Hijinks of the Rreal: Roundup of the VVeek: Monday

One week ago today, Rob Fitterman read with Jen Bervin in a windowless Brooklyn artist's space. The reading was well hydrated, with choice Mexican brew, chilled white wine, lemonade & iced tea among the options. Yes, hydration is important.



The event was in celebration of the release of two books, Bervin's massively extravagant The Desert, along Fitterman's new trilogy from No Press featuring himself & Nayland Blake, a set of works sprung from the undry well of Ernest Hemingway: The Sun Also Also Rises, My Sun Also Rises, & Blake's Also Also Also Rises the Sun. Underpromoted & certainly not air-conditioned, the crowd nevertheless filled the room, & the readings were short but good.



Reading along with Rob were Nayland Blake & Steve Clay, publisher of Granary Books. They selected short concurrent chapters from each volume, & read each in succession--allowing the reader to elucidate, recall & compare the treatments given to each separate volume. From Rob, a distillation of Hemingway's text to the sentences beginning only with 'I' followed by a skewed autobiographical duplication. Steve read the Hemingway, Rob the Rob, & Nayland the Nayland--his third volume an especially minimal distillation encircling selected parts of speech--a hyperextension of Fitterman's original concept.

Having read the volumes in advance, tho I read them whole, one after another, instead of all three simultaneously, I noticed new structural commonalities beyond the more obvious ones, which made the reading quite pleasant, despite the obvious nuisance of the temperature.




Jen's reading was brief but just as striking. Chances are you are familiar with her Nets, minimal distillations of Shakespeare's Sonnets, since it is in it's fourth printing. Her new project, The Desert, is the application of a similar process, tho rendered on an infinitely larger scale--book & pricewise--Nets was $10, The Desert $4000.


Like her work in Nets, seen below, she does not simply use erasure as a technique to acquire new substance. Instead, she uses it to a voluminous extreme, which delivers incredibly minimal poems--only a handful of words per page. The immense casket of the remainder is always visible: in Nets, rather like a spider's web, in The Desert, more industrial & performative.

A pic of the affordable one:


A selected page of Nets:


Samples of The Desert are visible at the Granary site, linked above.

Fuck You, New Post

No, not you, loyal reader, but the person you were standing next to at, like, 4.15 this afternoon. Today, after catching a few Chelsea gallery spots with Dirk Rowntree & Rob Fitterman, Dirk & I visited Printed Matter. Of course, I've had no difficulties spending hundreds of buxx there in the past, but my energies were almost always drawn toward the great old stock type shit they have--such as early Kathy Acker pamphlets when she was going by The Black Tarantula, or various Something Else Press sundries. It's great to visit such a store with someone like Dirk, as thorough, informed, & aware as anyone, ever. The journal Dot Dot Dot had come up in discussion earlier, & we were lucky enough to be able to dig out numbers 8, 12, & 13, which I succeeded in purchasing. Other finds include Robert Ashley's Perfect Lives, a nice large HC feel-good acquisition, since I recently saw him w/ Kenny Goldsmith @ Poetry Project but left w/ no swag--my mind was on giant otters, as they say. Perhaps the best blurb ever accompanies this one: "What about the Bible? And the Koran? It doesn't matter: We have Perfect Lives," from John Cage. Another pickup was the well-known UDP release of Aram Saroyan's Complete Minimal Poems, a book that's been out for a while & speaks for itself. Add to this rich feast I See/You Mean, a novel by Lucy R Lippard, an affordable, purple thing described thus: "I See/You Mean is an experimental novel about mirrors, maps, relationships, about the ocean, elusive success & possible happiness. Through a collage of verbal photgraphs, overhead dialogue, sexual encounters, found material & self-identification devices (astrology, the I Ching, palmistry, Tarot), it charts from past to future the changing currents between two women & two men--a writer, a model/stockbroker/maybe dictator, a photographer, & an actor." Written in 1970.

