SxSW: Roundup pt 1

Items are piling up in my crib. In my crib, items are piling. Please join me on a brief tour of recent acquisitions. First, a survey of a small but notable haul at a recent book fair featuring the likes of Roof, The Figures, Cuneiform, Bootstrap, Portable Y0-Yo etc, & Ugly Duckies.




The Weiners I had been after for what seemed like a full year, though I don't think it's been out that long. Deals were to be had at this event--publishers, bookfair visitors, take note, always have a deal. People want them. Some of the most interesting items though were some special things from Geoff Young. On his table were paperback copies of Clark Coolidge's Space, published long ago in 1970 by Harper and Row. When I lamented to Geoff that I had a hardback signed copy that was somewhat beat up, he produced a lavishly new HC copy from his bag behind the table. My eyes were so wide I saw Fuji. That, along with a copy from a recently-discovered handful of Kenneth Goldsmith's No 111, marked the true finds of the day.



What follows documents various sorts & sites of acquisition. For the most part, this will be only a general pictorial survey, as there is still more yet to come. The careful voyeur may notice the 'pataphysical jets destinationally aflame, for very good reason. Those goodies to be depicted in part 2 of this post.












The Clark Coolidge/Glen Baxter collab, out from Arc Publications, a UK outfit, is the first edition of work originally from 1974, & it is something similar to Ted Berrigan's picture-drawing-texts featured in the Aaron Fischer bibliography Granary put out. The Stephen Rodefer item is from Equipage, in what is almost a totally Tuumba-inspired design, replete with oversize wraps with too-easily bumped corners. The copy is signed. The early Rod Smith title The Boy Poems is my 2nd copy of this book but it was up for grabs for cheap at his recent Zinc bar reading so I grabbed. Of the Atlas stuff, the Peret is especially choice, a 1986 title that is among the most elusive of the early Atlas product.















In this series of items, the Benjamin Friedlander pieces are of special note. The first is the premier issue of Jimmy & Lucy's House of K, a small-run mag of the mid-80s west coast scene. Friedlander co-edited the journal along with Andrew Schelling. It is similar to L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E in the sense that it is 99% prose, but on the whole seems less militantly critical, tending occasionally toward biography & remembrance. The first issue for instance opens with Stephen Rodefer on Ted Berrigan's then-recent passing, & ends with Barry Lane on filmmaker Hollis Frampton, who had just died also. In surveying issue one, particular note should go to Nancy May's giraffe artwork, featured throughout the issue, which is a nice formal touch, as opposed to featuring it in one's own separate section. By issue six of Jimmy & Lucy's House of K, a survey of Tuumba press which I've previously owned for a while, a similar interactivity between pieces is achieved by allowing the different pieces to end & begin on the same page, much like L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E.

The second Friedlander-related item is a tiny, rare, visually interesting collab with Rodefer, which was "originally published in March 1984 on the occasion of a reading...This new and revised edition of 200 copies printed Spring 1987 and assigned to the reader," published by Phraseology, entitled Oriflamme Day. By total coincidence, the innards of this one highly resemble the Baxter/Coolidge collab, featuring visually random bits of collaged image & text heading in all directions.




Also totally by coincidence, I recently pounced on what was then my second copy of Kenny Goldsmith's No 111. The only copy for sale online was going for over $200, so when I saw one for a much more reasonable price, I stepped on the gas. The pristine copy arrived, &, much to my pleasure, bore a nice stamp & signature from Goldsmith--a detail that was not included in the description of the book when I bought it. So now I have three copies of the book.

Speech with Humans

There is a new Coolidge title out from Arc Publications, situated in the UK. From the description here, it seems like the project is similar to the Coolidge/Philip Guston book Baffling Means. There is also something reminiscent (I'm judging by the cover) of Ted Berrigan's work with George Schneeman. 80 pages. Exchange rate blows, but probably worth it.

Coolidge, Depositions

I recently acquired this interesting Coolidge piece, Smithsonian Depositions & Subject to a Film, a dual book published in 1980 by Vehicle Editions (Annabel Levitt). It is a beautiful, smallish book, noteworthy for several reasons. The most overt being that the second piece, Subject to a Film, is ostensibly a poem about the movie Jaws. While such a concept is pretty interesting in & of itself, it makes for an especially interesting move from Coolidge, given his marked move toward using films as sources in his work from the 90s, mostly collected in the On the Nameways volumes. It is also quite unlike any other of his works I've read, featuring significantly less surface pomp than the major works of the time [between Own Face & Mine: The One That Enters The Stories]. So, where exactly did this Jaws-poem surface from?

