Itch Away

New BLOG!!!

2007-06-30T14:22:00.000Z

Dear reader,

THIS BLOG HAS NOW MOVED!!!

You know how I like to keep you on your toes, which is why I enjoy repeatedly moving something around.

Anyway, from this point forward, the Itch Away blog is now part of its daddy Itch Away site, in its own section, hosted in the same space. I'll keep this one up for archived posts (although I think these all successfully imported to my new blog) and also because I'd rather this blog site became a post graveyard than a big dirty pornopicnic.

So update your bookmarks, etc. and I hope you like the new design / functionality of the blog.

ITCH AWAY.NET soon to be brand new

2007-06-29T15:21:00.000Z

I know my site is still pretty new, but I've been completely rebuilding it. I hate it at the moment, and it is now tantalisingly close to being ready. Simplicity is the key this time round, and hopefully this should set it up to be a bit more expandable too.

More soon

J

It's a fucking renaissance, people

2007-06-28T10:05:00.000Z

A new prime minister

A Spice Girls reformation

All we need now is a baddiel and Skinner re-release of "3 Lions" and it's the holy trinity. I'll even remove my England shirt and march down the street screaming vindaloo in celebration.

To the reader of my blog

2007-06-25T16:53:00.000Z

I don't know who you are, but I'm sorry for the lack of updates of late. I do it for you, faithful reader. I'm working on a complete re haul of the website, so it's actually readable. So you like it, ducky.

In the meantime, go and buy the new Shellac album. It's really very fucking good indeed.

Openned Anthology and Flyer

2007-06-17T18:32:00.000Z

Openned have used a still from Demo and Die for one of a series of flyers advertising the Openned Anthology.

Thank you guys!

Openned

HOW2 Summer 2007 Issue Now Online

2007-06-14T23:20:00.000Z

That's right. Finally, after months and months, the new issue is up and ready for perusal. The announcement, with a round-up of the main contents, can be found:

HERE

EDIT: DUUURRRRR, it might help to supply a direct link to HOW2, what do you think?: http://www.how2journal.com

It's been an interesting issue to get off the ground - for Dell, who has given birth and had to deal with the needs of her new little one and still see the issue through. Also for me, working as the webmaster for the journal and also having the opportunity to work with Jena Osman on a Flash setting for a version of her “Public Figures” work. I've also set the ball rolling re submissions here. Readers are encouraged to follow suit and submit photos and words to this collection.

Working with Jena has been great. It's been kind of cool to work on an interpretation of someone else's texts and concepts. This might be something I'd like to write a postcard about at some point.

But, in the meantime, enjoy the issue. There's a wealth of media and resources here - essays, poems, audio and video of readings, PDFs to download (a whole journal within a journal, and a collection of full works). Tons of stuff. Massive. Enjoy.

2007-06-13T13:36:00.000Z

I have just finished a necessary reworking of the index for the HOW2 archive (the HOW(ever) one works fine). Hopefully it looks and functions well now.

http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/archive/online_archive/index.htm

You might notice the current issue is archived. That's because the new issue will be up very very soon.............................

Poetry And Performance - Call for Submissions

2007-06-12T22:44:00.000Z

Elizabeth-Jane Burnett and Sophie Robinson need YOU. They are both rather brilliant, so you know what to do.

News

2007-06-10T01:03:00.001Z

Jow Lindsay:

2007-06-08T17:41:00.000Z

Let me see your blog.

Part of the summary of my Research Development Training evidence...

2007-06-06T19:35:00.000Z

...As an audience member [of the ASU Writer's Conference 2006], I attended several useful talks of direct relevance to my research. Charles Jensen’s talk on blogging offered a vital resource of poets who already blog, and gave guidance on a) how to start a blog; b) how to streamline a blog to make it functional and interesting for both readers and for the author. This has been of exceptional pedagogical use, not only teaching me how to anticipate my audience as a blogger, but also in terms of thinking about blogging as a networking tool and a space for experimentation as a practitioner. The dialogic nature of my research involves reflexive scrutiny of my own work, and placing it in relation to others / offering it in various stages along with publishing concerns and questions has played a vital role in my ongoing practice and critical writing. I have been able to pass this on in my teaching of the MA Poetic Practice group, requiring them to begin their own blogs and enter into dialogue with other practitioners as well as use their blogs for open, public experimentation.