Following this comes two titles from Lawrence Weiner: NYC MANHOLE COVERS PUBLIC ART FUND IN COLLABORATION WITH CON EDISON & ROMAN STONE, a small beautiful chaplet that deserves it's own separate post, so I won't even get into it here sortof thing, followed by an entry from the Between Artists series released by A.R.T. Press, this one a convo between Weiner & Liam Gillick. The treasure of the experience is a signed copy of the large exceptional The Collections of Barbara Bloom, from ICP*/STEIDL.



This is where seduction begins. It's fucked up how cool this book is, just flipping through it for the first time. There is included a centerfold, though even better (bigger) than the Playboy variety--4 pages instead of 3, yet when it's folded in other works are (re)aligned & appreciable. This is the one to get, if you get any, from the Printed Matter store this February. At $65, it is still a steal. Reading on the PM website I see that there is an exhibition of her work currently--I actually didn't notice this, as the store was rather packed, but I'm excited enough about the prospect of specialized Bloomstuff that I'll probably go back.

So then I go to pay for all this & I see a gleaming set of drumsticks with Considering utility - JMF018 www.jarrodfowler.com impressed upon them, within the glass case at the checkout, which of course I have to buy. It's the same when I see a rare or soon-to-be-rare book by a friend that I already have a copy or two of, that I just have to get, knowing full well I'm keeping someone, perhaps uninitiated, from the potential discovery. That struck this time, & now the sticks are mine.

This was all before Rob's reading, which was among several at the Mathew Marks Gallery. Rob's first work was of a very plodding pace, one word spoken at a time with several seconds, usually two or three, in between. This set us up for his upbeat poet/rock ballad configurations, which he sung to riotous laughter & on more than one occasion, intermediate applause--you know if you get claps during, you're doing well, or at least people are having fun. The event, unfortunately swagless, was quite well-attended, pointing to the benefit of hosting an evening in such a place, tho the sound was quite shit. Afterwards, Rob & Kim bought me a steak, & asked about my life: ways into my heart. Coco was in attendance as well, representing fully. At one point, during the reading, Kim asked me very neutrally if I wore mascara.


*wicked version

Robbin' Mel

I finally caught a ride on this season's Segue train with the Mel Nichols/Rob Fitterman reading yesterday afternoon. Mel was a very nice surprise, since I was only slightly aware of her work, which is rich & excellent & funny (naughty). She had a chapbook put out by Edge a couple years ago, Day Poems, the cover of which resembles the crossroads of the cosmos rendered as poo-streaked pubes. But to be totally serious, Mel rocked. [Then Rob rocked, reading from the forthcoming Sprawl.] Day Poems was not available for purchase, but a new, even better thing was, The Beginning of Beauty, Part I: hottest new ringtones, mnichol6. This thing is so great I had to buy 3 copies. First of all, it is limited to 150 copies. Then, there are many various photo covers to choose from. There were a few of the same, but at least 8 or 10 different ones, perhaps more. The fun is far from over: each copy has a piece of trash, such as a gum wrapper, squished into a transparant envelope which is bound into the back matter, & a handwritten title-label of the photograph also laid/bound in. One is "It's a Small World After All"--the cover photo is of a small balled up blue piece of paper, maybe tape, maybe dense with paint...maybe the cover photo corresponds to the unique trash selection in the back?. The only problem, though it is not entirely negative, is that the transparant material which encases the book is quite susceptible to finger prints & hand damage.

Rob read from Sprawl, which is the first time I'd heard exclusively from this forthcoming text, though some bits had been included in his momentous MOMA reading from earlier in the year. He had previously described Sprawl as maybe being part of the Metropolis series & maybe not, but word is that it is, in my opinion rightfully so, as it corresponds to & extends that series nicely. There were no new Fitterman book items for sale, though I think I dreamed of a strange chapbook last night, which I can't recall the name of. There were, though, ultra glitzy photos on slideshow behind Rob as he read, accompanied with full soundtrack, replete with occasional & repeated artificial applause.

