Esther Press

SAY AGAIN?

I don't know what it is about me that I can't let these things just pass on, but Ron Silliman's recent post about The Paris Review--a magazine that I really have no opinion of--caught me as fairly odd, or oddly self-damning. Ron called The Paris Review "a journal that has been sclerotic and unreadable for decades." Which is fine. Everyone has their opinion. It is ironic, however, that the only copy of The Paris Review that I own just happens to contain work by Ron Silliman. It's Issue 86, from 1982, which contained a sampler of works by those poets/writers involved with Language Poetry. A fiction friend (not a fictional friend) found a copy in an English Department hallway years ago and thought that I'd want it. I did.

THE PARIS REVIEW, ISSUE 86, 1982

POETRY
Arkawa , Untitled
Bruce Andrews, from Confidence Trick
Alan Bernheimer, Two Poems
Charles Bernstein, Four Poems
Tina Darragh, ludicrous stick
Alan Davies, Lies
Ray DiPalma, Hadrian's Lane
Lynne Dreyer, from Step Work
Madeline Gins, Untitled
Michael Gottlieb, from Social Realism
Ted Greenwald, Eight Poems
Robert Grenier, Six Poems
Carla Harryman, Statement . . .
Lyn Hejinian, Province
Susan Howe, from Defenestration of Prague
P. Inman, from backbite
Ken Irby, from Etudes
Douglas Messerli, Causes of the Crack Up: An Explication
Bob Perelman, Third and Townsend
Peter Seaton, Need from a Wound Would Do It
James Sherry, Epistle Apology
Ron Silliman, Blue
Diane Ward, Approximately
Barrett Watten, from One Half
Hannah Weiner, from Spoke

I mention this here because I remember an earlier episode at Ron's blog that raised my eyebrows. It was his mention of how Poetry magazine had pretty much been unreadable as well, save for a brief seven-year window in the late 1960s. Over the entire 96-year history of the magazine, only those seven years showed any promise, according to Ron. Again, this very well may be true. I have not read Poetry magazine, to be sure, outside of low moments of shameless mockery, but that seven year allowance (1962-1969) by Ron caught my attention. I remembered a rather interesting beginning to Ron's publication history, and so I looked for it again. If you look at Ron's page at EPC, in his list of published work, you'll notice a curious entry under the section heading "POEMS IN PERIODICALS (Partial Listing)":

1969

Poetry, Vol. 113, No. 4, January, Chicago, IL, “He Was A Visitor,” p. 255

The central repellent issue beneath the idea of Prop. 8 is that heterosexuals (the majority) decide on extending what they perceive as their own rights to homosexuals (the minority)--here, the right of marriage. What the photograph below, in the previous post, so neatly attacks is the notion that marriage is actually a heterosexual right. The sign attacks the very premise of the argument, which is what makes it so exacting. This is the weak spot of the entire proposition and, to me, where a good amount of the focus needs to be.

The other, underlying issue here is the gall of actually having a vote with heterosexuals adopting the nonsensical pose of Bestow-er of Rights, believing they are actually in the position of being the grantor of rights, because they are simply the majority. They are not the grantor of rights--their supposed rights were just default rights, nothing more. This irritating, implicit pose needs to be exposed and upset on its head.

Finally, there is the issue with the Mormon Church. Any societal changes always become problems for theistic organizations (though they're just human-made, anyway). The conflict is always the same, no matter what the denomination: there is a Book of Knowledge, a Book of Wisdom, and in it are the Truths set down as the Reality of Existence. In fact, the Truths, whatever they are, are Reality. It is important to create a sense of Solidity, of Foundation, of a Code of Ethics, in order for the Theism to explain itself, its mission, and that's what these Truths do. However, as we see all the time, this belief in intransigent truth doesn't work real well when things change (which happens all the heraclitean time!). So, the Theistic entity--here the Mormon Church--must swerve to make its Boundless Truths jibe with Reality. In this case, as in all modern societal changes, they don't jibe. What happens next is textbook defensiveness of position--because the new reality challenges one of the very cornerstones of the religion. And, because we know that these are Eternal Truths sent by a messenger God (even though we know they are not, let's just play along), new human-made truths--here, homosexuals' right to marry--are in conflict with the Word of God. It's all Wizard of Oz puffed-up stuff, with a false premise--saying that an infallible God said this, when it was a Man (gender specific) who said it, and they know it, but don't want you to know it. So, this lie, this lie that any used car salesman would be embarrassed by, creates a false teeter-totter of Authority between the Timeless Word of God and the Fickle Mind of Man. Man's word, or Woman's word, can not be in any way thought of as being stronger, wiser than God's word, and so the dilemma arises for the Mormon Church, and what to do. They decided to spend $10-20 million advocating for their congregation, which is considerable in California, to vote Yes on Prop 8. The money won for them the illusion of the timeless truth of God. At least for a little while. But it will eventually fail, like any hypocrisy will, as long as it continues to be exposed.

RECEIVED:

The Customer Is Always Wrong--The Retail Chronicles, ed. by Jeff Martin, Soft Skull Press, Brooklyn, 2008.

Sidebrow 01, ed. by Jason Snyder et al, Sidebrow, San Francisco, 2008.

FINISHED READING:

Minus 148--First Winter Ascent of Mt. McKinley, Art Davidson, The Mountaineers, Seattle, 1969/2008 (11th printing).
--Ridiculous weather, winds. Holed up in igloos and ice caves for weeks. Green feet, drinking lukewarm ham soup from the same can they were forced to pee in, and other lovely things. Crevasses abound.

CURRENTLY READING:

The Black Swan, Thomas Mann, trans. by Willard R. Trask, University of California Press, Berkeley/Los Angeles, 1990.

WHAT I SHOULD BE READING:

Introduction to Modern Information Retrieval, 2nd edition, G. G. Chowdhury, Facet Publishing, London, 2004/2008 (reprinting).

Last night was a foregone conclusion for several weeks, maybe two months, but it was still shocking.

I am 39 years old, and the last eight years have filled me with incredible revulsion--that's a good percentage of my life to feel so much disgust with one's country and the creepy, insensitive quality of our leaders, and the brutal environment that that creepiness created.

Today, it feels like some monstrous tumor has been removed from one's body.

Basically, what I'm saying below is: Watch Virginia. If Obama wins Virginia, it's over. He'll be the president.