Charlie obviously has a blog. He also created and single-handedly steers the helm of LOCUSPOINT. He also happens to be a very talented poet and a bit of a dish, making me curse the day I was born a heterosexual. Damn you, lord.

Lutone it down

2007-06-01T12:42:00.000Z

This site is inspired. There's also an inadvertent plug for my site at the bottom (if you'll excuse the pun).

Performance instructions from gmail

2007-05-26T15:02:00.000Z

Flickrng Bdy

2007-05-22T21:47:00.000Z

Good God everythigh's a nu-piece of working progress with no end of tunnel in site 4 shore. Jesus whipped it's unlikely to Finnish but shiraz eggs is eggs I'll fuckin well triya bastrd.

In the spirit of having neglected (tried to combine knee and elected but gave up) I've decided to 'please' the unlikely blog thong with a large (currently small) web project. Lung story short. Webs are just that. Wide. Holistic. Big ol texts which internal and external each other for all the forms and languageloves. See these. They are that and they play with that so that's just why there they're.

No the links work semi so please don't be angry yet they'll work dammit gimme time.

flickrng bdy:

Link 1

Link 2

Link 3

Link 4

On the Biography Channel

2007-05-17T16:46:00.000Z

David Bowie, in concert, just said his own name. This is significant. It is pronounced BOWie, as in bow tie. Not as in the bow of a boat.

I hope this helps.

Sincerely

J

How the defense system works

2007-05-15T16:01:00.000Z

2007-05-13T16:19:00.000Z

Last week, Charles Bernstein's blog drew attention to a breakdown of the Eclipse L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E archive, split into author contributions, making it finally browsable. This has just doubled the usefulness of an already essential resource, so check it out.

Bernstein: http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/blog/#04-30-07

Eclipse: http://english.utah.edu/eclipse/

Eurovision Express

2007-05-12T15:41:00.000Z

COME ON UKRAINE.

Link to song video

How can this not be a wonderful Eurovision? (please limit your answer to 5000 words)

Goode Poetry, (terrible pun)

2007-05-11T12:28:00.000Z

A few months ago, Kai and I met up for some lunch and she cheered me up with an mp3 - downloaded from Archive of the Now - of Chris Goode's Introduction to Speed Reading.

(Direct link to mp3)

More mp3s from whence this link came

This is the sort of text I love hearing read live. An introduction to speed listening as well as reading, this slapped me round the face before I had a chance to correctively interpret the previous spiel and spoil it for myself, only to have more more more doing the same. Incredibly, very real pieces of advice scream out:

Once you’ve read the words ‘Mormon’ or ‘gangbang’ once, remember them, and you’ll never have to read them again.

the text is featured in QUID 15, available for download at Barque Press's website

OPML? ROTFL! WTF?

2007-05-10T23:17:00.000Z

WTF indeed! I really should have explained about the OPML files...

The file in the post below is simply a text file which RSS readers (such as Google Reader) translate into feeds they can read, like emails, so you can be kept informed of when people have made updates to their blogs, etc.

So, if you were to save the OPML file below to your hard drive, you'd then go into Google Reader (if you have a google account), go to import/export and browse for the OPML file. In seconds, all of my subscribed blogs will appear! Wonderful.

My idea was to have people share what wonderful blogs they enjoy. But then, maybe it's easier just to post a list. Why didn't I think of THAT EARLIER?

This BBC headline is false advertising

2007-05-08T13:31:00.000Z

Link

And for one blissful moment, I though they might have been referring to Michael Winner.

OPML Den

2007-05-07T22:45:00.000Z

Let's share RSS bookmarks. If you are using an RSS reader (which you should be), you should be able to export your list as an OPML file, which is also importable in most readers. My current subscriptions can be found here (you might need to right / control click and save so you can import from your hard drive.

Why not paste a link to yours in a comment? Or email me at john at itchaway dot net and I'll host and publish it for you.

Maybe tomorrow I'll round up some good RSS clients too. Let's share the love.

2007-05-06T16:00:00.000Z

First paragraph from Code, Cod, Ode: Poetic Language & Programming
or: Pequeño Lector/Klein Leser: Es gibt (See)lachsfilet?:

(as datamatrix bar code)

An erasure poem, test

2007-05-04T16:59:00.000Z

For some time now I've been working on an idea to create a poem in HTML in which each line of text can undergo gradual erasure at the control of the user. Finally, over the past couple of weeks, I've started programming it, and thought I'd shove it up here so far.