I haven't familiarized myself as much with the first section of the book, Smithsonian Depositions, but the interesting thing there is that while the text is more similar to the above-mentioned major works of the era, Coolidge feels compelled to list his sources. The list includes some potentially expected names such as William Carlos Williams, Jack Kerouac, Bernadette Mayer, Alain Robbe-Grillet, JG Ballard, Arthur Conan Doyle. But there are others which perhaps warrant further investigation, including Yvon Chouinard, Don Judd, Raymond Ditmars, Frederick A Lucas, Frederick Law Olmstead. Do all of these writers (& the books listed) even exist?

The copy in & of itself is special as well: it is signed twice by Coolidge, once on the title page, once on the FFEP. Also, there is a notecard laid in with a quote from Beckett, seemingly in Coolidge's hand: "The task of the artist now is to find a form to accommodate the mess." Coolidge in fact uses this quote, though the order of the phrases is reversed, in several of his works. It surfaces in his section (From Notebooks 1976-1982) of the Code of Signals anthology edited by Michael Palmer, & also in his talk "Arrangement" from the Talking Poetics from Naropa Institute (1978) volume.

Rivals (Coolidge)

New arrivals are many, various, picayune & juggernauts. Some is accounted for & more must first be sorted through. In the meantime, a single book is worth drawing attention to, the new Clark Coolidge book, Counting on Planet Zero, which has just arrived in limited edition from Fewer & Further Press, helmed by Jess Mynes in western MA. The book has been out for a few weeks at least, if not more. I saw a preliminary copy of it when Jess read along with several Fewer & Further authors at David Kirschenbaum's ACA Galleries a while back. The book is all the more pleasant to hold in one's hands as a finished product; like all of Jess' work, it is both immediately attractive & designed well overall. There is an mp3 available on the F&F site, where one can hear Clark read several of the poems. Though I've had the file for months & listened to it continually, reading the work off the page for the first time is one of the more pleasant reading experiences I've recently had. Perhaps because of the mp3, Clark's voice is already imbued in the text. & though the book is only a chapbook, there are by my count 30 poems, to read it in one sitting is wholly fulfilling. Another winner from Fewer & Further, & another winner from Clark Coolidge, neither of which are surprises.



ON A PLATINUM FORCEP


This isn't the present this is a hospital
women will want to know you get well
the rest is all isinglass under christmas bulbs
mind if I sneak back to the animal barn?
the cheating ball? smart arms is
what you have to have to narrow in on
the to-do in Hovenweep its feelers
the tree's very bones outrageous nipples
but the picture in the pocket is of my office
the French became active after that
very well done thank you then the
smart ones cream the restroom squad
but I'll tell you what's in there the bird
conked someone on the head with it so
I describe this as the End As A Species
but just to hit on the idea of seriously
being crazy that's a hook and a half
sixteen sundays from sauerbraten
they say the sailors got over the snow
it grew all around their cabin like a brain
the aliens' bible is called Go Insane

United Artists: Explorations

Investigation of the complete run of United Artists magazine, Bernadette Mayer & Lewis Warsh's magazine that ran from the late 70s thru the early 80s--18 issues in all--has begun. Today I made a talley of how many times people appeared in the mag, & though they're just notes at this point, there are many interesting facets to the contributors & life of United Artists. For instance, Hannah Weiner only appears one time, in a late issue. Anne Waldman doesn't appear in the magazine herself until the last few issues, where she has 3 appearances in addition to a collaboration with Edwin Denby.

Not surprisingly, Bernadette & Lewis led the way in appearances, Mayer tallying 19 while Warsh totals 18 (there is one collaboration between the two in addition). The next most popular contributor is somewhat surprising--Clark Coolidge. Perhaps it's the MA connection, as that was where the magazine was located, & Clark as well at the time. Nevertheless, he appears 13 times. The first six issues all feature consecutive appearances from Coolidge all from the same work, Weathers, also referred to as "the long prose", which is said to number something like 1000 pages, & remains unpublished.

Next is less surprising: Alice Notley & Ted Berrigan. My count for Notley is at 10 while Berrigan appeared 9 times as an individual; Berrigan also had a collaboration with Tom Clark & another with Allen Ginsberg. Also, there is a neer total paucity of L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets: excluding Coolidge, who was as much a precursor to as he was a participant in the movement, & who inhabited neither SF nor NYC, there are only two appearances by Langpos, Ted Greenwald in a later issue preceeded by Barret Watten nearer to the beginning of the mag's run, in a collaboration with Bill Berkson (Berkson appears 7 times individually).

