Friday, May 20, 2011
For Matthew, with Tea and Cigarettes
Playing to wait
with sugar-
a sunken
melded mess
in tea forgotten...
till the mornings early lights
reddened curtains
bathe us all orange,
for Winters first days.
I believe not:-
that this shall be the last
turn of Autumns
yet to come.
A Chorus of Quiet Kettles in Red Kitchens
I lie
not sleeping
and wonder why
we save these words
just
for bedtime:-
when
Nothing will come of this
Seeing things Were Potential Fails
Of a time where violet were eyes
I imagined coats hanging on doors
with faces.
I kept my distance
waiting;
as you spoke to them.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Though on my Timedistant Lover
If Time’d permit,
I’d cradle you,
and
pant
the
damp
beat
of unsleeping percussionists’
apologiesin syncopated rhyme.
I’d cradle you,
and
pant
the
damp
beat
of unsleeping percussionists’
apologiesin syncopated rhyme.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
The Protocols of Art (1990)- Frank Moorhouse
The Book Launch
At a book launch remember that authors are in fact launching their previous book. It is no good assuming you're safe because you cannot be expected to have read the book being launched. When you meet the author he or she will expect you to say great things about his or her previous work. You will find the titles of the author's previous work in the new book opposite the title page under "Other books by the author".
At a book launch remember that you will meet authors ostensibly there to honour their colleague but who are quietly or not so quietly launching their most recent book. Anything you can say which is comically derisive about the author being launched will be hugely appreciated by these authors. They are there to steal praise away from the book being launched, to deflect the public gaze.
Having something to say
It is fashionable to suggest that a work of art demonstrates some aesthetic theory with the suggestion that art theory after all is more interesting than art or is an art in itself. If you don't know any theory, practise saying, "I like the hermeneutical gaps". You can be daring and suggest that theory is merely belated description of what all good advanced art is already doing.
It is fashionable to say that a work is something else other than what it obviously is, so a film is likened to a comic strip. A painting is called a narrative. A dance performance is praised for its architectural qualities. All artists regardless of art form currently want their work to be likened to a video clip.
It is a good thing to say to artists that they "take risks". It means that they have risked making fools of themselves but you avoid saying whether they have.
With well-meaning ideological motivated art you can say, "you've made a really powerful statement" which means that they may not have made art but they got the ideological line right. Or you can say, "Oh God, I know exactly how you must have felt". Better still, look into their eyes, maybe even take their hand, and say, simply and quietly, "You are very brave".
It is still accepted as praise in most circles to say, "The work forces us to inquire into the roots of our bourgeois hyprocrisy".
Artists divide into those whp want to make pure art and those who "have something to say". Those who say they are making pure art really think they are "saying something". Having "something to say" is a bit suspect but "saying something" is acceptable. It is better if what is being said is not spelled out- that is called having a sub-text. Everyone knows that art is not supposed to "give answers" to Big Questions. But it is still the secret wish of artists to be seen as "having a few answers".
When artists say "Let's cut the crap- what do you really think of my work?", they are lying. That is a trap. If you fall for it you will be abused or physically beaten. As The Edinburgh Review in 1825 and Gertrude Stein said, "Praise, praise, more praise".
Authors
Authors are incurable romantics and feel that the art of writing is still too mysterious to talk about and they go to many festivals and conferences to say this. They still pose as solitary and reclusive but are always looking for a good time and the company of journalists. They are anti-commercial but need money, lots of it, and believe that their writing should speak for itself but they seem to give endless interviews.
Theorists (see later) see authors as curable romantics, to be demystified, even dethroned. Fiction can only exist, the theorists say, within a context of discourse- that is, fiction only makes sense when explained by criticism and theory (see later). Criticism and theory are not to be confused with book reviewing (see later). Serious authors are simply those who give pleasure to a certain minority sensibility.
Authors are no longer prophets, or barometer of the social climate. Many authors never liked being barometers anyhow.
Books
The source of all other art, the King of Arts, but not there to provide answers. Now called the text by some. You may hear some critics say, "There is only one book and we are all writing it". That is a put-down of authors.