Here's how it works. Each line has several versions, each version an edited version of the previous version. The large numbers on the side refer to which version of editing processes to trigger when the user click the corresponding ALL link. This is not the same as choosing which version to view! You can go in sequence (i.e. pressing ALL from 1 to 5 in order) to 'correctly' view each phase. Alternatively, you can choose to go by each individual edit for each phase (links 1 to 5/6 for each phase). Again this can be done in order for the conventional order.

The idea is that, once the user has got to grips with the workings of the program, he/she can then choose links out of order. This remaps the removal of letters, removing them at the 'wrong' point in the sequence. I wanted to include a controlled randomness to the manipulation.

Clicking the link you just clicked will revert. Refresh to start again.

Give it a go here!

2007-05-03T22:40:00.000Z

The Animated Honey Pot

2007-04-30T23:34:00.000Z

For Alan Riddell

Quick website update

2007-04-26T23:14:00.000Z

I just added The Savage Years to the website. You can check it out in the archived online work section here.

5 of my favourites

2007-04-25T07:20:00.000Z

from Debord's Hurlements en faveur de Sade

The Remix

2007-04-22T12:00:00.000Z

with original sounds.

The End of Prohibition

2007-04-20T16:30:00.000Z

Newsnight Remix

2007-04-19T11:50:00.000Z

The first of a series of 1-minute videos I will be working on.

2007-04-18T21:18:00.000Z

From Paradise and Method, by Bruce Andrews

How much are we willing to destroy our attentiveness to the way words act and interact in order to gain the advantages of description or of representation and a phobia toward what is present?  Centripetal motion is that of imposing contexts suitable for explanatory purposes – is this the one in the “light” of which such actions are intelligible? Those impositions are usually cushioned by grammar (where syntax plays a representational role): without them, the language is a frontage.  Not a false front, not a directive screen, but an unencumbered energy. (8)

Blogshat

2007-04-16T05:02:00.000Z

If you have had enough of the usual blog posts you're reading, it's time to read skewed mashed recyclobabble which might curiously be more inspired than yer usual dogshit.

Ch-ch-ch, ch, ch-ch-check it out.

5 lines from BEAR$BAREBEAR$

2007-04-12T11:25:00.000Z

by Coupons≠Coupons

11” white swan with veil

8” blue elephant hand puppet with elephant finger puppet

7” squear wite slephand Ble quote pupple dog, / yellonk bear with magne, hat cow wanger

9” bull frog that croaks

The Mulberry Sweat

Geddit here.

ITCH AWAY.NET IS UP!

2007-04-10T20:12:00.000Z

It's taken me long enough, and it's finally ready. Textosterone is completely no more, and Itch Away now has its own site.

It's a slim affair for now, but now that it's styled and up, I'll be prioritizing getting more work up there, as well as works-in-progress.

Itch Away will also eventually function as a e-journal focusing on poetics and multimedia. Proper solicitations will follow at a later date. In the meantime, if you have some work which you would consider submitting, please drop me a line ahead of time and we'll discuss (go to contact on the site). Please don't attach any work just yet, though.

In the meantime, check it out, play with the work, and enjoy:

http://www.itchaway.net

Something

2007-04-06T22:09:00.000Z

something

You spin me right round

2007-04-04T12:05:00.000Z

Trevor McDonald

2007-04-03T17:14:00.000Z

makes news the new rock 'n' roll.

The Talking Horse

2007-04-03T05:54:00.000Z

I can't think of any words today, so instead I'll offer this.

If you happen to be in Rome...

2007-03-28T20:48:00.000Z

+

pratt institute school of architecture rome program
invites you to view

ii ss
collaborative works : mixed media drawings and text by

hermine ford and kathleen fraser

inaugurazione: 3 aprile 2007 ore 17:30
piazza s. apollonia 3, trastevere roma

viewing hours will continue:
april 4 and 5, 17:30 to 20:30

+ + +

The news gets more like Brass Eye every day.