There are also some appearances by notable prose writers of the time, including Russell Banks & Paul Metcalf, who were each given substantial room in the magazine--the former appearing 6 times, the latter, 3. I know Metcalf & Coolidge exchanged letters in the early part of Clark's career (if not continually), & that they lived in the same area, so perhaps that was Metcalf's connection to the magazine. Or, perhaps he was known enough on his own, & didn't need an in. I don't know enough about Russell Banks to comment on his inclusion, but it is reminiscent of Bernadette's work with Vito Acconci in 0 To 9, which they ran before United Artists had its run. 0 To 9 featured more than a fair amount of prose within its pages, with particular attention to various Native songs & myths, work that is not unlike, say, Amos Tutuola.

Also warranting attention are the unknown names &/or the names that appear only once--Susan Keith Noel, Reed Bye, John Koethe, Gary Lenhart, Helena Hughes (who actually has another appearance, a collab with James Schuyler, in the same issue).

2 New Friends

Today, some new friends made it home for the very first time. First, we have Ron Silliman's Sitting Up, Standing, Taking Steps, which was published as Tuumba 17 in 1978. This addition brings my Tuumba total to a staggering 47 out of 50; lacking are Silliman's other title, ABC, along with the very first two issues, Hejinian's A Thought Is The Bride Of What Thinking & Susan Howe's The Western Borders.

Clark Coolidge & Larry Fagin's On The Pumice Of Morons also found its way home. Pumice was put out by The Figures in 1993, in an edition of 300. This copy is signed by both authors to Bernadette Mayer. Some interesting information follows the collaboration:

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Larry Fagin & Clark Coolidge have written such stories as Whatever Became of Agnes Mason?, The Governor, Third Down and God To Go, and I Navigated a Donut Across Twelve Miles of Colombian Coffee.
Their other works include Great White Coast Jazz Suicides, Living Marimbas, Tonto Lavoris, and The Atmosphere of the Other Guy.

I'm not sure if any of these works have appeared anywhere--there must be a fairly good chance that some of it is in some mimeo mags from the 70s--but it certainly seems like there is a fair amount of Coolidge/Fagin work out there, perhaps enough to fill an entire book, which is an interesting idea.

New Arrivals: July

Today, many interesting items arrived in the mail. Included are some recent Coolidge items, my interest in collecting Clark's books renewed by my recent acquisitions. Also a very nifty bibliography of Joyce. When the bibliography alone is in the triple-digits pricewise, you know you are on to something. Also: two different four-item sets, along with random various items.


Suite V Clark Coolidge, Adventures in Poetry, 1973 [signed; one of 200 copies]
A Geology Clark Coolidge, Potes & Poets, 1981 [signed; one of 300 copies]
for kurt cobain Clark Coolidge, The Figures, 1995 [one of 250 copies]
A Reading 1-7 Beverly Dahlen, Momo's Press, 1985 [copy W of 26 signed lettered copies]
A Bibliography of James Joyce John J. Slocum & Herbert Cahoon, Yale UP, 1953
The Good House Rod Smith, Spectacular Books, 2001 [signed]


items from the book thug:

Apostrophe Bill Kennedy & Darren Wershler-Henry, ECW Press
the tapeworm foundry Darren Wershler-Henry, Anansi, 2000
Thimking of You Dan Farrell, Tsunami Editions, 1994
Open Letter ed Lori Emerson & Barbara Cole, 12th Series Number 7: Fall 2005 ["Kenneth Goldsmith and Conceptual Poetics"]
The Etc BBQ Gustave Morin, Book Thug, 2006
Air Pressure David Fujino, Book Thug, 2006

including four handsewn books from housepress:

[READING] Rob Fitterman, housepress, 2002 [#36/60]
Ten Out of Ten or Why Poetry Criticism Sucks in 2003 Darren Wershler-Henry, housepress, 2003 [1 of 50 copies]
The Apostrophe Engine Darren Wershley-Henry, housepress, 2002 [#11/60]
Poem Formerly Known As "Terrorism" Brian Kim Stefans, housepress, [#42/70]

and finally, issues 1-4 of Fervent Valley, edited by Stephen Rodefer. Issue one is from the Spring of '72, issue two from Summer of '72, issue three the Spring of '73, & issue four, which has one of the best covers I've ever seen, from the Summer of '74. All of the covers are quite different, & the dimensions are only the same for issues 3 & 4, where the magazine shoots up to the full-size of the NY mags of the mimeograph revolution. Issue three has a neon pink cover; issue one, the smallest, has a bright yellow cover, & is perfectbound.

