December 2 THE ETERNAL IDIOT
It’s Thursday evening, and because I now have three days off work it’s the beginning of a long weekend and in my head it feels like a Friday evening. I’m not exactly sure what that means, except I know I have some notion of lots of space opening up in front of me within which I have nothing to do but read and, perhaps, write. Other things may happen, but nothing is planned beyond a trip to get some food and maybe a couple of rented movies. Actually, that’s not strictly true: I’m really really looking forward to going to see Hayden at The Maze on Sunday. Otherwise, I may not get out of my pyjamas very much unless Jez comes out of the woodwork and he turns his suggestion that we go for some kind of long walk into the countryside and towards a pub into a reality rather than simply an idea. But I have lots to read in the meantime.
I also find myself spending a lot of time thinking about what’s going on here at “E&D”, as I have come to shorthand it. If it’s a Blog, then that makes me a Blogger. And I have begun to investigate the world of the Blogger and realise I am not really one of those. Not really. “E&D” is turning more and more into a web-zine, but I still really like the spontaneity of the blog, and the freedom it gives me to do…… well, to do this: I just went to Stride. Rupert Loydell has today put a very nice mention of my pamphlet “Coral” on his blog, which I urge you to read because it will make me feel good. But, more to the point, I then took a hop over to Stride Magazine to see if there was anything new there and Rupert has reviewed a bunch of American stuff, and it’s wonderful business. He reviews a selection of books, and here are some choice quotes from his review: Dull work wrapped in a dreadfully designed cover. * Did he really have to travel to Greece to discover what wind does to doors? Come on! * At first I flicked through these short skinny poems, sometimes almost haiku, and thought 'oh no', but returning to the book, with encouragement from blurb writers Michael Palmer and Robert Creeley, I find a clarity and precision in the work. * Absolutely appalling. Let's move on. * Already we have rearranged/disrupted words, ideas of art, faith, books, language, forgiveness, business, myth... already I am intrigued and want to read on. * These poems may be rooted in experience, experiences which ring true, but they are used as stepping stones to something else: that something being poetry rather than stories told in broken lines. * Don't get me wrong, this is neither 'difficult' nor 'experimental' poetry, but it does track the thought process, the way we flick through channels and ideas in our head, how strong emotion such as loss and grief can scramble the transmission. * …. the lines can't possibly hold all the ideas and images in, so the reader is left to do plenty of work for themselves. This is a good thing. * The blurb on the back suggests that Dick is 'dedicated to an understanding of the internal tensions of the lyric voice and the human heart'. I think this hits the nail right on the head. All of this exploratory and inventive work ultimately becomes heartfelt music for the reader...... This is great stuff. * ….. (this) work is rooted in the idea of a poet telling the reader something, with little interest in how it is said. It's clunky and portentous… * Personally, I look up from these pages out of boredom, and am reminded that time is too precious to waste on being generous to this kind of nonsense. * What is so good about this is that here is someone who knows what they are talking about and knows how to say it. Loydell also knows when to admit the first take is not the right take. Sometimes you have to (must) re-read. Sometimes you have to do some work yourself. And sometimes, dear Reader, you have to say that a Poet Laureate is rubbish. But you illustrate the Why. The PL is not rubbish just because they are on top of the pile, and you resent it. I urge you to read the full review, and find out some new poetry names, not all of which you will want to remember but some of which you will. And my point is, if I recall, that blogging lets me do this: read something, & write something, and put it here within minutes of the event and the idea. It may not always be the best idea, but at least it’s honest. But no, I am not a real blogger, I think. So in the new year, which is not far away, I’m going to be looking at rebuilding all this and turning it into a website that will allow for magazine, blog, music, visual art….. I was talking to some people at work today and Kelly said she thought I was The Eternal Teenager. I said, No. I’m The Eternal Idiot. STICK CRICKET
Oh God, I wish I'd never clicked on this link......
December 5 TWO-FIFTEEN A.M.
