law enforcement may conduct by October 25, 1998. All telecommunications carriers must, within 3 years after the publication of the final notice of capacity requirements or within 4 years after the date of enactment of the CALEA, whichever is longer, ensure that their systems are capable of accommodating simultaneously the number of pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions identified in the actual capacity requirements. Furthermore, all telecommunications carriers shall ensure capabilities exist to expeditiously accommodate any increase in the actual number of pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions that authorized agencies may seek to conduct and use, up to the maximum capacity requirement. Some carriers may not need to make modifications to their equipment, facilities, and services in response to this notice because they currently meet all law enforcement capacity and capability requirements for electronic surveillance. The capacity requirements are not intended to specify, required or prohibit adoption of any particular system design or configuration by a telecommunications carrier, equipment manufacturer, or support services provider. These entities must develop an appropriate solution to comply with the capacity requirements set forth in this notice and with the assistance capability requirements found in section 103 of the CALEA. In developing solutions, carriers should consider the effect that particular services and features may have on capacity requirements. For example, the required number of ports, lines, or other network resources may vary depending upon the use of particular services and features by an intercept subject. The FBI, along with other law enforcement agencies, will be available, through the consultative process, to discuss these engineering issues. In accordance with the intent of the CALEA, carriers must ensure that their equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications are capable of meeting the capability and capacity requirements mandated by the CALEA. These requirements apply to existing and future telecommunications carriers. III. Capacity Requirements Derivation The capacity figures that are presented in this initial notice were derived as a result of a thorough analysis of electronic surveillance needs. Information regarding electronic surveillance activities for a specific time period was obtained from telecommunications carriers, law enforcement, U.S. District Courts, State Courts, State Attorneys General, and State District Attorneys to establish a historical baseline of activity. The historical baseline of electronic surveillance activity was determined after examination of both the location and occurrence of each electronic surveillance reported. The historical baseline was then analyzed to derive the total and simultaneous electronic surveillance activity by switch and within specific geographic areas. Future capacity needs were then determined after consideration of the impact of demographics, market trends, and other factors on the historical baseline. The analysis indicates that electronic surveillance activity varies by geographic area. Therefore, the capacity requirements will vary by geographic area. The capacity requirements are reported by category, with each geographic area being assigned to one of three distinct categories. The use of categories enables capacity requirements to be stated in a manner that reasonably represents law enforcement electronic surveillance needs in all geographic areas, yet does not overburden the telecommunications industry by holding all carriers to the same level of capacity. Category I (the highest category) and Category II (the intermediate category) represent those geographic areas where the majority of electronic surveillance activity occurs. Only a few of the most densely populated areas, which have historically been areas of high electronic surveillance activity, are grouped into Category I. Other densely populated areas and some suburban areas, with moderate electronic surveillance activity, are grouped into Category II. The numbers for these categories were derived based on the analysis described above. Category I and Category II apply to approximately 25 percent of the equipment, facilities, and services covered by the survey over the time period. Category III (the lowest category) represents law enforcement's minimum acceptable capacity requirements for electronic surveillance activity. This category covers all other geographic areas. The numbers for Category III were derived by analyzing areas of historically low electronic surveillance activity and projecting future needs in order to establish a requirement for a minimum level of capacity for electronic surveillance. All telecommunications carriers are expected to meet the minimum capacity requirements of Category III. Carriers will be individually notified of those specific geographic areas within the areas they serve that exceed Category III and warrant a Category I or Category II capacity requirement. The individual carrier notifications will occur contemporaneously with the publication of the final notice. It is anticipated that the majority of the area served by a carrier will fall into Category III; however, if Category I and Category II capacity requirements are necessary, they are likely to affect only a small portion of their area served. This initial capacity notice includes the actual and maximum capacity requirements for Categories I, II, and III. After considering comments to this initial notice, a final notice will be published. Future changes to the maximum capacity requirements issued in the final notice will be published in the Federal Register, as necessary, in accordance with section 104(c). IV. Initial Statement of Actual and Maximum Capacity The actual and maximum capacity requirements are presented as a percentage of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, and services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications. Engineered capacity refers to the maximum number of subscribers that can be served by that equipment, facility, or service. Frequently, the percentage is applied to the engineered subscriber capacity of a switch, however, the percentage can also apply to nonswitch equipment (i.e., network peripherals) involved in the origination, termination, or direction of communications. Percentages are being used rather than fixed numbers due to the dynamics and diversity of the telecommunications industry. The use of percentages allows telecommunications carriers the flexibility to adjust to changes in marketplace conditions or changes in the number of subscribers, access lines, equipment, facilities, etc., and still know the required level of capacity. As a result of extensive consultation with federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies, telecommunications carriers, providers of telecommunications support services, and manufacturers of telecommunications equipment, the FBI proposes the following capacity requirements for Categories I, II, and III: Category I Actual Capacity Each telecommunications carrier must provide the ability to meet the capability assistance requirements defined in section 103 of the CALEA for a number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions equal to 0.5% of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications. Maximum Capacity Each telecommunications carrier must ensure that it can expeditiously increase its capacity to meet the assistance capability requirements defined in section 103 of the CALEA for a number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions equal to 1% of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications. Category II Actual Capacity Each telecommunications carrier must provide the ability to meet the capability assistance requirements defined in section 103 of the CALEA for a number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions equal to 0.25% of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications. Maximum Capacity Each telecommunications carrier must ensure that it can expeditiously increase its capacity to meet the assistance capacity requirements defined in section 103 of the CALEA for a number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions equal to 0.5% of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications. Category III Actual Capacity Each telecommunications carrier must provide the ability to meet the capability assistance requirements defined in section 103 of the CALEA for a number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions equal to 0.05% of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications. Maximum Capacity Each telecommunications carrier must ensure that it can expeditiously increase its capacity to meet the assistance capability requirements defined in section 103 of the CALEA for a number of simultaneous pen register, trap and trace, and communication interceptions equal to 0.25% of the engineered capacity of the equipment, facilities, or services that provide a customer or subscriber with the ability to originate, terminate, or direct communications. When translated from percentages to numbers, capacity requirements should be rounded up to the nearest whole number. V. Carrier Statements and Consultation As set forth in section 104(d) of the CALEA, each telecommunications carrier is required to provide within 180 days after publication of the final capacity notice a statement identifying any of its systems or services that do not have the capacity to meet the assistance capability requirements stated in section 103 of the CALEA. These carrier statements will be used in conjunction with law enforcement priorities and other factors to determine the specific equipment, facilities, and services that require immediate modification and that may be eligible for cost reimbursement. The FBI will consult with telecommunications carriers to establish a template for responding to the capability and capacity requirements. Dated: October 10, 1995. Louis J. Freeh, Director. [FR Doc. 95-25562 Filed 10-13-95; 8:45 am] BILLING CODE 4410-02-M [editor's note -- Appendicies have been deleted to save space. The entire text of this document can be found at EFF's and CDT's Digital Telephony Web Pages. See "For More Information", below.] * For More Information See the following Internet sites: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Privacy/Digital_Telephony_FBI/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Privacy/Digital_Telephony_FBI http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Privacy/Digital_Telephony_FBI/ http://www.epic.org/privacy/wiretap/ http://www.cdt.org/digtel.html [Portions of this alert based on material from CDT, EPIC and VTW, various articles, and several independent reports.] ------------------------------ Subject: Newsbytes ------------------ * EFF Relocation Complete Our new, permanent contact info is: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1550 Bryant St., Suite 725 San Francisco CA 94103 USA +1 415 436 9333 (voice) <-- That's 436 9EFF +1 415 436 9993 (fax) ask@eff.org (or, for "canned" general info, info@eff.org). Bernstein- or Scientology-case queries should go to EFF Staff Counsel Shari Steele (ssteele@eff.org), +1 301 375 8856. Other Press and legal queries should go to EFF Staff Counsel Mike Godwin (mnemonic@eff.org), +1 510 548 3290. * EFF Rated in Top 5% of the Net by Point Survey Point Survey, one of the most comprehensive WWW site review services on the net, http://www.pointcom.com, rated EFFWeb as one of the top 5% net sites. Their review calls us a "great resource for those who want to protect cyberspace." The full review is available at: http://www.pointcom.com/gifs/reviews/10_29038.htm * Commerce Dept. IPWG Report on Online Intellectual Property Meets Resistance The Information Infrastructure Task Force (IITF) of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) was created by the executive branch of the U.S. government to recommend policy and legislation on the "Information Superhighway". In the wake of the LaMacchia case, The IITF set up a working group to make recommendations on copyright law and intellectual property. The "White Paper" is the report of this working group. The legislation recommended in the White Paper was sent to Congress on Thursday, September 28, 1995. The White Paper is based on a 1994 draft, the "Green Paper", both strongly influenced by the Intellectual Property Rights Working Group chair, Patent & Trademark Office Commissioner Bruce Lehman. The recent White Paper version is available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Intellectual_property/ipwg_nii_ip_lehman.report gopher.eff.org, 1/Intellectual_property, ipwg_nii_ip_lehman.report http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/ipwg_nii_ip_lehman.report The Green Paper version was the subject of strong criticism from many sides, including Prof. Pamela Samuelson, who opposed the attempt to pass off sweeping recommended changes as "minor". Samuelson, in her critique, states that the Green Paper's recommendations "would abolish longstanding rights that the public has enjoyed to make use of copyrighted works, rights that have been consistently upheld in courts and in the copyright statute." The draft (Green Paper) version, and Prof. Samuelson's critique are available at (respectively): ftp.eff.org, /pub/Intellectual_property/ipwg_nii_ip_lehman_report.draft gopher.eff.org, 1/Intellectual_property, ipwg_nii_ip_lehman_report.draft http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/ipwg_nii_ip_lehman_report.d raft and ftp.eff.org, /pub/Intellectual_property/ipwg_nii_ip_report_samuelson.comments gopher.eff.org, 1/Intellectual_property, ipwg_nii_ip_report_samuelson.comments http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/ ipwg_nii_ip_report_samuelson.comments EFF Board of Directors Chair Esther Dyson and Vice-Chair John Perry Barlow have written forward-looking pieces on online "i-p", both pointing in directions strongly at odds with IITF's vision of intellectual property's future. These articles can be found at (respectively): ftp.eff.org, /pub/Publications/Esther_Dyson/ip_on_the_net.article gopher.eff.org, 1/Publications/Esther_Dyson, ip_on_the_net.article http.eff.org/pub/Publications/Esther_Dyson/HTML/ip_on_the_net.html and ftp.eff.org, /pub/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/idea_economy.article gopher.eff.org, 1/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow, idea_economy.article http.eff.org/pub/Publications/John_Perry_Barlow/HTML/idea_economy_articl e.html The new "White Paper" version of the IITF report doesn't seem to have fixed anything. Most criticisms that applied to the Green Paper draft hold for the final version. The National Writers Union says of the report, "We are struck by the remote character of the report in that it misses the daily realities of the individual writer, artist or other creator...we must voice concerns that favor the rights of information users at the same time that we seek fair compensation for our work." NWU suggests that the report points fingers at individuals and libraries for copyright infringement, when the real culprits are media conglomerates, and calls the working group's bias against the public interest and toward media centralization "a disconnection from reality", and a failure to uphold the public's fair use rights. NWU closes by saying, "Legislation and regulatory action on intellectual property and the National Information Infrastructure must do a more complete job than has been done by this report to include the concerns of the creators of intellectual property and of the general public." The full NWU comments can be found at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Intellectual_property/nwu_ipwg_paper.comments gopher.eff.org, 1/Intellectual_property, nwu_ipwg_paper.comments http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/nwu_ipwg_paper.comments The Commercial Internet eXchange (CIX) has criticised the white paper as well, in a draft position statement, pointing out that IPWG would criminalize all service providers for the illegal actions of their users. CIX's response paper states in part, "CIX members transmit nearly half a billion messages each day, and cannot realistically be expected to monitor the content of those transmissions. Moreover, the instantaneous nature of digital communications precludes access providers from viewing, judging, monitoring or editing the content of most messages posted or accessed by their subscribers. Finally, [Internet Access Providers] are similar to common carriers in that they have no control over which members of the public use their facilities or the content members of the public choose to transmit. For these reasons, access providers should not be treated as a publisher [sic] for copyright purposes. Unfortunately, that is precisely what the Working Group has proposed by including in its suggested revisions to the Copyright Act the undefined word 'transmit' as part of the definition of 'publish.'" The full CIX comments can be found at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Intellectual_property/cix_ipwg_paper.comments gopher.eff.org, 1/Intellectual_property, cix_ipwg_paper.comments http://www.eff.org/pub/Intellectual_property/cix_ipwg_paper.comments The IITF report recommended that the Copyright Act "be amended to expressly recognize that copies or phonorecords of works can be distributed to the public by transmission, and that such transmissions fall within the exclusive distribution right of the copyright owner." This portion of the suggested legislation has already been passed by both houses of Congress. Whether other aspects will find their way into law remains to be seen. They probably will, though. Criticism of the White Paper is common and solid, but this does not seem to be dissuading legislators from taking the Report's conclusions and recommendations at face value and running with them. * IPWG Report's Suggested Legislation: Passed and Pending (+ Canada Tie-In) Samuelson, CIX, Barlow, NWU, Dyson, Jessica Littman, and numerous others have pointed out, in articles and at conferences, an almost uncountable number of flaws in the IITF NII intellectual property report. Some have labelled it "a wolf in sheep's clothing", which systematically ignores cases which don't support its extreme positions in order to make its radical proposals look more reasonable. At this early stage, the White Paper's endorsement of criminalizing traditionally protected behaviors such as private, non-commercial copying is not well understood. Nor is it well understood how biased a document it is, or how it supposes a view of the world in which every information transaction can be subject to a private tax with the threat of criminal sanction behind it. Critics of the report suggest that its drafting process is heavily dominated by special interests to such an extent that a fair outcome is unlikely - the lobbyists (and former lobbyists like PTO Commissioner Lehman), may be motivated by fear that digitalization will mark the end of the economic hegemony of certain media interests, who seek to bend the law to their exclusive advantage with no regard for the tranditional balance in intellectual property law between i-p rights holders and the public. Then again, others, such as the Software Publisher Association complain loudly of lost profits in the billions due to online copyright violation, and even the NWU supports major changes to current intellectual property law. Few seem to doubt that current law is quite right for the state of modern communications. The disagreement seems largely about what changes must be made, and perhaps more to the point - whether now is a good time to change them or on the other hand whether anyone proposing immediate changes has any idea what they are doing. Senators Orrin Hatch and Pat Leahy think they do, and introduced S. 1284, the "Information Infrastructure Copyright Act of 1995" in September. the IICA is based heavily on the IITF White Paper, and comprises sections. The first, the "NII Copyright Protection Act of 1995", explicitly covers digital transmission of copyrighted works, as one might expect. It also makes it a crime to alter or provide false "copyright management information" on someone else's intellectual property, or to circumvent copy protection schemes or provide software or hardware to do so ("copyright management information" being author and copyright holder name and contact info, terms & conditions of use), Not particularly disturbing? Until you consider that reverse-analysis of software, including copy protection, is useful and legitimate, as are utilities to update one's own information stored by the copy protection features in software. Or until you consider that many copy protection schemes are poorly designed, and essentially require one to break the copy protection to make backups or to install a new copy of the software from backup disks. Or until you get to the section that lays the burden of proving innocence on the accused. Or until you realize that the only way to enforce these provisions would be for system operators (and libraries and other services) to act as "net cops" and spy on users continuously and in great detail. Fines are up to half a million dollars and/or 5 years in prison. The bill panders to large-scale copyright holders, and fails to balance their rights with those of authors & creators, not to mention the public's right of fair use. A coalition of organizations, individuals and a companies, the Digital Future Coalition, further criticizes the bill as hindrance to the development of tele-education and general market innovation. EFF is considering joining DFC and endorsing their upcoming letter to the sponsors of this bill. Ironically, it was Sen. Leahy who said (referring to the Digital Telephony bill) in April 1994, "The part that frightens the hell out of me is the goverment deciding where technology goes." Should this legislation pass, it is likely that the actual authors and creators (as opposed to corporate copyright holders) will make less money than ever from their works, and that information vendors (and access providers - unless and until we have a common-carrier-like liability protection for them) will have to make redoubled efforts to check the copyright and royalty/licensing situation of any information their services provide. This could be the next step on one of two paths: increasing "net.cop" behavior on the part of access providers, or increased civil disobedience of unenforceable laws that are almost physically impossible to abide by for system operators. Senator Leahy, this time with Sen. Feingold, is interested in even more changes to intellectual property law. They introduced S.1122, the "Criminal Copyright Improvement Act of 1995" in August, making it an offense to assist others in the reproduction or distribution of an infringed work, and allowing prosecutors to go after bulletin board operators and other service providers when the end-user cannot be tracked down. Leahy's bill, the inspiration for which appears to be highly questionable statistics from software manufacturers' trade associations, poses fairly clear threats to all system operators that do not track users and get a variety of verified personal information from all customers. In a speech at a conference, Leahy tied S.1122 into his and Sen. Orrin Hatch's new bill to combat the counterfeiting of goods, S.1136, proposing fines up to US$1,000,000. S.1122 has language related to faked goods, including software, as well. It may be that the two bills are intended to be merged. S. 1122 is intended to snare system operators whose systems are used for software piracy by customers. One section states" SEC. 2. CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT OF COPYRIGHTS. (a) DEFINITION OF FINANCIAL GAIN- Section 101 of title 17, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the undesignated paragraph relating to the term `display', the following new paragraph: `The term `financial gain' includes receipt of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.'. (b) CRIMINAL OFFENSES- Section 506(a) of title 17, United States Code, is amended to read as follows: `(a) CRIMINAL INFRINGEMENT- Any person who infringes a copyright willfully either-- `(1) for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain; or `(2) by the reproduction or distribution, including by transmission, or assisting others in such reproduction or distribution, of 1 or more copies, of 1 or more copyrighted works, which have a total retail value of $5,000 or more, shall be punished as provided under section 2319 of title 18.'. EFF currently has no position on this legislation, but may take one. The Center for Democracy and Technology will support the bill, provided it is modified (See CDT Policy Post for more info.) On the one hand, few doubt that allowing a system to be used as a sort of "pirated software clearinghouse" should be illegal even if the sysop does not profit from this activity (Cf. the LaMacchia case). However, this bill would appear to be insufficiently narrow, and may hold criminally liable system operators whose users exchange software, audio files or other material copyrighted by others, even without the permission or knowledge of the system operator. EFF remains committed to establishing a form of common-carrier-like liability protection for online service operators so that sysadmins and BBS sysops are not fined or imprisoned for crimes committed by users. The bill also does not appear to adequately take into account the people's rights of fair use. At a conference, Borland Sr. VP Robert Kohn and author of a treatise on online music licensing, pointed out for the audience Internet sites devoted to recording artists such as Frank Sinatra, and noting that they probably were not licensed to have the copies of song lyrics they offered from their sites. As if mirroring Kohn's sentiments, SOCAN, roughly the Canadian equivalent of US music intellectual property clearinghouses BMI and ASCAP, have filed a proposed tariff which will allow licensing of music transmitted over the Internet or BBSs, so that SOCAN can collect royalities for online uses of sound clips or lyric texts. The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada's Tariff 22 is entitled "Transmission of Musical Subscribers [sic] via a Telecommunications Service not Licensed Under Tariff 16 or 17". The proposed Tariff provides a licence fee of $0.25 for every subscriber on a service that does not earn advertising revenue. For services that do earn revenue from advertising, the licence is based on 3.2% of gross revenues, with a minimum fee of $0.25 per subscriber. A correspondent, John Lax, contacted SOCAN for more details, and found that SOCAN plans that anyone wanting to make online use of songs controlled by SOCAN would have to be licensed by the organization, and be subject to audits and inspection by SOCAN. While some note that sites like IUMA, providing online but copyrighted music information such as song lyrics, should have to pay royalties, the administrator of one such site says that the artists involved are, in at least some cases, not at all pleased by moves like SOCAN's, and will end up paying any SOCAN fees *themselves* because the Internet music sites provide free advertising for them, resulting in far more income from new sales than incoming lost from uncollected penny-ante royalities for online lyric reading or soundclip downloads. This is fairly interesting in light of NWU's criticism of the Lehman paper, that the report reflects not the interests of creators at all, but rather the interests of media mega-corporations who thrive on royalty percentages. While there's no direct tie-in between SOCAN's proposed tarrif and the IETF i-p report, there's an indirect one, in the form of a bill which recently passed both the US Senate and, unanimously, the House of Representatives. H.R.1506, the Digital Performance Right in Sound Recordings Act of 1995", gives copyright holders the authority to collect royalties each time a sound recording is transmitted in digital form. Measures that were suggested independently by both SOCAN and IITF are about to be the law of the land in the US, despite the fact that little debate on this matter has occurred, and some content producers think this will cost, not save, them money. The bills referred to above are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Legislation/Bills_by_number http://www.eff.org/pub/Legislation/Bills_by_number/ NOTE: IITF is not to be confused with IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force, which is a non-governmental volunteer standards body. [Some text in the above two articles borrowed from CIX, SOCAN, and NWU statements; Computer Law Report #11 was also used as source material, as were several action alerts and posts by participants on EFF and EFC mailing lists.] * Upcoming Articles Bernstein Case - Update Public Govt. Info Online - Update Scientology v. Critics - Update A Look at Internet Domain Name Fees and Alternatives to InterNIC EFC Opposes Bell Canada Trademark on "The Net" Arthur Halavais Censored from Internet by Judge Minnesota v. the Whole Wide World PROFS Case - Update Tony Davis Case - Update Lorne Shantz Case - Update Some of these were expected this issue, but have been put off due to the size of the artices in the current issue. ------------------------------ Subject: Upcoming events ------------------------ This schedule lists events that are directly EFF-related. A much more detailed calendar of events likely to be of interest to our members and supporters is maintained at: ftp: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/calendar.eff gopher: gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF, calendar.eff http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/calendar.eff Nov. 7 * European Summit on the Information Superhighway; Amsterdam, Netherlands. Speakers include EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow. Nov. 9 * Doors of Perception Conference; Amsterdam, Netherlands. Speakers include EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow. Nov. 23- 25 * HyperMedia Conference; Oita Japan. Speakers include EFF boardmember David Farber. Nov. 27 * Internet Society Japan Conference; Kobe Japan. Speakers include EFF boardmember David Farber. Nov. 29 * Japan Ministry of Posts and Telecom. Annual Conference on Advances in Communications; Tokyo Japan. Foreign Keynote speech by EFF boardmember, David Farber. Jan. 17- 18 * Innovation Now; Oregon Convention Center, Portland Oregon. Sponsored by American Electronics Association's Oregon Council, et al. Speakers include EFF chair of the board Esther Dyson. URL: http://www.innovationnow.org/ ------------------------------ Subject: Quote of the Day ------------------------- "You are all optimizing against the imaginable, not the probable. And the imaginable, especially the imaginable evil, has no inertia at all. There is no limit to what it might do and therefore, there is no limit to what one must do to prevent it...If we are to design all of our policies around the worst thing that could possibly happen, if we are trying to achieve a world of such absolute safety that no one in power can ever be blamed for a human-caused catastrophe, we will have to endow law enforcement with powers of surveillance which will make a police state not just imaginable but probable." - EFF co-founder John Perry Barlow, in a letter to Administration staffers regarding the Clipper and Digital Telephony surveillance scheme, on which the Administration refused to back down, citing fear of terrorists using untappable communications to plan a nuclear bombing of the World Trade Center, and the reaction the voting public would have toward the Adminstration in the event of such terrorism. Find yourself wondering if your privacy and freedom of speech are safe when bills to censor the Internet are swimming about in a sea of of surveillance legislation and anti-terrorism hysteria? Worried that in the rush to make us secure from ourselves that our government representatives may deprive us of our essential civil liberties? Concerned that legislative efforts nominally to "protect children" will actually censor all communications down to only content suitable for the playground? Join EFF! Even if you don't live in the U.S., the anti-Internet hysteria will soon be visiting a legislative body near you. If it hasn't already. ------------------------------ Subject: What YOU Can Do ------------------------ * The Communications Decency Act & Other Censorship Legislation The Communications Decency Act and similar legislation pose serious threats to freedom of expression online, and to the livelihoods of system operators. The legislation also undermines several crucial privacy protections. Business/industry persons concerned should alert their corporate govt. affairs office and/or legal counsel. Everyone should write to their own Representatives and Senators, asking them to oppose Internet censorship legislation, and write to the conference committee members to support the reasonable approaches of Leahy, Klink, Cox and Wyden, and to oppose the unconstitutional proposals of Exon, Gorton and others. See the first article in this newsletter for more detailed info. For more information on what you can do to help stop this and other dangerous legislation, see: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Alerts/ gopher.eff.org, 1/Alerts http://www.eff.org/pub/Alerts/ If you do not have full internet access, send your request for information to ask@eff.org. * Digital Telephony/Comms. Assistance to Law Enforcement Act The FBI is now seeking both funding for the DT/CALEA wiretapping provisions, and preparing to require that staggering numbers of citizens be simultaneously wiretappable. To oppose the funding, write to your own Senators and Representatives urging them to vote against any appropriations for wiretapping. To oppose the FBI's wiretapping capacity demands, see the FBI Federal Register notice at the end of the second article in this newsletter, which contains instructions on how to submit formal comments on the ludicrous and dangerous proposal. * Anti-Terrorism Bills Numerous bills threatening your privacy and free speech have been introduced this year. None of them are close to passage at this very moment, but this