Massacre @ Troubadour Books

Superstar Steve Zultanski, whose incredible, affordable Homoem ranks among the best deals on the internet, alerted me several weeks back that Troubadour Books had just acquired a box of interesting things from Bernadette Mayer, including bunches of mimeo mags, rare books & a variety of Clark Coolidge items, even the possibility of unpublished manuscripts. I needed only half as much prodding to make the trip up to Western Mass as soon as I could. A few days after Steve's kind notification, I visited Troubadour & had perhaps my personal best single haul of all time.

[acquisitions associated with Bernadette:]

books:

The Desire of Mothers to Please Others in Letters Bernadette Mayer, Hard Press, 1994
The Fast Hannah Weiner, United Artists, 1992
Spoke Hannah Weiner, Sun & Moon Press, 1984
Little Books/Indians Hannah Weiner, Roof, 1980
Clairvoyant Journal Hannah Weiner, Angel Hair, 1978
The Soft Room Summer Brenner, The Figures, 1978 [inscribed to Bernadette]
Asylum Poems John Wieners, Angel Hair, 1969 [one of 300 copies, 2nd edition]

periodicals:

Best & Company ed Bill Berkson, 1969
Unnatural Acts II "published by ed friedman and bernadette mayer, general managers, at the st.marks poetry project. copyright unnatural acts nineteen seventy two"; "each issue of unnatural acts magazine will be a collaborative writing experiment. this issue was written on november 11,1972 by joe ceravolo, rosemary ceravolo, peggy decoursey, ed friedman, yancy gerber, john giorno, kevin kerr, bernadette mayer, ann powell, anne waldman & hannah weiner"
United Artists ed Bernadette Mayer & Lewis Warsh, Issues 1-18 [complete run], in vg+ condition, Nov '77 thru Dec '83

Coolidge-related items:

ING Clark Coolidge, Angel Hair, 1968 [2 copies]
Subject to a Film manuscript, dated 30IX75, 34 pages [facsimile]
Friction 7 ed Randy Roark, 1984
Stations #5 A Symposium on Clark Coolidge Edited by Ron Silliman, Winter 1978
Poetic Briefs 18 (The Clark Colidge Issue) eds Elizabeth Burns & Jefferson Hansen, December 1994
Tottel's 11 [Clark Coolidge, OFLENGTHS] ed Ron Silliman, Fall 1973
To Obtain the Value of the Cake Measure from Zero, a play by Tom Veitch & Clark Coolidge, Pants Press, 1970 [#112 of 150 copies]
BERNADETTE manuscript, dated 26VIII71, signed by Clark, 21 pages [unpublished]

[general acquisitions:]

HOT BIRD MFG Michael Gizzi issue, Vol II No 3 June, 1993, ed Ray DiPalma
DC Poetry Anthology 1999-2000 ed Allison Cobb & Jennifer Coleman
My Father's Golden Eye Tom Veitch, Adventures In Poetry 1970 [300 total copies, of which 25 are signed by the author. But instead of signing them himself, Veitch solicited his friends. Bob, the proprietor of Troubadour Books, has seen a copy signed by Tom Clark. This copy is signed by Ted Berrigan]
Malpertuis Jean Ray, @las Press, 1998
Stomping the Goyim Michael Disend, Green Integer [#56], 2002
Chamber Music James Joyce, Grossman [Cape Editions #48], 1971[?]
Saw Steve Katz, Knopf, 1972
Creamy & Delicious Steve Katz, Random House, 1970


The above is the complete bounty of Day 1, after which I was more exhausted from bookshopping than I've ever felt. Perhaps because I am a pervert, when the opportunity arose to visit Troubadour again a few days later, I went again. I emerged with a slightly lighter load, consisting of the following:

Bibliomania 1999-2000 Simon Morris & Helen Sacoor [related to Information as Material]
Conjunctions 8 ed Bradford Morrow, 1985
The Amorous Exploits of a Young Rakehell Guillaume Apollinaire, Book-of-the-Month Club, 1994
The Boundary of Blur Nick Piombino, Roof, 1993
A Conversation with David Antin David Antin & Charles Bernstein, Granary Books, 2002
Paterson (Book Five) William Carlos Williams, Nude Erections, 1958


True book-pervs are never done. Just this evening I saw another interesting item listed on ABEbooks by Troubadour, a dual-signed copy of Clark Coolidge & Larry Fagin's On the Pumice of Morons. With haste I added it to my basket & checked out, with hope completing this exhausting, glorious haul from Troubadour Books.