Afterwards there was a gathering at James Sherry's nearby pad, & good fun was had by all. I had a nice little convo with James about my forthcoming publishing efforts, hung out with new friend Kareem Estefan, & chatted several times with Dirk Rowntree about design prospects. I shook hands with Gary Sullivan, & met Rodrigo Toscano & Laura Elrick. Mel Nichols signed each copy of her magnificent book, I met Rod Smith & told him about attacking Bridge Street, & Julie Patton told me I shouldn't really go with Kenny Goldsmith's name for my press, but should go with something more personal. A digital, Mac Low-esque search using the old name as the seed returned Packed Rat--which could be the answer after all. But aren't I supposed to just know? Isn't it supposed to be love at first sight? I bought a bag of Brach's Mellowcreme Pumpkins, along with a toothbrush, toothpaste & mouthwash earlier. My hotel room smells like popcorn, but there isn't any.

Triune, Troika, Ternion

President's Choice #1 has landed. Featuring new work from Marie Buck, Craig Dworkin, Rob Fitterman, Rodrigo Toscano, Bhanu Kapil, Laura Elrick, & Paper Rad. Edited by Steven Zultanski. One of the great features of the magazine is that ample space is given to all contributors, sometimes up to 10 pages of work, in the case of Ms Buck. Marie's poems here range from somewhat controlled pieces (from a work called Whole Foods) such as "Cheese," "Authenticity," & "The Seaweed That Thickens" to some really exciting, all-over-the-page works like "Starlet Bang" & "19 I Just Pissed Out Disaster". This last one is especially great, ending with a stanza-sea of celeb names ("Jen's Katie Tom Corey Abdul Holmes Jennifer Paula Aniston...") followed by another of stray numbers & pieces of punctuation ("32 - 32 -- 36 ! 38 ? 40 ! -- ! ://. :-/;....").

Toscano's first work, "Great Awakening", is probably my favorite of his, since it so reminds me of the most convoluted portions of Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, replete with cop-on-civilian tongue-&-brain twisters.

A: Average poetry readings reveal much.

B: I Improve...when the content is based on some other kind of--contract.

A: Respect for The Lord! Respect for Cable Coppersmooth, Cinnamon Face,
and all verifiable accomplishments, in tow.

B: The local is pushed out. Amen?

A: Amen! This re-flavoring of certain...distinctions. Other bitterness's applied lightly to the rippled surface. Property mud bars for the whole family!

B: Audit the flow--incoming. Admit the lord. You're were about to This Very
Moaning In Private Seems Necessary. What's the immediate effect?

A: Piety, double-digit snide, "bilk bilk".

B: What's the immediat goal?

A: Light up the mall.

B: And the lonely shark around the cage?

A: Amen. The people are--poking back--at it.

Craig Dworkin turns things even more conceptual, entering perhaps into Goldsmith territory. His first piece, "Noun Compound Roman Numeral period" begins "In the sentence 'Write the book that pleases you best,' what is the subject of 'pleases?' Perhaps you may ask the question in the usual way, 'What pleases?' Answer, 'the book.' But this is not right. marks of quotation Noun marks of quotation present tense third person singular appositive verb definite article Noun genitive pronoun marks of quotation noun period marks of quotation" & happily continues thus. Laura Elrick's "Diagram (III)" is perhaps the best single work in the issue, clocking in at 6 pages. It begins:

At a dinner party or forum I rip hair out of my leg with a special machine.
At a dinner party (or forum) I rip hair out of my leg with a special machine.
At a dinner party or forum I - RIP - IT - OUT with a special machine.
At reception: opening their suits a dress collapsing shoes turn up at odds, strange.
And walking says it would be drinks and eats its head of their legs with a
Special machine.

It is a work that is simultaneously elusive & highly visible, a formula that makes for enthralling reading.

Next comes Bhanu Kapil, someone I'm entirely unfamiliar with. Bhanu's work (from "Humanimal") features numbered paragraphs, some of which have a slightly larger font size. For some reason I find the work almost indescribable, though there are elements of magic, mystery, narrative & a folkloric sense throughout. I cannot get past how pleasing the syntax of this phrase, near the beginning of the work, is to me: "When it started to rain, the banyan tree outside the girl's room, where she lay in a profound coma, shook."