status may change. Urge your Congresspersons to oppose these unconstitutional and Big-Brotherish bills. * The Anti-Electronic Racketeering Act This bill is unlikely to pass in any form, being very poorly drafted, and without much support. However, the CDA is just as bad and passed with flying colors [the jolly roger?] in the Senate. It's better to be safe than sorry. If you have a few moments to spare, writing to, faxing, or calling your Congresspersons to urge opposition to this bill is a good idea. If you only have time to do limited activism, please concentrate on the CDA instead. That legislation is far more imminent that the AERA. * Find Out Who Your Congresspersons Are Writing letters to, faxing, and phoning your representatives in Congress is one very important strategy of activism, and an essential way of making sure YOUR voice is heard on vital issues. EFF has lists of the Senate and House with contact information, as well as lists of Congressional committees. (A House list is included in this issue of EFFector). These lists are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Issues/Activism/Congress_cmtes http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/Congress_cmtes/ The full Senate and House lists are senate.list and hr.list, respectively. Those not in the U.S. should seek out similar information about their own legislative bodies. EFF will be happy to archive any such information provided. If you are having difficulty determining who your Representatives are, try contacting your local League of Women Voters, who maintain a great deal of legislative information. * Join EFF! You *know* privacy, freedom of speech and ability to make your voice heard in government are important. You have probably participated in our online campaigns and forums. Have you become a member of EFF yet? The best way to protect your online rights is to be fully informed and to make your opinions heard. EFF members are informed and are making a difference. Join EFF today! For EFF membership info, send queries to membership@eff.org, or send any message to info@eff.org for basic EFF info, and a membership form. ------------------------------ Administrivia ============= EFFector Online is published by: The Electronic Frontier Foundation 1550 Bryant St., Suite 725 San Francisco CA 94103 USA +1 415 436 9333 (voice) +1 415 436 9993 (fax) Membership & donations: membership@eff.org Legal services: ssteele@eff.org General EFF, legal, policy or online resources queries: ask@eff.org Editor: Stanton McCandlish, Online Services Mgr./Activist/Archivist (mech@eff.org) This newsletter is printed on 100% recycled electrons. Reproduction of this publication in electronic media is encouraged. Signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of EFF. To reproduce signed articles individually, please contact the authors for their express permission. Press releases and EFF announcements may be reproduced individ- ually at will. To subscribe to EFFector via email, send message body of "subscribe effector-online" (without the "quotes") to listserv@eff.org, which will add you to a subscription list for EFFector. Back issues are available at: ftp.eff.org, /pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ gopher.eff.org, 1/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/ To get the latest issue, send any message to effector-reflector@eff.org (or er@eff.org), and it will be mailed to you automagically. You can also get the file "current" from the EFFector directory at the above sites at any time for a copy of the current issue. HTML editions available at: http://www.eff.org/pub/EFF/Newsletters/EFFector/HTML/ at EFFweb. HTML editions of the current issue sometimes take a day or longer to prepare after issue of the ASCII text version. ------------------------------ End of EFFector Online v08 #18 Digest ************************************* $$ ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 08:42:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: dunno etc. Patrick Phillips: "It seems to me a task of poetry to de-essentialize language/diction so that it goes out to use." Chris Stroffolino: "The political implications here are seen in opposition to each other-in sofar as wanting to be USED and wanting to DO AWAY WITH USE as such are contradictory urges foisted upon people by "economic necessity" poetry may seem to fail-but the double meaning in Wonder's use of USE may be said to be a kind of Alchemy (as Foster understands it): the sum greater than the parts." I'm very intrigued by your notion of failure. As the beginning of a response, I want to quote Charles Bernstein: "Is it, then, possible to have marginality as a value that is not perfused by resentment or Romantic evasion? Insofar as marginality is taken as a positive moral value, this dilemma holds. But it can begin to be dissolved when marginality is recognized, in contradistinction, as a t(r)opological prerequisite of all utterance." I take it, Chris, this would be a more optimistic sense of "fail." But I too am troubled by any reliance upon "use" as the term of unanimity. In this connection I'd point out that the circle of instrumentality that Heidegger articulated required - for its percipience - breakdown. It is only when something is NOT zu hande that it (and the circle) emerge into palpability. The implications of that for writing are continually being unwritten. So the question is: "marginaltiy as a t(r)opological prerequisite of utterance." Tom Beard wrote: "then they are speaking different languages (of course this happens all the time)." But with reference to the issues of instrumentality and the margin, it seems more and more the case to me that there are NOT many languages, that there is only this single instrumental cycling, complicated as it is by the obvious range of technologies, but fundamentally interpretive and/or horizonal and furthermore inclined to turn that interpretive horizon back upon itself. The analogy might be 1950s train travel between Country A and Country B. The respective national lines use rails of different widths. But what is most revealing in this scenario is neither the transit nor certainly the equipmental necessities both intra-travel and at the liminal crossing but the sheer incommensurability there at the border. That's the disturbance it seems to me poetry locates again and again within language, It seems impossible to take that into use. (That is, Patrick, I would see, in this case, use itself as the term of the impossible.) However, ironically (!!) this breakdown does in fact foreground the technology. And it's interesting that Patrick Phillips dovetailed communication and use. It seems that both terms of unanimity create or at least perpetuate a social formation based on debt, the ultimate restricted economy: the propostion ex nihil. Which leads to experience based on the question: Why is there something rather than nothing? One imaginative experience attempts to answer this wtih assertions of truth. But there are similar, parallel, perhaps equivalent experiences based not on "ex nihil" as an assumption, and so not within an assumed restricted economy, and so on a different question: Since there IS something, why do we labor so aggressively to turn it into nothing? This second order of experience answers with assertions, not of truth, but of agency, as Patrick suggests, the plowing of intention back into the social formation. It is the continual externality then of this agency, plied from the multiple horizons of the present, that gives the lie to the sacred bags and boxes of the essential in poetry. Larry Price ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 08:42:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: Re: Re & Ralph Waldo Ed Foster: Regarding noun- vs. verb-based writing: I don't read the difference as the replacement of one economy by another "one." Instead I would argue (with all the usual caveats that the exceptions etc. prove etc.) that the noun as prime carrier occurs in plenary session, the throes of empire's accomplishment. Whereas verbs predominate either in the grasping forward into imperial potential (Emerson) or (as now) in the gasping conflicted aftermath of its redefinition. In particular, I'm not at all convinced by the demi-collapse of the first line of The Kingfishers. Even past the immediate levels of process and action Olson foregrounded, there was the persistent, almost monotonous allegory, so that what nouns were privileged were so only as materiel for the gold machine. Again, the ex nihil of capital. Larry Price ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 09:56:48 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: Re & Ralph Waldo In-Reply-To: <951107084226_100055267@emout04.mail.aol.com> Larry Price wrote: Instead I would argue (with all the usual caveats that the exceptions etc. prove etc.) that the noun as prime carrier occurs in plenary session, the throes of empire's accomplishment. Whereas verbs predominate either in the grasping forward into imperial potential (Emerson) or (as now) in the gasping conflicted aftermath of its redefinition... Again, the ex nihil of capital. Larry, Could you clarify whether you're still describing the Bruce Andrews-waterworld of language or some other historically-determined landmass/geopolitical metaphorical system for poetry? I agree that there's some mystification going on... Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 11:15:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jorge Guitart Subject: Renga Report II Comments: cc: cris cheek , Jordan Davis , Thomas Bell , Gabrielle Welford , "Sheila E. Murphy" , guitart@acsu.buffalo.edu, George Bowering Edited by Cris "Turn the Other" Cheek with input from himself, Tom "Ring The" Bell, Jordan "River" Davis, George "Mr. Canada" Bowering, Gabrielle "Blow Your Horn" Wexford, Sheila E. "Stabat on Raiser" Murphy, and Jorge "While My Last Name Gently Weeps" Guitart. in the books were dreams and in the dreams were books. "It's a small world" ripe for macroscopes to pump or slice or butterfly away from that ardent bugged heliotrope and pledge allegiance through ostension--we stopped short of the shortstop's hot stigmatum this time pencilled in as tangly wisps instead of memory detonations: but don't forget to dismember the doloroso I left in the rain by mistake whilst on business vocation the night I told you to stop referring to me as Ontology Boy and you replied all shrouded in epistemology that it was glue we lacked "ckab oups frert cdl-fdl!!" with elvis projecting "uhhhh, daarlin' I'm all stuck on metaphors that the folks at the contagious hospital thought we might be weaned of early, late, whatever, but I am taking the broken glass as a token of my first epiphany to split scintillas in the mist of lathering first frost blue noon comes on like torqued weed sucking on the indescribable and taking the ineffable, for a walk to Paris via seed cigars and chicory and plantain butts mixed with automaton condolences nixed by Dr. Reynolds crecheward into sweet line drawings clothed to world our words for water, falling four blocks away, finally, a gulf between perceived and rinsing wafered, shroud and comforter, flogging proud wet stones with patchwork flags making tenement hum and let it get too cold, "Hey, tell us apart", "The name is trace, pal" spun on painted heels, then "vanishing, not varnishing!" her smile made by Chevettes sliding off the I5 south of Tacoma monikered bellwether of the pall top crash, whose running gag was meat leaf stems whirl about as hobbyist pauses to consider lunch as a pearl of sanitized dung in relation to mythology's transference of lettuce, permission to unleash in the epoxy I used to cement my relationship w/ Thou, the Dead Quaker who who traipses a paradigm sweat under lights and then fixes doughboys & doughgirls, behaving like superfluous enigmas puzzling in contagious ways over the simplest rides to the grotto of our Lady of Corollaries during the Feast of the Enormity with widgets handprinted by obvious mistakes in limited editions shrink-wrapped to keep-out dangerfields unfurled before "The hell we were!" a seachange to order as happy as money could meld me a rope pitchpipe with its squeal subtracted and the dotted-line relationships that sing "I Love Time but I love Your Spatial Simulacra So Much More" for brevity inferred and for the latchkey touch more like a feather drizzling ribs trained sultry moments gathering to migrate south no one so maybe-ed became an ornament maimed, my parents won't let me play with density because its quantity is known, and they prefer unknowns to Belarus stockmen deflowering everything in sight, grim Homolkaesque behaviourists - buttoned quality refrigerators: forensically "I seem to be a verb" but meteorologically i am an anominal clitic the empress of rice dream, wrote impossibly relaxed when thinking about pain beside the capability of boredom by the volcano that was sacred on the basis of size and not-on merit "books were closed, dreams were cancelled, the inverted poplar was set right, the cardinal was killed" looking for false grit and the dogma of autonomous syntax overwhelmed 'em when striking from base-camp their paraffin tongues in the cauldron of sylvia's morning during the time that ted was devising a way to narrate implied memory for newly-learned novel objects well, now we've met the eremite and he is sour where wrote was written, stepping without the prefab little knobbed things on them completely set on the sea as so much crabbiness diverting attention from wars in three voices and the steady rain of hemlock falling on a Concerns box & bull sobbing distant as adventure capital behind the exterior of the city was an interior composed of scar tissue recording the grain of farm house timbers a rubble of history in the grass where a decapitated statue unavoidably becomes an image of a nation without a true face ugh gotta change that line creased, cemented, spun from claustrophobia the way that glitches suggested themselves as sexuation near the border of profundity where drudges still are visible but begin to matter less than duality or the boyishness of dusk. I, too, miscast as a hand-me-down protractor caught out napping on the boss's desk feel the sign Aliens make for "concocted in the lability of H.P.Grice" who serendipities all morning after frost has cinched its lag time comes humming by the torment wing of the museum of facades where remedies steam windows other than our own and we immerse ourselves in voice of ice loud as the night priest convenes gnomes who weather what they do in disbelief because abstraction crushes their palpitations as preambles to the rust we might someday finagle into the market of dwarfs' shortcomings that are longgoings in the thrust of memorized vibrati larkish and unpoised though frequently amiss in the slump of confetti being so much the memento that we cried under the dandelions where no pulse was original enough for the dog to be plankton or the nurse a gate in an iron dress as pressed as any moment striped with platitudes and pain When gaze is glass and deletion is tossing scouring the housings for meaningless dripping. How pleasure moves in and through the breath of anyone is a division problem, and how the grammar of namely formed water & spark a face to sell a magazine, to turn to the calcined sheriff and each to churn through tongue and balls they too were skeptical of the value of their face of souvenirs of deliriums of proctors & chests but like the strong and weak forces mostly they gossipped in deference to regression to the mean, interpreted as law a million roses can't subtract from the effect of reference leaking from mention as we all do when evaporating on the line in an unfocused row just as the embassy bequeathed bones to every sailor the penitent dragged his textbooks in burlap over concrete. soldering the fatherly clavicle to a theory of colors wounded round and playful although never sleek swimming in the northblood channel and evening being a paperweight we sift the rough as fingers reek a favorite color in the lettering of gestures, from a meadow we attract like breath mint severally fastened to our angels and our motors of romance. What can cut across the lake of secretion when speaking as the reflection that the diving frog shatters the wave mechanics of a clam's locomotion as her masters thesis no wonder she now finds rinds lascivious, or bipeds oleaginous, hawaiaan geese, I'm trucked to fleece numismatic events and there collect ideas on ash and lime for their own appeasements sake or exchanged their blind letter for a parapetal posture a pine forest, travelling as daughters through the lines of clattering chat, minds to fill and erase a peaceable that confers with waters thin and deep varnishing enthusiasm, till the propitious flames lie still the way we have entrusted them to lie, pink flavored little rhomboids that prove Euclid a yellowish garment plus scatteredness wounded round and playful although never sleek Parliament? the punchlines might have faded but the words sound 'good' with the kind of sand that words make during spasms skittering and thanking tonal textures for the wash and for the winged ram that hoards awareness as we turn during the dustfest, yet you pinch yourself to test how far the dust can be removed from you and propelled toward us in sadness by the plateful for the sake of voice but I doubt it. I find a library card is enough To bind agency moving the passionary in the direction of the skid is like character taking possession of land during colonisation. Fear is much like a possession & a handful of rust is locative-like Frozen fish chutney, subsumed in the task of motherhood relates How we played baseball with the performance artists! knocko socko in the terrible neighborhood of implants Opening festivities, 12:00 o'clock noon. The glass fish bakes like a brick and sings: for acting like a lexical structure after puberty shuffle? I can't even deal, Betty and then I says "I am outa here: I'm tired of recurrences of semblances" The glass dish struck with a bannermaker sings "We were bequeathing our sports skills to the jailor "Just as the embassy bequeathed bones to every sailor "the penitent dragged his textbooks in burlap over concrete. with sentences that even score on score in little subtexts which also mispredict the transfer of affection after glossing laminating, defacing, reimposing, embossing, buffing, eliding. There was a written residue down at the corner, where a car had passed that way Lately all my drams have been going north, my dreams I mean. It all boils down to motors, mobiles, and places: If you look closely at the surface of this puddle, you'll see From a truculent butcher whose soaking came clean Film presaged in humidland. Film also Weening drawn one drum that time presents Continue now, that the angel storm has passed. Film the books were dreams and in the reams were latex books What travel we could scrounge from the newspapers did they radiate bagness over the fragments of blots, or did they call home once a week, did they walk to work by dint of rod, glove and puppetry that cauterized my mobile phone or am I the sealant in the shape you take? a mere preface to playtex? Trickster melodies trying to feel belief in the teeth of induction or bellwether combed, cleaned, fortified toward the scene where the parrot of intention lies ice cold long freighted. Authenticity a crevice for the playful heart which to be palpable requires a science of daze. And the continuous murmur he wrote above the buddhist hot dog vendor "make me one with everything" and yet proceeded to tear his tongue with her wine-grained books of the rank and file traced back analysand of yearly planners by forensic crockers with water jaws and aspectual extensions beyond the pale frontier made reprobate. With more than a tweaking of late tomorrowing with the mouth that cannot be taped with indulgence planned more than incised from gestural redress according to the swami standing at a fatal distance as an emblem of residency, conducted without proper documentation, aprostituted calming down in the wrong latitude. The lapdog speaks succintly: when it was a joke >>> >> >> >> >> >> >> >(privatized) beyond autonomous behaviours plonked against oblong sleight if you live in a miner's cottage marking, not having, organs that ignorant armies crush by night our rush huts flattered by reintegration into ironic worship totalizing the egress of shimmering luck data vending machines and mad hookah notwithstanding, all for a bit of sorghum, wheeze, and tantrums to replace the tangibles like Massive delusion. 'in snowy weather I photocopy my resistance scrapbook against better times than multiplication tables half erect and blind to caterwaul, drizzle, and penury' and pavement rectifies the long wade through dabble the merits of solitude tongue with it piqued apostrophes and slum coats on the edge of being wings This this this pow! scared me but I can't grape juice hastening the use of gingerbread to signify torpor see see see wrigleys on a dot but don't you mind because I've got your snicker bar soliloquy of sorts. Second on the left and then you Don't gimme none o that lip! Standing around with the flamingoes we realized the gnomic is not what it used to be, and hanging out with the clones we drizzled clothing wasn't a question of necessary, As we climbed along the rocky shore The set of all beliefs did not include any about us. With thoughts already darkened by broken clocks We walked through, turning off the lights In a clearing tacked up to terraces of glue houses rooved with Pepper smoke. The majority cleared the room and nutmeg, I know how nauseating the word 'poignant' can be, but will the representative from Indiana please sit down? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 13:24:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: dunno etc. Dear Larry Price-- I am not willing to concede that marginiality is the prerequisite-- even if figured as a trope--of ALL utterance. This of course is a very attractive view (I am hopefully not exempting myself from part-time adherence--like PART-TIME PUNKS?), in part because it seems to foster (not ed) wonder (not steview). But something (perhaps sinister) resists the universality (or universalization) of marginality and the implication that the central (whether figured socio-economically or interpersonally) is always that which is unsaid. Something wants to break with such endlessly self-qualifying sophistication. It's no doubt an open question (but even that sentence can be seen to be self-contradictory, if it's an open-question there MUST be room for doubt). But surely there are forms of evasion that are not ROMANTIC (the romantics certainly have no corner on THAT marginalized market), forms that may even be patently ANTI-ROMANTIC. And in the sense that "Romantic evasion" seems to be understood in the Bernstein quote, the very Shelley himself is only some of the time "guilty" of it. If one is torn between the Scylla and Charbydis of resentment and evasion unless (or until) one does away with the CONCEPT of margin- ality (as bernstein suggests) and adopts an idea of power that is more Foucaultian than Maxian, then on one very real ("concrete" as they say) level one is being evasive. On another level of course one is being totally honest, sincere, playful, trusting, acting "in good faith" and even potentially empowering (unless one of course RESENTS speaking this language, which only yesterday seemed soooooo grovy, and may seem so again manana). Maybe both levels are equally "valid," need at various times to be "indulged." For even the most resolute Marxist does not ALWAYS conceive "power" in terms of haves and have nots. Though it seems you're suggesting a BLUR of both levels, and a BLUR of resentment and evasion. Why is this preferable (if it is?) to letting resentment have its due, letting evasion have its due. Story writers make them into characters--But what technology (sorry) is involved the poetic representation of resentment and evasion that allows them to be indulged in but at the same time not finalized as the ultimately applicable strategy. I guess I'm more interested than that right now than in the HYBRID BLUR (though my first book WAS going to be called "Better Known as a Blur" and that poem is still in it---funny how our "past" refutes "our present.") Chris S. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 15:30:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Re & Ralph Waldo but the argument, larry, is so only within the peculiarities of an economics that just may not be there. i'm not fully convinced by the opening of o's k, but that's ok: the music's real enough. (sorry, that was a dreadful thing to do.) aren't you yourself caught up in a persistent allegory? the cadence comes first tho, some involving repetition (noun) or renewal (verb). -ed ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 15:43:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: new terrific talisman book re: Simon Pettet's selected, new from talisman, John Ashbery says, "Like Beethoven's Bagatelles, Simon Pettet's short poems have a great deal to say, and their seemingly modest dimensions help rather than hinder his saying it. An unorthodox lucidity reminiscent of Schuyler, a certain English dappledness and an oriental concision blend in poetry whose sweet, complex fragrance is Pettet's secret." And Alice Notley: ". . . poems like large beads with words deeply carved in them . . . and so the beads turn from wood to gem in this light: a New York light cast on English speech (English light cast on New York speech?) Perfect poems, unexpectedly." And Tom Raworth, "The lyric poet takes it personally. This _I_ heard talk of jerky black-and-white pullovers. Outside, every signpost said `love.' The _I_ made a coat of language and chose west. Lo! madrigals drift from a yellow cab on the Lower East Side. Inside, Simon's I speaks elegantly to itself." So, folks, if yr bookstore is not soon stocked with this amazing, 100% terrific book, maybe something serious is amiss. Pettet's one of the best, and this book has the proof. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 19:53:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: dunno etc. >And it's interesting that Patrick Phillips dovetailed >communication and use. It seems that both terms of unanimity create or at >least perpetuate a social formation based on debt, the ultimate restricted >economy: Ultimately it is a restricted economy. Not based on debt, for debt conditions the negative. But based on conditions of communication. Circular, yes. But the conditions of communication are based more on resisting and challenging torpor - communications means. And, how it means. Debt is a precursor to and an extension of loss, an extension of loose. (And the lyric as recuperation is an extension of loss.) But use is conditioned by the possible, not the impossible, not of debt. Of have as opposed to lack. To write from a position of lack is to fetishize the wound - (fresh off a Nate Mackey interview in Talisman 9). Intention presupposes the possible, moving against the agent of looser. >It is the continual externality >then of this agency, plied from the multiple horizons of the present, that >gives the lie to the sacred bags and boxes of the essential in poetry. yeah. yeah. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 7 Nov 1995 18:38:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: signs taken for wonders Tom: Is poetic truth "valid"? In other words, if we interpret a poem as indeed asserting such and such, and that such and such is clearly in conflict with what science tells us is possible for suchness, does that invalidate the poem's assertion? And if not (or even if so, come to think of it), then (if you'll forgive the flipness) what's so important about this particular notion of validation? Thanks, Steve ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 00:11:52 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: EPC.Live >> For Mac users, can't we just use the program Homer (rather than >> using telnet) and get on the undernet to join channel EPCLIVE? > >Dodie, Did you try this and it works? If so, we will go ahead and >append this to our instructions ... > >Thanks! >Loss Loss, Dodie and I just got on the undernet per the instructions Dodie gave to Eryque the other day, and lo and behold, we found the epclive channel, so it looks like the Homer method does indeed work. But, no one was on it, only the robot named "X." So, how do we know when people are going to get on it? Please publish this in your TV Guide listings. Yours, Kevin ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 08:48:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: Indulgence Chris, it's not that the indulgence of any particular moment is wrong. Evasiveness can be an effective political tool. Resentment can foster clarity. The problem comes when these terms are hoisted into an explanatory register, when they begin to account in themselves as narratives for social formations. The danger that Charles is writing of is the "balkanization of identities," either the retreat up the mountain of marginality away from the historical moment, or, in some ways, worse, a narrativizing of splintered, resentful, marginalized lives as somehow morally pre-eminent. Clearly then, you're right to say: "Something wants to break with such endlessly self-qualifying sophistication." But the prior point has to be that we not only recognize but willfully embrace this location. Clearly for me as an albeit marginally enfranchised white male to persist in "You go to town, Tonto" heroics would be disingenuous. Obviously, the willful DISenfranchisement of "he need (present) enemy (plural)" is not what I mean. What I do mean is that despite the very real horror that power visits, has visited, will visit upon us, there is nonetheless another very real sense in which Richard Nixon was a palpably simplistic narrative told from the impalpable margins. One circle, the inner circle, may have pulled the strings, but it was the larger circle of instrumentality, the equipmental whole of 1960s America that made it possible by assuming to it as the term of unanimity. It's that impalpability of the assumed that's the horror. It's there that we begin to forget to remember. Larry Price ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 08:48:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: Waldo & O Ed: I didn't mean to imply that I'm NOT caught up in persistent allegory, even, as a reader, Olson's. Only that the monotony of it (his or mine or ours) comes probably as a lazy eye, the gap in thought the noun is supposed somehow to fill. As to cadence, "in! in! the bow-sprit, bird, the beak" sounds too much like Dylan Thomas for comfort. lp ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:42:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: Waldo & O In-Reply-To: <951108084837_101084013@emout05.mail.aol.com> On Wed, 8 Nov 1995, Larry Price wrote: > "in! in! the bow-sprit, bird, the beak" > > sounds too much like Dylan Thomas for comfort. > a) I like Dylan Thomas. b) it sounds more like Hopkins. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 10:38:26 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: dunno etc. to caress less - feeling more the way the word breaks down "economic necessity", typing parallel lines do away with, yet stay together the way making is not all there contradictory urges perhaps not just "foisted" but perhaps sublinear because i change my linger. want to stay, but the ferocious tears give me away. double meaning of use is greater than use i cannot encase marginality, nor do i write there but write out of the margin to get my breath heard is then how i as a margin get my space or am read when i am stuck with a line between my heart and who hears so then i am perfused with resentment and of course this is mistaken for my hysterianostalgiamysteriaromanasque disappearance such a nice disguise for those who can Afford to hide marginality as positive with no means to and the feelings of being squashed without anger? could i live there? without feeling? no, that marginality has it's upsides down when i write that double negative makes a positive or is supposed to but my writing stays in the quiet or is heard but misplaced marginality can only be seen as a prerequisite to utterance in that without writing (in this day and age) i would not be alive, without the idea to be able to talk silently, since no one can hear me, that this voice is louder than all others put together. to be tricked into the margin, to be tricked into silent word to be on the page again as love is yes hard and how to use such loaded metaphor to distill the triumph to fail optimistically this means the silence speaks for itself? that the breakdown is the utter margin (that unwritten) that the margin is injustice "Emancipation from this language must be attempted. But not as an attempt at emancipation from it, for this is impossible unless we forget our history. Rather, as the dream of emancipation. Nor as emancipation from it, which would be meaningless and would deprive us of the light of meaning. Rather, as resistence to it, as far as possible." -Derrida I cannot agree. Resistence yes. And an alternative... An alternative to that which is historical. Could it be possible that we dream the real. social conditions create _marginalization_ (a word vieled in itself) create pain that i do not want to be veiled in. we need a new language. "the very neutral medium of information that should enable a truly free choice is already branded by an irreducible violence." -Zizek. And even though he is a Lacanian, who was a Freudian, and we know how wonderfully Freud was socialized to treat women and did treat women, i like the authority of that sentence. and that the appropriate withdrawl, or failure, or reveling in the margin, i say can be done only by those who again can afford to. or don't care to change. or are like me on the days when i am not in a changing mood. or as a valid suggestion to how i can be happy where i am? which is not the most outrageous suggestion on a day other than today. "poetry locates again and again within language, It seems impossible to take that into use... (Use itself as the term of the impossible.)" Larry Price poetry locates itself at the border where crossing is impossible? hmmm. perhaps so. perhaps utopia is suffering. or else i wouldn't want utopia because then i wouldn't *have to* *need to* write poetry? or maybe i would love utopia because i'd be happy and content all the time and everyone would have enough to eat, and the justice system would be fair, and great thinkers wouldn't have to jump out windows... hmmm. Why is there something rather than nothing? Well why is there something rather than everything? Or are they the same. We can turn something into more than other. The social consciousness needs to be raised, as do the beams of poetry. Spring Ulmer ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:16:30 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: granted (Jameson) but >Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 13:47:24 -0500 >From: Rae Armantrout >Subject: Re: dunno, but > >Dear Pat, > > Hi, the poem Chris was referring to is "Visibility" in MADE TO SEEM. I >refer indirectly to the infamous sign in the last section of that. Oh, and >thanks for your book. I probably won't be able to read it until Winter break >so more anon > >Dear Wm Northcutt, > > I've written an essay which is partly about Jameson and his attack on >Perelman. It's called "Irony And Postmodern Poetry." It hasn't been >published yet, but I think it will be. > >Yours, > > > Rae Armantrout re the Jameson thread: there are certainly big problems w Jameson's take on Perelman's work (insurmountable, were it a question of buying or not buying the goods). Minor point: I think it's worth noting that the implications of the early version of the piece that takes up Perelman's poem along w a lot of other stuff--in the Foster collection--are a lot more unremittingly hostile than the later take in the Pomo book. My recollection is that the remarks on Perelman are only minimally revised; but the response to a range of postmodern practices is a lot more engaged. More important, I'd say: the notion of schizophrenic speech may also be problematic, but the sense of euphoria or mania that Jameson gets to via this notion is, I think, an important aspect of language writing that's very much under-represented in the in-house theory I've read (esp Bernstein, McCaffery as I recollect). The political claims made in the seventies tended to mute this element: the sense of access of power (cf the sublime) and the way in which it's the writer, not the reader (for all the obverse talk) who's the empowered one (and: isn't "opacity" at least partly an aggressive gesture?). two cents. ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:16:45 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: update please! >Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 13:47:24 -0500 >From: Rae Armantrout >Subject: Re: dunno, but > >Dear Pat, > > Hi, the poem Chris was referring to is "Visibility" in MADE TO SEEM. I >refer indirectly to the infamous sign in the last section of that. Oh, and >thanks for your book. I probably won't be able to read it until Winter break >so more anon > >Dear Wm Northcutt, > > I've written an essay which is partly about Jameson and his attack on >Perelman. It's called "Irony And Postmodern Poetry." It hasn't been >published yet, but I think it will be. > >Yours, > > > Rae Armantrout Rae-- I'd be very interested in seeing the piece. Could you please post publication info to the list as soon as you have any? Also: if the publication plans aren't definite, you might consider trying Arizona Quarterly--we tend to be a little hesitant about essays that don't look anything like academic writing (though we've made exceptions), but Charles is on the board, we've published pieces by both him and Perelman, and we're generally very interested in publishing work on Language Writing. btw, that's also a sort of call for submissions to all those on the list who do work that's academic or borderline-academic. best, Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:16:52 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: re Hartley book >Date: Sun, 5 Nov 1995 19:56:27 -0500 >From: Patrick Phillips >Subject: Re: Jameson... > >There are other treatments of this "now notorious essay" as George Hartley >put it, but you may want to see his "Jameson's Perelman" in _Textual >Politics and the Language Poets_ for a post-Lacanian interpretation. In a >nut-shell, Hartley contrasts J.'s schizophrenia analogy with the position >that Perelman is suggesting, among other things, that "there are >alternative ways of structuring (constituting) our experiences. Such >alternatives "foreground" our social relations, not reify them. I think one limitation of Hartley's very fine book (are you out there George?) is its scanting of the utopian aspects of Language writing. The utopian isn't the schizophrenic, but the latter is something like Jameson's name for what he (wrongly?) takes to be a bad version of the former. Hartley is most interested in the way Language writing peforms the Bakhtinian function of alerting us to the socially saturated status of present speech. He's less interested, as I recall, in the sort of language mysticism that emerges so strongly in Charles' /Artifice of Absorption/. In this respect, oddly, his take is a little bit like Perelman's in his Arizona Quarterly essay on Andrews (and Maya ANgelou!). So that Jameson happened to pick on one of Language Writing's /least/ "schizophrenic" writers (one whose work, which I love, is a lot more congruent with Hartley's claims than, say, Charles' is). ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:17:02 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: yes! >Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 10:47:44 +-100 >From: "William M. Northcutt" >Subject: Re: Jameson... > >Many thanks to Rae, Patrick, Juliana, and to Junte Huang--yes, long live >the hooligans! > >My problem with Jameson is that I agree with him in the big picture, but I >think he wraps himself up in a literalism that clashes with his admiration >for Benjamin and Adorno. It seems to me that there's some >anti-intellectualism underneath it--puritanism or just Lukacs? > >At any rate, thanks for the responses. William terrific post! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 09:17:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: or else >Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 14:56:16 -0500 >From: Chris Stroffolino >Subject: Re: do know but? > > Dear Pat Phillips--thanks for elaborating on your poetics-- > but what are these non lang-po "problem poetries that are particularly > liberatory"? I am curious if you might want to be more specific. Feel > free to backchannel. Chris S. > not to horn in, but I'd at least like to cast my vote for frontchannel ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 11:23:56 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group Comments: Converted from PROFS to RFC822 format by PUMP V2.2X From: Alan Golding Subject: Chas. B. quotation Associate Professor of English, U. of Louisville Phone: (502)-852-5918; e-mail: acgold01@ulkyvm.louisville.edu Dear Larry Price (or Charles, for that matter): What's the source for the Charles B. quotation on marginality that you cited yesterday? I'd like to follow it up. Thanks. Alan Golding ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 10:38:02 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: EPC.Live I've stopped by EPCLIVE on occasion. once the bot aparently didn't even feel like sitting there alone! ___________________________________________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd be 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 problems... Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 15:51:20 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: readings desiderata In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 30 Oct 1995 17:01:43 -0500 from Now that you've probably put together the better part of your reading series based on the thoughtful advice provided by faster thinkers than myself (as well as the many ideas you'd already been toying with), I'd like to offer some belated thoughts, Jordan: 1. Let the readers know what the format is. Will there be chairs and tables, rows of chairs, etc. Will there be a microphone? Is the room typically hot/cold, etc.? How long is a typical reading? Do you have the capacity to provide special set-ups (such as music, electronic, video, slides, etc.)? 2. If you plan to pair readers, should there be criteria? Such as, respectful but diverging aesthetics, willingness to collaborate/ alternate. Perhaps you could occasionally commission the readers to build their reading together (with enough lead time and with sufficient readerly interest, you could have your readers initiate a host of collaborative pieces that could be the centerpiece of the series). 3. Some years ago, I started a series entiled The Canned Goods Poetry Series. We asked those who attended to bring canned foods, that were then distributed via soup kitchens and food clearing houses. The feeling within the audience _seemed_ different, more community-based... If such an element seems of use/interest exists, it can make the series hold an especially lively place. Good luck, Jordan. We wish you'd come to Providence to start your series; but, let us know how it goes "down south." Gale ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 14:15:46 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "D. LaBeau" Subject: Jameson/Perelman When Jameson lectured here in May, my friend asked him for some thoughts on American Poetry (up til then he'd only mentioned New Irish Poets) and he told us he liked the Language poets, that what they were working on was very interesting. I was surprised, having thought his attack on Perelman was a general denunciation of the Language-types. Perhaps it was only Bob he didn't cotton to, or maybe his views have softened. I guess there's no published evidence of a shift (and I doubt there will be) but it would be interesting if people were still debating a position abandoned by its originator. -Dan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 15:11:55 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: Indulgence Larry P. writes "The problem comes when these terms [resentment; evasiveness] are hoisted into an explanatory register, when they begin to account in themselves as narratives for social formation." I may not be understanding everything in his message, but it does seem possible that the problem comes when these terms are denied in "narratives for social formation"---If Presidents, etc, were allowed to cry on TV during a state of the ONION address perhaps is it possible things like OIL WAR ONE would be less likely to happen (I say wistfully at the risk of seeming sappily utopian like Kafka, Shakespeare, etc.). The bringing up of Richard Nixon reminds me of Robert Altman's movie in which he seems to identify with the resigned Nixon as a victim of the structure, etc (and Nixon is allowed to cry and say things like the end of the flick's "FUCK 'EM FUCK 'EM, etc") Anyway, Spring Ulmer's comments were refreshing in this regard-- in which much poststructuralist theory was cited along side of the seemingly more personal moods: "because i change my linger want to stay, but the ferocious tears give me away... to be on the page as love is/yes" and also her troping on the word marginalization-- to see one's self (or THE self) as a margin... and we all know what love does to "theoretical consistency" now don't we?----chris ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 22:54:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Baraka's 60th Birthday Celebration Amiri Baraka 60th Birthday Celebration Friday Nov. 10 and Sat. Nov. 11 at Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture 515 Malcolm X Blvd NY NY 10037 **preregistration required.** no fee. FRIDAY 10am The Social-Intellectual Baraka 11:45 Baraka's Drama 2pm Musical criticism and recordings 7pm Literary tribute SATURDAY 10am Baraka's Fiction 1pm Baraka's Poetry 7pm Baraka: A Poetry Retrospective speakers: Maulana Karenga, William Strickland, Eleanor Traylor, Aldon Nielsen, Sonia Sanchez, Kalamu ya Salaam, Lorenzo Thomas, William Harris, Ethelbert Miller You may be able to fax your registration to 212-491-6760, noting each event you plan to attend and name/institution (if applicable)/ address/ day & evening phone ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 01:16:44 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Re: granted (Jameson) but Tenney-- Eric Wirth addresses the question you raise re the "power" of the writer & reader in an essay in _Aerial 6/7_-- basically in agreement w/ your assertion-- he considers that in the dada text (using Coolidge as example) there is "a preemptive fusing of relations." I go back & forth on this tho I don't see how "opacity" is aggressive-- it can be used as such certainly, but so can any other technique. It seems to me the strength of the opaque text is that it makes no pretense of clarity & leaves the reader free to respond on their own terms as they will. If the rules are broken in the writing then certainly they can be broken in the reading. This is where I find validity in critical claims about reader interaction w/ l.p.-- such writing "honors" the reader's subjectivity by admitting it's own. I have a recollection of Jameson dismissing Cage in one sentence in his _Postmodernism_. Pretty boring. Dan Barbiero addresses "the Perelman issue" at length in a piece in _Aerial 6/7 as well. I think your remarks abt "euphoria or mania" in the amer tree are important points-- Mayer & Coolidge being exemplars-- Mayer often talking abt exploring states of consciousness. & certainly there's only one Hannah. I think of Ted B. etc. as the hardest partiers. & "Howl" am I remembering it right?-- was written on mushrooms. & the recent visitation of David Ayre certainly made exceptional use of "mania." I'm still tired of grumpy virgins. --Rod Tenney Nathanson wrote: "there are certainly big problems w Jameson's take on Perelman's work (insurmountable, were it a question of buying or not buying the goods). Minor point: I think it's worth noting that the implications of the early version of the piece that takes up Perelman's poem along w a lot of other stuff--in the Foster collection--are a lot more unremittingly hostile than the later take in the Pomo book. My recollection is that the remarks on Perelman are only minimally revised; but the response to a range of postmodern practices is a lot more engaged. More important, I'd say: the notion of schizophrenic speech may also be problematic, but the sense of euphoria or mania that Jameson gets to via this notion is, I think, an important aspect of language writing that's very much under-represented in the in-house theory I've read (esp Bernstein, McCaffery as I recollect). The political claims made in the seventies tended to mute this element: the sense of access of power (cf the sublime) and the way in which it's the writer, not the reader (for all the obverse talk) who's the empowered one (and: isn't "opacity" at least partly an aggressive gesture?). two cents." ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 01:42:19 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Re: welcome the worlds of lost renga OK gang, you're good, but don't we get a "statement of method" with this? Is it one line each passed around? What determines the stanza breaks, is that up to each author as it comes to them? Is the whole thing a sanskrit/spanglish/latin palindrome? --Rod ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 09:26:51 +-100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "William M. Northcutt" Subject: Baraka Baraka rules! begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT M>)\^(C8(`0:0" `$```````!``$``0>0!@`(````Y 0```````#H``$-@ 0` M`@````(``@`!!) &`$0!```!````# ````,``# #````"P`/#@`````"`?\/ M`0```%4`````````@2L?I+ZC$!F=;@#=`0]4`@````!50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1I M``,P`0```!P```!03T5424-3 M0%5"5DTN0T,N0E5&1D%,3RY%1%4``P`5# $````#`/X/!@```!X``3 !```` M'@```"=50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1I]$>?:ZZ`1X`< `!````!P```$)A# $````%````4TU44 `````>`!\,`0`` M`"(```!B=',T,#- 8G1R,'@Q+FAR>BYU;FDM8F%Y)S=&5M`H,S=P+D!Q,"@'T*@ C/"=D[\18/ M,C4U`H *@0VQ"V#@;F 1`#T``0````$`````````B5(` ` end ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 02:33:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Jameson/Perelman I first read the Jameson piece in the New Left Review, though I've picked up the later appearances almost as a matter of habit. Never have gone through them to compare versional variations. My distinct impression, based in part on Jameson's presentation sometime after that at New Langton Arts and a dinner thereafter, was that FJ himself never considered his writing on Bob as hostile nor an attack. Rather, I think that tone of his comes from the critical stance of any builder of master narratives (and Jameson produces them at a dizzying rate). He speaks of any work as though he owns it and comes across at once as condescending and inclusive. Gayatri Spivak once gave a counter reading of the poem at the Lit and Philosophy group in Lawrence, KS. I missed it (I was driving down that day from Iowa City w/ Herman Rappaport and we arrived late). I've never seen that in print. Did it ever get published? Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 02:46:53 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: Baraka's 60th Birthday Celebration I hope that somebody will give us all the same sort of attentive report back that the big shindig in the Albert Hall received awhile back. Ron Silliman ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 08:43:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: Bernstein quote Alan Golding: The passage is from "Censers of the Unknown: Margins, Dissent, and the Poetic Horizon," a 1987 follow-up interview with Tom Beckett originally published in TEMBLOR and included in A POETICS. The passage I quoted is on page 190 of A POETICS. lp ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 12:25:08 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: hi Dan >Date: Wed, 8 Nov 1995 14:15:46 -0600 >From: "D. LaBeau" >Subject: Jameson/Perelman > >When Jameson lectured here in May, my friend asked him for some thoughts >on American Poetry (up til then he'd only mentioned New Irish Poets) >and he told us he liked the Language poets, that what they were working >on was very interesting. > >I was surprised, having thought his attack on Perelman was a general >denunciation of the Language-types. Perhaps it was only Bob he didn't >cotton to, or maybe his views have softened. > >I guess there's no published evidence of a shift (and I doubt there will be) >but it would be interesting if people were still debating a position >abandoned by its originator. > >-Dan Hi, Dan--nice to see you on the list. I think there are a couple of Jameson pieces--the one on Perelman, the one on third-world lit as allegory, that have turned into big red flags. I don't know that those earlier positions have been abandoned so much as given a less hostile twist (the Lang Po/Perelman one is the one I have in mind--I'm not up on what J has done re 3W allegory of late) best, Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 14:40:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Waldo & O the monotony is the thing, yes, so that's why waldo was so welcome: all as change, energy rather than essence, but the deep identity with laissez faire means midnight trauma. yes. all best, ed ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 23:38:25 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: yep yep yep >Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 14:40:29 -0500 >From: Edward Foster >Subject: Re: Waldo & O > >the monotony is the thing, yes, so that's why waldo was so welcome: all >as change, energy rather than essence, but the deep identity with laissez >faire means midnight trauma. yes. all best, ed bingo. so that: where he's MOST exciting (least dated, least dumpy, most like what "we" want to do) he's most implicated. for a sometimes dated but often brilliant discussion of same: Quentin Anderson (my thesis advisor, now 84!), /Making Americans: An Essay on Individualism and Money/ (HBJ 1992[?]). ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 12:06:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Evans Subject: Awesome 6some/Impercipient 8 A reminder to those of you within traveling distance of Providence that this Saturday presents a wonderful opportunity to witness the contemporary avant-garde at work. Along with the events already announced (see below), you'll also have a chance to pick up the eighth, and final, issue of THE IMPERCIPIENT, featuring work by Camille Guthrie, Robert Hale, Lisa Jarnot, Judith Goldman, Sianne Ngai, Jay Dillemuth, Brian Schorn, Bob Harrison, and Brian Kim Stefans. We hope you'll join us! 6daviesgoldmanjarnotluomarothschildspahr6 s s o Saturday o m 11 November 1995 m e Russell Lab, Brown University e * 5 Young Orchard Street in Providence * * 2 Sets: 3-5pm, 7-9pm * * * 6spahrrothschildluomajarnotgoldmandavies6 First Set-3pm K E V I N D A V I E S J U D I T H G O L D M A N L I S A J A R N O T 5:30, dinner at The Cav 14 Imperial St. (Downtown Providence) Second Set-7pm B I L L L U O M A D O U G L A S R O T H S C H I L D J U L I A N A S P A H R after: party chez Moxley/Evans Organized by Jennifer Moxley and Steve Evans Supported by the Creative Writing Dept @ Brown For more information, call (401) 274-1306 r i a t n m u a t s u o o o s ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 08:24:18 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: federal budget game (fwd) Thought ye'd be interested in this. Gab. "Reinventing America" Game Launched Today, Mon., Nov. 6, Crossover Technoloy launched the "Reinventing America" game at: http://www.pathfinder.com/reinventing An interactive political simulation game, participants will spend 26 weeks debating various issues of national importance, from drug policy to environ- mental protection to defense conversion to arts funding and school prayer. Players can come and go (and join) at any time. Throughout the duration of the game, players will debate and vote on levels of federal spending related to these issues, and, at the end of the game, will propose a new federal budget that reflects the results of these discussions. The Markle Foundation, sponsor of the game, will then present this proposed budget to Congress at a press conference in May. 2 Reasons Why You Should Join the Game 1) This game is bound to get a lot of media attention, as it is a very inventive idea (and has some major corporate backing) 2) The right wing is bound to be represented in force. I've joined already and I can definitely see a dearth of progressive opinions. PLEASE RE-POST, PLEASE RE-POST, PLEASE RE-POST Thanks Rich, Leif Utne ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 08:31:08 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: Re: Waldo & O In-Reply-To: On Wed, 8 Nov 1995, Jordan Davis wrote: > On Wed, 8 Nov 1995, Larry Price wrote: > > > "in! in! the bow-sprit, bird, the beak" > > > > sounds too much like Dylan Thomas for comfort. > > > a) I like Dylan Thomas. b) it sounds more like Hopkins. > whom I also like abcz Gab. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 15:51:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: Re: yep etc Ed: What's confused me is the opposition of laissez-faire and essence. The presumption of atomism in 18th C economics (as well as the impoverished epistemology that conditioned it) seems to point to their eventual equivalence, as of course they are equivalent in the Realeconomik our midnight trauma now is. Which is to say, equivalent in their mutually conditioning statuses as storefronts. I'm beginning to think that the only way I can read what you're doing is through a very different notion of "thing." Which might be a useful contortion of the distortion of "No ideas but" etc.? lp ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 14:18:56 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Christopher Reiner Subject: New K. Waldrop Book NEW FROM AVEC BOOKS _The Locality Principle_ by Keith Waldrop ISBN:1-880713-03-9; LCCN 95-77360. Distributed by Baker & Taylor and Small Press Distribution. Also available directly from the publisher (FAX (707) 769-0880. More info at http://www.crl.com/~creiner/syntax/avec.html -------------------------------------------- Written in alternating sections of poetry and short prose pieces, _The Locality Principle_ is, on one level, a perceptive and often wryly humorous account of a traveler's confusion and dislocation. In London, a narrator, presumably the author, is living on a street named after a nonexistent park, next to a garden he can see from a window but have no access to--a garden tended by a bizarrely ineffectual group of men and women who could be gardeners or possibly inmates from a local asylum. But Waldrop's is role as a displaced observer also provides the opportunity for a series of reflections on deeper subjects, such as concept of the soul, and the fact of his own mortality. Overseeing it all is the unforgettable, impassive Pee-Paws, a resident cat that spends night after night staring into the blazing fireplace: "Her response to the fire, I come to realize, is more complete than mine...to her it is obviously a source of the most profound feelings, feelings I can only guess at...mystical feelings." It is those "mystical feelings" that indicate the terrain which the traveler in _The Locality Principle_ must finally navigate and which bring the book to its subtle but lovely conclusion. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- "_The Locality Principle_ is both winningly and disturbingly beautiful. With Waldrop both extends and expands his extraordinary oeuvre in this deliciously melancholy book where, in flawless prose and verse, the doubles we call life and death, soul and body, soul and spirit are meticulously and lovingly examined. Amid droll evolcations of daily life, the reader is seduced into pleasures of speculation about a "(coherent) world" that is "entirely/confabulated," where "every sensation con/ceals a dream." The book supplies the additional delight of Mrs. Crowe's fervent ghosts."--Harry Mathews, author of _Cigarettes_ and _The Journalist_ "Having held himself to (what we suppose is) a more or less factual account of life in his recent autobiography, Waldrop now questions the phemera of place and time. He writes of an observed and peopled garden to which there is no door, of encounters whose meaning is suspect; illumination in darkness. Throughout _The Locality Principle_, a remarkable and surprising book, we are alert to the metaphysical aspect of life; to an awareness of ghost tines." --Barbara Guest, author of _Defensive Rapture_ and _Selected Poems_ Keith Waldrop lives in Providence, Rhode Island where he teaches at Brown University and, with Rosmarie Waldrop, edits Burning Deck Press. He has translated the French poets Claude Royet-Journoud, Anne-Marie Albiach and Dominique Fourcade, among others. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 10 Nov 1995 17:44:02 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Peter Baker Subject: Studies in Modern Poetry Comments: To: BAKER@MIDGET.TOWSON.EDU I've had some backchannel responses to the initial listing of my recent theory book, inquiring into the Studies in Modern Poetry series I edit for Peter Lang. What follows is copy from a recent Lang brochure, with a series description, listing of publication data for books in the series, and so forth. Inquiries about manuscripts are welcome. Studies in Modern Poetry General Editor: Peter Baker This series brings together works on particular modern poets and twentieth-century movements as well as comparative and theoretical studies. Works in the series seek to explore the contributions of twentieth-century poets beyond the well-known major figures of Modernism such as Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot, in the belief that modern poetry is characterized by its variety, richness and scope. A particular focus of the series are those books that compare poetic projects from different national and linguistic traditions or explore the interconnections between poetic expression and the other arts. Authors whose critical approaches utilize contemporary literary theory and multicultural perspectives are especially encouraged to consider this series. Languages of the poetry studied include, but are not limited to, English, French, German, Italian, and Spanish, though the manuscripts should be written in English and addressed to readers beyond strictly national or disciplinary boundaries. vol. 1 _The Poem at the Edge of the Word: The Limits of Language and the Uses of Silence in the Poetry of Mallarme, Rilke, and Vallejo_ by Dianna C. Niebylski ISBN 0-8024-2107-3 / 1993 175 pp. / hc / $41.95 vol. 2 _Journeys Toward the Original Mind: The Long Poems of Gary Snyder_ by Robert Schuler ISBN 0-8024-2459-5 / 1994 146 pp. / hc / $39.95 vol. 3 _"...a thousand graceful subtleties": Rhetoric in the Poetry of Robinson Jeffers_ by Terry Beers ISBN 0-8024-2592-3 / 1995 113 pp. / hc / $37.95 vol. 4 _Cross-Referential Mis-Conceptions of Rainer Maria Rilke in Randall Jarrell, Robert Lowell, and Robert Bly_ by Hartmut Heep ISBN 0-8024-2874-4 / forthcoming vol. 5 _The Mestizo as Crucible: Andean Indian and African Poets of Mixed Origin as Possibility of Comparative Poetics_ by Christine de Lailhacar ISBN 0-8024-2891-4 / forthcoming For further information about the Studies in Modern Poetry series and for the submission of manuscripts, contact: Peter Baker Department of English Towson State University Towson, MD 21204-7097 (410) 830-2855 baker-p@toe.towson.edu For further information about purchasing books, contact: Peter Lang Publishing 62 West 45th St. New York, NY 10036 toll free (800) 770-5264 fax (212) 302-7574 ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 14:27:06 +-100 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "William M. Northcutt" Subject: Vendler, venerandam Has anyone seen the latest TLS in which they praise Helen Vendler for her eclectic tastes in poetry???????????? begin 600 WINMAIL.DAT M>)\^(@D-`0:0" `$```````!``$``0>0!@`(````Y 0```````#H``$-@ 0` M`@````(``@`!!) &`$0!```!````# ````,``# #````"P`/#@`````"`?\/ M`0```%4`````````@2L?I+ZC$!F=;@#=`0]4`@````!50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1I M``,P`0```!P```!03T5424-3 M0%5"5DTN0T,N0E5&1D%,3RY%1%4``P`5# $````#`/X/!@```!X``3 !```` M'@```"=50B!0;V5T:6-S(&1I`' ``0```!0```!696YD;&5R+"!V96YE M``@0`0```%\```!(05-! M3EE/3D53145.5$A%3$%415-45$Q324Y72$E#2%1(15E04D%)4T5(14Q%3E9% M3D1,15)&3U)(15)%0TQ%0U1)0U1!4U1%4TE.4$]%5%)9/S\_/S\_/S\_/S\_ M```"`0D0`0```.4```#A````7 $``$Q:1G4SEL&K_P`*`0\"%0*H!>L"@P!0 M`O()`@!C: K 1P">2 3 M4 MP$; ;`&7J;!OA5@GP9!YP!< "$)\%P!P@!< %D!YP8W0=4$\<`!L@''$< M\G!O$ Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: yep etc no opposition between essence and lassez faire if you dig deeply enough, and that is the argument: that all systems have their immutable "truths." and yet, tho nouns are verbs in suspension (prisoners for a while), it's quite amazing how many poets think, even now, that fenollosa had the key. but so we have it, and noun/verb is useful, at least for discussion, in distinguishing between poetries. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:49:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Romana Christina Huk Subject: Poetry conference/festival1996 AN ANNOUNCEMENT/INVITATION to all POETICS SUBSCRIBERS: There will be an international poetry conference/festival of readings from the 29th of August to the 2nd of September, 1996, at the New England Center, University of New Hampshire (Durham, NH). These three and one half days of discussions and four nights of readings/performances open to the community (which includes Boston) will focus on relationships between "experimental" poetries in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Ireland; othes from non-English speaking countries may also arrive to help us talk about new directions in these poetries andways/problems of reading across cultures. The issues to addressed in plenary sessions have been broadly arranged to include 1) differences in context and practice, 2) how changing poetries in each of the contexts force us to rethink old debates about the subject, reader, and politics of form, 3) blindspots in the theory and practice (due to gender, race, class, cultural chauvinism, etc.), 4) the institutionalization of radical poetries and the issues raised by it, 5) new and controversial formal directions including new performance strategies, use of narrative, use of electronic media, colla- borations as authorship, the collapsing of borders with the mainstream and 6) the role and practice of new translation (revisited). A call for papers on these topics and others to be proposed will be issued in various newsletters, but I'll issue one right now for all of you on this line. Although a number of papers for plenary sessions/ discussions have been invited, there will also be opportunities for multiple sessions using our three conference rooms at the Center. If you would like to participate in those, please send on detailed abstracts for twenty-minute papers (due in hard copy to me here at the Department of English, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824 by the end of January). Everyone is of course welcome to come just to take part in what should be lively discussions and to enjoy the afternoon and evening readings and performances (I'll try to make at least one afternoon reading-spot open-mike) -- I should know wh Please get back to me for price information soon if you're interested, because space will be limited; and reply with snail-mail addresses if you wish to be on my mailing list for further (more detailed) information. Romana Huk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 11:32:38 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Camille Martin Subject: Re: Poetry conference/festival1996 Dear Roman Huk, I just received your posting about the conference/festival and would like to know more about it. My address is: Camille Martin 7725 Cohn St. New Orleans, LA 70118 Thank you! ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 16:05:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Rosmarie Waldrop Reading Tuesday NOV. 14th at 8 PM Rosmarie Waldrop at Bridge Street Books 2814 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC phone 202 965 5200 B.Y.O.E. (Bring your own ears). ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 15:27:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Bob Harrison Reading Almost forgot to announce it! For all you folks near Chicago, Bob Harrison will be reading at IIT in the Faculty Lounge 7:30 Monday the 13th. Contact me for more details. eryque p.s. there's a couple major medical schools nearby, so if you forget your ears i'm sure we could work something out. _____________________________________!________________________________________ Eryque "Just call me Eric" Gleason If I weren't a monkey, there'd 71 E. 32nd St. Box 949 be problems. Chicago, IL 60616 (312) 808-6858 gleaeri@charlie.acc.iit.edu ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 11 Nov 1995 17:19:03 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jorge Guitart Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: open mike HELEN VENDLER IN HELL no part gleams with intelligence no one stumbles up from the depth no one becomes something of a ghost no one is perpetually on the fire escape no one deals with bitter impressions no one has an impeccable technique no part adds a continuous depth or lustre no present is immense or pertinent nothing serves as a tacit response nothing owes anything to mood or methodology nothing gains in resonance cohesion or panache nothing goes far toward making spirits rest nothing turns inward or has obvious influence nothing rebukes a less adventurous era nothing is about the aftermath of enlightenment nothing resembles a palimpsest nothing is asserted to be subverted nothing remains in the service of anything nothing is anything by turns nothing is besieged by the elements of time or history nothing becomes unreconcilable or untamed there is no adoption of tactics of encirclement or indirection there are no themes of attachment or strangement there is nothing against a cultural background there are no strangely fruitful effects there are no irrational antagonists or realms there is no wreckage for clarity to be amid there is no imaginative order to be shored up there is no fervent explorations of being there are no explorations of subject matter Jorge Guitart ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 20:51:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: The Hand of the Poet *** Worth a Detour: The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts from 100 Masters Part 1: John Donne to T.S. Eliot Nov. 3, 1995 to April 20, 1996 New York Public Library 42nd & 5th, Berg Exhibition Hall Including many remarkable items, none, for me, topped by the Donne, which I had never seen before, & including Pope, Blake, Burns, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelly, Keats, E. Bronte, Whitman, Dickinson*, E. B. Browning, Carroll, Stevens, Williams, and Eliot (the ms to "The Waste Land" with Pound's comments) *ms of "Through the great Waters sleep" was on display in the "Masterpieces" exhibit next door at least during November. My impression is that it will go back to the Berg next month. In the present display it is a bit hard to see. Also exhibitted is the 1885 letter to Benjamin Kimball in which the poem was enclosed. [&&& May 19-Nov. 16, 1996: Part II -- "e.e. cummings to Julia Alvarez"] ========================================================================= Date: Sun, 12 Nov 1995 21:58:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: M/E/A/N/I/N/G M/E/A/N/I/N/G Issue #18, FALL 1995 now available & featuring -- MONSTROUS DOMESTICITY by Faith Wilding, BRAVE NEW ART WORLD: A Symposium with Lenore Malen, Irving Sandler, Michael Brenson, Debra Balken, and Michi Itami, PAINTING AS MANUAL by Mira Schor THE STRANGER by Pam Longobardi PAINTING AFTER PAINTING: The Paintings of Susan Bee by Misko Suvakovic, Book REVIEWS by Nick Piombino of Johanna Drucker's new books, Tom Knechtel of gay artists, Corinne Robins of Eleanor Antin, Robert C. Morgan of Mondrian M/E/A/N/I/N/G is edited by Susan bee and Mira Schor. Subscriptions for 2 ISSUES (1 YEAR) $12 for individuals; $20 for institutions Foreign subscribers please pay by international money order in U.S. dollars and add $10 per year for shipping ($5 for Canada) All checks should be made payable to Mira Schor. Send all subscriptions to: Mira Schor 60 Lispenard Street New York, NY 10013 Limited supplies of back issues available at $6 each. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 09:24:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace I would be interested in hearing comments from any point of view on the following: In a recent series of private letters to me which he refuses to make public, perhaps because of their basic hypocrisy, Spencer Selby makes the following claims about my recent article "Emerging Avant-Garde Poetries and the 'Post-Language Crisis'": 1) That the Language poets have invented and furthered an environment of suspicion, lies, and careerism, in which the "selfishness" of their individual desire to have careers in poetry has caused them to sacrifice and destroy free debate and opportunities for free expression. He argues, essentially, that the Language poets created an environment in which promoting one's work counts more than the quality of that work. 2) That the main problem with my essay is that the writers I mention in that article (Kevin Killian, Dodie Bellamy, Rod Smith, Jefferson Hansen, Peter Gizzi, Liz Willis, Juliana Spahr, Joe Ross, Susan Schultz, Ben Friedlander, Charles Borkhuis, Chris Stroffolino, Lew Daly, John Noto, Steve Evans, Jean Osman, many others) basically share in common the fact that they are CAREERISTS with no concern for the integrity of poetry. Spencer believes, he says, that the above writers are all second-rate, that the only reason anybody pays any attention to them is that they suck up to the powerful in the world of poetry. In a recent letter to him, I challenged Spencer on these claims and asked him to debate me publicly on these and other issues. He refused, claiming that my suggestion that I debate him publicly on this issue might be seen as another way in which I am "sucking Up" to those power mongers in the poetry world who are unwilling to listen to what he has to say. He claims that, at best, I am in denial about my own careerist movitavations. I find Spencer's comments, and his insults to my integrity, offensive and pernicious in the worst way. I find his maligning of a great number of committed and concerned poets to be completely lacking in evidence, and to be untrue. I believe that his refusal to debate me publicly is based on his awareness that his claims are pernicious and even potentially legally actionable. I believe that the private assault he is making on the character and activites of a wide range of experimental poets needs to be made public. Mark Wallace ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 23:12:32 +0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Schuchat Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: re the mark wallace post, what's wrong with careerism? "in a corrupt world, I am alone am pure" everybody is supposed to be a stiff in gray's country churchyard? ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 11:15:41 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ann Lauterbach Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 11 Nov 1... FYI : Barbara Guest (now living in California), and Ann Lauterbach (myself, still here after all these years) will be reading tomorrow evening, the 14th, at The New School, 66 West 12th Street, at 7pm, introduced by Forrest Gander. Be glad to see you there. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 12:02:17 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: turf war? Mark Wallace, I for one certainly cannot ascribe to the view that a number of the people you have mentioned in your article are second rate writers. Just thought i'd put in my 1 and a half cents. Here's the other half cent: "legally actionable"?!! C'mon now, isn't this a bit much? Burt Kimmelman ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 13:38:12 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson In-Reply-To: Message of Mon, 13 Nov 1995 09:24:38 -0500 from Mark, It sounds as though Spencer has some concerns about the state of poetry, but that he did not feel as though it would be in anyone's best interests for him to air these concerns publicly. Unless he's writing "nasty things" about you to the rest of the poetry community (and I'm not in that loop), then it sounds as though he is responding in a serious way to an article that you have written. If the dialogue is driven by his response to your article, then I would hope that the two of you would converse by mail or telephone (or some other fashion), airing to one another your ideas. If he's not interested in having those comments put before a larger community, then he may have his reasons: he may not want to hurt feelings, he may not feel that his position has "hardened" (and would prefer to consider his ideas for a longer period of time before making a public statement), he may be doing/thinking any number of things -- but among them was his desire to keep the discussion private. It seems clear that you have felt the need to take offense in a public manner; and now you've done so. The poets you've listed became publicly scorned by Spencer because you put them in a list second-hand. At least some of those poets might have been just as happy not knowing [second hand] that Spencer is troubled by their motives. Now, the unwilling Spencer may feel obliged to take a stand, rather than simply continue a private conversation with another poet. I'll certainly try to have a policy to keep everything public with you, Mark. Cheers, Gale Nelson ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 13:12:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: actionable jackson In-Reply-To: Mark, What's up? If Spencer S (and thanks for the magazine list, Mr Selby) doesn't want to make his grievances public, then doesn't he have the right to that privacy? Granted, it's sad, but the release from irritation it affords you to bring _his slanders_ out may also bring you the fresh irritation of _libel_. I find myself constantly in such discussions with people _who will go unnamed_: discussions about the poisoning of the literary community by the language writers, discussions about the mediocrity of writing after (or starting with) language poetry, discussions about the hostility of younger writers to each other (and the disrespect for each other's work). Probably a healthier view (one that disregards the personal noxiousness of certain predecessors _who will go unnamed_) is that hey it's snowing! is that there was in fact a political/economic/social/spiritual change in the writing climate sometime between 1970 and 1990... and that the few opportunities to proliferate the work of poets who don't want to write like Mary Oliver became much fewer. Meanwhile, the language poets, who unlike their 4th gen NY school classmates, had no qualms about being ambitious, let alone about sending their work to editors they didn't know personally, found other previously unidentified routes to disseminate their work. That is, they sat on MLA panels, they published perfect bound books, they _worked their asses off_. The legendary personal hostility of certain language writers _we'll neglect to name_ to writers not of the camp of L is another matter. Selby's hostility, though, is another another matter. He publishes widely, until a few months ago he was a frequent correspondent to the list, and it seemed from here that he was well-involved enough with poetry not to make the kind of attack (privately, we understand) that you say he has made. I used to make that kind of statement, and I'm afraid that the decreasing frequency of my attacks on the poetry establishment says something about _me_, about my _career_. I will note, though, that this is the second private fight you've publicized, and while I recognize that your motives are pure, I'm worried that other people will think something else. You're doing an awful lot. The reading series at Ruthless Grip brought in many more people on a rainy Saturday night for my reading with Bill Luoma than either Bill or I could have drawn in NY (and I hope you're not surprised to hear that) at the Ear, Biblios, St Mark's, etc. Situation is one of the _least_ careerist new magazines around (could you help me by explaining what you mean by "poetics of identity" as a must for poetry you print there? I can't quite figure it out). You come to this field of language from one of the most neglected directions--Burroughs--and you bring to it a clear (if paratactic) intelligent set of concerns. So I ask again, what's up? Sincerely, Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:28:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: I wonder in terms of intellectual property laws, as well as slander/libel laws, if it is permissible to quote and/or to paraphrase what is obviously private email. We all have our relatively violent moments which we share either with friends or associates, however defined; there is trust in pri- vacy. I find it unethical to 'expose' private email publicly unless there is an overriding reason, such as threat of physical violence, etc. Alan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 14:56:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gwyn McVay Subject: Nathaniel Mackey In-Reply-To: Here is a quick and naive question re: Nathaniel Mackey that I'm hoping someone can answer: a) is _Song of the Andoumbolou_ "complete," inasmuch as such a thing is possible, or still in progress? --and-- b) Have the existing sections been published all together or gathered in the same place? Thanks-- Gwyn McVay ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 16:19:34 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Larry Price Subject: yep & yep Ed: What a terrific thought - I had forgotten that from Fenollosa, but you're quite right. Which makes me recall my consistent irritation over phonemic analysis, being as I always am, interested in that bleeding of one sound into another locus, not finally as other than, simply moments in the hearing of the same sound. While it is that blink of the ear that gives then, for me at least, the sense of time in the reading, or in the writing, I've always worked hard to dissect certain pieces, literally, glyph by glyph. For example, Sappho's "tina deute peitho mais agein es san philotata, tis o psaph, adikeiei," (forgive any missteps; dove sta, etc.) illustrates both sides of the issue, working as it does the athleticism of the consonants, while nonetheless maintaining the broad vocalic valleys which are then picked up in the following lines (the "kai gar ai feuge" delta that finishes the strophe. But the fact is, you're absolutely correct: when you do go down to the level of the letter, the oppositions completely disappear. Oddly, though, as I think about it, that does throw responsibility back to the reader, not so much to account for significations, but the other dimensions, the limning of, as above, time and the ways in which that gives over to the reader presence. The injunction to count them, those blinks of the ear, as either 1. lapses, 2. bursts of attention, or 3. switches between and what's occurring during the switch. Grenier's "Rose Appellate Project" comes to mind, as so much else there. Larry Price ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:25:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: a Subject Comments: cc: drothschild@penguin.com mark, i'm worried about your blood pressure. obviously spencer is right about point one. now langue poets are getting into the canyon. now they continue to publish their works and clog the narrowing dust lanes robbing younger good poets of a good chance to be heard unless they toady the cause. yes that makes their works tired. they are legitimized. they are like orpheus in cocteau's moovie. they need to etonnez nous if they want the younger crowd to really listen and not just kiss ass or poke around for historical reasons. yes, languers have done a lot of silencing and selfing, claiming to be the only game in town e.g. i just heard of franz kamin a month ago and it's all your fault ron, charles and michael. On the other hand they worked hard to promote their work with good marketing. i think it's done more to open up debate than quell it. so thankyou ron, charles, michael. :*/ big smooch with tongue. spencer, like tony door who recently coined the phrase "sucking raisins out of Bruce Andrews' ass" to describe ear inn toadies, tends to be one to point to the emperor and remark on his bad fashion sense. you gotta love em for that. Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:27:22 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: RUSSELL ELIZABETH J Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: from "Alan Sondheim" at Nov 13, 95 02:28:17 pm > > I wonder in terms of intellectual property laws, as well as slander/libel > laws, if it is permissible to quote and/or to paraphrase what is obviously > private email. We all have our relatively violent moments which we share > either with friends or associates, however defined; there is trust in pri- > vacy. I find it unethical to 'expose' private email publicly unless there > is an overriding reason, such as threat of physical violence, etc. > > Alan > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:33:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Smith Subject: Re: Nathaniel Mackey <> Gwyn, "S of A" is an on-going serial poem, potentially extensible for as long as Nate cares to continue writing it. Same goes for the prose. No, the existing sections haven't been published together. Like Duncan's work, they are deliberately worked into the larger context his other poems create. At this point, all the existing sections haven't even been published yet. He was up to something like #35 as of last spring. Hopefully, City Lights will see the way to doing another volume. Or someone... You should check out, if you haven't yet, the CD _Strick: Song of the Andoumboulou 16-25_ where he is accompanied by Royal Hartigan on percussion & Hafez Modirzadeh on reeds. Excellent stuff, & well recorded. Hats off to Paul Naylor if he's reading this (& for his good essay in PMC). The CD is available from SPD, or from Spoken Engine Co., PO Box 771739, Memphis, TN 38177-1739. all best, charles ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:36:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: a Subject In-Reply-To: <951113172457_21302447@mail02.mail.aol.com> Oh hell, help! I'm a poet and a really good writer and those damn language poets are stopping me from doing anything! Can't even get a rhyme up anymore and when I do, POW! Even my local Newspaper would rather Bernstein than me! I can't live like this, bang bang I'll shoot myself dead, that will show them! And xerox, take that! They won't even copy my poems! Those Long-Po's are ruining everything! Those Long Long Po's! I mean get a life, start a magazine, self-publish, go and write, start a publishing co, other people I know have. This argument's old as the hills some of them trilobites complaining that the ones with longer lateral spines keeping them out of the really good tidepools... Alan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:37:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Alan Sondheim Subject: Re: your mail In-Reply-To: <199511132227.RAA29097@lilith.albany.edu> Kewl. On Mon, 13 Nov 1995, RUSSELL ELIZABETH J wrote: > > > > I wonder in terms of intellectual property laws, as well as slander/libel > > laws, if it is permissible to quote and/or to paraphrase what is obviously > > private email. We all have our relatively violent moments which we share > > either with friends or associates, however defined; there is trust in pri- > > vacy. I find it unethical to 'expose' private email publicly unless there > > is an overriding reason, such as threat of physical violence, etc. > > > > Alan > > > ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:39:47 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Announcing Tinfish...online! Announcing ... ..+.. + TINFISH-----> text & graphical files are now ----- Online ------> at the Electronic Poetry Center! This magazine, edited by Susan Schultz in Honolulu, is a journal of experimental poetry with an emphasis on work from the Pacific region. Tinfish #1 presents work by Joe Balaz, Peter Kenneally, Kathy Dee, John Geraets, Rob Wilson, Spencer Selby, Yi Sha, John Kinsella, Lyn Hejinian, Barry K. K. Masuda, and John Tranter. Have a look at the EPC (http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc) under "journals"! SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE WELCOME: Get Tinfish in your mailbox...before the online copy--and without the need for electricity! Subscription information also available at the Tinfish home page! ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 20:52:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: Baa Fashion (fwd) >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Forwarded message: From: BLAST@VORT_TEXT.PUB (Wyndam Lewis) Sender: POET_TRICKS@UBM.BLUF.ALOT.COM (HUGE Chat-Net) Reply-to: POET_TRICKS@UBM.BLUF.ALOT.COM (HUGE Chat-Net) To: POET_TRICKS@UBM.BLUF.ALOT.COM (Multiple recipients of list HUGE) Date: 1956-11-13 16:33:08 EST Note : An Unmanned of Distinction There is a distinction between pointing to the emperor & saying, "What horrible clothes! Who's his tailor? That jacket went out of style when my great-gran-mama was 30; & those colors, well you'd have to be blind!" instead of saying, "NAKED!" Let's do lunch. But which is better? I do not know. It depends on your interpretation. First, do the people who see the emperor think that he actually has clothes on? Have not some of them been brainwashed into thinking the emperor really has clothes? Can these people be convinced that the clothes they think they see are bad? Is this a worthwhile endevor? "It is not vanity to have pulled from the air a live tradition" I will chose to do both. The Emperor is imagining that he is wearing totally tasteless clothes of his own design. Whose thread bare fabrics are hideous & lack style. But not as the result of a devotion to bad style, but as the result of a complete ignorance of the concept itself. The Emperor wears "nous" clothes & these duds are not of the "now." More specifically, aside from Mac Low, Zukofsky, & Oppen, why can i not remember whom else they've suggested we read? Besides Franz Kamin, who had heard of Schwitters before Jerry R. did his book? who has heard of the Lettrests? {can i even spell it?} who knows the work of Chuck Stein {a plug for the Little Magazine on CD Rom--listen to Chuck Stein's piece, then listen to Charles Bernstein's--& draw your own conclusions[collusions] (or as they say at Rice, "add you own 'E's)} Which, by a curious vicous of recircumlocution, brings us back to the Emperor's new clothes. The ones he sometimes has on (when HAVING them is an important step toward saint hood), & sometimes does not (when NOT HAVING them is a convenient way to avoid criticism.) The Emperor is fickle & his clothes are bad. He wears the attrocious garb of the self-aggrandizing. Isn't it curious that [to varying degrees] most {i did not say all--oddly enough} of the poets mostly associated by most of us, [& rarely by only a few of them] with most of themselves; as constituting, if not a school, a group, nor even a poetic society, [why does no one EVER mention the word "community" when speaking of these poets?] at the very least a mutual [& extremely generous & uncritical] admiration society; are so extremely passive-aggressive? Have i mentioned Miserly? Threadbare? Bankrupt? Isn't it curious that the "second generation" {some would have it as "third"} has no direction in which to go? Could it be that they lack leadership? Lack role models? are torn in two directions? [The diametrically opposed directions of poet & toady?] Could it be . . . ? No, look at how helpful they have been to so many others--how encouraging they continue to be. I propose this--Who so ever thought that they ever learned anything "Poetic" from a naked, raving dictator--"check your calculations. It still looks like a chicken coop from here." Tony Door Europe ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 20:10:38 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Brannen Subject: Re: dunno but >>Date: Sat, 28 Oct 1995 10:05:28 -0400 >>From: Chris Stroffolino >>Subject: Re: & Ralph Waldo >> >> (continued from last note--which ended with FOR WHAT?) >> or FOR WHOM? cs > >Chris-- > >Certainly the good doctor bad insurance claims investigator (does anybody >out there remember Johnny Dollar on Saturday afternoon radio?!?) is just >silly. I didn't say that though perhaps (?) Jonathan did. Chris & Tenney, Surely nothing I've said has suggested that I have a favorable opinion of the medical profession. Best, Jonathan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 21:45:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Carla Billitteri Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Friday Lecture and Saturday Reading (in Buffalo, N.Y.) l l l e e e c c c t t t u u u r r r e e e )_L_( )_E_( )_C_( )_T_( )_U_( )_R_( )_E_( l e c t u r e Charles Cantalupo (Associate Professor of English at Penn State Univ.) "AFRICAN FOREGROUNDS AND THE EXAMPLE OF NGUGI WA THIONG'O" A lecture on the Kenyan novelist and essayist Ngugi wa Thiong'o 11:00 A.M. Friday, November 17 Clemens 410 r e a d i n g )_R_( )_E_( )_A_( )_D_( )_I_( )_N_( )_G_( r r r e e e a a a d d d i i i n n n g g g Robert Fitterman & Charles Cantalupo 7:30 P.M. Saturday, November 18 Central Park Grill (2519 Main St.) $4 Robert Fitterman is the author of _Ameresque_ and _Metropolis_ and is co-editor of the journal _Object_ Charles Cantalupo is the author of _Anima/l Wo/man and Other Spirits_ and the poetry-performance cycle _After Africa_ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 20:52:40 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jonathan Brannen Subject: Re: Wallace and fiscal poetry >jonathan: back to the money/poetry/stevens matrix. wd this be interesting to >pursue further--siena, the medicis, alchemy, plato, poetry, all those >astonishing links such that a + b equals more than c. it won'y make >friends but can make interest. stevens was not taking about money as >machinery but as magic. -ed Yo! Ed, I'm not opposed to transforming a little lead. Then I've always believed that poetry has been hypertext longer than computers have been computers. Go figure! Best, Jonathan ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 19:14:40 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: trouble Mark: How are we supposed to comment on this argument when we only have your representation of Spencer's position in it? I know Spencer well enough to be aware of his general ideas about this subject, and it seems to me you're reading them reductively, polarizing them; but without knowing what he actually said to you, I'd only be reacting to hearsay. While I can sympathize with your offended integrity, I wonder if you haven't struck it a worse blow yourself by choosing this forum and this tactic to make your case. Steve ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 23:19:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Patrick Phillips Subject: Re: trouble Somebody tell me, what's all this stuff about integrity? Whose? And what the hell is "the integrity of poetry???" I'd be willing to give somebody five bucks if they could honestly tell me. - standing offer. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 21:30:53 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Baraka Conference I can't take the time to give as full a summary of last week's Baraka conference as we've had of other events recently, but here's a taste -- That this happened at all is something of a minor miracle. There was no funding to be had easily, though there seems to be plenty of money for multiple celebrations of a whitened BEAT millenium. As a result, everything, including my own arrival, was late. So, following Baraka's 61st birthday, the Schomburg Library in New York hosted a 60th birthday conference on the work of Amiri Baraka. I can't tell you anything of the first panel, as I was just arriving at LaGuardia when it began. But then, Baraka wasn't there yet either. Kalamu Ya Salaam and William Strikland were scheduled to speak about Baraka's political activites, and Charles Bernstein, who was there for part of it, tells me they seemed determined to do so without any reference to his writings. Neat trick. Things started picking up with the second session, on Baraka's drama. Baraka had, by now, arrived. Eleanor Traylor, Marjorie Perloff's running buddy in grad. school days, made her usual highly dramatic statement, articulated with waves of her feathered sleeves. (The Schomburg staff continued to find these feathers floating about the collection for days afterward, signs of Eleanor's having been through the manuscript room.) Eleanor had also throughly composed her inteview questions for Baraka, and they amounted to miniature essays delivered as if they were sermonettes. But, her questions were very much to the point, and Baraka answered them with good humor. By the time we had had lunch, the sessions were back on schedule and it was time for me to say a few words about Baraka's fiction and to handle the interview on that material. If you've tried to find Baraka's fiction lately, you know what part of the problem is here. I spoke briefly about the development of African-American postmodernisms, using uncollected Baraka prose works from _Yugen_ , _Kulchur_ and from his manuscripts to illustrate my points. Also asked him about the "populist modernism" he speaks of in his introduction to his fiction anthology _The Moderns_. My favorite moment was our reading of a letter from the then editor in chief of Putnams about the novel Baraka was writing under contract for them in the early seventies. They seemed to think they would get a sort of black _Godfather_, a triumphalist (and realist) narrative of a rise from the ghetto (with lots of blood along the way I suppose). Clearly they had never read his previous novel, _The System of Dante's Hell_. That evening was given over to a literary tribute, with scheduled readings by Haki Madhabuti and Sonia Sanchez. No news here (except for the news that Baraka and Madhabuti are now speaking to each other again). No new work appeared, but the readings were well delivered. (You can probably tell I'm not a big fan of these two. If you like their work, you would have liked their reading.) The surprise was an unscheduled appearance of Baraka reading with a jazz ensemble named Blue Ark. This turned out much better than other such productions in the past. Much better than anything Baraka himself has done since his performances with David Murray and Steve McCall more than a decade ago. Less agit prop and more poetry of the type we've seen from Baraka in _Sulfur_ and other mags recently. Saturday morning the panel dealt with Baraka's music criticism and his own recordings. Kalamu Ya Salaam talked about Baraka's now hard to find albums. Lorenzo Thomas provided a walking tour of _Blues People_ and was his usual charming self. This turned into the longest and most wide-ranging interview of the conference. Saturday afternoon was given over to talk of the poetry itself, though few questions got asked about poetics. (Ain't that always the way.) Sonia Sanchez was on this panel, but mostly she just read her own poems and told anecdotes about meeting Baraka (good anecdotes, I hasten to add). William J. Harris had much more cogent remarks to make about the poetry. If you have never looked at it, read his 1985 book on Baraka's poetry and jazz aesthetics. (Harris was one of the first writers on Baraka to read through Baraka's correspondence with Dorn, Olson and others. It's still a good book he wrote, though now a bit dated.) There were, of course, questions from the audience of the "where do you get your ideas" sort, but there were also some very good questions asked by very young people. The final event was a retrospective reading by Baraka that was recorded for possible release as a CD later on. (Kalamu is working on that project and should do a good job.) The early poems were magnificent. Some of the more recent poems were magnificent. And then there was some crap in the middle. Baraka mentioned that he had been called antisemitic and anti-gay in response to some of those late-sixties and early-seventies poems, and found an unseemly humor in that fact. He has written scathing criticism of his own cultural nationalism from those years elsewhere, and maybe he didn't want to repeat that at his own retrospect -- but I wished he were less apologetic about his earliest poems and more apologetic about some of the nationalist work -- particularly since he takes such a strongly antinationalist line today -- (and when, if ever, will anyone hold Dorn responsible for his antisemitic remarks over the years?!?) But it began and ended (the reading) with impressive work impressively delivered. If you look at some of the "Why's" poems in the new selected, or the recent stuff in _Sulfur_ issues, you'll see that there's still some interesting work coming out of that typewriter in between plays like that wretched "Tarzan and Boy Appear in a Clearing" -- The entire series was videotaped, and that material will soon be available for people to look at in the Schomburg collection. If you've never been there, get on that #2 subway and pay a visit. It's one of the major collections of African-American materials (including 5000 films and videos) available to scholars in the U.S. -- Much of the collection is indexed on the New York Public Library's CATNYP system, which you can access, I think, through the NYPL web site: http://www.nypl.org There are about 200 pages of uncollected Baraka poems in ms. at the Schomburg, which they are just now beginning to process and make available. Meanwhile, get _Transbluesency: Selected Poems of Amiri Baraka_ edited by Paul Vangelisti, and play some good music while you read around in it -- Try _Impressions_ while reading "I Substitute for the Dead Lecturer" for example. And next time you're at one of those BEAT retrospectives, ask somebody where all the black poets and painters are -- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 21:43:08 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: integrity In-Reply-To: <199511140508.AAA17291@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> Mr. Phillips -- send $5.00 and I will tell you about the integrity of poetry. Trust me! Anybody else who wants to know about this, just send the five bucks. It's not much to ask. yours, soupy sales ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 23:10:24 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeffrey Timmons Subject: Re: trouble In-Reply-To: <199511140419.XAA09333@Brown.EDU> On Mon, 13 Nov 1995, Patrick Phillips wrote: > Somebody tell me, what's all this stuff about integrity?