They will tell you that books are not written by "authors" but by the intersection of social forces and other books (called intertextuality). While the author is no longer a barometer, he or she is more like a set of traffic lights and ideas and the stew of the times. Some say this does not dethrone the author and nor is the author a traffic light or a barometer, that the author is more like a chief executive officer of the factory which produces an interplay of social forces, intertextuality, literary theory, and history deserves a much higer income.
Imaginative Writing
Now called the text. Exists to create theory.
Feminism
Now many types. Must be present but in a light, unthreatening way.
If you are a man say nothing about feminism. If you are a woman say, " so called "women's writing" is too exclusive a label- I refuse to be ghettoed".
Marixsm
Is a quaint set of ideas that many artists once had (until last year) but will now distance themselves from and joke about as if it were an abberation of youth. Can be fondly remembered, as in, "We actors were really required to go to lectures on Marxism but I was never really a serious Marxist- the nearest I got to the industrial proletariat was jumping into bed with a muscular truck driver who delivered the party paper".
Politics
There are some variants here.
Variant a) Suitable for satire.
Variant b) There doesn't have to be a stand-off between art and politics as long as the politics cannot be detected by the reader and the work doesn't provide any answers.
Variant c) Who's right-wing and who's left-wing these days?
Variant d) Some things are too urgent- the planet must be saved, art can come later.
Sex
A good thing in art and may be a good thing outside art too. Was not there before the sixties. Not to be confused with pornography. May have been too much of it in the sixties. There is something called "the obligatory sex scene" which is to be avoided in art as is a hangover from the sixties.
Pornography
Once something to guiltily enjoy and defend the rights of even if it was not your cup of tea. Still a guilty enjoyment but more guilty now because of some feminist opposition. May or may not be ideologically unsound. Is itself a narrative. Is characterised by the use of sex un an ideologically disordered way. Confused because of the uncertainty of what is happening in the mind of the reader of pornography. Does it reduce threat and limitations of gender and sexuality? Is it only disordered play? May be gender confusion at its highest or lowest because the reader may be playing all the parts. Whether erotica is commercial or not seems to change its value somehow.
Reviewer
Someone writing about "a book". Usually suspected of having slept with the author, is sleeping with the author, would like to sleep with the author, which explains why the review is soft or hard in the case of the male reviewer, or enthusiastically embracing or coolly dismissive in the case of the female reviewer.
Critic
Someone who writes not about "one book" but about the reading experience.
Theorist
Someone who writes about people writing about the reading experience. Does not sleep with the authors, enjoys instead the sensuality of the text.
Megatheorist
If theory is also narrative and maybe also fiction, we need theorists of theory to reveal the narrative of theory.
Narrative
Everything is narrative, everything tells a story, everything may, in the ultimate analysis, be "fiction".
Reader
Is being urged to no longer worship the book (text). Is now being urged to worship at the feet of theory. The act of reading is more important that the act of writing. There is no writing, only reading- the author does not "write" the book. He or she, in "writing" a book, becomes only "the first reader" of the book. If you have no literary theory it means you are in the unconscious grip of some out-dated theory. There is the possibility that we all are a mess of both earlier and advanced theory. There is also the possibility that we are unconsciously being taught our theory by reading advanced imaginary writing.
Handling the Black Market
At an arts festival you will find that many of the people present come from arts and crafts communities (mainly in Tasmania) who will pay highly for polyester clothing or factory made cups and saucers. Likewise with greens, they will enjoy all manner of guilty pleasures if you offer it to them in the privacy of your hotel room- tobacco, a ride in a four wheel drive, off-road recreational vehicle, a bloody steak, salt, sugar, alcohol, and coloured toilet paper.
At a book launch remember that authors are in fact launching their previous book. It is no good assuming you're safe because you cannot be expected to have read the book being launched. When you meet the author he or she will expect you to say great things about his or her previous work. You will find the titles of the author's previous work in the new book opposite the title page under "Other books by the author".
At a book launch remember that you will meet authors ostensibly there to honour their colleague but who are quietly or not so quietly launching their most recent book. Anything you can say which is comically derisive about the author being launched will be hugely appreciated by these authors. They are there to steal praise away from the book being launched, to deflect the public gaze.