2007-03-24T22:42:00.000Z

Sonnet - Under Keats

2007-03-22T21:46:00.000Z

Booked up the shits I sniffed this holiday:
The waste, when he really messed up the team
That briefed the nipped cunts of background; - today
Who organised the established thug of violence; -
The disco with its terror, its social life,
Its pints, its roasting heat, its glass, its flame, its oxygen; -
Its approach differently, which he likes
Must telephone what I mean.
E'en now, old curry while I palm for parallels
Crimes are excused by her trivial concerns
So purposefully that it criticises your shining insults
You progress your unannounced alienation.
But what's he without the fucking screenplay and me,
The political nonsense of the land?

Trent-ch[fur]Coat

2007-03-19T06:13:00.000Z

"Closer" was censored on television the other day. What does Trent want to do to you like an animal? Suggestions so far:

stuff
pet
adopt
feed
take you to the vet
eat

Suggestions on a blogcard.

You should be excited about the forthcoming HOW2...

2007-03-16T20:46:00.000Z

It's difficult, when the first proofs come trickling in amid the very first discussions about layout, etc., to see where an edition of HOW2 will end up a few months down the line. They get done, of course, but it doesn't become clear until pretty late in the day how the whole thing wil come together.

Well, Redell Olsen has clearly done a great job with this issue. This is cautious praise, as I don't want it to detract from the obviously brilliant issues completed under Kate Fagan. However (and this is, I know, due to the fact that Dell has pulled together work which I personally find even more exciting than usual) it feels that this issue is a strong one.

Large features (some of them are easily the largest I've collated for HOW2) and great resources are on their way. Being the humble webmaster, I will say no more until the impending release date.

Speaking of which, I'd better get on with it. Check out the current issue here.

2007-03-12T05:54:00.001Z

Nude Mission Statement

2007-03-10T00:53:00.000Z

Knock yourself out with some real truth

2007-03-06T20:22:00.000Z

Finally, an alternative to that anti-Christian, anti-American mumbo jumbo generally referred to as 'consensus'.

http://www.conservapedia.com/

Slough's Grammar

2007-03-05T21:22:00.000Z

I visited my old school's website today. Imagine my delight when I discovered that Slough Grammar's policies towards gender are more progressive than ever, although the irony is not lost that this seems to have resulted in a male-skewed dominance of prefect allocation:

White Space Ate my Poems

2007-03-02T19:53:00.000Z

Do you ever get frustrated by not being able to use multiple spaces in your blog? This can be annoying when you're writing or citing a poem which uses lots of spacing in a very controlled manner.

A way around this is to add the white-space CSS property to your template. You can add the following code to your #main identifier:

white-space:pre;

However, you will then have to be careful, since every space will be accepted in every post you make. More sensible is to create a new class in your template:

.allow-whitespace {
white-space:pre;
}

Then, when you write your post, use spaces as you would in a normal word processor, and surround the text which needs the white space either with a div tag with your new class or a span tag. for example:

This text doesn't need white space.

Produces:

But this one does

You can replace the div with span but it's probably not necessary........

This CSS property is compatible with IE5.5 and above, and all of the better browsers out there too.

Shopping

2007-02-22T12:22:00.000Z

2007-02-20T23:38:00.000Z

Buried Sense

2007-02-18T03:07:00.000Z

Anna Nicole Smith has been dead for about a week now. Indeed as Fox News presenters were frantically asking each other on the day of her discovery, "is she still dead?" I think this could be paraphrased with "do we still have a tragedy to sensationalise?"

Anyway, little about Smith's recent life, death or subsequent legal spaghetti is funny - that is, until Florida judge Larry Seidlin was brought in to restore some sort of order regarding Smith's burial location.

As, I'm assuming, is the point, I was glazedly (yes I did just make up that word) glazing over the newsglaze presented by CNN, when my attention was aroused by the oddity that is Seidlin's professional delivery. I needed youtube so I could find comparable clips of Arrested Development's Barry Zuckerkorn (the inept Bluth family lawyer played by Henry Winkler).

Much to my dismay, I could find no clip with which to draw the comparison. I did however come across the following montage of chicken-dance clips:

Among the many odd quotes to come from the mouth of the face attached to the neck attached to Seidlin's slouched leather-chair-bound body,"This body belongs to me right now," he said. "This body's not leaving Broward County till I make the ruling." (FOX NEWS)

Often jokey, at several points in the discussion, Seidlin's comments left most of the lawyers in the room utterly confused. Flattery proved a decent enough appeasement, with all of the lawyers sheepishly thanking the judge for complimenting their fine lawyer work.