Next comes Paper Rad. Though I had known of their visual work prior, I wasn't aware that they also worked in text. The work is full of jokes & eschews capitals. All but one of the works features a clash in the title, such as "DJ Cyber Knife vs Cool Cafe" or "Jim Morrison vs Poetry," which commences

god is like love, love is like god
what is this? AARP card?
don't say a word
that's what she said
who said that?
beyonce?

The last feature in the magazine belongs to Robert Fitterman. Here we get two works from the upcoming Sprawl: "Big Box (Category Killer)" & "BISQUICKMARK, an afterward." Fitterman is firing on all cylinders here, the first work featuring a straightforward form of prose-stanza-blocks that Rob is able to make surprising despite their simplicty of form. The work is similar to some of his Metropolis series, focusing on combinations of corporate language, tv language, family language, advertising language. His 2nd & the final piece in the magazine quilts the present & history of Bisquick (originally intended for making biscuits very quickly) with the history/legend of Otto von Bismarck, that Prussia/Germany dude, to delightful effect.

The issue itself is immaculately put together. There is, correctly, no contributor's notes. There are few adornments, next to no info on the title pages, thus the look & contents are allowed to speak for themselves. There is, in the end, only one flaw, which is that the cover paper is of such quality that it retains your grubby fingerprints, should you, like me, take your reading in a more interactive manner: meals, subways, journeys.

Thus the threesome is consummated: Model Homes, The Physical Poets, President's Choice.

NYArtBookFair

Yesterday (Friday) I took in the first day of this year's NYArtBookFair with pal Lawrence Giffin. The thing is like a high-end, poopless AWP. The rate of interesting people per square foot is also significantly higher than that of AWP (which is in turn way higher than any ol' place). I ran into friend Thomas Evans & chatted nicely while looking at a one-of-a-kind Ian Hamilton Finlay piece. Thomas mentioned that he had heard about a long lost (or something like that) Clark Coolidge piece that featured pages rolled up inside of a shoe. At the Information as Material booth, I met both Nick Thurston & Jarrod Fowler, picking up Thurston's lastest, Historia Abscondita, a treatment of a certain portion of Nietzsche's The Gay Science. Jarrod alerted me that there may be a possible reprint on the way to get the cover colors just right, which may make the version I scooped rare in the future, which tickles me all over. At another table I scored Partially Built Woodshed, which is an attractive, smallish volume on Robert Smithson printed on blue, uncut pages. The fetching operator of the Semiotext(e)/Autonomedia booth had to be told twice that I was a pushover & would buy anything recommended me. I emerged with a Science Fiction anthology with a mechanical peepee flipbook built in to the lower edges of each page, a work from the Midnight Notes Collective entitled Midnight Oil: Work, Energy, War 1973-1992, Richard Kempton's Provo: Amsterdam's Anarchist Revolt, along with the Critical Art Ensemble's Flesh Machine: Cyborgs, Designer Babies, and New Eugenic Consciousness & finally Pure War from Virilio & Lotringer.


Other finds include Jeremy Shaw's DMT art/experiment/experience book-o'-the-substance courtesy of the Presentation House Gallery & Projectile Publishing. The book is all black & (mostly) white & I can already see the future fingersmudgeprints that will decorate it's covers & pages. Rounding out the acquisitions are Scott McCarney's Index to The Encyclopedia, a handsome red-leathery, gold-stampy thing from Smart Books, & a small colorful duct-tape-bound volume State of the Union also by McCarney. The edition of 100 accompanies anagrams of its title along with close-up still images of the speaker, from the 2003 address.



After the fair promptly ended at 7 (there were suited men with walkie talkies telling us to scram) Lawrence & I accompanied Jarrod, Nick, Rob Fitterman & new friends Karriem & Ammiel (sorry, no last names for now) for Korean dindin & then we were joined by Kenny Goldsmith for drinks at a posh place called Keens Chophouse. Rob told us that it was at Keens where Abe Lincoln hung out a day or two before he caught a bad one.

ROUNDUP: St Marx [Books], Rob F, Printed Matter, The Streets

Many bokes, many places.