Having something to say
It is fashionable to suggest that a work of art demonstrates some aesthetic theory with the suggestion that art theory after all is more interesting than art or is an art in itself. If you don't know any theory, practise saying, "I like the hermeneutical gaps". You can be daring and suggest that theory is merely belated description of what all good advanced art is already doing.
It is fashionable to say that a work is something else other than what it obviously is, so a film is likened to a comic strip. A painting is called a narrative. A dance performance is praised for its architectural qualities. All artists regardless of art form currently want their work to be likened to a video clip.
It is a good thing to say to artists that they "take risks". It means that they have risked making fools of themselves but you avoid saying whether they have.
With well-meaning ideological motivated art you can say, "you've made a really powerful statement" which means that they may not have made art but they got the ideological line right. Or you can say, "Oh God, I know exactly how you must have felt". Better still, look into their eyes, maybe even take their hand, and say, simply and quietly, "You are very brave".
It is still accepted as praise in most circles to say, "The work forces us to inquire into the roots of our bourgeois hyprocrisy".
Artists divide into those whp want to make pure art and those who "have something to say". Those who say they are making pure art really think they are "saying something". Having "something to say" is a bit suspect but "saying something" is acceptable. It is better if what is being said is not spelled out- that is called having a sub-text. Everyone knows that art is not supposed to "give answers" to Big Questions. But it is still the secret wish of artists to be seen as "having a few answers".
When artists say "Let's cut the crap- what do you really think of my work?", they are lying. That is a trap. If you fall for it you will be abused or physically beaten. As The Edinburgh Review in 1825 and Gertrude Stein said, "Praise, praise, more praise".
Authors
Authors are incurable romantics and feel that the art of writing is still too mysterious to talk about and they go to many festivals and conferences to say this. They still pose as solitary and reclusive but are always looking for a good time and the company of journalists. They are anti-commercial but need money, lots of it, and believe that their writing should speak for itself but they seem to give endless interviews.
Theorists (see later) see authors as curable romantics, to be demystified, even dethroned. Fiction can only exist, the theorists say, within a context of discourse- that is, fiction only makes sense when explained by criticism and theory (see later). Criticism and theory are not to be confused with book reviewing (see later). Serious authors are simply those who give pleasure to a certain minority sensibility.
Authors are no longer prophets, or barometer of the social climate. Many authors never liked being barometers anyhow.
Books
The source of all other art, the King of Arts, but not there to provide answers. Now called the text by some. You may hear some critics say, "There is only one book and we are all writing it". That is a put-down of authors.
They will tell you that books are not written by "authors" but by the intersection of social forces and other books (called intertextuality). While the author is no longer a barometer, he or she is more like a set of traffic lights and ideas and the stew of the times. Some say this does not dethrone the author and nor is the author a traffic light or a barometer, that the author is more like a chief executive officer of the factory which produces an interplay of social forces, intertextuality, literary theory, and history deserves a much higer income.
Imaginative Writing
Now called the text. Exists to create theory.
Feminism
Now many types. Must be present but in a light, unthreatening way.
If you are a man say nothing about feminism. If you are a woman say, " so called "women's writing" is too exclusive a label- I refuse to be ghettoed".
Marixsm
Is a quaint set of ideas that many artists once had (until last year) but will now distance themselves from and joke about as if it were an abberation of youth. Can be fondly remembered, as in, "We actors were really required to go to lectures on Marxism but I was never really a serious Marxist- the nearest I got to the industrial proletariat was jumping into bed with a muscular truck driver who delivered the party paper".
Politics
There are some variants here.
Variant a) Suitable for satire.
Variant b) There doesn't have to be a stand-off between art and politics as long as the politics cannot be detected by the reader and the work doesn't provide any answers.
Variant c) Who's right-wing and who's left-wing these days?
Variant d) Some things are too urgent- the planet must be saved, art can come later.
Sex
A good thing in art and may be a good thing outside art too. Was not there before the sixties. Not to be confused with pornography. May have been too much of it in the sixties. There is something called "the obligatory sex scene" which is to be avoided in art as is a hangover from the sixties.
