Written in Stone: A Response to Bernstein's "The Art of Immemorability"

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TECHNOLOGY

n., pl., -gies.

1. The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives.

2. The scientific method and material used to achieve a commercial or industrial objective.

1. Electronic or digital products and systems considered as a group: a store specializing in office technology.

2. Anthropology. The body of knowledge available to a society that is of use in fashioning implements, practicing manual arts and skills, and extracting or collecting materials.

[Greek tekhnologiā, systematic treatment of an art or craft : tekhnē, skill + -logiā, -logy.]

In thinking of language as a technology, it is good to have a definition of “technology” to work with. Definitions have this way of not describing anything truly; this is the clearest indication to me that Bernstein's point about writing altering language is accurate. Especially in terms of language as being primarily spoken throughout time versus the relatively recent advent of writing systems, it's hard even to define what language is. If you “use the Google” on yr “internet machine” to find a definition for “standard English” you will have a lot of difficulty finding a comprehensive definition. Every definition that comes up describes a variety of English that is not specific to a region (huh?), but it is most closely aligned with the language use in a specific region ie Britain (huh?!), and/or that it is the variety of English that is considered proper by most people. By these definitions either almost everyone speaks standard English, or no one does. Some people try to define standard English as how a person would write, versus how a person would speak, a notion that does suggest that writing enforces a certain level of consciousness that is different than the level required/involved when speaking. However, idk, fyi, it seems like the technologies we have are definitely having an impact on how we use written language to communicate pdq.

Language as a technology evolves alongside the emergent mediums in which we can make use of it. Furthermore, an individual's use of language emerges from the situation of the speaker in specific contexts, and the speaker deciphers the kind of language available to hir to use in that situation based on how they want to be perceived. So, it seems the process of writing generally imposes some rigid restrictions on how and what we can do with language in a given medium, whereas spoken language has more fluidity and dimension. To get back to my title, this is perhaps the origin of the phrase “written in stone:” writing signifies a record, something fixed and unchangeable, with definite finality. This phrase is most likely derived from primitive forms of writing, I tried to find the origin of this phrase online and only got pages and pages of articles on cemeteries (“History Written In Stone!”) so I can't be certain, but it is interesting to think how more recent writing technologies have perhaps brought back some of the fluidity and agency of speakers and voices to writing.

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A Portrait of Technology as the Mother of the (Art) World

Lemme speak a lil' Maso to ya: IF TECHNOLOGY BIRTHS TECHNIQUE AND FROM TECHNIQUES EMERGE NEW STYLES AND NEW STYLES CREATE NEW PERSPECTIVES THAT INTRODUCE NEW RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN (the) MAN('s world), (the) MACHINE (and it's world) AND THE LARGER UNIVERSE-WORLD AND NEW LANGUAGE REQUIRES A DIFFERENT MEDIUM, IS ART IT'S OWN CONSTANTLY GESTATING/
E X P A N D I N G ///
/BURSTING!/
BLOOMING/
/ ...DYING.../
BIRTHING MOTHER?

According to Aragao, "each avant garde eliminates the preceding avant garde." In assessing the influence of technology on art and culture, it becomes clear that one preceeds the other. photography -> projector -> film/animation. As technologies advance, seemingly the amount we are able to achieve within a given medium expands as well. There are things can be created and understood through film that were not capable of being communicated before film. A painting comes with many more restrictions than a film which is capable of communicating time, space, sounds and visual relationships in real time. In this way, new technologies create "new language" which "imposes another medium and possesses also its own way of communicating."

Arganaraz presents this as a "language of action," which is appropriate when we think of it as a beast which burrows in multitudinous ways, forging its own means of communication even while it utilizes "the traditional behavior [as] necessary" to the creation of its own meaning. This reminds me of Audre Lorde's idea of "the master's tools" not being capable of "[dismantling] the master's house." As a general idea it is very good, but it has a fatal flaw. If certain things work, and could work, then they might work as tools in creating something new. Each tool needs to be evaluated individually. We can use the "traditional behaviors" as we see them fit toward the construction of new forms/meanings/realizations. Thus, though as Mayakofsky was quoted in the text as saying there is "no revolutionary art without revolutionary form," it is possible, I think, for form to reach immense proportions of revolutionary-ness through the use and strategic subversion of old forms.

