Esther Press

Gaston Chaissac

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Here's the link to the pieces in the new Fascicle.

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I will be reading with Suzanne Stein at Pegasus Books in Berkeley on Saturday, June 2nd, at 8 p.m.

FOR POLITICALLY-INCORRECT FLARF




As the shockable corpse that is flarf fidgets sporadically from the ongoing assault of its deriders and writers, only one thing, to me, is actually certain, that much of the currently written flarfworks do not go far enough in their purposeful "wrongness"—for a "wrongness" that is on purpose is certainly not really "wrong," but a playful, weakened winking one, which luxuriates in its statically bad phrasings, but doesn’t press through to a more serious, more powerful end. A stronger form of flarf, in my view, would be more "racist," more "sexist," more "ageist," more crude, more vulgar, more inappropriate. It would remove the writer of his/her safe haven where he/she winks and accepts no real responsibility for what he/she says, because he’s/she’s winking. By becoming a more dedicated, politically incorrect flarfist, it does a few things—it highlights the actual emptiness of insults and slurs and kills their conditioned stings by their overuse, or by their juxtapositions with endlessly available nonsense. People should not be running in fear of words, running to ban words, pushing them out of sight and yet to live in conditioned fear of them. People should be bombarded with them until they mean what they actually mean: nothing. Flarf should not shrink in the fear-based morality of the politically-correct, but increase the ugliness in order to kill it. When flarf is actively pressing to break through to the other side of the cartoon gutters of Google-Reality, to an artform beyond simply mocking, to one that relates back to a world when the computers are off, then it creates a depth, a deeper morality, with works that will sing above the anxious craziness of politically correct art, which has never been strong art, only scared art. For swear words, racial slurs, sexist jabs, are the empty husks of illiterate emotions—anger, mostly. These emotions are what need to be released, addressed, not the masks they hide under. The fuck you is a mask. The cunt is a mask. The kike is a mask. The nigger is a mask. All masks uttered out of ignorant anger. Because these masks most often erupt out of anger, they are completely interchangeable, revealing their true emptiness each and every time. Simply banning words and expressions and hoping people will not feel things because of them is severely limited thinking. It’s actually the best way to create more trauma, more fear, more drama.

If one thinks one's poems are anti-capitalist, a hoped-for terror to the State, etc., they're almost always not. Only when the State starts following you around, closes your printer's offices, uses intimidation of various sorts, is your poetry being seen by the State as a problem to the State's continual functioning. If it isn't, it isn't. Believing that one's general resorting of language and syntax by various now conventional means is a private act of overthrowing capitalism's issuance into language is one of the worst trips of delusion one can take.

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I had a journalist-friend who was really at the end of his rope with regard to his job, etc. One man's death he termed "a police-assisted suicide," which got him tailed by the local cops for a few weeks, as a show of solidarity, power, and intimidation. A few years later, at a press conference, he officially announced his own Bulldog as a candidate for Governor of Wisconsin. A much better choice than Tommy Thompson.

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Speaking of dogs, here are our two:

From an AP article:


"And you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to call the president and tell him I disapprove of what the vice president said," Pelosi said. "It has no place in our debate." Bush had previously urged her to call him when a member of his administration stepped over the line by questioning Democrats' patriotism, she said.

Later, Pelosi said she had tried to reach the president but was only able to get through to White House chief of staff Josh Bolten.


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It's amazing to me that a Speaker of the House can be so blind as to the president's motives. Doesn't she see how absolutely weak this makes her sound? That she goes crying to Papa Bush when she gets her feelings hurt? It's pathetic. Why would she even put herself in the position of doing this? Bush and his staff have to be laughing.