> > Whose? > And what the hell is "the integrity of poetry???" > I'd be willing to give somebody five bucks if they could honestly tell me. > - standing offer. Uh, a dandruff shampoo? Jeffrey Timmons ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 05:59:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: James Sherry Subject: Re: POETICS Digest - 12 Nov 1995 to 13 Nov 1995 Comments: To: Automatic digest processor In-Reply-To: <199511140508.AAA17291@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> -Should we evaluate language writing and Spencer Selby on their own terms or -should we evaluate them on each other's terms or -should we evaluate them on some third set of terms dictated by assumptions but unvoiced. Can you each say how you evaluated each and the question? Is there an unbreachable discrepancy between quality and career or is it more complicated? They are not synonyms, but they are not antonyms either. If we are not writing for our careers, who or what are we writing for? Does the aim of our writing make is better or worse as writing? Does the aim of our writing have anything to do with its value? Ron has made some significant contributions to questions of poetry and value. So has Ann Lauterbach. Others have made significant although covert contributions. James ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 08:49:53 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: the aim of our poetry In-Reply-To: I think Mark was taking aim at poetry. Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 09:01:33 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Fred Muratori Subject: Crybaby Poetry? > I find Spencer's comments, and his insults to my integrity, >offensive and pernicious in the worst way. I find his maligning of a >great number of committed and concerned poets to be completely lacking in >evidence, and to be untrue. I believe that his refusal to >debate me publicly is based on his awareness that his claims are >pernicious and even potentially legally actionable. > > I believe that the private assault he is making on the character >and activites of a wide range of experimental poets needs to be made public. > >Mark Wallace Could this be? Is LangPo now entering the era of Late-LangPo, its final, decadent, crybaby phase? Insults may have indeed been perpetrated, but since when is it out-of-bounds to challenge or criticize or just plain insult the work of any poet or school of poetry? And since when could a debate settle such subjective matters as aesthetic preference? ("Yes, your logic is overwhelming. I now appreciate the awesome implications of Edgar Guest's verse.") The mainstream -- however so defined by historical moment -- has absorbed "pernicious" criticism for years. That's the inevitable consequence when an entity acquires -- or is perceived to have acquired -- power. ("If you got it, flaunt it.") It's news to me that literary criticism or accusations of careerism could be "legally actionable." Much as I appreciate and admire LangPo, I doubt that its practitioners and promoters can claim any divine dispensation from criticism and insult, no moreso than New Formalists or any other category we can conveniently assign to a group of poets. As always, the poets most likely to get screwed/silenced by existing power centers are those who are aligned with none. Please, let's direct our attention to more adult matters, like the current discourse between Congress and Clinton over the federal budget. *********************** Fred Muratori "Certain themes are incurable." (fmm1@cornell.edu) - Lyn Hejinian Reference Services Division Olin * Kroch * Uris Libraries Cornell University Ithaca, NY 14853 *********************** ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 08:30:07 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: None Mark Wallace's post about Selby's accusations is timely. Many are making similar claims. 1. To argue that the Language poets invented self-promotion and careerism is ridiculous. Has anyone out there heard of Walt Whitman writing reviews of his own books? And what about the promotional efforts of Pound, Stein, Olson, Ginsberg, Baraka, etc.? One may argue that the Language poets, unlike these others, let market affairs infect their poetry, so that the poetry became sullied by careerism to a degree unheard of before. There are a lot of Language poets, so I can't discuss all of them. But I do find it interesting that two so-called Language poets, Bernstein and Perelman, have, for the first time to my knowledge, thematized the relationship between promotion/PR and poetry in poems such as "Lives of the Toll Takers." Could they be suffering at the hands of the Selbys because they have been too honest, too willing to explore the less-than-rigid line between PR and aesthetics? They both suggest, compellingly, that poetry cannot be separated from the efforts to get it public attention. They say this about not only their poetry, but everyone else's as well. I suggest that this honesty, coupled with jealousy at their success, is at the core of these sorts of attacks. 2. What is wrong with self-promotion? A writer would have to be a masochist to publish and not to publicize. I want a wider audience, and, so long as I do not violate my aesthetic principles, I will do what I can to get it. It seems to me that Selby's line of argument supposes that, because the system is corrupt, any success must also be corrupt. Would tha@ l" 3. Where is the line at which self-promotion sullies the poetry? Such a question can be answered only on a case-by-case basis. But wholesale rejection and judgment of the way whole groups of poets have negotiated this difficult terrain is not helpful. 4. To attack Bernstein as a careerist ignores all the good that he has done all poets. Note this list. And the contributions he has made to poetry as the Grey Chair at Buffalo. Charles is not resting on his laurels nor using his position simply for crass personal advancement. Quite to the contrary. He has helped all of us. To not recognize this is to be profoundly ungrateful. I'm glad that an individual as generous as he has been so successful. 5. Selby has three full-length collections of poetry out. I have some chapbooks, but no collections. He calls me a careerist. Look at the evidence. Who is the real careerist? How did you manage to get your books published, Spencer? ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:18:50 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: yep & yep larry: in this matter, i've been back with whitman this morning, thinking about that particular movement and why it was open to revision and expansion. stein is equally emersonian but never frees herself from chronology, i think, but later work stanzas in meditation, maybe. others, early ginsberg for instance, work through increment, and that's of course not it either. fenolossa was too much a philosopher, wanted conclusions i suppose. whitman's mystery as a poet is his ability to maintain syntax but not submit to discrete letters. so many have tried, in his wake, but fail. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:25:58 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: Wallace and fiscal poetry oh, jonathan! hypertext indeed. it's time for a little homebrew. no figures, just fun. or maybe satie-faction. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:34:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: integrity aldon, $5 is too much. I can do it for $2. according to this morning's times, "Jerset City Officers Are Accused / Of Turning Stolen Cars to Profit." (that's "Jersey" City, sorry about mistyping, these fingers are so slippery) The possibility of corruption in my home town. Oh, my god, i could barely finish lunch. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 10:23:51 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: None (or any) (or some) Re: careerism, poetry, publishing. During 15 years of making books, publishing them in one form or another, I have been called a careerist because on a couple of occasions I have published my own work. I have also been called one because I have published work I like by poets I like. Frankly, I wouldn't want it any other way. It has been suggested to me, from some in the nonprofit sector, that I should not choose the books I publish, rather should have a non-partisan and diverse editorial board make such choices. If I had to do that, I wouldn't do the work at all. I've also been criticized because I've actually tried to promote the books (and most of you probably know I haven't done all that much in that area). I plead guilty. And I can tell you what a pleasure it has been on occasion (all too few) to publish something by a writer who worked really hard to get her/his books reviewed, to get readings, to get the books into stores, to get their friends and admirers to buy them. Damn that careerism. I've also tried to find employment or gain fellowships, and have been offered some, on occasion, related to my writing and/or publishing and/or bookmaking efforts. I thought I did this to try to make sure I helped provide, along with my spouse, such things as food, shelter, health care, and more, to my family (believe me, I'd love NOT to need such jobs, but I've never been in that position). It hasn't hurt, on such occasions, to have recommendations from people who could put them on letterhead that mattered to whatever employers or granters saw them. Damn me and damn those letter writers for such careerism. Although I criticize here certain attitudes, let me say that I have great respect for Spencer Selby and, at the moment, little respect for Mark Wallace and his decision to make a private matter become a public matter. Spencer has done great work through his organization of readings, his publishing, and his writing. That he and Mark differ in many opinions, even to the point of difficult emotional argument, is not surprising. Spencer and I probably differ in such ways, too. But to bring the bitterest part of such argument to public knowledge without one participant's consent is something I find extremely distasteful. Please get on with your poetries, and your careers. charles Charles Alexander Chax Press P.O. Box 19178 Minneapolis, MN 55419-0178 612-721-6063 (phone & fax) chax@mtn.org ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:18:13 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino "Much Virtue in An "IF"----Shakespeare, AS YOU LIKE IT, act 5-- Well, Mark-- IF Spencer said that I was second-rate and IF Specncer said that I am a careerist who just sucks up to the powerful and IF he also said that I therefore have no integrity, THEN it no do doubt becomes quite bizarre that he would have asked me to blurb his last book------ signed, a fiend (i mean friend---much virtue in an R). ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 12:52:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: concreet letters In-Reply-To: <01HXMQFPC1YQ926WSV@VAXC.STEVENS-TECH.EDU> whitman's mystery as a poet is his ability to maintain syntax but not submit to discrete letters. so many have tried, in his wake, but fail. -ed Ed, this sounds amazing. What, though, are discrete letters? Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 10:00:10 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: snarl Chris Stroffolino wrote: > "Much Virtue in An "IF"----Shakespeare, AS YOU LIKE IT, act 5-- > > Well, Mark-- > IF Spencer said that I was second-rate and > IF Specncer said that I am a careerist > who just sucks up to the powerful and > IF he also said that I therefore have no integrity, > THEN it no do doubt becomes quite bizarre that he would > have asked me to blurb his last book------ > signed, a fiend (i mean friend---much virtue in an R). Your point is well taken, Chris. You're not the only one on second-rate careerist list to have treated Spencer with friendship and generosity. Here's what I wrote to Mark PRIVATELY: "Kevin let me read your post to him, and told me to read your message on the listserv (I haven't been following the discussions there lately). People are going to be afraid to write to you, Mark, though I am enjoying your stirring up of things. I think Kevin's holding on his opinion until Spencer, who Kevin's always been very nice and supportive of, makes some kind of response. Biting the hand that feeds you is too common a practice among writers. I've recently been majorly bitten, chewed by Cudjo, so this is on my mind. I did similar attacks when I was younger and impatient that others give me the recognition I couldn't even give myself, but Spencer is old and should know better. Kevin is always telling me that love is its own reward and that you shouldn't expect or demand gratitude--and, over and over, Mark, this is the only option one has out of the soul-destroying type of bitterness you're describing here." Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 16:03:01 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Dominance of Lang. Po. / Wallace I too have had a private corr with Wallace over Lang Po dominance and the recuperability of trad forms, just to out myself as painlessly as possible. Find it hard, still, to find the dominance in the work since never can pin down the 'center' (even mediated thru anthol.s like Amer Tree or Art Practice) sure enough see how this is even could be dominant. Compare John Taggart's "if we stop long enough we'll be gathered brought together by the voice" with "erratums for the tummy La La Ta tin erratum neuter past errare all" of Joan Retallack. These two lines drawn almost at random from the latests 'canonizing' lang po anthology seem canyons apart. Whatever the "quality" of the work on some grade-scale, it does seem to have a range. Like "objectivism" (a term never meant to represent a 'movement' or group), lang po seems most useful as a homogenzing label slung aroung by those who didn't want to read any in the first place. (Not you Mark, I know.) Calling the works of lang po hegemonic seems to rely on the same homogenizing mypoic that would see "contemporary" art as limited because only involved with flat surface and form. More, without getting personal, it might be useful to talk about poems or the work of particular poets rather than the Lang. Po. bogey man. p.s. Mark--if you want this debate, perhaps you want to share yr essay from Poetic Briefs with the list, or send it to me and I'll post it in the EPC. At least then we might all know what we're talking about. Ken Sherwood ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 15:57:28 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Janet S. Gray" Subject: Need help identifying a poem Just joined this list, looking for help with a poetry puzzle. I'm editing an anthology of 19th-c American women poets, and I've run across two poems that I'm convinced are take-offs on the same poem, but I don't know what the poem is. Hunches are that the original may not be in English; that it may be classical, and there may have been a popular new translation of this poet in the late 19th century. People have already tried to talk me out of this theory but I'm not convinced. Would love to hear from any who recognize the two- quatrain pastoral (probably) behind this pair or can suggest where I might turn. MOONRISE IN THE ROCKIES The trembling train clings to the leaning wall Of solid stone; a thousand feet below Sinks a black gulf; the sky hangs like a pall Upon the peaks of everlasting snow. Then of a sudden springs a rim of light, Curved like a silver sickle. High and higher-- Till the full moon burns on the breast of night And a million firs stand tipped with lucent fire. --Ella Higginson, 1898 A PASTORAL IN POSTERS The mid-day moon lights up the rocky sky; The great hills flutter in the greenish breeze; While far above the lowing turtles fly And light upon the pinky-purple trees. The gleaming trill of jagged, feathered rocks I hear with glee as swift I fly away, And over waves of subtle woolly flocks Crashes the breaking day! --Carolyn Wells, 1900 Higginson's version especially makes me think of Sappho, but I can't find a Sappho poem that does. Janet Gray jsgray@pucc.princeton.edu ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 16:30:37 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: Dominance of Lang. Po. / Wallace I'm interested in the recurrence of the term "hegemony" on this list. Not to raise the spectre of the AHP (and will the authors of the AHP posts ever be outed?) but what are the symptoms of hegemony? Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 15:30:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: look who's talking >post it in the EPC. At least then we might all know what we're >talking about. > >Ken Sherwood Ken, what's the fun in knowing what we're talking about? i've found it makes it much harder to get into heated arguments when you level the field like that.... eryque the red. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 17:58:17 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Marc L. Weber" <75401.207@COMPUSERVE.COM> Subject: announcement of new lit. mag. available on-line If you (or anyone you forward this message too) want a copy in HTML format just drop me a note at 75401.207@CompuServe.com and ask for a copy of SUGAR MULE #1. I will have a WWW site sometime next year. (For others reading this--the hard copy will require a handling fee--inquire for address.) The mag in brief could be described thusly: Approx. 64 book-size pages--Paul Hoover, Jane Augustine, Michael Heller Kate Lila Wheeler, Lance Olson and Pierre Joris and others will be in the first issue. Though not strictly so, the magazine is eccentrically Buddhist and eco-oriented. All types of prose and poetry are welcome. You can order hard-copy versions at Web, P.O. Box, 6912, Colo. Spgs., CO 80934 for $10 for two issues--make checks payable to Marc L. Weber. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 19:55:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: concreet letters for jordan: letters are discrete before they make sense; syntax may not in itself make sense, but you can't make sense without it. letters are discreet when they make less sense than they could. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 23:59:51 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: unpack >Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 11:18:50 -0500 >From: Edward Foster >Subject: Re: yep & yep > >larry: in this matter, i've been back with whitman this morning, thinking >about that particular movement and why it was open to revision and expansion. >stein is equally emersonian but never frees herself from chronology, i think, >but later work > >stanzas in meditation, maybe. others, early ginsberg for instance, work >through increment, and that's of course not it either. fenolossa was >too much a philosopher, wanted conclusions i suppose. whitman's mystery >as a poet is his ability to maintain syntax but not submit to discrete >letters. so many have tried, in his wake, but fail. -ed Ed-- unpack the Walt remarks please? Tenney ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 23:59:58 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: urgh! >Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 19:55:21 -0500 >From: Edward Foster >Subject: Re: concreet letters > >for jordan: letters are discrete before they make sense; syntax may not >in itself make sense, but you can't make sense without it. letters are >discreet when they make less sense than they could. -ed Dear Sir: please attach to Uncle Walt.... thanks, T. ========================================================================= Date: Tue, 14 Nov 1995 23:39:54 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: None (I wish) In-Reply-To: <199511150659.XAA27901@web.azstarnet.com> Thanks to Gale Nelson and Charles Alexander for their thoughtful speculations about my exchange with Mark Wallace. I am not saying "nasty things" about anyone in the poetry community, publically or privately. Also: I never called anyone a careerist. I never questioned anyone's integrity. I never said anything about "lies of Language Poets." In fact, the only motives I've spoken of directly are Mark's, and I did that because his overwrought emotional reaction to my posts has made it seemingly impossible for him to hear what I'm saying, what I'm trying to say. He prefers a blatant, unfair caricature, such as what he has posted to POETICS. My exchange with Mark was a private one, but I would rather go public with it than be so unfairly represented, misquoted by Mark or Jefferson Hansen. So anyone who wants to know what I really said: Post me and I'll forward the complete text of my exchange with Mark. With Greetings and Respect to All, Spencer Selby ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 05:26:38 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: None (I wish) Dear Spencer glad you posted something as solid and simple as you did re: Wallace's remarks. all best, charles Charles Alexander Chax Press P.O. Box 19178 Minneapolis, MN 55419-0178 612-721-6063 (phone & fax) chax@mtn.org ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:15:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: concreet letters At 7:55 PM 11/14/95, Edward Foster wrote: >for jordan: letters are discrete before they make sense; syntax may not >in itself make sense, but you can't make sense without it. letters are >discreet when they make less sense than they could. -ed Ed, so re whitman, the letters are discrete means the 19th c. oratorical diction and odd (Keatsian?) valence (vis a vis one word next to another) aren't combined again? That's his right place/right nerd good luck?- Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:00:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: my recent post While I appreciate the concerns regarding privacy, etc., that people have suggested in regards to my recent post, I think they are misplaced in this case. It's one thing to say that comments regarding ideas, issues, etc, that are made privately have some potential right to be kept private, although even in such a situation, I don't quite see why Mr. Selby, whom I barely know, has the right necessarily to send unsolicited ideas to me and expect that I have some obligation not to make them public. But this is not a situation regarding ideas. Mr. Selby has CALLED MY CHARACTER INTO QUESTION, and has further gone on to suggest that a number of writers who I like and admire are equally lacking in character. So I'd say to Gale Nelson that it's one thing to ask me to keep an idea private, it's another to impugn my motives, and the motives of others I respect and in some cases love, in correspondence to me and then to ask me to keep such baseless accusations to my self. Perhaps I am personally sensitive about accusations about my motivations, although I wonder who would not be. But the issue is larger than that for me. Let me explain why. As an adjunct professor who makes a marginal living teaching literature and writing, I also have an economic concern regarding poetry. I've chosen to make my living teaching literature because, for me, it seemed most honorable to try to survive economically by professing something I believe in--I've found other jobs to compromise my integrity in ways that make me uncomfortable. I do not say that other should do what I do, but simply that it seemed the best choice for me. But as an adjunct, I have no job security. My continued employment is based on my ability to seem competent and fair, and accusations that I am not, from whatever quarter, behaving in an ethical manner are accusations I not only will, but must, take extremely seriously. Lest it seem that I exaggerate, let me point out that while I was a graduate student at the University at Buffalo, I know of one case where a graduate student was reprimanded, and in another case removed from teaching, on the basis of a student accusation of unfairness. I don't know how well grounded those accusations were, I only know they had real effects. It is my attempt here to forestall in advance anyone who might make such accusations about me, in whatever context, so that my silence is not taken as some tacit acceptance of such accusations. Secondly, as a resident of Washington, D.C., I am living in a politically charged environment where character slanders of the sort that Mr. Selby is spreading about contemporary poets are a commonplace political tactic. Artists in this environment, especially experimental artists, are regularly described as immoral, both in public and private, as a way of eliminating public support for the arts. It is my belief that Mr. Selby, whether intentionally or not, can only by accusing avant garde writers of unethical behavior in this way do further harm to the image of artists. When such statements are made public, as in Jonathan Yardley's recent Washington Post article claiming that artists were living finanicially lucrative existences on the basis of receiving huge amounts of public money for which they are showing no responsibility, I make an effort to respond in print. If comments attacking the integrity of artists are made privately, I feel that those comments should be "outed" as a way of taking on their pernicious influence in a public context. I am doing in these matters far LESS than I should, actually--an avant-garde writer who is far more politically effective than myself, and receives far less credit, Joe Ross, has been extremely active in helping maintain public support for the arts in the current climate, and is also one of the people who Mr. Selby's comments to me have maligned. I repeat that such accusations have no right to remain private in such a politically charged environment. They must be dealt with, and they must be dealth with forthrightly and forcefully. I have no control over the comments that Mr. Selby makes about me or others, nor should I have such control. However, since I have therefore no control over to whom he may make comments about my activities, my best way to defend myself against them, and to defend people I respect against them, is to state publicly that I know he has made such accusations, and that, until he puts forward proof of these accusations, to state publicly that such accusations are baseless and false. I believe that Mr. Selby's "private" speech is doing a great deal of harm, and that blaming me for bringing that to people's attention is a misplaced concern in this instance. A private individual like myself is under no legal compunction to keep such accusations private, and indeed I believe that keeping such accusations private can do a great deal of harm. I will cite, as proof of this last point, another of my own experiences, which several people on this list can also vouch for. This instance is far more extreme than that of Mr. Selby's, but is, I think, illustrative. While in graduate school, I became roomates with another graduate student in my department. Within several months, he was verbally abusing me, and finally did indeed threaten to kill me. I was forced to abandon my apartment in the middle of a Buffalo November, to call Health Services and the police, and finally to bring a large number of friends to my apartment so that I could remove my belongings unharmed. I discovered later that other graduate students had experienced similarly violent verbal assaults from this student, but had not made their experiences known. I learned also that the English department was aware that this graduate student had a record of abusive behavior. What is the right to privacy in an instance like this? Clearly, while Mr. Selby's activities are in no way on the same level, I think it's clear that a private individual (I'm not Mr. Selby's doctor, or his priest) is not under any obligation to keep verbal assaults of any sort private. Oddly enough, I do think that Mr. Selby BELIEVES that his accusations are ethical and proper. It is for this reason that I corresponded with him privately on this subject for some weeks. I asked him to retract his claims, or to couch them in a manner less personally offensive. He refused. I then asked him for public debate on this manner, which he also refused, saying that he had made his position on this subject known too many times, rather than otherwise. But I do not see that Mr. Selby has actually ever published such claims in any forum in which one can respond to him. He makes his accusations privately, and then demands that they be kept private, a tactic which certainly aids in his ability to spread his accusations without public response. So Gale Nelson's concern that perhaps Mr. Selby is keeping his opinions private because they are not yet "fully developed" is not true, I think, in this instance. Mr. Selby says to me that he keeps his ideas private because "no one wants to hear what he is saying." Yet, when I offered to debate him, to respond to what he was saying, he accused me of further pandering to the powers that be, and actually put the sentence "Tell him to suck up some other way" INTO THE MOUTH OF HIS WIFE, who as far as I know is not a poet and has no connection with the world of poetry. It was as a response to this particularly cowardly form of accusation that I felt a need to make the issue public. I have saved the documents in which he makes such accusations, and will, if it proves necessary, post them if I think that is the best way to protect my character and the character of others. I am sensible to the kind suggestion, made privately to me by a number of people, that I simply shoud let such personal accusations pass. Perhaps they are beneath response, and perhaps, if I was the only one being harmed by them, that is the course I would have taken. But I believe that Mr. Selby's private accusations have potentially far-reaching consequences, and that other people need to know that correspondence with Mr. Selby, however intially harmless, can lead to personal assaults on one's character. I did not solicit Mr. Selby's comments on my article, although I did open the doors for our discussion, perhaps, by thanking him for sending me his new book, and for pointing out to him that my review (wholly positive, by the way) of his book SOUND OFF had appeared in Poetic Briefs. I am not even totally out of sympathy with some of his ideas--I do think that problems of promotion, access to resources, etc. are under-addressed in the contemporary avant garde. But when I took issue with some of his points, which I felt were overstated and even paranoid, he began to accuse me either of corruption (making the statements I make not sincerely but out of a desire to further my own career at the expense of others) or out of blindness to what I was doing--which I suppose means that I am corrupt but too stupid to know it. Our conversation was at times heated--I told him that people have no sympathy for his position not because his position was without value, but because he begins his arguments by impugning the motives of others. I want to thank all those who took the time to respond to me, whether critically or not. I think that slurs on the character of individual poets, even if made privately, need to be made public. I believe that rumors and slurs are at least as damaging, probably more so, than public accusations. In any case, I find it necessary to state publicly that until Mr. Selby provides documents and examples proving that I have behaved unethically, or that others are behaving unethically, that his accusations remain baseless and despicable, however much he himself believes that he is behaving honestly. With respect, and with belief in the value of "all information at all times in all places," mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:05:57 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: cookies (fwd) On another political issue entirely, I forward the following. mark wallace ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 17:19:36 -0500 From: Robin Meader To: Multiple recipients of list GWENGL Subject: cookies (fwd) Forwarded message: This $250 cookie recipe may be timely for the holidays. > From sarkani@seas.gwu.edu Mon Nov 13 12:07 EST 1995 > Date: Mon, 13 Nov 1995 12:07:08 -0500 > Message-Id: <199511131707.MAA02521@felix.seas.gwu.edu> > X-Sender: sarkani@seas.gwu.edu > Mime-Version: 1.0 > To: rmeader@seas.gwu.edu > From: sarkani@seas.gwu.edu (Shahram Sarkani) > Subject: cookies (fwd) > X-Mailer: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > Content-Length: 3517 > > >Return-Path: owner-faculty@seas.gwu.edu > >Date: Thu, 9 Nov 1995 17:42:07 -0500 (EST) > >Reply-To: funkboy@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu > >Sender: owner-faculty@seas.gwu.edu > >Precedence: bulk > >From: Blakely Holman Willis > >To: students@seas.gwu.edu > >Cc: faculty@seas.gwu.edu, students@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu, > > faculty@gwis2.circ.gwu.edu > >Subject: cookies (fwd) > >X-Listprocessor-Version: 7.2 -- ListProcessor by CREN > >Content-Length: 2957 > > > >Eat up! > > > >This message is sent to you with the hope you will forward it to EVERYONE > >you have ever even seen the e-mail address of. In the spirit of the > >originator, please feel free to post it anywhere and everywhere. > > > >********** > > > >Okay, everyone....a true story of justice in the good old U.S. of A. > >Thought > >y'all might enjoy this; if nothing else, it shows internet justice, if it > >can > >be called that. > > > >My daughter & I had just finished a salad at Neiman-Marcus Cafe in Dallas > >& > >decided to have a small dessert. Because our family are such cookie > >lovers, > >we decided to try the "Neiman-Marcus Cookie." It was so excellent that I > >asked if they would give me the recipe and they said with a small frown, > >"I'm > >afraid not." Well, I said, would you let me buy the recipe? With a cute > >smile, she said, "Yes." I asked how much, and she responded "Two fifty." > >I > >said with approval, just add it to my tab. > > > >Thirty days later, I received my VISA statement from Neiman-Marcus and it > >was > >$285.00. I looked again and I rememberd I had only spent $9.95 for two > >salads > >and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the > >statement, it > >said, "Cookie Recipe - $250.00." Boy, was I upset!! I called Neiman's > >Accounting Dept. and told them the waitress said it was "two fifty," and > >I > >did not realize she meant $250.00 for a cookie recipe. > > > >I asked them to take back the recipe and reduce my bill and they said > >they > >were sorry, but because all the recipes were this expensive so not just > >everyone could duplicate any of our bakery recipes....the bill would > >stand. > > > >I waited, thinking of how I could get even or even try to get any of my > >money back. > > > >I just said, "Okay, you folks got my $250.00 and now I'm going to have > >$250.00 worth of fun." I told her that I was going to see to it that > >every > >cookie lover would have a $250.00 cookie recipe from Neiman-Marcus for > >nothing. She replied, "I wish you wouldn't do this." I said, "I'm sorry > >but > >this is the only way I feel I could get even," and I will. > > > >So, here it is, and please pass it to someone else or run a few > >copies.... I > >paid for it; now you can have it for free. > > > >THE NEIMAN-MARCUS COOKIE > >(Recipe may be halved): > > > >2 cups butter > >4 cups flour > >2 tsp. soda > >2 cups sugar > >5 cups blended oatmeal* > >24 oz. chocolate chips > >2 cups brown sugar > >1 tsp. salt > >1 8-oz. Hershey Bar (grated) > >4 eggs > >2 tsp. baking powder > >3 cups chopped nuts (your choice) > >2 tsp. vanilla > > > >** measure oatmeal and blend in a blender to a fine powder. > > > >Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla; mix together with > >flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, > >Hershey > >Bar and nuts. Roll into balls and place two inches apart on a cookie > >sheet. > >Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies. > > > >Have fun!!! This is not a joke - this is a true story. > > > >***************** > > > >That's it. Please, pass it along to everyone you know, single people, > >mailing > >lists, etc..... > > > >Ride free > >citizen!! > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:08:46 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Mark Wallace Subject: cookies Actually, I just found out (oops!) that the cookies thang is a funny hoax! Enjoy them anyway. mark wallace ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 11:15:47 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: something to take your mind off Hey kids! Here's an url you'll really like http://www.phantom.com:80/~fowler/bookstor/gjmcwestmass.html It's a new book of poems by Jim McCrary! Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 08:17:04 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: the price of a price In-Reply-To: <199511150505.AAA16168@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> ed,,, for $2.00 all I can give up is the poetry -- the intergity costs another three bucks -- got to stick to some sense of value, after all! ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 09:35:21 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: yep & yep what about stein's using nouns as verbs? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 08:36:50 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: the return (again) of the repressed In-Reply-To: <199511150505.AAA16168@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> This current exchange does take me back indeed. (Not all that far back -- the chief perpetrator still works [if what he does could be called work] in an office beneath my own.) Back in May of 1979, Alan Soldofsky wrote in the _Poetry Flash_ as follows: "The intellectual and linguistic concerns of the 'language poets' [note this appearance you guys at the _OED_] are both an inevitable and peculiar outgrowth of the narcissistic preoccupations of the group of writers that comprised what was called the 'New York School' in the late sixties." There you have it; the careerism of the present bunch as the result of the naricissistic careerism of the previous bunch! From no less an authority than "professor" Soldofsky. Steve Abbot, in that same issue, wrote: "As a whole, the group is quite industrious. They've organized several presses, reading series and a talk series. Individually, however, many seem uncomfortable and at times suspicious or self-effacing about the attention they are now receiving." Bruce Boone offered a letter in July of 79 that made rare good sense: "We should be clear about one thing--this dispute is not going to go away by itself. But it does need to be carried on with an awareness of the common stakes involved. The alternative is to suppose that questions about technique and about social responsibility are just unrelated." enough said? ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 10:50:13 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Joe Amato Subject: mark and spencer... hey, both you guyz: i'm not utopian enough to believe that *anything* could heal the damage you've both obviously subjected each other to, intentionally or no... but there is something of a flawed logic in all of this, and it begins with an understanding of what poetics---this list---IS, and could be... mark: really, whatever your feelings about spencer's remarks, keep in mind that i for one don't know him personally and that i for one don't know you personally... i mean, like, though there are plenty of 'language writers' around these parts, to presume upon these regions in terms such as you've put forth---to "out" spencer based on (presumably) baseless accusations he's made to you (personally) about some poetry "public"---is likewise to "out" me some... i'm feeling left out, i mean... do you get this?... do you see yourself through my screen, the one here in my spare bdrm., in my chicago apt.?... regardless my feelings about whether you're justified in opening private correspondence (as you have) in a public forum that is itself quasi-public domain, i have OTHER feelings re this list... and you're presuming upon them some... unless of course i'm to sit back snidely watching the machine you've put in motion raise all sorts of "hell" with a number of folks i DO know (and care) about yet who, with regard to your concerns, seem to become through synecdoche the entire community hereabouts... and spencer: whether or no you've got a beef about undue careerism, why shit, man---you've been put on the spot, no doubt about it, and it's clear that you musta posted SOMETHING to raise mark's ire, no?... so what the hell, why'nt you give it a go?---whatever the hell it is that's bugging you, why'nt you S-P-E-L-L it out?... what have you got to lose?---save perhaps for having ceded to mark's provocations... one thing though: when/if you do so, i'd ask only that you keep in mind what i'm busy busting mark's chops about---that there are others on this list, such as mself (and you?) who are (1) NOT inexperienced and (2) NOT a part of the 'language writing community' as such, save through personal acquaintances and friendships and the like... regardless whether you've 'heard' of me (ugh) the point i'm making here is that i wish not to be left OUT of some presumed poetry "world"... by which i certainly am NOT saying that i wish to be "one of [ ]" (i'm certain you understand the paradox here---it's a common enough poetry anxiety)... there is, in short, a question of whence one speaks, and for whom... since connections are particularly fuzzy in the virtual scene, and since being "a part of" may consist simply of 'being friendly with,' and since (as charles a. has so nicely glossed it) we are ALL careerists to a certain extent, and since i have NO desire to wish away some very real power relationships re "schools" of poetry and the like: it might do some good to discuss issues of "poetry careerism" from the vantage point not so much of personal egos but of how the various constituencies of poetry/poetics maneuver themselves in the midst of more discursive realities... this may require a bit of historicizing, no?... if this post sounds a tad cranky or defensive, it's b/c i've seen this sorta presumption operate all too often in list 'communities,' whereby the one or two presume to speak for the many... and i for one prefer to speak for mself, as but one of a many... all best// joe ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 12:25:39 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: the return (again) of the repressed aldon et al., the likening in 1979 of lang poets and ny school finally does more harm than good--in the way that taggart and retallack don't write the same kind of stuff, as demonstrated in a recent post, to my mind satisfactorily. i recall lewis turco at a big conference in cleveland in the mid 1980s say that black mountain poets were beat poets (he did NOT mean that the bm's were LIKE the beats); here in this lumping together nothin is gained. anyway, poetry schools always, as in the example used about the objectivists (which ignored lz/s issue of Poetry), are not finally accurate, but they help descriptively in order to get started in understanding a poet or poets. yet as has been noted by several folks on this list of late, the lang poets (whoever in this wide world they may be in theory or otherwise) marketed themselves, strategized about how to gain readers and other things, and thus they themselves, if not somewhat amorphically, by deed proclaimed a school of poetry. am i wrong about this? Burt ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 12:36:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: yep & yep At 9:35 AM 11/15/95, ULMER SPRING wrote: >what about stein's using nouns as verbs? Rereading the 4th ed Hopkins (brought back by my blustering at Larry Pr re Olson) I saw Hopkins accused of the same tactic--of course now I can't find the citation--but it looked more like the verb was suppressed.. wait. maybe it was verbs used as nouns "the achieve of"... in which case guilty Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:53:07 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Re: mark and spencer... A few thoughts on all this: 1. Poets (i.e. people) talk trash a lot. 1.1. It's boring. 2. Spencer's new book _No Island_ is worth reading. 3. Mark may have "over-reacted" a bit by going public though I'm not convinced of this, in any case it's an interesting over-reaction. He's not just spewing confusion he's trying to deal with it in a constructive manner. I don't know Spencer's take, he may feel "betrayed," but obviously so did Mark. 4. Joe Amato's comments about 'one or two presum[ing] to speak for the many' & I believe it was Jordan who said "what's all this HEGEMONY then?" -- point, I think, at the primary alienation underlying-- just to presume a minute-- that we all feel "betrayed" by the economic structure we have to attempt to negotiate. This may be our failing. Collectively, we may not be able to do any better (poets, i.e. people here again). We may not be able to construct a society in which the human is valued over payola, thus we will continue to behave like idiots, devaluing each other personally, & being controled by honchos in boardrooms six floors away. This relates to the question of "evaluation" James Sherry brought up, & is merely a sketch, Chomsky or Mouffe or Wallerstein etc. Our "psychology" may be able to see what we should be, but not quite get there. 4.1. Am I wrong? Hope so. 4.2. With regard to the "derivative" nature of "2nd gen language poets"-- seems the "1st generation" outlined many of its "source texts" quite well? & other connections such as _Tel Quel_ & Nouveau Roman not as much discussed but divinable hmm? 4.121. --Rod ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 12:47:21 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: trouble Mr. Patrick Phillips wrote: > >Somebody tell me, what's all this stuff about integrity? > >Whose? > >And what the hell is "the integrity of poetry???" > >I'd be willing to give somebody five bucks if they could honestly tell me. > >- standing offer. The integrity of poetry is whatever anybody wants it to be when they don't want their own motivations seen/discussed/questioned. Since I'm at Comdex this week, I'll take that in quarters. Ron Silliman Piero's Restaurant Las Vegas, NV ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 13:25:54 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Flame wars and meaning While you folks have been squabbling about your and my careers, not one word has appeared on this list about the fact that a writer was executed in Nigeria last week, at least as much for his writing as for anything else he may have done. Ron ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 14:29:53 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: yep & yep At 12:36 PM 11/15/95 -0500, you wrote: >At 9:35 AM 11/15/95, ULMER SPRING wrote: >>what about stein's using nouns as verbs? > >Rereading the 4th ed Hopkins (brought back by my blustering at Larry Pr re >Olson) I saw Hopkins accused of the same tactic--of course now I can't find >the citation--but it looked more like the verb was suppressed.. wait. maybe >it was verbs used as nouns "the achieve of"... in which case guilty > >Jordan What's the penalty for this one? Nouns and verbs swap places all the time--it's one of the ways English (and many other languages as well) generate new syntactic units. I read what can only have begun as an academic study on Cummings' deployment of this and many other "deviant" strategies in his poetry a couple of years ago: _E.E. Cummings and Ungrammar_ by Irene R. Fairly (Watermill Publishers, NY). Very interesting, but a bit example- and endnote-heavy. Interestingly, Cummings and Stein never appreciated each other's work as much as one might think they would (I might think they would, anyway.) Steve ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 14:15:55 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Flame wars and meaning re Nigeria and that Commonwealth Heads of Government voted Nigeria out of the Brit Commonwealth and that boycotts of Shell Oil are happening as a result of its involvement in Nigeria and that the British are convinced the militaryt regime in Nigeria is "on its last legs. The execution of nine men in Nigeria sparked the comment and action. According to Amnesty International they were not given proper civil trialsd with the ensuing right of appeal, but were brought before military tribunals on charges of murder. All this has figured heavily in the news media here and I'm summarising here. Yes it was a poet went down, but I don't know his poetry....it aoppears that he was involved in protest about exploitation of his extremely oil-rich tribal area by the Nigerian military govt. ogvt Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 20:42:00 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: EPCLIVE schedule of Events Comments: To: joris@csc.albany.edu EPCLIVE Calendar ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This first series of happenings on EPCLIVE (the real-time performance channel on the undernet IRC network) will take place mondays from 6:30-8pm EST (11:30pm GMT). "Events" are semi-formal discussions with invited guest(s) and a prearranged topic; "Open Field" is a collaborative improvisation session; "Exchanges" are informal discussions around a general theme. For more information on EPCLIVE go to http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc/epclive --------------------------------------------------------------------- November 20 Grand Opening / Coffee House 27 Exchange--on Writing and Anthologies December 4 Open Field 11 Event--Poems for the Millennium: a discussion with Pierre Joris and Jerome Rothenberg on their newly released anthology of Modern and Postmodern Poetry. 18 Open Field January 8 Coffee House 15 Event (Guest and topic TBA) 22 Exchange--on Electronic Writing --------------------------------------------------------------------- EPCLIVE can also be used at other times for formal or informal events. We will be glad to publicize gatherings organized by others in this space and to take suggestions of topics for Events/Exchanges or answer questions regarding EPCLIVE. Write sherwood@acsu.buffalo.edu or lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu k.s. nov. 95 ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 23:48:51 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: they changed the url They changed the url http://www.thing.net/~grist/golpub/mccrary/jmcwest.htm will get you to McCrary (and incidentally some visual poemas by Bill Luoma) Jordan Davis ========================================================================= Date: Wed, 15 Nov 1995 22:03:25 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: regurgitation of the repressed In-Reply-To: <199511160506.AAA16697@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> Burt! buddy! that was a quote from a fool -- _NOT_ in any way a suggestion that anything indicated in the quote had any truth value whatsoever -- just the contrary -- Of course the connection made by Soldofsky in his diatribes on "The POetics of Narcississm" does more harm than good -- that's _why_ I was reminding folks of this previous iteration of the "careerism" debates -- ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 02:46:31 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: trouble In-Reply-To: <199511152047.MAA23925@ix2.ix.netcom.com> I _was_ going on the assumption that Mark and were friends, not close but with mutual respect and seemingly the basis, in sympathy and understanding, for candid honesty and thoughtful disagreement. At a couple of points, things were said by both Mark and I that could be interpreted as accusatory or insulting by the other. The record will show (now I'm sounding like a lawyer too) this was mutual, that Mark's claim that this was one-sided is completely false. I would not use Mark's accusations as justification for launching an all-out assault on Mark, as he has done with me. Using Mark's reasoning, I could very well do that. But I will not, even though I think he has impugned my character more than I have impugned his. As I said last night, I never questioned anyone's integrity. Mark kept bringing integrity up, and once as a threat, saying mine would be in question if I did not debate him publicly. I did at one point use the term "careerist." Discovered this in going over the posts today. I did not mean this as a characterization or maligning of anyone's character. I used the term in talking about two kinds of success--writing good poetry vs. publishing lots of books and/or getting more audience support. I tried to stick to the issues and have tried my best to dissuade Mark from taking things personally. My effort failed and perhaps I could have done better. Or maybe it was hopeless from the start. Maybe Mark just can't see it any other way, because of his experience. If so, I am sorry. And if I had known this going in, I would never have started the exchange. There is one thing on my mind now, that I must speak to before I shut up. This tendency to take as a deadly or serious threat things that are said that one doesn't agree with or like, this tendency is, in my opinion, the real threat. It is this tendency that the right and forces of repression use to justify their curbs on freedom. If we on the left, who all share a commitment to freedom of expression, do not encourage all honest, open communication and dissent. If we only pay lip service to this in principle, while in practice, when dissent hits home or upsets us, react as if to a threat that must be stopped. If we do this or support it, then we are all in trouble--no matter what we believe about anything else. Spencer Selby ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 02:58:47 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Spencer Selby Subject: Re: trouble, the movie In-Reply-To: <199511152047.MAA23925@ix2.ix.netcom.com> I've had my share of literary battles, skirmishes and run-ins, but I believe that Mark's recent posts represent the high point or low, the most extreme, irrational outburst I've encountered in my 20 years as a poet. Of course, in saying that, I'm further impugning Mark's character, I'm letting myself in for perhaps another barrage. Who knows, maybe this time he'll do more than rail against me. Maybe he'll start to think that I _do_ want to kill him, that he must get me first. Maybe I'm a fool to say anything in my own defense (some have said as much). Maybe I'm only drawing myself deeper into this nightmare vortex, this poetry film noir, this paranoid dream where danger and threats lurk at every turn. A month ago Mark and I were friends, or so I thought. Not close friends, but friendly peers that I thought had a lot more in common than differences. Mark called me Spencer back then, no hint of the ominous appellation "Mr. Selby," and claim to "barely know" me, that lay around the next bend. No hint that Mark couldn't handle my direct, sometimes blunt, verbal style. No hint that Mark felt so threatened and surrounded by evil. That Mark lived in a world where everything might suddenly become a life-and-death, dog-eat-dog struggle for survival. That everything might at any moment collapse into a vicious, primitive realm of us vs. them. A realm where yesterday's polite discussion is today's mortal combat, where honesty between two peers could spontaneously explode into the worst kind of rancorous, damaging conflict. Sounds like a Hollywood movie alright, and not a very good one at that. Maybe a better writer and a top director could do something with it. Maybe if we could get some good stars--say Pacino as Mark and De Niro as me. Get Scorsese to direct. The avant garde poetry setting would be a good twist. Scorsese could do a lot with that, linking his poetic style and themes (power!) to the taut, overblown content. Then if the movie was a hit, maybe this would spill over into poetry sales, help us get some sort of an audience. It would only be a temporary blip on the big screen, but better than nothing. Better than more of the same. Spencer ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 09:24:31 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: None About the writer and activist recently killed in Nigeria: 1. Can anyone inform us of the current political climate? I know that a coup took place a year or two ago, and that the miners went on strike to protest the military government. Is there anything else we should know? 2. Should we, as a group, send a protest of some sort to the current Nigerian regime? Would it be possible for intereested people on this list to sign a group letter? 3. If interested, please e-mail me with your ideas. I am willing to write an initial draft that can be added to etc. by others. I think we should, however, respond in a timely fashion. 4. I feel that we should do something. Nigeria is the land of Christopher Okigbo, Wole Sowinka and others. I would hate to see this sort of repression go unanswered. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 11:39:32 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: J.H.'s letter idea >> Should we, as a group, send a protest of some sort to the current Nigerian regime? Would it be possible for intereested people on this list to sign a group letter? I'm pretty sure that a government which hangs its own writers would not be interested in the dissent of foreign writers. Registering protest with the UN or the State Department may be more worthwhile. Jeff, I would be interested in such a letter. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 12:17:10 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Alexander Subject: Re: trouble I will now delete the Wallace/Selby "trouble" messages before reading. Do we need this to be a public debate? or public flogging? ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 13:17:59 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gale Nelson Subject: Re: On Certanty In-Reply-To: Message of Wed, 25 Oct 1995 10:28:09 -0500 from "114. If you are not certain of any fact, you cannot be certain of the meaning of your words either." -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, _On Certainty_ For no particular purpose... Gale ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 15:12:26 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: New(t) Address for your use He's not a member of the poetics list but if you want to register a complaint about careerists and other characters who debase the integrity of the legislative branch of our government, please e-mail Newt Gingrich at the following address: georgia6@hr.house.gov Feel free to pass this along. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 17:46:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lucinda Potts Subject: Re: Flame wars and meaning In-Reply-To: <199511152125.NAA22807@ix4.ix.netcom.com> On Wed, 15 Nov 1995, Ron Silliman wrote: > While you folks have been squabbling about your and my careers, not one word > has appeared on this list about the fact that a writer was executed in > Nigeria last week, at least as much for his writing as for anything else > he may have done. > > Ron > Yes, I heard about that. Has anybody read any of his stuff? Why did the Nigerian government find it offensive? Thanks, Cindy ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 18:17:06 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: renew renga Comments: To: Thomas Bell Comments: cc: MLLJORGE@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, semurphy@indirect.com, welford@hawaii.edu As I listened to the argument with ear to the wall The pit at the tip of my tongue hung gracefully I know I was punished for objecting to one man-one groan. After the dance of the devils on the head of a pin Aunt Matilda came away with the impression and ironed pants with metro paradise and sheet metals & captain stots hanging in bold faced afterglow, the way we had imagined forenoon all embedded in syntax that was not designed for use. Yet "you" are "rubbery". "I" am "scared" of "the man" in "the subway" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 18:37:28 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Lisa Samuels Subject: Re: renew renga In-Reply-To: from "Jordan Davis" at Nov 16, 95 06:17:06 pm Jordan Davis: As I listened to the argument with ear to the wall The pit at the tip of my tongue hung gracefully I know I was punished for objecting to one man-one groan. After the dance of the devils on the head of a pin Aunt Matilda came away with the impression and ironed pants with metro paradise and sheet metals & captain stots hanging in bold faced afterglow, the way we had imagined forenoon all embedded in syntax that was not designed for use. Yet "you" are "rubbery". "I" am "scared" of "the man" in "the subway", so hungry for eternal gratitude i forged in consciousness the unremitted pleasure of decay, the harking for the lyrically long day, one time too many splayed apart against the wall, such arteries of willingness to please fell down, the paint spilled up and there we were, possessing all the ground. 'hurray!' bespoke the diners, one and all, deliriously sated by the roaring sound of trains and training ear and eye, raining excess, reigning access, all the possibles given over, 'o hurray!' ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 19:15:27 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: ULMER SPRING Subject: Re: yep & yep i woodchuck the africa with manyhold of all some sort. cannot lever with and wonder all time concertina. noun verb fungle. wood suggest it is liberatory. liberary toy. didn't meen to connote deadcourse. was a passing. ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 20:41:30 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: EPC flyer (revised) -------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ELECTRONIC POETRY CENTER (EPC) URL=http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc -------------------------------------------------------------------- THE ELECTRONIC POETRY CENTER (EPC). The mission of this World-Wide Web based electronic poetry center is to serve as a hypertextual gateway to the extraordinary range of activity in formally innovative writing in the United States and the world. The EPC provides access to numerous electronic resources in the new poetries including RIF/T: an Electronic Space for New Poetry, Prose, & Poetics, the Poetics List archives, a text library of poet/author home pages, LINEbreak (sound files of interviews and performances which showcase and archive contemporary writers at work) and information about EPC.Live, our series of online literary events. In addition, the EPC houses and distributes electronic poetry journals including Brink, DIU, the Experioddi(cyber)cist, Inter\face, Juxta/Electronic, Passages: A Technopoetics Journal, the Segue Foundation/Roof Book News, Tinfish, TREE: TapRoot Electronic Edition, We Magazine, and Witz. We also offer access to and news of related print sources from small presses. Other electronic resources include numerous electronic poetry journals and connnections to related Internet poetry and poetics resources. Or use our Online Directory of Poets and Critics to correspond with one of our listed poets and scholars. Texts housed at the Electronic Poetry Center, texts are "definitive" texts inasmuch as, prior to posting, they have been approved by their producers. Access to the Center: For those with World-Wide Web (lynx) or Mosaic access choose your go to URL option then go to (type as one continuous string): http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc Check with your system administrator if you have problems with access. Also ask about setting a "bookmark" for quick and easy access to the Center when you log on. If you have comments, suggestions about sites to be added to the Center, or wish to submit essays, creative work, or book reviews, or wish to find out more about our resources do not hesitate to contact Loss Pequen~o Glazier (lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu) or Kenneth Sherwood (e-poetry@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu). -------------------------------------------------------------------- The Electronic Poetry Center is administered at SUNY Buffalo in collaboration with RIF/T, the Poetics Program, and Charles Bernstein -------------------------------------------------------------------- Rev. 11-16-95 ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 20:11:25 -0600 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Paul Naylor ok 157602 Subject: On Certainty 496 Dear Gale: here's one with a particular purpose: 496. This is a similar case to that of shewing that it has no meaning to say that a game has always been played wrong. Wittgenstein _On Certainty_ I've always read this as a prescient pre-emptive strike against (reductive readings of) deconstruction. In other words, what does it mean to say "nothing escapes logocentrism"? Paul "The Meaning Bandit" Naylor MAIL SEND in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu" in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu" SEND in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu" in%"poetics@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu" ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 22:30:49 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Hi! renga fans Hi! renga fans That "renew renga" you saw not long ago was started a couple days ago by Tom Bell, Jorge Guitart, Sheila E Murphy, Gabrielle Welford and me and we'd love you to join our carbon copy chain Just drop any of us a line and we'll cc you the next time through because we don't wish to tie up the list but we also don't want to exclude anybody who might dig writing through th'email, k? Love, Jordan "no e" Davis ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 23:09:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Eryque Gleason Subject: Re: Hi! renga fans Jordan, a little while back another renga was posted as finished product (i think), and someone followed fairly shortly with a request for yous guyses to state your method. I'd like to reiterate the request. thanks, eryque ========================================================================= Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 22:57:00 PST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jim Andrews Subject: MOCAMBOPO David, I have you booked for Mocambopo on February 23, 1996. Are you interested? **************************************** Does the drop of metal shine like a syllable in my song? Neruda Book of Questions Jim Andrews, Victoria, B.C., Canada: jandrews@islandnet.com ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 03:14:11 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Re: trouble "This tendency to take as a deadly or serious threat things that are said that one doesn't agree with or like, this tendency is, in my opinion, the real threat. It is this tendency that the right and forces of repression use to justify their curbs on freedom." Amen, Spencer! Ron ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:10:52 +0000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: R I Caddel Subject: Ken Saro-Wiwa In-Reply-To: <199511170508.FAA06877@hermes.dur.ac.uk> The Nigerian writer murdered recently (along with eight others) was Ken Saro-Wiwa, an environmental campaigner on behalf of the Ogoni tribe, who'd been protesting against the despoiling of their land by Shell (with the support of the Nigerian government). The protest against Shell, as I understand it, had been going on for some years, and Shell were threatening that if the Nigerian Govt. didn't do something about it, they'd reduce the scale of their "investment". Hence the security force "crackdown" on the Ogoni - which, along with the land damage and pollution, was what KS-W was protesting about, and endeavouring to draw world attention to. A couple of days after Ken Saro-Wiwa's death, Shell issued a statement to the effect that it was nothing to do with them, and oh, maybe they'd look at the possibility of the Ogoni getting a coupla percent more to compensate for the upheaval of the "investment". I paraphrase. The only book of Saro-Wiwa's I've seen is "Sozaboy", a telling of a young man's experience in the Nigerian civil war (1967-70). It's told in what the author calls "rotten English" - a mix of pidgin, broken, and idiomatic. Folks in the UK could write to the Nigerian High Commission, 56-57 Fleet Street, London EC4Y 1JU - I don't have the address for the US office. Oh, and Shell too - unless you buy their "nothing to do with me" line. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx x x x Richard Caddel, E-mail: R.I.Caddel @ durham.ac.uk x x Durham University Library, Phone: 0191 374 3044 x x Stockton Rd. Durham DH1 3LY Fax: 0191 374 7481 x x x x "Words! Pens are too light. Take a chisel to write." x x - Basil Bunting x x x xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:20:12 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: unpack tenney: re: whitman remarks and `unpacking' (a) the term is horrible as it returns us to language as signs, collected, but (b) see note to jordan for `discrete/discreet.' also this, tho: i think some want merely the movement/music and so attend to the letters, phonemes; and, finding their music in this way, all too easily disrupt syntax. it's much like composing without measure (satie-faction). but the opposite is (correct?) to find pleasure in the syntax (and that is where whitman found it, and why it is such joy to read him), but then one can focus on the smallest changes, this letter to that, as in much of stein (and so preclude transendence, rapture). i don't know how whitman got there; but his followers, as i said, repeatedly fail (i think) when they try it, too. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:22:52 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: concreet letters no, jordan, letters as notes rather than melody. -ed ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:41:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Edward Foster Subject: Re: yep & yep re: using nouns as verbs: the absolute distinction--nouns are this and verbs are that--belongs to grammarians, not poets. it's not so much that stein used nouns as verbs as that she showed that nouns _are_ verbs. the only enemies (those that do not change until you change them) are those _you_ see. "nouns" are supposed to define, to say this or that is at rest (what i'm doing right now, after all), but in emerson/whitman/stein there is only change: nothing is fully at rest. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 12:20:38 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Willa Jarnagin Subject: Re: trouble In-Reply-To: <199511171114.DAA05255@ix9.ix.netcom.com> > "This tendency to take as a deadly or serious threat things that are > said that one doesn't agree with or like, this tendency is, in my > opinion, the real threat. It is this tendency that the right and forces > of repression use to justify their curbs on freedom." > > Amen, Spencer! > > Ron Yes, I agree too. If I remember correctly, Mark said something about injury to his reputation endangering his job as an adjunct professor, that if his reputation is tarnished by people criticizing him/his poetry then his job will be in jeopardy. If this is true, it is sad and wrong, on the UNIVERSITY'S part, not that of the critic. We should protest this kind of policy, not bend under it by keeping our mouths shut and avoiding any comments that could be perceived as "insulting." Otherwise, whose integrity are we protecting? Willa ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 12:27:31 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: yep & yep At 11:41 AM 11/17/95, Edward Foster wrote: >re: using nouns as verbs: the absolute distinction--nouns are this and verbs >are that--belongs to grammarians, not poets. it's not so much that stein >used nouns as verbs as that she showed that nouns _are_ verbs. the only >enemies (those that do not change until you change them) are those _you_ >see. "nouns" are supposed to define, to say this or that is at rest (what >i'm doing right now, after all), but in emerson/whitman/stein there is >only change: nothing is fully at rest. I'd love to see examples--that didn't alas show--the mask of other function--is the elision of the other function--and not cross-syntax--but a poetry of syntax--not acid etchings either--not Milton--let's see Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 12:36:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Re: trouble, slightly revised "This tendency to take as a deadly or serious threat things that are said that one doesn't agree with or like, this tendency is, in my opinion, the real threat. It is this tendency that the right and forces of repression use to justify their curbs on freedom." This tendency to take as a dear or sermon 3-D think factory things that are sad that onerimancy doesn't Agrippa with or ligulate, this tendency is, in my opposum shrimp, the ready threap. It is this tendency that the rigadoon and forebrain of reprobate U.S. to jut their curch on free fall. letters of creedence snap, sag, sacrilege ribs the cosignatory-- a largesse producer no foot-candle no fault faucet plenish unindorsed polka unimpaired "peace trap" think unilobed thingumaboob enactory rhetoric winces re-called it-region salient electroforming viper-elect or reference pg 1381 'toad to Toklas' includes toilet water ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 12:03:08 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: Ken Saro Wiwa Comments: cc: drothschild Here is some information that I pasted from the Internet. It's not only better than any US news source, it's actually SOMETHING! J.Hansen- if this helps (and if I can help with) drafting a letter, please backchannel to me. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ___________ ELA CONDEMNS EXECUTION OF KEN SARO WIWA AND CALLS FOR DAY OF MOURNING Cape Town, 11 November, 1995 Earthlife Africa (Cape Town) utterly condemns the execution of Ken Saro Wiwa and his eight co-trialists by the Abacha regime. It is clear that Ken Saro Wiwa was an innocent man, and his death can be called nothing but political assasination. Ken Saro Wiwa was an internally respected environmental hero and human rights leader. His courage in leading MOSOP in its campaign of non-violence against Shell and the Nigerian dictatorship puts him in the class of other great leaders such as Martin Luther King and Mahatma Ghandi. We call on the Commonwealth heads of government to expel Nigeria immediately. We call on President Nelson Mandela to take up the campaign for the isolation of Nigeria. In diplomacy, in sports, in culture and in the economy Nigeria must be isolated to force an end to the tyranny of Sani Abacha, and to secure justice for MOSOP and other pro-democracy forces in Nigeria. We call on Anglo-Dutch Shell and all other multinational oil companies in Nigeria to disinvest - to stop their funding of this murderous regime. Until such time as this happens, we call for a comprehensive, international boycott of Shell products. Earthlife Africa (Cape Town) calls for Sunday the 12th of November to be a day of mourning and rememberance for Ken Saro Wiwa. A hero has fallen. Endorsements: Earthlife Africa (Pretoria) Earthlife Africa (East London) Earthlife Africa (Grahamstown) If you have any suggestions or problems with this page, please mail them to: ela@www.gem.co.za At 11:30 am on 10 November, 1995, Ken Saro Wiwa was executed. This act of murder on the part of the Nigerian dictatorship must never be forgotten. Earthlife Africa (Cape Town) release a press release on the issue, and calls for a continuation of the struggle in support of MOSOP, and the Nigerian people. Whilst we grieve about the death of this great hero, and 8 other Ogoni, we cannot be paralysed by our sorrow. Urgent international pressure in needed on Abacha, to stop the continuing 'slow genocide' perpetrated against the Ogoni people. Anglo-Dutch Shell's role in the 'slow genocide' cannot be ignored - it is Shell money which fills Abacha's purse. A comprehensive international alliance and boycott against Shell is needed to show multinationals that their profits cannot be built on the blood of innocents. BOYCOTT SHELL TODAY The Ken Saro Wiwa Campaign Ken Saro Wiwa was a Nigerian author, and the leader of a minority ethnic group in Nigeria called the Ogoni. He has recently been executed on trumped up charges for his actions in leading the protest against the exploitation of Ogoni lands and Ogoni people. Some History The Ogoni people of Nigeria have their lands in Rivers state, a part of Nigeria near the delta of the river Niger. This has historically been a fertile area, and consequently is highly populated. It is also the first place in Nigeria that the Anglo/Dutch transnational Shell started extracting oil from, in 1958. At that time, Nigeria was still a British colony. Ogoniland has been important to Nigeria for two reasons: Firstly, it it has been termed the 'breadbasket' of Rivers State, a major food producing area, and secondly, since 1958 it has been the source of more than 900-million barrels of crude oil, vital to the Nigerian economy. The Issue Although international attention is now being focussed on democracy in Nigeria, and pressure is being placed on the Nigerian dictatorship of Gen. Sani Abacha to democratize the country, little is said of the role of the Western transnational corporations which prop up the Abacha's dictatorship. Shell has been exploiting the oil in Nigeria without consulting or compensating the Ogoni people in any way. The Ogoni people are a minority, and thus have little political power, since the Nigerian constitution doesn't protect minority interests. They have no mineral rights to their land, since all mineral rights are owned by the state. They are merely the victims when oil spills, blowouts, and invasive pipe laying cause environmental damage. Shell has not been effective in cleaning up oil spills, and as a consequence, Ogoniland has lost its fertility. In 1990, the Ogoni started to mobilise against the human and environmental injustice perpetrated upon them. They formed MOSOP, the Movement for Survival of Ogoni People, a peaceful resistance movement which attempted to highlight their plight, under the leadership of Ken Saro-Wiwa. The response to MOSOP's protests has been brutal. Ogoniland is now sealed off, and under martial law. Ken Saro-Wiwa has been executed, along with 8 other Ogoni. Hundreds of Ogoni have been murdered. Shell's role in this is significant - the most significant brutalities against the Ogoni have happened after Shell has expressed concern about perceived threats to the Nigerian government. A memo signed by Major Okuntimo of the Rivers State Internal Security TaskForce, dated May 12th 1994, states: "Shell operations still impossible unless ruthless military operations are undertaken for smooth economic activities to commence." The document goes on to recommend the "wasting" of Ogoni leaders. Ken Saro Wiwa was arrested on May the 22nd, 10 days later. The blatant disregard for human rights that Shell Nigeria has displayed in its dealings with the Ogoni show it to be two sided in its international relations. The abuses that are perpetrated in Nigeria (directly in the form of spills and blowouts, and indirectly by the Nigerian government to protect Shell's interests) would be unnacceptable in the countries where Shell sells most of its oil. Whilst Shell International claims that its actions and those of Shell Nigeria are not linked, this is a transparent ploy to deny culpability. Shell profits are built upon Ogoni suffering. Ken's Trial and Execution Ken Saro-Wiwa was held, without legal recourse, and without medical attention, for many months. He was also tortured. The charges against him (the supposed murder of 4 Ogoni activists) were so ridiculous that Amnesty International declared him a prisoner of conscience. His trial was been a total farce, run under the auspices of Civil Disturbances Special Tribunal (CDST), which is only answerable to Military Government. Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders were sentenced to death on the 31st of October 1995. Despite calls international calls for clemency, Ken and his eight co-trialists were executed on the 10th of November, 1995. We mourn their passing, and salute their spirit. We call on all people who love freedom and justice to: 1. Lobby your leaders to intervene on the behalf of MOSOP and the Nigerian people. Strong international action is necessary, not just talk. 2. Boycott all Shell products and inform Shell of your boycott. Remember, the joint venture operated by Shell in Nigeria is responsible for 70% of the Nigerian state's revenue - Shell is funding murder in Nigeria. 3. Educate yourself about Ogoniland, the Ogoni struggle, and Nigeria. Our Factsheet on the Ogoni struggle is a good place to start. Another good resource is the September/October 1995 issue of Africa Today magazine, or the videos 'The Drilling Fields' and 'The Delta Force' (details for 'The Drilling Fields' are below). Shell must know that it can't make profit out of the blood of the Ken Saro Wiwa and the Ogoni. Abacha must know that tyranny is universally unacceptable. The only way that this will happen is broad, strong action by all the people of the world. (Look here to see the Earthlife Africa 1995 Congress resolution on the Ogoni's struggle.) Earthlife Africa Fact Sheet on the Ogoni Struggle Look here to see the Earthlife Africa (Cape Town) factsheet on the Ogoni Struggle. (To be updated soon) Shell: Dirty in Nigeria, Dirty in the North Sea While Shell continues to evade responsibility for its role in the war against the Ogoni, it has compounding its environmental abuses by attempting to dump the North Sea oil rig, the Brent Spar, in the North Sea, despite the fact that the Brent Spar contains a large amount of toxic and radioactive waste. For the details, have a look at Greenpeace's Brent Spar page. Greenpeace won the first round of the Brent Spar fight, simply because consumers (most notably German consumers) launched a large and effective boycott of Shell. Other resources on the Ken Saro Wiwa campaign The Body Shop International's Ken Saro Wiwa home page. The Drilling Fields: The award winning documentary about the plight of the Ogoni in Nigeria Ken Saro Wiwa was awarded the Goldman Prize, a prize for international environmental heroes. The Goldman Environmental Foundation maintains a page on Ken, his sentence, and how to respond to it. Resources related to Nigeria and human rights The Amnesty International Kenya/Nigeria page highlights human rights abuses in these two African giants. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:50:23 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: Re: concreet letters At 11:22 AM 11/17/95, Edward Foster wrote: >no, jordan, letters as notes rather than melody. -ed oh, the melody that will occur when you're not out scrounging it, or coaxing it, or anything but _compiling_ it. Yah. So who does that--should we be reading about counterpoint, gradus ad parnassum (hic)? you mean we shouldn't be repressing these _melodies_ tht keep falling on our Jordan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:52:32 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: yep & yep For all the times a "mind" alights, an alight "minds" on the color of the meaning that tried to do away with color as long as emotions are projected on an it you may call yourself as a pre-emptory gesture since in reality every fall from a great height is a ruse of rhetoric since in reality nothing happens and the hypothetical that is allowed to thrive in framed solitude seems unconfined only from the perspective that fails to confirm the badge of HUMANITY on the brain's harmonious tension with, say, the liver which science makes to break as long as practical motives are taken into account and healing is progress and aging is two ships passing like nights that would be days if all swamps who thought they were individuals and all the stick figures who thought they were communities could meet in the mosh-pit, trade bodies and roll out the red-carpet for a past disguised as the future that will treat it better than words of doubt could wield...... cs. ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 14:06:20 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Chris Stroffolino Subject: Re: trouble, slightly revised Open QUESTIONS: Is it possible that one of the reasons "avant garde" poetics has been more against the "bourgeois" or "singular" or "continuous" or "autonomous" self that "mainstream" poetics beause of the tempereramental differences of the people involved. One of the interesting, for me, things about the recent "flame war" is that two poets, both of whose work is quite sophisticated and "polyvocal" and abstract in its problematization of the self (neither DODGE the issue as some other writers--not to name names here--seem to) have adopted the very PERSONAL "I"-based discourse and CHARACTER that their own poetry seems to be most vigorously and rigorously opposed to. I mention this not so much to pass judgment on either writer (certainly no more than I do on my "own" self) as to call attention to what may be called a "productive site" or "fruitful contradiction". For, viewed in such a light, the "battle" becomes less exclusively between "avant- garde" and "mainstream" as between the poet's poetry, or the poetry's poet, and the "non-poetic" utterances made by a person who calls himself a poet. If we put the ostensibly "non-poetic" statements of the poets in dialogue with say NO ISLAND or COMPLICATIONS FROM STANDING IN A CIRCLE or, more generally, the ideology implied by the poetries, it might be at least as fun as a cookie to ask IS IT POSSIBLE THE STRICTURES and/or DEMANDS many (if not all?) kinds of poetics makes on its writers can stifle to the point where the only "equilizing" outlet can be a kind of ostensibly non-poetic admission of a frustration and rage whose reality may "call into question" or "severely problematize" the very standards the poetry itself may be said to speaking for???? (even though of course Ed Foster is right and there is ONLY CHANGE and OPENENDEDNESS in Stein, etc---). Chris Stroffolino ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 13:38:50 CST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jeff Hansen Organization: The Blake School Subject: Ken Saro-Wiwa I have received a lot of important information on the assassination of Wiwa since my last post. Thanks, everyone! The page that Daniael Bouchard posted here earlier can be accessed at http:\www.gem.co.za\ela\ken.html I will compose letters to Shell oil, the Nigerian leader, and President Clinton asserting my support for free speech and the economic and political self-determinacy of native peoples. Whoever wants their name to appear on the letter after seeing it, will be able to backchannel me. I suggest that we who get involved call ourselves "The Coalition for Free Speech and the Self-Determinacy of Native Peoples." i think that this is it for now. I should be able to post those letters by Monday. Have a good weekend, jeff ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 16:41:09 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Willa Jarnagin Subject: Re: Ken Saro Wiwa & Shell Oil In-Reply-To: <9511171712.AA27165@krypton.hmco.com> A friend of mine found an address for Shell Oil: Shell Oil Products Dept. 210 P.O. Box 2463 Houston, TX 77252 Even if Shell is not "directly" responsible for Saro Wiwa's murder, the company stands to PROFIT from it. On Oct. 31, after Saro Wiwa and his eight activist colleagues were sentenced to death, Shell responded to international pleas to use its influence with the Nigerian government to seek clemency for the activists, with the statement, "It is not for a commercial organization like Shell to interfere in the legal processes of a sovereign state such as Nigeria." But they will interfere with the rights of the Ogoni people and destroy their land, against their will and without compensating them in any way. Write. Willa ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 18:30:59 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Poetry/Talking/Live (promo) ----------------------------------------------------------------------- epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Monday night 6:30 pm EST the public opening of EPC.Live ----------------------------------------------------------------------- epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive ----------------------------------------------------------------------- As Ken's message a couple of days ago announced: be at the opening of the first(?) online real-time poetics conference! It helps to have a look at instructions to connect, our schedule, etc. in advance. Please feel free to contact me (lolpoet@acsu.buffalo.edu) or Ken Sherwood (sherwood@acsu.buffalo.edu) with any questions. LOADS of EPC.Live info is available through the EPC at http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc select "EPC.Live"... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive*epclive ----------------------------------------------------------------------- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 13:28:11 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Wystan Curnow Organization: English Dept. - Univ. of Auckland Subject: Re: Ken Saro-Wiwa Comments: To: Jeff_Hansen@BLAKE.PVT.K12.MN.US Dear Jeff, Don't know what news you have been getting, so let me pass on something of the context as from here. The executions took place during the meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM--pronounced "chogum") here in Auckland. Nigeria was represented by its Foreign Minister. Besides the question of nuclear testing--Britain was in the firing line for supporting France--Nigerian democracy was on the agenda. It is not the only Commonwealth country at whom the finger can be pointed, but at its last meeting, in Harari, a Declaration committing the Commonwealth to the principles of democratic government was made and has been regarded as giving the post-(British) colonial organisation some contemporary meaning. The execution of these 8--it has been pointed out that Nigeria have been executing political prisoners in this fashion for some time, this is not new--in the middle of the CHOGM was an act of defiance. A number of heads of state had been calling upon Nigeria to exerecise clemency in the weeks preceding. Mandela, who was the key figure at this meeting (the Queen was here for it, but it was Mandela who was in effect symbolic head ) had intended to soft-pedal the Nigerian situation and assert some African solidarity was affronted and took the lead in condemning the executions and pushing for wider international pressure. He indicated his intentions to speak with both Clinton and Major (the US and the UK are Shell's biggest Nigerian customers I understand). APEC is meeting in Japan and I believe our beloved PM Jim--as we call him, on CNN he prefers 'James"--Bolger--intends to have a word with the US vice-precedent on the matter, and someone has starting selling TO HELL WITH SHELL bumperstickers. Hoping some of this is news to you, Wystan ========================================================================= Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 18:31:06 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Thomas Bell Subject: Re: Ken Saro-Wiwa Story sounds more interesting the more I hear. I would also be very interested in seeing some of this "rotten English". ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 00:10:35 -0700 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tenney Nathanson Subject: pack em in? >Date: Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:20:12 -0500 >From: Edward Foster >Subject: Re: unpack > >tenney: re: whitman remarks and `unpacking' (a) the term is horrible as >it returns us to language as signs, collected, but (b) see note to jordan >for `discrete/discreet.' also this, tho: i think some want merely the >movement/music and so attend to the letters, phonemes; and, finding their >music in this way, all too easily disrupt syntax. it's much like >composing without measure (satie-faction). but the opposite is (correct?) >to find pleasure in the syntax (and that is where whitman found it, >and why it is such joy to read him), but then one can focus on the >smallest changes, this letter to that, as in much of stein (and so >preclude transendence, rapture). i don't know how whitman got there; >but his followers, as i said, repeatedly fail (i think) when they >try it, too. -ed Ed: my association w the term is Jamesian (William not Henry) where it has something to do w a pragmatics of names and models--lay it out, pick up various pieces of it to see what they can DO, what the trope, say, is good for. But then I don't really bridle at "cash value" in James either, though I perk up my ears--but that things go round and again go round....like, let's not go round again on THAT one. as for the rest of it, yes, or yes kind of. In "Song of Myself" esp the strange play of the phonemes in the long lines w longer syntax stretched over them is certainly a real pleasure, and the play of one against the other is definitely part of it, yes (Koch used to say that you couldn't read the stuff, early sections such as #2, w/o feeling like you had rocks in your mouth, which is great). otoh W's sense of syntax can get pretty vestigial (or no, that's not it: his good sense is to MAKE the syntax get vestigial, in the catalogues): if you set those gigantic agglutinations against Wordsworth, or against the atypical and terrific syntax of the opening of that awful poem "Out of the Cradle," you see what a rudimentary machine Whitman sometimes constructed. And THEN there's the long floating thing that makes up most of section 2, no verbs, just hum and flux of being and body. I dunno that the followers fail: not if you think of the Crane of Voyages, or lots and lots of O'Hara. so: it's the phonemic movement, in Whitman, that precludes floating off (?) into transcendence, rapture? A la Olson on the syllable via the head (but the line the breath, or heart)? I never understood that one, feeling I feel the phonemes as body, kinesthetics (a la Kristeva, but really just discretely ducking and bobbing at poetry readings) ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 08:55:16 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Burt Kimmelman -@NJIT" Subject: Re: trouble, slightly revised Chris- Setting aside the idea that there is no such thing as poetry (an idea I embrace at my best and worst moments though never in between), and then turning to your comments about the recent public slug-it-out we have all been made privy to, I would only remind us all that writing emerges as a technology when societies become economically and socially complex enough to need to keep track of mundane matters like debits and credits and civic disagreements (i.e., accounting and law) or rather to keep track of rules when there are enough of them to begin to be confusing. seems to me that the artistic impulse, while it is bound up with technology in its execution if not in its formulation, searches out a transcendent world (thankfully). saturday morning musings amounting to . . . . . burt ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 09:14:29 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: Re: Ken Saro-Wiwa Many Amnesty International chapters have been active on Ken waro-Wiwa's behalf (since before it was too late); if you don't have a chapter near you, there are many on the net. try: http://www.gatech.edu/amnesty/action.html#month A similar organization that focuses on journalists & writers is the Committe to Protect Journalists--330 Seventh Ave., 12th floor; New York NY 10001; (212)465-1004. the coordinator for Africa is, i believe, Jennifer Pogrand; her email: africa@cpj.igc.apc.org luigi ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 06:21:35 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ron Silliman Subject: Shell Oil Shell Oil is a division of Royal Dutch. Its US division has a web page at: http://www.shellus.com/welcome.html It even has a "mail to" form so you can tell them directly what you think about their policies in Nigeria. If you don't have a web browser, their customer service number is 1-800-248-4257 Ron ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 09:26:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Bill Luoma Subject: Re: Ken Saro-Wiwa Jeff & Dan, According to the NY times, the Nigerian general dude has hired "at least" seven american pr companies to bolster his image, "including a book and a video." Your letter might be emailed to these companies were we able to find out their addresses. & us imports about half of Nigeria's petroleum. the us petroleum lobby will be fighting against any import sanctions. who to nail there? Bill Luoma ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 09:53:13 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: "Aldon L. Nielsen" Subject: Re: backchannel clogged In-Reply-To: <199511180503.AAA13001@listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu> jeff -- add me to the list ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 13:20:29 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Rod Smith Subject: Darragh/Ganick reading Sunday, Nov. 19th at 3 PM -- Tomorrow! Tina Darragh & Peter Ganick reading at DCAC (District of Columbia Arts Center) 2438 18th St NW (near 18th & Columbia) $3 donation requested series curated by Heather Fuller & Joe Ross ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 13:46:25 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Jordan Davis Subject: some renga methodism At 11:09 PM 11/16/95, Eryque Gleason wrote: >Jordan, a little while back another renga was posted as finished product (i >think), and someone followed fairly shortly with a request for yous guyses >to state your method. I'd like to reiterate the request. Eryque the renga process has changed slightly since going undernet Tom Bell writes: Look in madness, chapter 3 : "Word salad" The version Jorge/Cris posted was a collage Cris stitched from all the different versions The names Jorge named have been ccing (mini-listservice) new lines added mainly to the top the the north of the poem lines have been added to the middle of the poem some rengans (mainly Jorge, although I think each of us has done this at least once) have made minor alterations on other people's lines.. as in the "windows 95" edit to the listserv's renga the emphasis has been placed on variety Cris Sheila George and Jorge had been sending the most then Cris went off to Devon to teach George took off for parts unknown Gabrielle went on a tear sending at one point over thirty new messages at a time I send many, Jorge sends many, Tom Bell sends many Maria Damon makes an occasional appearance (on sabbatical) Lisa Samuels has joined the circle recently we welcome new players with strong backhands or good drop shots and we need a goalie, a bassist, and a designated hitter someone with proposal writing skills some clerical and experience in international affairs is a plus NO MIDDLE MANAGEMENT PLEASE ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 14:51:45 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kenneth Sherwood Organization: University at Buffalo Subject: Nigeria While it might be interesting to look at Ken Saro-Wiwa's "bad english", it should be noted that his execution followed directly from his political activities as head of MOSOP (Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People). For those interested in more information, the NOV 21 Village Voice ran a lengthy story. Their focus is the involvement of Shell Oil. Shell's economic interest in Nigeria has already been noted; the Voice piece concentrates on the "emerging paper trail" which suggests "Shell may have funded military operations against MOSOP, and leaked company minutes detail how Shell and the military held meetings, after Saro-Wiwa was arrested, to discuss public relations strategies for the company. Potentially far more damning, however, are allegations contained in sworn affadavits that two key prosection witnesses were offered bribes by Shell to testify against Saro-Wiwa" A protest letter to the Nigerian Embassay or UN might also be usefully inflected towards Shell, keeping in mind its 'public relations' concerns. K.S. ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 13:19:18 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: trouble Spencer: Well, you were right about one thing--no one wanted to hear a public debate. I might just say that one dangerous temptation in a dialogue is to psychoanalyze the other person. I think that the psyche can no more be reduced to psychology than a poem can be reduced to a poetics. Besides, what response is there to the assertion, "There's an unconscious process going on in you that you, by definition, can't be aware of, but I'm aware of it"? Except to get pissed off and end the dialogue, which is what people seem to do with you (maybe you've noticed :-)), or to make the same accusation about your unconscious, which leads to a stalemate on that ground. Enjoyed some of the work in _Score_. He did me one better by not putting page numbers on the pages, so to find out who did what, you have to count them yourself. Got a submission from Gustaf Sobin in the mail yesterday. He said he's coming in late January to read in Berkeley and Stanford and wants to meet. You missed the Gertrude Stein marathon at New College last night. Five hours of GS read by the allstar cast. It was all wonderful except for Barrett Watten's interminable reading from _The Making of Americans_, which brought the whole evening to a screeching halt. See you soon, Steve ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 17:37:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Romana Christina Huk Subject: UNH Cambridge Program Another announcement for POETICS subscribers: If you know of students (undergrad or grad) who would like to spend six weeks this summer writing poetry with four poets overseas -- Tom Raworth, Denise Riley, Rod Mengham and Caroline Bergvall -- ask them to get in touch with me; I'm running this univ's Cambridge, England Program at Gonville & Caius College and have worked in a "writing component" that includes possibilities for working on fiction as well. I'll send a huge packet of info to anyone that mails me an address; the address here is: The UNH Cambridge Program, Hamilton Smith Hall, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH 03824. Thanks for any interested people you might send this way. Romana Huk ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 18:15:04 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Charles Bernstein Subject: Ear Inn Readings Dec. & Jan. --Boundary (ID I+dk0Y2eVUZJsXdOuQ9Pew) Content-id: <0_1128_816726385@emout06.mail.aol.com.45333> Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII ** PLEASE NOTE NEW TIMES FOR READINGS, SATURDAY 2:30PM!!!