"When we bury her, I want it to be forever," Seidlin said.
"For we'll never bury her
In a restless world like this is
Burial is ended before it's begun
And too many moonlight kisses
Seem to cool in the warmth of the sun."

New blog design

2007-02-13T22:16:00.000Z

I've updated the look of this blog, to be more consistent with the redesign I'm working on for my own web site. This also goes some way to explaining my recent slowdown of activity on this blog!

The new site will be finished soon, with more up-to-date work, links and archived work. It will be easier to read and easier to navigate. It will look the same on most browsers!

UUUUUrrrrrghhhh,

J

To blame your tools, use some, pt1

2007-02-07T01:58:00.000Z

I thought I'd feature some useful free apps on this blog, for those who are interested. I apologise for the fact that most of these are Mac applications. There may well be Windows equivalents, or straight Windows versions of the same package, but my posts will be about the Mac versions.

I'm going to start with a program called VoodooPad. Those of you who are interested in the postential of multilinear texts might do worse than try this out.

It's a simple application, aimed at those who need a functional way to organise projects. It is in fact extremely useful for this, since projects - to coin an awful corporate term - often rely on hubs and spokes to be manageable. Interrelated items of a project can link to each other, and the user can navigate even complex project structures with hypertextual point-and-click ease.

Since VoodooPad essentially creates HTML pages as you go, this could be viewed as an ultra-stripped-down web site editor. As such, it offers potential use as a hypertext poetry/narrative tool which is both functional and simple. Although it is hardly a bells and whistles multimedia wizard, it nonetheless offers beginner programmers with an interest in writing hypertexts the opportunity to experiment with such a concept, and perhaps go further if it whets your appetite. Failing that, VoodooPad is really useful for organising any projects you might have on the go.

VoodooPad Lite is free, and does plenty. It can be downloaded here, and the full version can also be found on the site if you wish to purchase it.

Jeff Parker, A Poetics of the Link
http://www.altx.com/ebr/ebr12/park/park.htm

NVU - free HTML editor for more advanced use - THIS IS CROSS PLATFORM! (Mac, Linux, Windows)

Ready, Aim, FATHER.

2007-02-07T00:10:00.000Z

Donot

2007-02-03T00:03:00.000Z

HOW2 Announcement about Postcard, Updates and Calls for Submissions

2007-01-31T19:26:00.000Z

I have just finished getting the HOW2 sections which are updated between issues into blog form. This should be much easier for visitors to keep track of intermittent updates, and get them quickly! Here's the note we just sent out:

----------------------------------------

HOW2 has added to the functionality of the Postcard, Updates and Calls for Submissions sections of HOW2. This way, people can stay up-to-date with additions to each section.

Please visit the links on the home page at http://www.how2journal.com to view the new lists or go straight to http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/blogsinfo.html for complete information.

Please visit and subscribe to these sections. There are currently new updates to check, and there will continue to be more between issues.

We are still keen to receive alerts for our next issue (deadline February 20th). So if you would be interested in writing a short review of a poet that you have read recently and who you think that we should know about please visit our submissions pages for guidelines at http://www.asu.edu/pipercwcenter/how2journal/announce.htm.

Goodbye January

2007-01-29T22:00:00.000Z

...and good riddance. I've barely had any time at all to update the blog, but just as soon as I can de-jet lag myself, I will throw myself back into the murky blog-pit which I'm told looks a lot like this:

Over the week, I'll be offering up some semi-reviews and info on some useful, free tools which might be useful for your digital poetics life, whether reading or writing. Stay chooned, oh my blogger

"A gift for dad?"

2007-01-19T19:12:00.000Z

In Descent

2007-01-12T17:33:00.000Z

DANGER

2007-01-11T19:50:00.000Z

It's this or jagged fabrix

2007-01-08T22:26:00.000Z

Eegee Weegee 2nd Attempt

2007-01-07T20:00:00.000Z

Trying to find a decent swf host....

What Ain't the Rain

2007-01-06T15:01:00.000Z

Bangry wishflap too
loud for real breathing
exhaust
yer owners fo real
out-chess dairy and mean it

First not so Great Western Livery

2006-12-30T23:14:00.000Z

First, let me thank NERDS who post with such unbridled enthusiasm subject material such as First Great Western's new livery photos. Without them, I would have actually needed to do some work finding this:

It's a "what were they thinking" moment if ever there was one.

