It is (I find it) very difficult to write without stopping to think
going back
revising
and returning to rewrite what was written before
so this is something of an experiment to see what the experience is like on the screen through a laptop
this interests me because of performance artists (are they poets? I think they are) of people like David Antin, Kenneth Goldsmith, others who I cannot remember right now without using Google
who combine a sense of situationism with a writerly practice
even in emails I feel the need to look over, revise
and eventually send after I have checked over at least once
but sometimes errors are telling - or perhaps
errors in speech or realtime typing
are not errors at all
what interests me about Antin is how, often, the talking becomes its own subject
when I sit down and force myself to write to my blog, I know
that I have to write SOMETHING
but I don't know what to write necessarily
and this in itself is interesting to me
because I have to think about writing itself and I have to stand back and think
about the conventions of writing which I feel obliged to fulfill
such as subject matter, and grammar and spelling which I am going to leave

and I think about anyone who might read this
which no-one possibly might
and the context in which I wrote this
which is an overly hot coffee shop in between a discussion on corporate poaching
and an already ample lady eating a cupcake
and everything I am writing is slightly flavoured with the fact that the wall immediately behind me is not only warm to the touch but emitting heat

Antin's talks are interesting because they are generated from basic criteria
and research
and they stem from there
they expand depending on a train of thought, perhaps the environment
but they always - I would argue - call themselves to attention as acts
both in terms of ACTion and AN ACT of artifice - the forum of the talk
Antin forces himself into a position in which he is expected to deliver something of value to some people who wish to receive something of value
he uses the desire-use value exchange of language as a site for its own investigation

I told a slight lie - I may go back on this, but only to add a link or two. Some Antin downloads can be found here.