If "the revolt of concrete poetry is not against language," but against "the non-functionality and formalization" that hold language hostage or "[appropriate] poetry by discourse which converts it into formulas," then old forms have use to us even in our most radical, burrowing-beasts-of-action-style poetics. According to De Campos, poetry has the "true social mission" of "gathering the latent energies of language in order to destroy its petrifying dogmas." This, I feel, is what Kathy Acker was also saying when she declared(in Empire of the Senseless, 1988) literature "that which denounces and slashes apart the repressing machine at the level of the signified." Thus, we use language, we take its old forms and implied values, and use them subversively, infusing our own new radical elements to create a new perspective, as Acker did "plaigarizing" highly canonized works of literature. De Campo states further that if poetry "strays from the traditional linguistic canons to which most of the public are attached, that is does not do so "merely for sport or out of a hunger for originality [...] it does so out of a responsibility" (emphasis mine).

This is what resonates with me: the "social importance of poetry." I want it brought like back in the day when poets were ambassadors and the president's cabinet was made up of teachers and social workers, ie people who have actual visceral, up-close-and-personal experience with the problems plaguing the country and are thus equipped to find amicable solutions, versus the lawyers and bankers and lifetime legislators who are currently making these decisions. I want to work toward a vision/action/reality of a social poetics that is finally able to become understood to the extent that "the poet will cease being the eternal outcast and will come to exercise [THEIR] true function in society no longer in the shadows, but openly." But the question remains: what is the relationship between poetry and status as an outsider? Who are the non-poets? The rulers? Are they the only members of the in-crowd? I must get to know this "we" of sociovaluable poetics much better...

Concrete Poetry Making It's Way Into My Workplace?

So, I already was pretty sure I worked in the coolest office building in Milwaukee, but then today as I was ducking through the back hall down the stairs to get to the bike rack and bust my butt to get to class in the thirty mph wind I NOTICED THIS. You see, the company I work with just moved to this new-old building, because it used to be the Schlitz factory and now it's this huge office space with lots of wide, awesome hallways and open glass panels for ceiling and they have slowly been decking nearly every wall out with some art, and it's not like a typical office where they just have some weird cheesy painting from the eighties that doesn't mean anything to anyone because they didn't want something that would be evocative and since they are just creating positive space they don't care enough about what the thing taking up space is enough to replace it! So, anyway, THIS. THIS REALLY COOL THING, THIS IS NEW. I apologize for the glare, this is what it says :

"PRAISE

the

SCAVENGER

to

CAPITALISM

BIO/WIND/HYDRO/SOLAR

the

GARBAGE MAN

is the

RATIONAL HERO"

Obviously, I am limited by the fonts available through blogger and the weirdness that tends to occur when blogger does the html translation for me, but whatever. You get the idea, right? This pretty radical piece of concrete poetry just got hung on the wall of the back hall I use to leave work almost every day at the same time that we are studying this. Very strange. And very cool, because when I worked in the Liberty Mutual building you certainly wouldn't have seen this on a wall. You would see the Liberty Mutual logo. Or old, framed Liberty Mutual advertisements. Or, vast expanses of nothingness where something colorful and alive could otherwise be. Ah, the visual tyranny of corporate monoculture. How I never miss thee! I am quite happy with the art/design choices at my nice, non-profit job. We even have an aesthetics committee and they meet to talk about things like whether or not the new shelving units meet our aesthetic standards, whether it creates a weird relationship spatially with the other things, and sometimes they make us get new/different stuff just so there is less negative space. Srsly.

I do, however, find it interesting that they choose to stick this lovely piece in a back hallway and opted to line the main hallways with old Norman Rockwell-esque WWII propaganda.

Hmmmmmmmm....

Rejoicing in October's Proximity to Now:

I was already psyched on Oct0ber because the new Michael Moore film that finally tackles capitalism on the whole as a global system of domination is coming out;
and! the film debut of THE YES MEN FIX THE WORLD;
and! Sherman Alexie's new book of short stories comes out as well!!

But now! Now! NOW! I found out about this:

SHERMAN ALEXIE is coming to Milwaukee!! That's HEeeeeeeEEeEEEeeRE! Not Chicago or Madison or Minneapolis, but here. There are people here, and we read books, it's true!

He is celebrating the birth of his latest collection of short stories, War Dances. If you are not convinced that you should be at Boswell Books at 7pm on October 21st to experience this, then I highly suggest that you click on this link to the title story of his new book, which is brilliant:

War Dances: newyorker.com

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WOR(L)D: rgh drft

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FOR YR EYES

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I don't know how to convey my play on words without more words yet.

Ahh, ahh, ahhhhhh.

HALP!