Minimalist, snappy, and stylish as it may be, to me the harmonious, paralleled lines suddenly parting ways seem to represent a severe derailment. You might have thought, given this country's public transport safety record over the last decade, that more thought might have gone into this new corporate identity. Happy New Year............

Did you get an N64?

2006-12-25T13:46:00.000Z

Was your Christmas like this?

I hope so!

Grubby

2006-12-22T18:07:00.000Z

The final toastal installment...

Thanks to my partner in toastal krime, Jerome (right) for this pic, taken c. 1999.

On a serious note, should I be worried that my very real fingerprints are up on the net?

Playing the Saw: An Epigram

2006-12-17T18:31:00.000Z

Do you remember how grandpa used to play the saw
To us kids, until the early hours?
Good God! The stench!

Savage Love

2006-12-14T23:13:00.000Z

I was chatting with my students the other day, and we ended up talking briefly about an old piece of mine, The Savage Years. It dawned on me that despite having a web-ready PDF of this, I have never put it online, so here it is.

It should print off quite nicely, albeit rather largely, onto A4 or American Letter sized paper.

Clearly taking Ron Silliman's Sunset Debris as a starting point for linguistic enquiry, I decided to write a piece of work which used repetition and duration as ways of examining the nature of the sentence, and what happens during the course of repeated assertions.

Interestingly enough for me, the writing process produced the enquiry. I found myself considering the instability of the biographical of the child-now-adult TV and movie star. Rather than being about him, the poem became about projected statements of fact. Subsequently, his name almost becomes an expletive as the poem progresses (literally, as the name flips between subject and replacement object).

I think - I hope, that the sheer length of this piece prevents it from becoming a cheap gag. Instead, the repetition of the formal structure of the statement attempts to drum home truths which conflict, and compound their tensions by projecting them onto one unwitting subject. Whatever, it was a lot of fun to write. I'm working on another, "To Don't List", which is looking at the nature of negative statements...

Santa Claus is Making You Frown

2006-12-07T22:58:00.000Z

In much the same way that a swift kick in the face at least reminds you that you are alive to feel the pain, so too are we greeted with the joy-cum-horror of the forthcoming festive season, with these pictures of children being terrified by Santa Claus.

Currently there are 69 of these beauties up, and some of them expose an advanced degree of insight on the part of the kids, who seem to be able to look beyond the fat, jolly, white-bearded exterior and see directly into the drunken soul:

In all seriousness, there are some excellent "what were they thinking?" examples here, of images terrifying enough for adults, let alone the children who are not old enough to see the funny side of sinister:

What I love about collections like these is that because of their thematic continuity, by image 20 or so, the pictures become increasingly comical for reasons I can't really explain. It's almost like it feels that the pictures have become a challenge for Santas to traumatise children and look! Here's the moment we succeeded!

Hey John, what do you think about Brussel Sprouts this year?

PLC

2006-12-05T22:54:00.000Z

2006-12-04T20:52:00.000Z

Rolling eyes and folded arms for sobbing mediocrity

In Joy your Spatial Dei

2006-11-30T17:51:00.000Z

Assists relatives and patients in meeting no-one
Undertakes favourite smells to go with the stories
Responsible for right arm
Is guided by perforated globe
Occasional exposure to tempting salad bar
Requirement to use withering people

6penned Tonight

2006-11-29T09:00:00.000Z

Redell Olsen and Piers Hugill are both reading at this event tonight. Emily Critchley, whose work I am only familiar with through the current issue of HOW2, is also reading. Should be a good one!

Bread Shortage

2006-11-28T10:13:00.000Z

Funk dat Choir

2006-11-27T21:24:00.000Z

Click here to watch some very smug people from Birmingham smirk at each other for being so very clever. It's the Complaints Choir of Birmingham, and they do precisely what you might expect - complain, in song. Yet this seems to be a decent idea half-baked and poured with such a degree of self-satisfaction that it's unbearable to watch from start to finish.

Smug 1

Smug 2

Smug 3

This man has just realised how smug his friends are:

Firstly, no actual effort to sing properly. This would have hiked up the credibility of such a concept. Instead, this becomes a lazy parody. 'Look at us! We're infusing the mundane into something highbrow!'