From St Marx Books, early last week:

How to Proceed In the Arts Gary Sullivan, Faux Press, 2001
Fuck You-Aloha-I Love You Juliana Spahr, Wesleyan, 2001
Un Poco Low Coup Amiri Baraka, Ishmael Reed Publishing Co, 2004
Anti Kody Vaclav Havel, [publisher unknown], 1997[?][bilingual text in Czech & Chinese]
Ripple Effect Elaine Equi, Coffee House, 2007 [signed]
Selections Miyazawa Kenji, U of California P, 2007 [poets for the millennium #5]
Somebody Blew Up America Amiri Baraka, House of Nehesi, 2003
things of each possible relation hashing against one another, Juliana Spahr, Palm Press, 2003
Infinite Recursor of The Bride of DJ Spinoza Ostashevsky & Timerman, Studioradia & UDP, 2005
Conjunctions 48: Faces of Desire, Bard, 2007
The Way It Wasn't James Laughlin, Nude Erections, 2006[*purchased elsewhere]

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Books found on the Brooklyn streets include

Joyce's Dubliners, de Tocqueville's Democracy in America & The Old Regime & The French Revolution, The Vintage Mencken, Gass' In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, a book of Chomsky interviews Keeping the Rabble In Line, Kierkegaard's Attack Upon Christendom, Jules Michelet's Satanism & Witchcraft, Brains Machines & Mathematics by Michael A Arbib, & an odd journal/catalog of computer[?]art pieces Conceptual Illustration [1989]. Thank you.

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From Alabaster Books: Greg strikes again!

A Little Gold Book Jordan Davis, Golden Books, 1995 [signed, to Greg]
More Winnowed Fragments Simon Pettet, Talisman House, 2005 [signed, to Greg]
Sooner Margaret Christakos, Coach House Books, 2005
Midwinter Day Bernadette Mayer, Turtle Island Foundation, 1982
Yann Andrea Steiner Marguerite Duras, Archipelago, 2006

There were several other [at least 4] books in stock signed by Greg. I'm not sure who this Greg is, but his loss is my gain, I guess.

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Fun Gifts from Rob F.

One day last week, I think Tuesday, Marie Buck & I visited Rob Fitterman. He gave me several of his own books that I lacked copies of, along with turning the two of us loose on a pile of duplicate copies of other things he had. I emerged with the following loot:

1-800-FLOWERS Robert Fitterman, porci con le ali, 2005 [cutest book]
Among the Cynics Robert Fitterman, Singing Horse Press, 1989
Metropolis 16-20 Robert Fitterman, Edge, 1998
Metropolis 4-12 Robert Fitterman, Potes & Poets, 1994 [limited to 30 signed copies, #19]
Torque #5 & Object #8, eds Fitterman & Fodaski, 1998
The Inveterate Life Jessica Grim, O Books, 1990
No. 111 2.7.93-10.20.96 Kenneth Goldsmith, The Figures, 1997
Free Space Comix Brian Kim Stefans, Roof, 1998
Kildare Stacy Doris, Roof, 1994
Sun Rock Man Cid Corman, Nude Erections, 1970
Black Watch Steven Hall, Intermezzo, 1990
April Galleons John Ashbery, Penguin, 1988
Sadly William Fuller, Flood Editions, 2003
Human Ceiling Diane Ward, Roof, 2005
Errata 5uite Joan Retallack, Edge, 1993

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Rob, among his other kindnesses (such as introducing me to his dog Walter, & to Dirk Rowntree @ the neo Benshi event @ St Marx), also directed us to Printed Matter, a high-end bookstore I'd never visited before. There I acquired:

Re-Writing Freud Simon Morris, Information as Material, 2005
Reading The Remove of Literature Nick Thurston, Information as Material, 2006
Don Quixote Gareth Long, [no publisher], 2006 [#22/100 signed copies]
Guy Debord and the Situationist International ed Tom McDonough, MIT, 2004
Bio-Music Manford L Eaton, Something Else Press, 1973
There's a little ambiguity over there among the bluebells Ruth Krauss, Something Else Press, 1968
I've Left: a manifesto and a testament of science & art Bern Porter, Something Else Press, 1971
The Book of Hours and Constellations Eugen Gomringer, Something Else Press, 1968

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* :)