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<3 Erin

Notes on Papa

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my father called me

close to midnight

on a friday

i had just finished some homework

after eight hours of work

a take-home dinner

and two beers

since he lives with his parents

and he never calls me

and his voice is so open

and liquid

and he laughs

and races me to speak

i know he has been drinking, too

i am caught off guard

make promises i am not sure about

and have the guilt you feel

when you tell a child you've been attending to

"we can do that later"

when you aren't really planning to

but aren't dead set against it, either

not that i don't want to see my father

i miss him terribly, all the time

but part of me thinks

its the kind of missing

that sticks around

when the person is there

the gapping hole where all that possibility was

(OR)

the shallow hole in my belly that once connected me to my mother

the cord he cut with glee

so happy to see me!

so sad to see me go!

too sad
to change
anything...

i love my father.

i miss my father.

i don't know how to be with my father.

i haven't seen my father in seven years.

every cell in my body has been replaced.

i'm not sure we will ever know each other

as anything but friends,

and i'm not sure i can live with that

but i don't think i have a choice.

he has been reminiscing about my mother;

he still loves her and it makes me cry

becuz she loves him,

but differently,

and it must be hard for yr love for yr lover

to turn into the love of a mother.

i love them both;

my love for each is fragmented--

i have the kind of nostalgia that is probably specific to children

whose parents divorced before they were out of infancy

(the kind of nostalgia that precludes any real memories

or

the kind of nostalgia that idealizes Monterrey, CA

where they met

in the early eighties

when men still wore shorts above their knees

and mom wasn't afraid to wear a two-piece swimsuit

becuz you want to know how the air feels

becuz you perceive it as yr place of conception

since yr conception couldn't have occurred without it)

all these exciting symbols

substituted for billion year old carbon

he starts laughing

like he is still young and the years

are fading backwards with each forward

extension of his joy

i want him to be happy

he says he went to the cottage

and to tell my mother that she needs to come down

to trim the tree

i want him to be happy

and he sounds so happy

i must know why he is saying this

i must know everything about their love

so i can recreate it for myself

so i can have the love i needed

make a cloak of their love

and wear it in the world

as a signifier

that i am a product of love

even if i don't remember it

i need something to make it real to me

please!

[i think all children want to be the product of love/

is that wrong?

what happens to the children of rape victims?

i am afraid that in

most cases

he still

comes to dinner]

my mother and my father

planted a tree together

by his family's cabin

in southern ohio

right near the state penn

it's a shade tree

it's growing out over the asparagus

he laughs

and i want him to be happy

...

Reflections on FLUXUS

I don't remember ever hearing an instruction to blog about the second conversation we had, but I saw a few of you had blogged about the second piece we discussed in addition to the first, so here is a summation of the conversation I engaged in re: the Fluxus piece in class.

We interpreted Fluxus as an argument for living art/creativity. The refusal to contain art in galleries and museums, killing/limiting any power it might have sociopolitically, hence the references to dead art, etc. It has a similar mathematical effect to the previous poem that is achieved by the insertion of black blocks of text that seem to almost create the equation of the cause/effect relationship between the purging, promoting and fusing steps. We thought it interesting that the word "fully" was writing and then crossed out, suggesting a lack of existence, or at least a lack of importance placed on, the idea of definite meaning. We also liked that in the first section he uses the word "purge" thrice, with emphasis each time, and then in the second section uses the word "promote" thrice as well, and then in the last section uses "fuse" only once, as 3+3+1=7, the number of the last definition.

Response to "A Plan for the Curriculum of the Soul"

Strategies:

Typewriter with handwritten emphasis and additional words punctuation: suggests the tension between the human hand as it is being replaced by technology after technology, by making an atypical page with a typewriter creates a sense of possible innovation and creativity within standardized forms.

Use of underline emphasis to make a comparison of jazz, dance, art, belief, Egyptian hieroglyphs: a depiction of the innate human desire/need to have a sound, to express the self, to reach out in a world where yr hands won't ever be able to touch everything and touch something

Reads like an equation at times: suggests a formula for the destruction of binary concepts through the fusion of conventional oppositions (emotional/physical, etc.) that is also reminiscent of Macuria's manifesto, in the sense of showing the science of language (in Macuria, via definitions/phonetic diagrams/variations in literal meaning) as a way of creating a formula for the destruction of the artistic world contained for the cultural/academic elite and the subsequent creation of a "non art" world/consciousness

W O R (L) D: My Word Animation Project

W O R (L) D

...

Interesting that these two words,

word and world,

would be so similar, right?