Secondly, no effort to write a decent tune nor write decent words through which to articulate the complaints.

Thirdly, even the complaints themselves are woolly. One song covers bus conductors, general PC crashes (the computer, not the police), general rubbish about Birmingham not being as nice as it used to be. Newsflash: it was never nice to begin with.

All of this drenched in the kind of ironic knowing wink which tells me these people find themselves hilarious for such an ironic gesture!

What about a seriously, well-crafted hymn opposing a piece of planning permission? Something specific, with real themes, real concerns? None of this "the traffic's always terrible"-style bullshit.

Here's how they could have done it, and I know which I prefer. Man, funk dat.

This is how I feel:

ñø∂é

2006-11-24T18:55:00.000Z

MACHINIMARTYR

2006-11-23T16:13:00.000Z

Military superjig one
burly Hodgson step one
paco trot regular ass become one
digital dater

unattached hypnobarry
white noise new guilty
disappearing-because-fucking
wage daddy

Chat with un chat

2006-11-22T14:24:00.000Z

Marcel Broodthaers' interview with a cat.

Can anyone understand what the Frenchman is saying?

A Toast to the Queen of Hearts

2006-11-21T23:41:00.000Z

This week's toast comes in the shapes of Princess Diana and the land of Eng (minus Cornwall).

Epigram for my Throbbing Left Eye

2006-11-16T21:04:00.000Z

I guessed before she died too early for our reading
pleasure
mathematic composition - generative power? - fixture verse?
Pain from guesswork sure

"Toast! Toast! My Kingdom for a Toast!" [HENRY V]

2006-11-14T13:37:00.000Z

This week's toastal service comes with a crafty typo. Can you spot it?

Bon ape tit.

Old piece, resurrected

2006-11-11T19:41:00.000Z

I remembered today about an old piece I completed as part of my MA. It's called Paid Love, and experiments with the visual dissection of text in order to foreground its own defacement. This was pretty relevant since the content was taken from sources regarding the objectification, slavery and prostitution of women in eastern Europe. The idea was for the language to become fragmented to an extent which would erase a sure, authoritative voice and replace it with a distorted (literally) uncertain sense of reference.

This isn't the whole piece - I'd like to get that up some time when I have more time, because there are aesthetic variations and combinations of repeated texts, which was crucial in the maintenance of implied consistency throughout the fragmentations (this is a valuable notion which I took from Lyn Hejinian's The Rejection of Closure, [in which Hejinian cites her own Resistance work in terms of its repeated sentence structure underpinning its fragmented content] and I think this can be extended to apply to all forms of poetic artifice).

Shellac of You're a Terrible

2006-11-10T19:10:00.000Z

I was just going through some old photos of the US Giddy Motors tour (I was the driver, not a band member) from 2003, trying to find a picture of a nasty motel for a friend. I also stumbled across the coolest photo of me I have ever had taken.

It's me with the band Shellac. Yes, I look like a star-struck dummy. Yes, despite being very amiable for the duration of our overnight stay, and in fact being very friendly, they probably thought I was a bit of a dick. Still, THEY don't have a picture of themselves with Shellac, do they? I win.

The photo captures Steve Albini judging just how phat my beats are. Pretty phat.

Toast in the Po(a)st, Week 2

2006-11-07T10:01:00.000Z

2006-11-05T00:36:00.000Z

Half way through marking my BA class's work

2006-11-04T21:58:00.000Z

and I am so thankfully impressed. It didn't start off so well, a couple of people struggling - not irreparably - with things so far, but many of the portfolios are thoroughly well written, and have actively engaged in the research and experimentation, not merely copying or emulating but versioning procedure with a recognition of the social and political importance of their situation.

I think it means something when marking makes you forget the clock and you have enjoyed spending 30 minutes or more reading one person's work. And they're only 5 weeks into the course...

2006-11-01T10:38:00.000Z

Toast in the Po(a)st, Week 1

2006-10-31T09:58:00.000Z

For a brief explanation of this, please see Sunday's blog poast, lovers.

Toast in the Po(a)st

2006-10-29T12:37:00.000Z

For a two month period in 1998, myself and my good friend Jerome took a reference from a Stephen Fry novel as inspiration and decided to send someone toast through the post. the criteria were simple:

The friend of choice should be close enough to observe, distant enough not to know it was us
all toast came with a letter, which got increasingly experimental in nature
Toast would be sent on a Sunday, in order to arrive on a Tuesday. Without fail.
Toast would be carefully prepared, and would be every bit as important as the letter.