From a footnote by the editor John Bakeless to a journal entry by Clark (October 1, 1804):

*The Rees or Rickarees were the Arikaras. Indian pronunciations differed, and so did white men's ability to imitate their words. Some white men did not hear the initial "A" or it was not pronounced clearly. Hence the variation in the white men's names for various tribes. Thus the Mahas, Omahas, and Mahars were all one tribe; some white men did not hear the initial "O." Clark, being a Virginian, obviously did not sound his "r"; hence he usually wrote "Mahar"--and even "squar" (squaw). What happened is clear enough, but in the journals it can be rather confusing.

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I've long been interested in mishearing as a means to report facts, that the thing is never really being described, but it's agreed upon nonetheless. The best part of the communication of "facts" occurs when people become absolutely convinced of the truthfulness of what they're saying.

Seemingly spiderwebs, but never a web, but the appearance of one. There is no real connection, the spider's a figment.

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I have meant to say for some time now that there is actually a Responses area to these posts. The little pound sign below the post is where it's at. If you click on that, it'll bring up the response box. Someone named Blue Hole just commented, and I remembered I should mention this finally.

From the Journals of Lewis and Clark, one finds out that potatoes were called "ground apples"--might apples then be called "air potatoes."

Amazed at the amount of animals all around. Here is Clark's account from September 9, 1804:


Set out at sunrise, and proceeded on past the head of the island, on which we camped. Passed three sand and willow islands. The sand bars so numerous, it is not worth mentioning them. The river shoal or shallow. Wind S.E. Came to and camped on a sand bar on the L.S. [larboard side/port side of the boat]. Captain Lewis went out to kill a buffalo. I walked on shore all this evening with a view to kill a goat or some prairie dogs. In the evening after the boat landed, I directed my servant, York, with me, to kill a buffalo near the boat, from a number then scattered in the plains. I saw at one view, near the river, at least 500 buffalo. Those animals have been in view all day, feeding in the plains on the L.S. Every copse of timber appears to have elk or deer. D. killed 3 deer, I killed a buffalo, York 2, R. Fields one.

From The Journals of Lewis and Clark, edited & w/ intro by John Bakeless (of Elbowroom Farm (?), Great Hill, Seymour, Conneticut--I'm surprised he didn't name the room in the Farm as well--

[Clark]


June 17th, 1804

George Druilliard, our hunter, and one man came in with two deer and a bear, also a young horse they had found in the prairie. This horse had been in the prairie a long time and is fat. I suppose he has been left by some war party against the Osages. The party is much afflicted with boils, and several have the dysentery.

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Speaking of dysentery, Is anyone concerned about the state of movie-making in Hollywood? More comicbook movies coming out this summer, Stiller and Cruise as The Hardy Boys? What did Gore Vidal once say about Americans? Oh, yes, here it is, from his blurb to One Hundred Dollar Misunderstanding--a fine book, by the way: "I hope this book will be read by every adolescent in the country, which is most of the population."

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Preparing for a wedding is nearly annoying enough to call off the wedding. "You must have a preference! What do you mean you don't care? Everyone cares."

A spokesperson for the 51st state of America, Iraq, is trying desperately to put/connect Muqtada al-Sadr in/with Iran now, though his own supporters deny it. Of course, as always is the case in these AP articles, no where does it explain, offer context, to why Al-Sadr would consider going to Iran for support, etc. One explanation I'd offer is how the U.S. was trying to kill him just a couple of months ago. But it's always easier to paint foreigners, especially non-white foreigners, as "mad," "evil incarnate," "unreasonable," and so on, than to offer a quite reasonable explanation.

We're now entering a new stage of the Iraq War called Building The Case For War With Iran. Anything terrible in the world will now be traced back to originating in Iran. For legitimatization of entering into war, see the Gulf of Tonkin incident, see the ghostly mobile transport units of WMDs in Iraq, or simply see "American interests," which is gov-code for "money".