To what extent is

our world is situated

by the words with which

we have to describe it?

To shape it?

To claim it or be abandoned by it?

For example,

In a world in which every two minutes

someone, somewhere, is sexually assaulted,

how is the wor(l)d limited for these people (who are almost all of us, not some external, distant, minority population BY ANY MEANS)?

The words which exist to describe their experience

sound like this,

(read them aloud and make sure to note

the difficulty you will certainly have

getting them out

of your throat)

RAPE. MOLESTATION. INCEST. ABUSE.

You have been put into a position

you did not choose

and there are is no way to speak of it

without feeling reduced

To what extent, then, might the words we have to express ourselves,

work at an equal rate as the forces which actively oppress ourselves?

...

{Debord: "We live within language as within polluted air.

In spite of what humorists think, words do not play.

Nor do they make love, as Breton thought, except in dreams.

Words work -- on behalf of the dominant organization of life."}

Response to the Readings on Concrete Poetry & Whatnot

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In the assigned readings, I was most struck by Guy Debord’s argument for experimentation with the look of words on the page and the visual possibilities of poetry. The first sentence of the Situationist International piece recalls strongly di Prima’s poem from a few weeks ago: “The problem of language is at the heart of all struggles between the forces striving to abolish present alienation and those struggling to maintain it; it is inseparable from the entire terrain of those struggles.” So, here we have this idea returning of all wars being subsumed in one large struggle, a struggle that di Prima deems “the war against the imagination,” which could be adequately defined by Debord’s description in this piece. I have felt for a time that literature and history are two antithetical dimensions of the same thing, that literature, if done well, should be a people’s history, or what Debord describes as a “poetry of history” versus a “history of poetry,” which is the key to the liberation and realization of every individual and everyday life. Adrienne Rich has written and spoken extensively about the fall of poets from positions as cultural ambassadors, politically important thinkers and leaders, and the marginalization of poetry as an art form to be appreciated but contained in award ceremonies and book signings. As I read about poetry being the catalyst for revolution, I was immediately reminded of Pablo Neruda’s “I Explain a Few Things,” and times when poets were ambassadors and had central roles in the cultural dialogue of their time. Now poets’ only political intersections seem to consist of reading at presidential inaugurations and being awarded the National Medal of the Arts (a medal which Adrienne Rich was offered and refused, saying: “I could not accept such an award from President Clinton or this White House because the very meaning of art, as I understand it, is incompatible with the cynical politics of this administration. [Art] means nothing if it simply decorates the dinner table of the power which holds it hostage.”)

...

I especially enjoyed “A Manifesto for Fluxus” by George Maciunas for this very reason. It gets to the core of what art needs to be/do/espouse/inspire/show to not become a tool of the dominant culture or an entertaining, engaging, highly-priced, snobbish and fence walking sideshow for people who can afford such luxuries (and when I say fence walking I mean art that insists on being apolitical and refuses any kind of grounding in a political world. Making apolitical art is a choice, and is thus a political decision, like not voting.) He places emphasis on eliminating barriers into art and creativity, espouses what Alice Walker might call a “living creativity” (the sort of artistic streak that results in fabulous gardens blossoming out of fire escapes, long and rich histories of hair braiding, when people are barred in one or more ways from utilizing their creative energy in a traditional academic form) or what Diane di Prima might call “a poetics” that is variable from person to person but impossible to lack.

...

I am interested in something:

1. Di Prima says that everyone has a poetics and that we all have a stake in the war against the imagination;

2. Maso says that writers need to be conscious of how following old forms might be impeding their true expression of themselves and ponders how breaking the old forms and rules could enable writers to more accurately and effectively use language but she is speaking at a conference of specifically LGBTQ writers , and when she uses the term “we” it sounds less collective than di Prima, but possibly because she is addressing a specific community that she is presumably also a member of;

3. Debord says that we must transition from a history of poetry to a poetry of history to liberate everyday life and realize/recognize the individual life. This seems to place the importance of recording this on everyone again, like di Prima, extending “poetics” to everyone;

and 4. Maciunas demands the creation of a “non art reality to be grasped by all peoples” and the “fusion of cultural, social & political revolutionaries.”