Pornography
Once something to guiltily enjoy and defend the rights of even if it was not your cup of tea. Still a guilty enjoyment but more guilty now because of some feminist opposition. May or may not be ideologically unsound. Is itself a narrative. Is characterised by the use of sex un an ideologically disordered way. Confused because of the uncertainty of what is happening in the mind of the reader of pornography. Does it reduce threat and limitations of gender and sexuality? Is it only disordered play? May be gender confusion at its highest or lowest because the reader may be playing all the parts. Whether erotica is commercial or not seems to change its value somehow.
Reviewer
Someone writing about "a book". Usually suspected of having slept with the author, is sleeping with the author, would like to sleep with the author, which explains why the review is soft or hard in the case of the male reviewer, or enthusiastically embracing or coolly dismissive in the case of the female reviewer.
Critic
Someone who writes not about "one book" but about the reading experience.
Theorist
Someone who writes about people writing about the reading experience. Does not sleep with the authors, enjoys instead the sensuality of the text.
Megatheorist
If theory is also narrative and maybe also fiction, we need theorists of theory to reveal the narrative of theory.
Narrative
Everything is narrative, everything tells a story, everything may, in the ultimate analysis, be "fiction".
Reader
Is being urged to no longer worship the book (text). Is now being urged to worship at the feet of theory. The act of reading is more important that the act of writing. There is no writing, only reading- the author does not "write" the book. He or she, in "writing" a book, becomes only "the first reader" of the book. If you have no literary theory it means you are in the unconscious grip of some out-dated theory. There is the possibility that we all are a mess of both earlier and advanced theory. There is also the possibility that we are unconsciously being taught our theory by reading advanced imaginary writing.
Handling the Black Market
At an arts festival you will find that many of the people present come from arts and crafts communities (mainly in Tasmania) who will pay highly for polyester clothing or factory made cups and saucers. Likewise with greens, they will enjoy all manner of guilty pleasures if you offer it to them in the privacy of your hotel room- tobacco, a ride in a four wheel drive, off-road recreational vehicle, a bloody steak, salt, sugar, alcohol, and coloured toilet paper.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Lee Crowell
after the tragedy
he was quiet
and careful not to make friends
becoming a desert
to remain rootless
detached
from anything
that might suck the remaining embers
and instill the final chill
give us chinaski
all i know
is that there are at least 12 people
walking along the road
i am walking
on the same side of the road
i am walking
in the same direction
i am walking
all i know
is that we are clueless about each other
and i'm not sure of the reason
but it pisses me off
that we are in our own little worlds
private party
nothing but a wasted mind
showed me how to live
in that dark decrepit dwelling
on all fours we kissed the strawberries
and savored our momentous departure
from good behavior
he was quiet
and careful not to make friends
becoming a desert
to remain rootless
detached
from anything
that might suck the remaining embers
and instill the final chill
give us chinaski
all i know
is that there are at least 12 people
walking along the road
i am walking
on the same side of the road
i am walking
in the same direction
i am walking
all i know
is that we are clueless about each other
and i'm not sure of the reason
but it pisses me off
that we are in our own little worlds
private party
nothing but a wasted mind
showed me how to live
in that dark decrepit dwelling
on all fours we kissed the strawberries
and savored our momentous departure
from good behavior
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Un-Naked, 3:27 AM
She could tell he meant it
when he told her
he liked his women
to be like the
unfinished
poems of Valéry
Lyrically literate
she lay languid on his bed
and allowed her
satin-claret camisole
to retreat slow shoulders.
Extending an arm unpracticed
she knocked his pages
with a fatal smile,
reached for his lit cigarette
exhaled: -
and never told him her name.
when he told her
he liked his women
to be like the
unfinished
poems of Valéry
Lyrically literate
she lay languid on his bed
and allowed her
satin-claret camisole
to retreat slow shoulders.
Extending an arm unpracticed
she knocked his pages
with a fatal smile,
reached for his lit cigarette
exhaled: -
and never told him her name.
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