** December & January Readings at The Ear Inn THE EAR INN 326 Spring Street (all the way West!) New York, NY 10013 (212) 226-9060 DECEMBER 2: JEROME SALA, DAVID SHAPIRO Jerome Sala's Raw Deal: New and Selected Poems has just appeared from Another Chicago Press. Of this collection, Amy Gertsler comments: "Sala's poems . . . give a new and enlarged meaning to the phrase 'wise guy'." David Shapiro has written numerous books of poems including: Lateness, To an Idea, House (Blown Apart), and many volumes of art and literary criticism. DECEMBER 9: TAN LIN, DOUGLAS MESSERLI Tan Lin teaches at the U. of Virginia in Charlottesville. Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe is forthcoming from Sun & Moon. His work has appeared in such journals as: o.blek, Hambone, Talisman, Lingo, and the Village Voice Literary Supplement. Douglas Messerli is the editor and founder of Sun & Moon Press, and is the author of several books of poetry, River to Rivet: A Manifesto, Maxims from My Mother's Milk/Hymns to Him: A Dialogue, and the most recent An Apple, A Day. DECEMBER 16: LAYNIE BROWNE, MARK WALLACE Laynie Browne's most recent book is One Constellation (Leave). She has two books of poems forth-coming, Pollen Memory (Tender Buttons), and Rebecca Letters (Kelsey St.). Some of her poems will appear in the new issue of Conjunctions. Mark Wallace is the author of Complications From Standing In A Circle and Every Day Is Most of My Time. He edits the poetry magazine Situation and writes poetry reviews regularly for the Washington Review. DECEMBER 23: HOLIDAY SCHEDULE -- NO READING. DECEMBER 30: HOLIDAY SCHEDULE -- NO READING. JANUARY 6: WANG PING, NINA ZIVANCEVIC Wang Ping was born in Shanghai and graduated from Beijing University before coming to the U.S. in 1985. She is the author of a book of stories American Visa (Coffee House), and the forthcoming novel Foreign Devil (Coffee House). Nina Zivancevic is the author of many books published in the former Yugoslavia, where she won the equivalent of the American Book Award in 1983. Her books include More or Less Urgent (New Rivers) and a collection of short stories Inside & Out of Byzantium (Semiotext(e)). She is currently writing and teaching in Paris. JANUARY 13: GEORGE-THERESE DICKENSON, CHARLES BERNSTEIN George-Therese Dickenson is the author of Transducing (Roof) and will be reading from her new book-length manuscript The Interpreter of Dreams. Her work will be anthologized in American Poets Say Good-bye to the Twentieth Century, edited by Andrei Codrescu, forthcoming in 1996. Charles Bernstein's recent books include: Dark City, Rough Trades, The Sophist (Sun & Moon), and A Poetics (Harvard University). He teaches in the Poetics program at SUNY Buffalo. JANUARY 20: THOMAS BYNUM, BRUCE ANDREWS Thomas Bynum is the publisher of Drogue Press and the producer, co-director, and designer for Drogue Performance and in 1996 will present a full production of Leslie Scalapino's play Goya's L.A. He will be reading from his new work [Missouri]. Bruce Andrews has published numerous books of poetry, including the most recent XYZ (Roof). Forthcoming: the Andrews issue of Ariel, Paradise & Method, essays (Northwestern U.), and Designated Heartbeat (Sun & Moon). JANUARY 27: NICK PIOMBINO, RAY DI PALMA Nick Piombino is the author of Poems (Sun & Moon), The Boundary of Blur (Roof), and the forthcoming Light Street (Zasterle). Recent work in: Situation, Avec, Ribot, M/E/A/N/I/N/G, and the anthology Gertrude Stein Awards in Innovative American Poetry. Ray DiPalma's recent books include: Motion of the Cypher (Roof), Provocations (Potes & Poets), and Numbers and Tempers (Sun & Moon). Janviero, a video based on his prose book January Zero (Coffee House), was recently made in France. SATURDAY AFTERNOON READINGS begin at 2:30 pm. EAR INN is at 326 Spring St., NYC. $3.00 contribution goes to readers. Coordinator for December and January is Charles Borkhuis. Special thanks to Nick Piombino. Continuing support of this series is provided by the Segue Foundation. Funding is made possible by support from the Literature Program of the New York State Council on the Arts. PLEASE SUPPORT THE EAR -- COME EARLY FOR LUNCH, STAY LATE FOR DINNER! IMPORTANT!! WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF UPDATING OUR MAILING LIST. If you want to be added to the mailing list, please contact by mail or phone: The Segue Foundation, 303 E. 8th Street, New York, NY 10009, (212) 674-0199, and receive 10% off your next purchase of any Roof Book, thank you. --Boundary (ID I+dk0Y2eVUZJsXdOuQ9Pew)-- ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 16:57:02 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Herb Levy Subject: Re: Stein trouble Steve Carll wrote: >You missed the Gertrude Stein marathon at New College last night. Five >hours of GS read by the allstar cast. It was all wonderful except for >Barrett Watten's interminable reading from _The Making of Americans_, which >brought the whole evening to a screeching halt. Steve, could you be more specific about Watten's reading of The Making of Americans. Was your problem with the delivery, or the text itself? I mean, the book IS a screeching halt. It would be difficult to make it seem entertaining, and it would probably be a disservice to the work to attempt to do so. Not that it would be less of a disservice to much of Stein's other work, but it's easier to imagine ways of making a lot of Stein's other writing seem charmingly eccentric or coy in performance. (Since I read it all in one sitting today & it seems like it's dying down, I'll not comment on the Wallace/Selby "troubles.") Bests Herb Levy herb@eskimo.com ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 17:15:25 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: delete that last post, please Dear list: Oops. Due to my unthinking use of the "reply" key, I seem to have sent a personal message out to the whole list. Please disregard and forgive. Thanks, Steve ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 17:58:07 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: Stein trouble >Herb Levy wrote: >Steve, could you be more specific about Watten's reading of The Making of >Americans. Was your problem with the delivery, or the text itself? > >I mean, the book IS a screeching halt. It would be difficult to make it >seem entertaining, and it would probably be a disservice to the work to >attempt to do so. I'll come to Steve's defense here. The problem, Herb, was merely a matter of length and placement. The single-spaced list of readers of Stein's work went on to the back of a letter-sized page--dozens of people. It was an astonishing event, particularly the plays. Barrett read in the third hour of the event, when fatigue was starting to set in, and according to one person who claimed to time him, he read for 20 minutes--and there were plenty more readers to follow. In another context his reading would have been fine, particularly the way he contextualized it by reading a passage from Anti-Oedipus. Dodie Bellamy ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 19:13:54 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Ryan Knighton Subject: Book Launch In-Reply-To: from "Kevin Killian" at Nov 18, 95 05:58:07 pm Thought I would let those of you in the Vancouver area (or those who may be in the area) that the book launch for George Stanley's _Gentle Northern Summer_ will be on Dec. 8 at the Western Front. Cheers ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 19:52:41 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: Re: J.H.'s letter idea In-Reply-To: <9511161649.AA12410@krypton.hmco.com> I'd certainly put my name to such a letter too. Gab. On Thu, 16 Nov 1995, Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco wrote: > >> Should we, as a group, send a protest of some sort to the current Nigerian > regime? Would it be possible for intereested people on this list to sign a > group letter? > > > I'm pretty sure that a government which hangs its own writers would not be > interested in the dissent of foreign writers. Registering protest with the UN > or the State Department may be more worthwhile. > > Jeff, I would be interested in such a letter. > > daniel_bouchard@hmco.com > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 20:10:39 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: Re: renew renga Comments: To: Jordan Davis Comments: cc: Thomas Bell , MLLJORGE@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu, semurphy@indirect.com In-Reply-To: Slurpies are forbidden beyond a meter > As I listened to the argument with ear to the wall > The pit at the tip of my tongue hung gracefully > I know I was punished for objecting to one man-one groan. > After the dance of the devils on the head of a pin > Aunt Matilda came away with the impression and ironed pants > with metro paradise and sheet metals & captain stots hanging > in bold faced afterglow, the way we had imagined forenoon all embedded > in syntax that was not designed for use. Yet "you" are "rubbery". > "I" am "scared" of "the man" in "the subway" > soubriquet of a monkey formal > > ========================================================================= Date: Sat, 18 Nov 1995 20:15:08 -1000 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Gabrielle Welford Subject: FAREWELL,KEN SARO-WIWA! (fwd) This came from the postcolonial list. Gab. -------------------------------------- From: Prof F W J Mnthali, Humanities, English To: AFRLIT@acuvax.acu.edu Subject: FAREWELL,KEN SARO-WIWA! Some papers here tell us you and your colleagues went to your death singing! Would that Africa as a whole boasted more men and women with your courage and your vision. But we are all caught up in a web of fear the fear that rules all killers that web of silence which is the bane of all our feelings the fear of our own shadows the fear of lizards lurking behind freedom's rays the fear of being thought weak the fear of parting with loot and plunder the fear of losing those peripheral powers whose only guarantee is the barrel of a gun cynically backed by the greed of those who have more guns! When fifteen years ago I spent a year in your country I saw with my own eyes how the fishes and other forms of life were all slowly dying in the sluggish brownish and filthy liquid that had once been water;black gold it seems demanded its pound of flesh from everything and everyone around it! It has now demanded that you too like the rest of our continent's creme de la creme pay with your life for this gold this madness; that the Ogoni like the rest of us since the days of slavery and brutish colonisation have been paying with our lives for treasures that others consume while our own people go hungry and naked: it was for reminding it of this simple story that the sphinx has devoured you for no sphinx on earth wants its victims told how naked and how foolish it looks! In my own country the sphinx devoured Dick Matenje and Aaron Gadama Twaibu Sangala and David Chiwanga Attati Mpakati and Mkwapatira Mhango Orton Chirwa and many many others whose bodies were dumped into the waters of the Shire or into the bellies of crocodiles; many fled into exile which also became an area of darkness when the tentacles of the sphinx would know no bounds for the kingdoms of darkness decay and death are all alike: they thrive best in the midst of silence and despair our silence and our despair! If today's death be that of Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight others who have been so brazenly and so blatantly in the classical fashion of Nazism so openly executed can the deaths of Moshood Abiola and General Obasanjo and Ransome Kuti be far off? Silence,why must heinous acts be always followed by a deathly silence oh, OAU, oh, Africa? F e l i x M n t h a l i . --- from list postcolonial@lists.village.virginia.edu --- ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 10:21:28 GMT+1200 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Tony Green Organization: The University of Auckland Subject: Re: Ken Saro Wiwa Thanks to Daniel Bouchard, info printed out and photo-copied for circulation today. Tony Green, e-mail: t.green@auckland.ac.nz ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 01:12:36 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: Stein marathon Well, since my foot's already in my mouth (thanks, Dodie, for helping me extricate!), maybe I should do a report on the Stein marathon, which was hosted by the always-charming Lyn Hejinian at the prompting of the students in her Stein class at New College on Friday the 17th. It was five hours long. The proceeds from admission and drink, t-shirt and poster sales (Tim Kraft designed the posters and t-shirts, which were lovely). I'm doing this from memory (there was a program of sorts, but it was in flux due to various factors), so the order and the exact titles may be only approximate, or completely nonexistent. Four of Lyn's Stein students started us off at 7 with, what else? "Ladies' Voices/Curtain Raiser," which was quite funny. Robert Gluck read "Sherwood's Sweetness," about S. Anderson, which was itself very sweet. Kathleen Fraser read a section of "Composition as Explanation" that she explained she keeps going back to again and again at different stages of her life. Bill Berkson read "Reflections on the Atom Bomb," explaining that he'd wanted to do some of her reflections on money, but that Stein's view of money "was somewhere near Bob Dole's." He went on to say that this was Stein in her preaching mode, and that he might perform it by impersonating James Brown, but that he wasn't going to do that. Published the year after her death and when the atomic bomb was still new, this was one of her last written works. She pronounces the Bomb: "not interesting." My personal favorite of the evening was "Bon Marche Weather" featuring Tim Kraft and Lisa Sogliuzzo wearing giant sunflower costumes a la Peter Gabriel in his Genesis days. They showed what you can do with Stein if you have a comic's feel for inflection. Tim lost a little bit of momentum fumbling with the bullhorn he used to deliver the final lines, but it was a very engaging piece nonetheless. Gabby Glancy skipped around _Tender Buttons_ (my personal favorite Stein writing, for the record). She said she'd read bits of it onstage before and had wanted to read the same bits, but couldn't find them again, but that's a book you can improvise out of and be OK, and she was. Kit Robinson was a scream reading from _The Geographical History of America_. Robert Grenier took the stage and announced he'd wished Bill Berkson WOULD'VE done a preaching voice for Stein, and read for a bit out of various books, of which I remember only that he read different sections of Tender Buttons than Gabby had. Grenier was very amusing, changing voices and so on. Brenda Hillman and Robert Hass (temporarily laid off as poet laureate since the gov. was closed) revisited Sherwood Anderson with "A Valentine to Sherwood Anderson," from which they read together, and we took a 20-minute break so the by-now-full-house could stretch its legs. Someone (Stephen Ratcliff? Aaron Shurin? I can't remember already) starting at "page 800" of _The Making of Americans_. I remember remaining interested in it. Beverly Dahlen did a reading from "Lifting Belly" which seemed a little precious to me. Jalal Toufic and Trinh T. Minh-ha did a reading from one of the plays (memory fails me again) followed by a critical analysis Jalal did which I found hard to follow. Several more of Lyn's students did a lively, silly take on "A Circular Play." Larry Eigner read from "Melanctha." He was hard to understand at first, but as he went on I started to catch what he was reading, almost chanting. It was around in here that Barrett Watten went on. He did start off intriguingly, by reading from _Anti-Oedipus_ and the beginning of _Making_, which concerns the burial of a father. After that he skipped to a section which dealt with a fat sister and a skinny sister, I lost the Deleuze and Guattari thread and he did indeed go on for 20 minutes from this same section with its implicit psychosocial theory of the interpersonal dynamics of such a sisterhood. A lot of people left then. Herb, with regard to your comments, I think it was the combination of his choice of material (which wasn't as interesting in and of itself as most of the other stuff), the fact that he'd tied it to something that it didn't seem to stay tied to, and the length of his reading that did this presentation in for me. Dodie, what did you read? Was it "If You Had Three Husbands"? Laura Moriarty, Leslie Scalapino and Nick Robinson did a very coy and funny run-through of "Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights." Two people performed "Rooms" from _Tender Buttons_. Carla Harryman read a piece of Stein's about herself and Picasso in the early years (didn't catch the title). Kevin Killian did a great reading of "Miss Furr and Miss Skeene." Camille Roy read "As A Wife Has A Cow/A Love Story." Jack and Adelle Foley performed a radio interview with Stein dating from her American tour and then went off on a tangent or two. We took another break, then Jeff Conant read from "Ada." Lyn, Kit, Jean Day and Alan Bernheimer performed "I Feel A Very Anxious Moment Coming." Very amusing. And, by popular demand, Tim and Lisa reprised "Bon Marche Weather" for the people who showed up late. It was even funnier the second time, even without the element of surprise regarding the costumes. It was midnight. I was exhausted and vowed to myself I'd start showing up to this class. Whew. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 02:23:42 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Kevin Killian Subject: Re: Stein marathon Steve Carll wrote: >Dodie, what did you read? Was it "If You Had Three Husbands"? Boy, Steve, I come to your defense and you can't even remember what I read! I read from "What is English Literature," for which I got a surprisingly enthusiastic response. It was a great crowd. "If You Had Three Husbands", if I remember correctly, was read by Carla Harryman. It was hilarious the way she'd look individual audience members in the eye and say with conviction, "If YOU had three husbands." But that's only if I'm remembering correctly. Dodie ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 09:33:42 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Loss Glazier Subject: Reminder: Tonight (Mon) 6:30EST epcLIVE The inaugural online live gathering for epcLIVE occurs tonight 6:30 EST! Details on the EPC... http://wings.buffalo.edu/epc ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:00:17 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: David Kellogg Subject: 1995 MLA "Poetry and Cultural Criticism" Those who are interested in social theory and contemporary poetry might be interested in a talk I am giving at MLA. Title: "Pierre Bourdieu, Poetry Critic: Subject and Object in the Contemporary Poetic Field." Time: 8:30-9:45 am., Friday, 29 December Place: New Orleans, Hyatt Regency Chicago Session Number/Name: 372, Poetry and Cultural Criticism I am concerned because the MLA, in its infinite wisdom, decided to schedule this session at the same time as a cool session on Historicizing Poetry chaired by POETICS's own Marjorie Perloff. So I'm worried that my talk won't be well attended. It will be interesting, though, and if the schedules are any indication, you can see me and still make it to Stephen Fredman and Peter Quartermain at the Perloff session in the same building. Or stay and see Deborah Nelson talk on Paul Monette's *Love Alone*. Either way. I think the scheduling snafu is due to the fact that my session, inexplicably, is arranged by the Division on Nineteenth-Century American Literature. I promise there will be nothing nineteenth-century about it. Cheers, David ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ David Kellogg Duke University kellogg@acpub.duke.edu University Writing Program (919) 660-4357 Durham, NC 27708 FAX (919) 684-6277 "Yexplication is yexploration." ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:37:07 -0500 Reply-To: Robert Drake Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Robert Drake Subject: community... friends-- just a bit of musing--i just finished a short survey article on poetry resources available by e-mail (discussion groups & e-zines); i felt a bit foolish, but left out any mention of this list, as per the instructions frm the list owner. having wallowed around in rec.arts.poetry, & being painfully aware of the huge volumes of drek that wide-open forums invite, i understand the rationale... but i can't help but question, particularly a forum that mostly reflects a progressive politic, how appropriate such a restriction is... sounds like something the old boys would cook up... & i'm thinkin about the earlier discussion about LangPo's supposed closed-ness? && also, about the debut tonight of the EPC chat line, which is similarly configured--you must know the name of the group to join the discussion, "tell 'em charlie [tuna, or olson...] sent ya"... all of this relates, for me, to questions of community, how one constitues oneself as a memeber of a group, how the group (separate from the individual members) regulates itself, etc... questions of canon formation follow close behind... && lest there be any doubt, i am _not_ attacking anybody by raising the question, much greatful to chas b., and loss g., for their considerable work in enabling these forums... likewise asever luigi ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 13:33:28 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: Ken Saro-Wiwa I've been looking thru the Internet for places to send the letter Jeff Hansen is drafting and which I hope many people on this list will "sign." How, exactly, we will sign this, I am unsure. Anyway, the Goldman Environmental Prize Web Page (which Saro-Wiwa won) had the following list already assembled. Has anyone read or heard of Clinton making a statement and, if he has, has he mentioned Shell's involvement? daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ____________ To express your outrage over the execution of Mr. Saro-Wiwa please contact the following: General Sani Abacha Chairman, Provisional Ruling Council State House Abuja, Federal Capital Territory Nigeria Fax: 234-9-523-2138 C.A.J. Herkstr ter, Chairman Royal Dutch Shell Carel van Builantlandtlaan 30 2596 HR The Hague The Netherlands Fax: 44-171-934-5555 (public affairs office in London) In Nigeria, two leading newspapers: The Guardian, Fax: 234-1-522-027 Tribune, Fax: 234-1-266-6770 In the United States: Ambassador Zubair Mahmud Kazaure Embassy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 2201 M Street, NW Washington, DC 20037 Fax: (202) 775-1385 - or - urge President Clinton to speak out on this issue by calling the White House Comments Line at ph: (202) 456-1111 or fax: (202) 456-2461 In other countries: Contact the nearest Nigerian Embassy. ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 14:09:05 EST Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Daniel Bouchard/College/hmco Subject: Ken Saro-Wiwa: follow-up If someone has ideas for tracking down the names of the PR firms Bill Luoma saw mentioned in the NYT I would be willing to call for addresses and names of people to target the letter to. Since the executions have already taken place, confronting involvement cover-up and disinformation will be an important task, in addition to preventing more arrests and executions. To save time, leave a message on my voice-mail at 617-351-5792. daniel_bouchard@hmco.com ____________ ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 11:43:19 -0800 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steve Carll Subject: Re: Stein marathon At 02:23 AM 11/20/95 -0800, you wrote: >Boy, Steve, I come to your defense and you can't even remember what I read! >I read from "What is English Literature," for which I got a surprisingly >enthusiastic response. It was a great crowd. > >"If You Had Three Husbands", if I remember correctly, was read by Carla >Harryman. It was hilarious the way she'd look individual audience members >in the eye and say with conviction, "If YOU had three husbands." But >that's only if I'm remembering correctly. > >Dodie Boy, I'm just getting myself into more and more trouble here. You're absolutely right--It was Carla who read "3 Husbands." And I was also one of the enthusiasts when you read about the island where they invented explaining. But, at the risk of further embarrassment, what did Stephen Ratcliffe read? Aaron Shurin? And what was the name of the woman who read the piece from the uncollected Stein, the title of which was something like "Didn't Lily and Elsa Love You?" Thanks Dodie, Steve ========================================================================= Date: Mon, 20 Nov 1995 15:45:39 -0500 Reply-To: UB Poetics discussion group Sender: UB Poetics discussion group From: Steven Howard Shoemaker Subject: NIGERIA CASEFILE #2 (A KEN SARO WIWA-OGONI HANDBOOK) (fwd) Forwarded message: From daemon Mon Nov 20 13:48:34 1995 Resent-Message-Id: <199511201829.NAA24917@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU> Resent-From: Tejumola Olaniyan Resent-Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 13:28:32 EST X-Mailer: UVa PCMail 1.9.0 Resent-To: eng-grads@virginia.edu Message-Id: <199511201819.NAA21741@uva.pcmail.Virginia.EDU> From: Tejumola Olaniyan Date: Mon, 20 Nov 95 13:19:07 EST X-Mailer: UVa PCMail 1.9.0 To: to4x@uva.pcmail.virginia.edu Subject: NIGERIA CASEFILE #2 (A KEN SARO WIWA-OGONI HANDBOOK) NIGERIAN CASEFILE: THE KEN SARO WIWA-OGONI HANDBOOK compiled by the Coalition Against Dictatorship (CAD) SECTION TWO. CONTENTS: Ken Saro Wiwa, "The World Bank and Us" Chuks Iloegbunam, "The Death of a Writer" (an obituary by a Nigerian journalist) F. W. J. Mnthali, "Farewell, Ken Saro-Wiwa!" (a poetic memorial by the renowned Malawian poet) The Writings of Ken Saro Wiwa: A Bibliography Appendix 1: Action against the Nigerian junta and its backers: Harvard students take the lead Appendix 2: Wole Soyinka, "Why the General Killed" (PLEASE SEE SECTION 1 IN A SEPARATE MAIL FILE) SECTION 1. CONTENTS: The Ken Saro Wiwa Campaign Some History The Issue Saro Wiwa's Trial and Execution Saro Wiwa's Closing Statement at the Trial The Difference You Can Make Nigerian Oil and the West: The Moral Challenge The Challenge of Nigeria: A Call to World Conscience Ken Saro Wiwa, preface to *Genocide in Nigeria: the Ogoni Tragedy* KEN SARO WIWA, "THE WORLD BANK AND US" a column from the *Sunday Times* of Lagos; reprinted in *Similia: Essays on Anomic Nigeria* (Port Harcourt: Saros: 1991), a collection of columns published in 1989 and 1990. (Note: In this essay Ken uses "World Bank" and "IMF" interchange- ably.) Almost twenty years ago, touring the United States of America, I came to know several variations of my surname. In New York, I was called Sora-Wawo, in Los Angeles Sira-Wawa. But the limit was in Atlanta, in the presence of Mrs. Coretta King, where I was introduced as Saro-Wee-Wee. Uncomfortably close to the toilet, you might say. I was minded, that day, to change my name to something more heavenly like Wiwa or Saros. I refrained from doing so. In the interest of history. Today, I'm used to these and other varia- tions of my name. Thus I was only half-surprised when an invitation arrived at my Surulere office the other day, addressed to, you guessed it, Ken Sarohiwa. And it came from the Indian High Commission. It was an invitation to a party celebrating Indian National Day. I am not a party-going man. Invariably, I find myself, in the day, glued to my telephone or sitting in the front offices of the high and mighty in Nigeria pursuing you know what. At night, I'm in my study consulting dictionaries or the thesaurus and struggling endlessly with words in English or my native Khana. No one invites me to parties. Which is a blessing. So the half of my surprise was that the Indian High Commission had called me up. How on earth did they find out my address? I am supposed to be anonymous, in the name of all you love! Since I have never been to a diplomat's party, and I do not mind a new experience, I took my courage in my hands and wended my way to Eleke Crescent on Victoria Island. I suspected I would be lost at the part. I knew that my perpetual *adire* shirt would mark me out as a non-diplomat and that I did not have the polish to match a diplomat's shoes. I *was* lost. I held my soft drink (no alcohol was served) and the only diplomat I met almost sent me to my grave. No, he did not deal me a blow. He was a high official of the World Bank. These sapped times are hungry times, and a hungry man is an angry man. I never have met any representative of the International Monetary Fund anywhere and this was an opportunity for me to send a message to the Fund through one of its represen- tatives in Nigeria. As it turned out, I had nothing new to tell the representa- tive. He had been to all but two of the states of Nigeria, and most of it by road. He was aware of the distress caused by the Structural Adjustment Programme. The latest World Bank Report on the Africa Sub-region accepts as much. Forty years of the World Bank experiment in turning the economies of debtor-nations round has not resulted in success in a single country. Yet the Bank persists in its folly. Which makes you believe that their mission in debtor nations is not to heal but to rub salt into wounds. To collect debts and to send the nations into even greater debt so that the World Bank can remain in the nations forever. The gentleman in question kept reminding me that the IMF would not have been in Nigeria if Nigeria had not gone on a borrowing spree. I know and have always known it. But the ques- tion which confronts us all is what to do in the circumstances. Must we see all our children die of kwashiorkor? Must we see all those who survive the ravages of disease and famine grow up as zombies because they have no books to read, cannot afford good education, decent housing, transportation and water? Perhaps the only thing they can look forward to is a "befitting burial" which we perversely still give the dead? All of which sends me right back to the present administration which continues to sing of the "gains of SAP." It is all right for a government, any government, to put a policy in place and pursue its implementation with single-mindedness. Just to see if it works. However, any respect- able government must also have a fall-back position. I believe that all Nigerians, indeed, all black people, must work hard, think hard, practise thrift and show dedication to progress. But the question which Government and all of us must now tackle is the failure of World Bank "remedies" world-wide. A survey in Ghana recently showed that in spite of adherence to World Bank conditionalities, in spite of the fact that the Bank has enough statistics to show that the Ghanaian economy is improving, the fact stands that the average Ghanaian's earnings cannot feed him and his family, much less send his children to school or doctor them. The representative of the World Bank in Ghana is reported to have said recently that the mismanagement of the past in Ghana was so immense that recovery under the IMF's guidelines will be almost impossible. For Ghana, you may read Nigeria, Zambia, or wherever. Which, of course, means that the "gains of SAP" are likely to remain a chimera for all time. The World Bank itself has now accepted that some of its programmes are faulty. It also accepts that it pays its employees incredible salaries and allowances. but it then places the blame on the various governments: the governments are autocratic, corrupt and have not allowed the full development of the creative energies of their peoples. Maybe. This may mean that the World Bank and its Euro-American mentors will stop forcing incompetent rulers and brutes upon third and "enth" world societies in the belief that such men will brutalize their peoples and compel them to accept the bitter pill which the World Bank means to force down the nations' throats. But methinks the World Bank has to accept that its real instrument of torture is its insistence on growth, its economic theorizing at the expense of human welfare. In Nigeria, as elsewhere, its potent instrument is the exchange rate. The fixing of that rate is, as far as I can see it, a con; it is dubious and no one can convince me otherwise. And the sooner debtor-nations realized the political nature of the World Bank, the sooner they will be able to face the bogus economic theories of the Bank with an equivalent weapon--people's power. At no matter what cost. CHUKS ILOEGBUNAM, "THE DEATH OF A WRITER" (an obituary by a Nigerian journalist) It is a supreme irony that the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the Nigerian environmental activist, businessman and writer at the age of 54, should have come in such a grotesque manner: tried and condemned by a tribunal instead of an ordinary court of law, denied the right of appeal, and hanged. Nothing about his origins, nor indeed, the course of most of his life, indicated even remotely that things would come to this terrible pass. Saro-Wiwa was born in Bori, near Port Harcourt, capital of Rivers State in Nigeria. He was a brilliant student and government scholarships saw him through Government College, Umuahia, and the University of Ibadan - two famous institutions which some other notable Nigerian writers, including Chinua Achebe, had also attended. He taught briefly at the Universities of Ibadan and Nigeria (at Nsukka) before the outbreak of the Nigerian civil war in 1967. Stridently anti-Biafran (until his death he wrote the name with a lower case "b"), Saro-Wiwa pitched