So, Maso’s ‘we’ stands out to me as being the most limited. She uses ‘we’ repeatedly, and as I voiced in class previously, I understood her ‘we’ to correspond with people on the margins of society, the people who have the least stake in following forms and codes and rules that could imply a dominant value system that is not to the benefit of themselves or their communities. Though she is speaking at a conference of specifically queer writers, I still imagine this ‘we’ as encompassing every oppressed group. Really, there are relatively few people who benefit from what Debord categorizes as the present alienation. And the majority of people who do stand to benefit from the present arrangement or are convinced they could, probably have a huge, crushing realization/karmic ass-kicking coming to them at some point. Thus, would one of the main projects for people who are already breaking the rules and turning literary tricks be making this realization recognizable to the people who suffer without recognizing or naming or having a framework in which to think about the present alienation and how it limits themSELVES, their stories, their syntax?

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Re: My Neurosis, and It's Merits

So, my personality is a little bit obsessive-compulsive in nature. I derive a very real pleasure from making lists and planning things, and I think one of the reasons I enjoy fall so much is that it calls for the procurement of new calendars and planners that I can organize and fill with information, and I LOVE FILLING IN INFORMATION. (You should see the transaction register for my checking account. No, you shouldn't.)

Anyway, so I was perusing etsy.com, because as an art-lover who is also a poor college student with a tremendous love for organization, the only time I can really justify purchasing art is when the art fulfills a practical need! So, I am always excited to look at all of the calendars and planners and journals that independent artists or collectives of artists are putting out and making available because I get to give artists money, and get a creative art piece that also functions as lots of blank space I can do my information printing on. Anyway, I started looking at planners and then I started thinking about this cool screenprint of bicycles my friend at work has in her cube, and so then I was looking at screenprints, while I was doing the readings on concrete poetry in another window, and then I found all these cool lithographs and book art stuff that coincided with what I was reading about, and, and, and, THIS! I FOUND THIS! LOOK AT THIS NOW:

http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=vl_other_2&listing_id=15039208#


This person makes pictures out of letters. Really cool pictures. Out of letters. LETTERS.

A thought that has been in my mind: is animated writing book art? According to my old boss Max who is the senior academic librarian here at UWM that is really into the book arts, a book is anything that opens and reveals something...so...yeah? You open a flash animation. You open a webpage. You choose to enter and discover.

Anne, if you are reading this, might I suggest a field trip to the Special Collections library? They have a fabulous book arts collection. I know because I used to pull and re-file all of Max's favorite artist books like eeeevvverrrryyyyy dddaaaaayyyyyyy.

My personal favorites are "A Box of Longing With Fifty Drawers (A Revisioning of the Preamble to the Constitution)" by Jen Benka and "Quintessential Questions" by Jody Williams.

Just sayin'.

The Hirstory of 'Z': Final Vrsn

Might this link work for you?

https://pantherfile.uwm.edu/erinmday/The%20Hirstory%20of%20Z.html?uniq=g42k2r&xythos-download

If not I need instructions as to what to do after I upload it onto my panthherfile space. It won't open for me. :( So, in the case that doesn't work, here is an ugly, compressed version:

Analysis of Emma Ramey's "I can no longer think"

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In Emma Ramey’s “I can no longer think,” I think Ramey was trying to convey a certain portrait of thoughtlessness that is characterized by a stumbling, blurry world of colors and sounds grasping at the words to describe the swirling of things. Each word is a wall which hinders the expression of true feeling, and then; each word is a tunnel that leads to more ambiguity, as well. This is signaled by the absence of traditional punctuation to create long stanzas or sentences with varied repetitions of the same phrases. These phrases sound like personal thoughts, rather than something one would write – phrases such as “with a pile of shoes and good god!” or “I mean my closet and yes this is meant to be sexual” would make the grammar Nazi with the elbow pads and red pen rather curious. When Ramey reiterates a thought, a “wall” becomes a “tunnel,” “universe” becomes a “closet,” “birth canal” becomes “Panama canal;” each of the thoughts extends or contracts and the line between comparison and contrast is softly smudged. The effect is that the usual space between the personal and the outer worlds is blurred, which is also illustrated by the visuals throughout of a blurred, modern world.

...

A traditional approach to this piece wouldn’t be nearly as successful because what the piece actually describes is nonlinear, having no beginning and no ending. I have had this playing on my screen for the past hour and it hasn’t ended. I have kept it open this whole time because I want to know if it has an ending at all – thus far, I do not think there is an ending in sight. If one cannot clear one’s own mind, one cannot reach a conclusion (or perhaps it is better to say that one cannot reach a conclusion beyond the fact that they are unable to reach a conclusion). Thus, there is no conclusion, and this would be an impossible effect in an unanimated form.

...