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And now, our orange tree:

Someone--Putin--finally speaks out with appropriate candor on the current uncontrolled use of U.S. military. I really enjoyed the U.S.'s response, couched as always in the manipulative rhetoric of civility. Note how the aggressiveness is Putin's (has Putin killed 56,000 Iraqi civilians?), note the shaming word "disappointed" (has Putin engaged in expanding, illegal wars, broken continual international laws?), as if the Russian was being a child, unreasonable. The adoption of this defensive, parental, lingual posturing is just another element of the edifice of U.S. imperialism.

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Watched season two of the British version of The Office. It really digs in deeply in season two, with less gauze between the awful anguish beneath the jobs and the desperate humor at the office itself.

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Some poems from my post-Trilce manuscript Claims of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles will be appearing in the upcoming issue of Fascicle. Other pieces from Claims... have appeared in Mississippi Review, Sidebrow, 6x6, and Tarpaulin Sky.

I watched Ten last night, the one by Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. He's simply one of the great directors of our time. I love his way with letting silences creep in and recede. "The human condition" achieves an uncheap poignancy at these moments that I've never really seen filmed before. (It's different than the kind seen in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy.) It's a consistent element in his A Taste of Cherry as well.

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Also watched Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Well, it's everything that everyone has said. An unbelievable explanation of what humans have done to the planet, what will continue to happen on Earth if changes aren't made immediately--not five or ten years from now. The graphs that show weather and population through history make an incredible case, as well as the slides from around the world, which clearly show the drying of lakes and rivers, the receding snowlines on mountains that were covered just thirty years ago, why we're seeing so much flooding around the world, why the hottest years on record have happened in the last ten years. This documentary should be shown in classrooms and boardrooms across the globe--it is that important. The United States and European countres are causing most of the problem, but coal burning in China is causing significant problems as well. In the end, Gore's lifelong interest in the health of the world comes across so powerfully. I can only imagine what a decent man like him would have done as our president.

Received from Suzanne Stein, from her press Taxt, the chapbook Autoimmunity by Eleni Stecopoulos. Really a very nice job in the poetry and the presentation. A swirling, echoaic poetry--smart, earnest without showing too much earnestness, humorous, lyrical, justifiably angry.

Stay silent but think to yourself
we are immune to invasion
Stay silent but think to yourself
help is on the way
When time is suspended we can win Christian battles
When romance is insatiable elections may be held

Ehren Watada...someone Democratic senators and representatives might consult on how to construct a backbone. As for his possible prison sentence, let's just think about that for one second. He might be sent to jail because he doesn't want to kill people. Let's stop calling it fighting, okay? It's killing. This is how our country has been erected and maintained, with laws installed to stop people who don't want to kill.

The embedded, insane psychology of the United States is perfectly on display here.

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Found a used copy of Haunani-Kay Trask's first book of poetry, Light In The Crevice Never Seen. Very good writing, informative political, familial, and social history of Hawai'i, focusing on--you guessed it--more of the United States' imperialistic ways.

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Watched the original British version of The Office on Saturday. Much more trenchant humor, and not overplayed as much as the U.S. show.

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Mr. M. has said he will be sending me his extra copy of Jerome Charyn's The Tar Baby. Looking forward to it.

Watched yet another buddy road picture--Transamerica. True, the buddies are odd. A pre-op dad and his sudden son. We had to fastforward through much of the grueling cheap humor (easy, dopey stuff you'd hear in supermarkets) to the parts with the parents, which finally caused some uplift, however faint. The mother of Bree steals the show, though there's really not much to steal. Like stealing stale bread.

Also watched Word Wars...a documentary about Scrabble enthusiasts preparing for the Scrabble championship in San Diego. Some wonderfully wacky insights from beautiful oddballs. Very nicely done.

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Meanwhile, as a believer in morphic resonance, I call upon all people of the world to utter the following into the universe: "US out of Iraq NOW". You can whisper it, if you'd like. The key is to verbalize it, get it out into the universe, where it will mingle and resonate with all the others. This is a small way to create change. It's not wacky. It's not idiotic. It works.