And so, for the next two months, I will be presenting each installment of the letters, delivered to the blog every Tuesday. There is one omission, which was a hand-scrawled note in week 7 or so, telling the recipient "toast it yourself". Enclosed was, instead of the usual toast, two slices of uncooked bread.

Stay tuned for your first piece of Toastal Service through the Poastal Service, oh my bloggers.

J

2006-10-28T22:35:00.000Z

An epigram by Bernadette Mayer

2006-10-27T10:47:00.000Z

Listening to her readings on Pennsound today, this one in particular tickled me. It think we've all, at some stage, been dismissed from a class at less than 5 years old, quite unaware of what we had done wrong. This one is particularly inventive, though.

Check out Pennsound's archive too.

Let me post!

2006-10-24T22:33:00.000Z

Small Publishers Book Fair, this weekend

2006-10-19T14:14:00.000Z

Royal Holloway's MA students are showcasing some recent work at the Small Publishers Book Fair. Check it out:

Link to the Royal Holloway MA Poetic Practice homepage.

A Mesostic for Damon Moss

2006-10-12T22:36:00.000Z

When in Rome...

It's been a long time since I did one of these, and, in teaching a John Cage course the other day, I remembered the value of this type of text.

To cut a very long story unfairly short, the name, DAMON MOSS, forms the central letters of the poem. These letters dictate where to find source texts, to put parts of, which I took from books he has bought for me.

touch

2006-10-12T19:10:00.000Z

Brian Catling

2006-10-11T00:30:00.000Z

Looking up some references for my MA class, I came across Brian Catling, whose work I have only read in the form of The Blindings, a series of text / image 'happenings'. I remember greatly enjoying the work, feeling gratified at the power it gave and demanded of me not solely as a reader, but in my capacity as a reader to imagine, to fill in the gaps, to wonder whether any of the bizarre events ever happened, even in embryonic form.

In Catling's own words (from his departmental website):

I am obsessively engaged in the collision of separate activities that sometimes fuse together in a hybrid event - they being the writing of poetry, the constructing of sculptural installation and the action of performance. Most recently they have fetched up as video works.

Perhaps it is the hybrid event which, being clearly (or is it?) unlikely as actual event, is nonetheless richer in the mind of the reader for being so. Gaps are filled in with imagination, the level of ambiguity promoting a participation by the reader to connect the dots with actual, real reality. The photographs imply an event taking place specifically at that point then!, but only offer a snapshot of what might have happened either side of that instance the shutter was released. It reminds me of reading Lyn Hejinian whilst having images of Cindy Sherman's film stills projected into my eyes. That really happened, by the way.

I recall seeing one of Catling's films at a conference. This, like The Blindings, hit me in a strange way in which the clearly comical effect of the performance - literal on film and imagined on the page - was laced with a kind of sadness which I can't account for. There is something empowering in the ability and encouragement to use one's imagination as part of the storytelling. But I think there is also - as in Sherman's stills - something abjectly sad or chilling about a knowledge of un-reality, when faced with supposed documentation to the contrary.

I think this largely has something to do with the fact that most of us know what role documentation ought to fulfil - the coverage of fact. The simultaneous paradox of evidence and contrary evidence is not easy to reconcile, unless you enjoy (and implicitly create) the fiction which at least you can be satisfied must exist. Which, I suspect, brings it into being.

Sign spotting

2006-10-07T15:51:00.000Z

I saw this sign at college the other day, next to the student residents' pigeonholes, and thought it worthy of a mention. Nothing else to say, really... not the best advert for the university!

2006-10-05T19:18:00.000Z

More from the other night

2006-10-01T17:02:00.000Z

A gust of metal

A gust of metal
You have ruined our lungs

Delayed combinations of multiplicity and minuteness
Equation to diseases

On the heels of effort
You have
A balancing act of perishable goods

Add me as your plausible
Could we share the plaza?
It’s that or
Admit it’s the fault
Of Christianity

By no means is progress

Wide-open eyes postage stamp
Activists
The city launched
It’s easier to climb the walls
when they have collapsed

Who’s very quality with their Mexican culture?