I think the female subjectivity in the piece makes it more immediately relatable to women. Furthermore, the feelings conjured by “wall” (obstacles), “tunnel” (darkness), and “mother’s shawl” (warmth/comfort) create an uncomfortable dynamic between feelings of safety and vulnerability, which felt to me like it might signify sexual violence, especially given the recurring phrase of “that spring break no one likes to talk about.” From this perspective, the “thoughtlessness” experienced could be the kind of thoughtless produced by terror.

...

In my own work, what I would like to hold onto is the fluidity of this piece. The phrases used fit into each other in different, unpredictable combinations that never end. It is truly shape shifting: the center is nowhere and the circumference is everywhere. I became very curious about the blurring of the letters at the outer ends of a string of text, and so I began keeping a running list of the words that were bolder in each fragment in hopes that it would produce a sub-narrative that told me something more. Instead, I just got a page of notes that looks like: “the universe created at my mother of shoes and good god! trip down the my mother’s and yes this.” So, I never found the secret story I was looking for, but I still liked trying to find it. I would like to stow away this idea for future projects; both the idea of creating a sub-narrative through the display of text, but also of creating false possibilities of such narratives. In retrospect, I think the edges were blurred to create a shape, or state of things, that doesn’t have defined edges.

...

The Surface Features of Texts

The first line of di Prima's poem on the war against the imagination says it all: "the war against the imagination is the only war/all wars are subsumed in it." For di Prima, the importance of imagination and ingenuity is not only specific to the arts, she seems to extend the idea of imagination outside of an art-specific realm; or maybe it is better to say she supports disconnecting the idea of imagination and creativity solely to arts, which are marginalized and passive, and apply imagination to our daily lives -- almost a surrealistic subversion kind of approach. Thus, to write in non-standard ways is not only to express yourself but to challenge the contracts, social and political, that have been forged, to assume a fighting position in the culture war, presumably.

Maso also believes that through breaking the rules in literature, specifically, that we might collectively make ourselves heard, or offer up a more accurate, complex, scared, human, vulnerable, passionate piece of ourselves then would otherwise be transmitted through the traditional forms. Maso extends this belief to our being able to offer up new and subversive meanings if we refuse to obligate ourselves to the expectations of the literary orthodoxies.

I think both of them are talking about giving a more accurate account of things through a debunking of the myth of separation between poetry and reality, or reality and dreams/the imagination. By building a bridge between poetry and reality, by making our dreams real through acts of poetics both recorded as symbols both on a page and not. They believe we can transform the inevitable death of ourselves, our dreams, our imagination, by making them reality -- on the page and in our daily lives. I think both of them would agree with the statement "the personal is political." And so do I, and so do I...

WHAT IS MORE SYMBOLIC:

1. Kathy Acker writing, "suicide is a protest of control."
2. A man setting himself to fatal flame to protest the Vietnam war.

AND DOES IT MATTER?

The Motivation to Create, According to Miranda July

I was reading this neat article on Miranda July's new exhibit "Eleven Heavy Things" in Italy that features an interview where each question was submitted by a different friend or colleague, most of them other artists and thinkers. This one quote brought me back to our discussion in class today about why we humans write/create:

"Life is so ridiculously gorgeous, strange,

heartbreaking, horrific, etc.,

that we are compelled to describe it

to ourselves, but we can’t! We

cannot do it! And so we make art."

—Miranda July

The entire thing is here: http://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/miranda-july/

Props to my sweet friend Bethany Hart for the heads up. We are both waiting, with incredible patience, for Miranda's next feature length film.

Defining Form in Relation to Social Norms

Form is whether or not a paragraph is indented. Form is whether or not the first letter of the first word of an article or chapter is capitalized and in much larger font than the rest. Form is whether or not paragraphs consist of three to five sentences and has a topic sentence as the first. Form is whether or not the text allows the writer to appear in the text, to write as a writer writing, versus a writer remaining outside the text. Form is whether or not lines of poetry rhyme and and have a consistent rhythm to them. Form is whether a sentence starts at the top-left corner of the page and reads left to right or whther it starts at the bottom-right and reads right to left.

I see this relating to social norms in the dimension of social consistency and comfort. Similarly to needing a dominant language in a multilingual society so that there is one language that can be used universally between everyone, it is also thought that we need to have prescriptive rules regarding the creation of texts, so that we know what the form is. We read a poem made with stanzas made of four lines that have a distinct rhyming pattern and we know, "this is a poem." Things start to get a little hazy when the poetic lines start to resemble clouds visually and the endings don't rhyme or have an implied rhythm. And then someone like Joe McCarthy presents himself, usually.

Dun-da-dun-da-dun, dun-da-dun-dun...

...

May I present to ye,

thee rough draft of

"Thee Hirstory of Z."

...

Note: For some reason when I export the file and upload it onto websites such as blogger, Facebook and youtube, it seems to compress the file in a weird way that makes it skip lots of frames and a lot of stuff gets missed or looks unfinished when it isn't. What's up with that?

...

...

<3>

"Making Love Around the Fire of the Alphabet"

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Maso calls for experimentation with the shape, movement and arrangement of writing because most literary forms are predictable and, in a way, antiquated. As a self-identified person on the margins, she thinks it is perhaps sacrificing too much for her peers outside of the dominant culture to force their art into the preconceived boxes, the moulds we have used time and time again and just poured a different artist's talents into. She believes that a text has a body, that a text lives in that body, and that we could work toward making the life of the text more visceral, challenging and hypnotizing by making it dance, pause and erupt, as she describes: “The body with its cellular alphabet. And, in another alphabet the desire to get that on the page.” She specifically is concerned about the pressure other writers face from publishers (and their own anxieties about what it means to be published/make it big/legitimize them as an artist in some way) to create the standard, linear novel or short story collection that, as she says, looks like John Updike's writing and not their own. She wants to know what language is capable of when you let it move, and how creating work that is not tied down to the old formats and expectations could unleash a fire on the old notions, and convince the presumably mainstream forces that try to contain the potential flames of minority narratives – lgbtq, black, female, indigenous, latin@, poor—that we aren't going to abide by the assumed boundaries anymore, that we are finally ready to let those words and perspectives and experiences that are beyond simple, unyielding binary constructs explode those binaries, with language simultaneously, as Maso describes it, “continually [opening] new places in [us].”

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I am simultaneously disappointed and ecstatic to report that I agree with her fairly whole-heartedly. To me, literature is a people's history. In German they use the same word for the words “story” and “history,” Geschichte. We use the same word as story, but stick a male pronoun at the beginning of it, so when Maso was discussing the future being female, I understood it as a pluralistic approach to recording experience that is specific to literature. Beyond that, an encouragement specifically for all of those who are outside of the dominant cultural narrative, who have their own narrative to voice, to do it in their own way and refuse to be custom fit to the needs of the business interests, the publishers, who are ultimately commodifying potentially radical ideas, seeds or letters that if maintained in their original form could build on an emerging, pluralistic, constantly broadening alphabet or vocabulary.

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I am especially interested in Maso's suggestions for combining old and new forms, as well as using components of various arts and academic disciplines to create something that is fresh and vibrant and not just an assemblage of words or images that we have seen a thousand times before placed in a different sequential order, such as Godard's descriptions of how he makes films “like [he] wanted to write a sociological essay in the form of novel and all [he] had to do it with was notes of music.” I think it would be good if we had to rely on metaphor and simile to explain our craft(s) in this way. Just think how many forms of expression, narrative or otherwise, have been marginalized and repressed by the predominant male, Western forms that we are still using thirty years after people started fighting for a third world consciousness in academics, for the teaching of women's herstories, indigenous studies, for looking at society as a system of interlocking power structures that move and bend and compound oppressions in a plethora of ways. Why not breathe life into ancient forms? Why not study them and combine them with new ones? I am interested to know what we are capable of starting once the cycle of rule-breaking and the introduction of new and old ways of articulating our experiences begins.

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Plan 'Z' Motion!

My idea is to animate variations of 'Z' throughout history with a kind of sub-narrative about creativity as resistance. It will start with the proto-Semitic 'Z' which is an "=". It will then become an 'I,' the Phoenician symbol pronounced "zayin." I would like to align 'I', '=' and 10th century Visigothic miniscule symbol for 'Z' which looks very dagger-like and more akin to Arabic script than Latin, to communicate the self as a weapon, the mind, the imagination, and the ability to empower ourselves and others through creativity, the intended message being "I = Weapon" or " The 'I' (self) is a weapon," except all symbols are actually a version of 'Z.' I want to use a multiplicity of the forms 'Z' has taken throughout time, and incorporate the names of people(s) or ideas that involve Zs and are a force of creative resistance. I really want to use the phrase "I'm just sayin'" as "I'm just zayin'" somewhere, to tie together our own autonomous control of language and the Phoenician name for their variation of 'Z.' :)

<3 E

The Hirstory of 'Z': I'm Just Zayin'

The hirstory of the letter 'Z' is a hirstory of war and conquest! 'Z' began as the seventh letter of the Hebrew alphabet; the Hebrews called it "za," pronounced it "zag," and drew it as a fancy kind of dagger. The Phoenicians drew it similarly, but called it "zayin" translating literally to dagger or weapon. Next the Phoenician "zayin" became the Greek "zeta"except it looked like an 'I.' The Romans also adopted the symbol into their alphabet, then subsequently kicked it out because they didn't really put it to use, and opened it's position in the Roman alphabet to the 'G.' 'Z' might have been lost forever, if not for the incorporation of a few stray Greek words into the Roman language after they conquered Greece. However, 'Z' was kind of a second-class symbol since it wasn't part of the traditional language, and thus it was kicked to the end of the line. The letter transformed from 'I' to 'Z' when calligraphers and scribes got lazy with their strokes.

'Ze' or 'zie' is also a gender-neutral pronoun used predominately by transgendered persons and their allies (along with 'hir'), as English has no gender neutral pronouns to describe a single person at this point in time, the use of the 'Z' sound to voice a gender neutrality which does not exist currently in the language is to me a fabulous way for the people to make the language theirs. Or to use words as a weapon, one might say, to change the cultural perspective on the gender binary, or something else important and frequently under-scrutinized. Thus, an animation of this letter could tell a story about language, words, and symbols in regard to the cultural values inherent in language systems, and the ability to affect the overarching conversation (culture) through the alteration and subversion of previously existing symbols/words/phrases or the creation of new ones.

What interests me about this letter the most is that the original symbol, 'I,' meant "weapon." I = weapon. The self as a weapon, imagination and creative power as a transformative force, and reclaiming language and shaping it so that it suits our needs, desires and potential expressions versus trying to fit ourselves into pre-existing words/phrases and the ideas/perspectives inherent in them and thus limiting what we can do/think/create/express. To better help you understand my idea concerning this aspect of language, and my philosophy/approach to writing generally, I offer this quote from the much beloved Kathy Acker: "Literature is that which denounces and slashes apart the repressing machine at the level of the signified."

I also think it pertinent to inform that many fascinating nouns begin with the letter 'z.' Here is a list of the ones I especially like:

ZORA NEALE HURSTON
ZULU NATION
ZEITGEIST

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z

http://medievalwriting.50megs.com/scripts/letters/historyz.htm

http://www.learner.org/courses/worldhistory/audio_glossary_Z.html

http://www.fonts.com/AboutFonts/Articles/Letterseries/LetterZ.htm

Question for all you peoples: HOW MIGHT I MAKE WORDS IN MY ACTUAL POST HYPERLINK TO THESE SOURCES INSTEAD OF THIS UGLY LAUNDRY LIST OF LINKS? Thanks in advance, world.

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ZzzZZZzZzzZzzzzZZZzzzz

I am ruminating on the letter ‘Z.’ Zed. The end. Z as in ’zenith:’ the end of things; the high point signifying the end. It is linear, it could even be a kind of ‘N’ if you rotated it in either direction, just a wider or more flattened ‘N.’ Also, the equidistant lines connected by the center line between the opposite ends could represent a short cut. The letter doesn’t change between the lower and upper case. Also, the sounds ZOOM!, ZAP! and ZING! represented textually in comic books could be an interesting idea to work in visually. I see the movement of the letter as being either graceful or rigid; graceful like a mumuration of birds, or rigid like the progress narrative. I’m not sure which form is more prominent in the shape of letter, if one is. It is also the sound of sleep. And small flying insects. I think it definitely zips through the air. It would be interesting to try to animate that.

A Sincere Question

yours
yours truly
yours truly would
yours truly would like
yours truly would like to
yours truly would like to know
yours truly would like to know why
yours truly would like to know why we
yours truly would like to know why we so
yours truly would like to know why we so easily
yours truly would like to know why we so easily swallow
yours truly would like to know why we so easily swallow the
yours truly would like to know why we so easily swallow the violence
yours truly would like to know why we so easily swallow the violence of
yours truly would like to know why we so easily swallow the violence of the
yours truly would like to know why we so easily swallow the violence of

THE STATE

WHEN VIOLENT REACTIONS

BY THE PEOPLE

ARE ALWAYS

UNILATERALLY

CRIMINAL

OR

INSANE

(for THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND)

Ahem!

My cool new wordpress blog has now become my cool new blogger blog, for the unfortunate reason that wordpress apparently charges its users to upload video to their blog, and I can't have that.

I will now proceed to copy/paste from the other blog so that it is all centrally located here. Sigh...