I’m awake: Is it because I’m in love again
With a girl I could not have imagined No it’s not that: I am not in love again I have given up on the pursuit of pain Especially at Christmas Time when In addition to the pain one is expected to Buy a present also So no: I am not awake Because I am in love although I may be Awake because I am not in love now But probably I am awake because I am hungry: If this was the old days Now might be a good time to go out To catch something (It’s dark and they Might not see you coming or even expect You to be out there) but were I to go out Now all I would catch would be a disease And I do not want to catch a disease so: I go to the refrigerator hunting yoghurt: But all the yoghurt is chilly and ill- Humoured and it is as if to eat it would Make me also chilly and ill-humoured Which is a disease of sorts of the mind; But how I hear you ask can yoghurt Be ill-humoured and all I can say is I know what I know but it doesn’t help December 6 HAYDEN: SO MUCH FOR MISERABLE
In the summer, a friend introduced me to Hayden’s LP “Skyscraper National Park”. I’d never heard of Hayden or the record, but it’s a good record. Hayden Desser is a Canadian singer-songwriter in the lo-fi alt-folk melancholy/miserable tradition. On the odd occasion a song might remind you of Harvest-era Neil Young, but I suspect
![]() Anyway, Hayden bought out a new record a few months back: “Elk-Lake Serenade”. It got good reviews, and I had half a mind to buy it when it came out but somehow it slipped through the net. Sometimes I have to avoid record shops and buy food. But I was walking home a couple of weeks back and stopped off at the door to The Maze to check the listings, and Hayden was on the list of things coming up. So, I bought a ticket, and next day I bought the LP. I’m nothing if not thorough. I asked Mr. Belbin if he wanted to go to the gig, but he checked the music out and declared it too miserable for him. I knew it would be; he doesn’t like Bright Eyes, either. But the other Dave, at work, is a big Red House Painters fan, and we agree that miserable music is tremendously uplifting even though we don’t want it all the time, and without even bothering to listen to the records he told me to get him a ticket. He has so much faith; when we talk about this musical melancholia we are always grinning like fools. Hayden has one of those voices that is kind of low and occasionally cracked but still seems to have a pretty good reach. At times he goes for clarity, then he mumbles as if it’s all become too much. Sometimes he sounds like he’s had a few drinks, or just woken up. He sings about the usual things: lost love, car crashes, ghosts, and an ex-girlfriend being killed by a grizzly bear. The new record has some basic arrangements using only voice and acoustic guitar, but elsewhere it brings in (not all at the same time: he isn’t Mercury Rev) steel guitar, a string section, brass, a piano and, on the one track I’m really not sure about at all, what could even be a synthesizer. Guesting on the LP are Howie Beck, who I’ve heard of but never heard, and Julie Doiron on vocals, who I’ve not only heard of but actually have some tracks downloaded from somewhere, and she’s good. Mind you, her songs are not the cheeriest, either. (Aside: I think I may have to slam Kylie on in a minute, if only to stir the air a little.) Generally, Hayden records are pretty tuneful but low-key and, yes, melancholy. First Class Melancholy. I can understand why someone might not like it. But as I said, for me, miserable lifts up the heart, sort of. Of course, it turns out that Hayden is not a miserabilist at all. Yes, the songs are not jolly anthems. But Hayden was funny, entertaining, a pleasure to be around, and it was a great show. It is, as I’m sure you know, easy to be funny if you’re introducing a song about intruders breaking into your house while you’re upstairs working on your music and you have the headphones on, and they end up murdering you. It is also funny to know that one of your songs, which is about your pet cat wandering off each Spring to have sex, has been played in branches of Starbucks, and someone has written in to Starbucks Head Office to complain because the song, to their ears, is obviously about the artist and his friends sitting in the back yard masturbating and you don’t need that kind of thing played while you’re having your coffee. Hayden played solo, no band: guitar and harmonica, sometimes putting the guitar to one side and playing keyboard. On one song he replaced the trumpet on the record with “mouth trumpet”, because he said he couldn’t afford to bring a trumpeter over from Canada for just one song. He’s a class act, and reminded you how good one bloke and an acoustic guitar and quality songs can be. He encored with a couple of his own songs, then ended by offering the ![]() Note: read the Guardian's review of "Elk-Lake Serenade" here December 10 THREE
Three for today:
1. Quoted in a post at New Poetry, the late Jackson Mac Low (1922-2004) Unmanifest What the maker of a manifesto does not comprehend or acknowledge is the basic unmanifestness from which and within which each manifestation takes place. It is this neglect or ignorance that calls forth repugnance when a manifesto is proclaimed or published, especially one regarding art. As if what comes to being in and as the work of art could ever be totally manifest or even manifest at all without its abiding steadfastly in the unmanifest! A work of art is a manifesto only insofar as it is its own antimanifesto. 21 June 1983 New York 2. Also quoted on the same discussion list, poet Donald Revell on John Ashbery, from the book “Range of the Possible”, edited by Tod Marshall: People are always talking about how much Ashbery comes out of Wallace Stevens, and of course, Ashbery benefited enormously from Stevens' project. Yet I see Williams in Ashbery as much as I see Stevens. I think it's part of Ashbery's genius to understand that the inside is outside too. Part of what happens in the making of poems and the reading of poems is the understanding of one's inner life as being outside and all around you. So I don't see them as being poles at all; I see them as being orchestrations in the same moment of music. I think Ashbery daunts people in some ways because he is so accessible. They can't quite cope with a poetry that is so on the page. In a sense he is the most approachable of American poets because nothing is being concealed, and that's why I'm always astonished when people say Ashbery is a difficult poet, because he's not. He's quite the opposite. He's the most available, the most welcoming of poets I know. Everything is what it is. It's not a symbol for anything else. It's this entire exteriorization of the inward life, this humility that says there is nothing in me that didn't come from the world. It's not as if the world were some pale substitute for my splendid inner life. If I have an inner life where do you think it came from? It came from the world. 3. And, by way of an unlikely detour, in today’s Independent, an article about Throbbing Gristle: The reappearance of Throbbing Gristle in 2004, 23 years after they split up, is something of a curiosity to many who remember their notorious presence in the late Seventies. Breaking from their separate music and art projects, the four-piece regrouped this year for a short performance in London for ticket holders of a cancelled gig at Camber Sands in June. They then reorganised that show, playing at last weekend's All Tomorrow's Parties Nightmare Before Christmas festival, curated by Jake and Dinos Chapman. That was officially TG's last ever performance, and all four members appeared for their last interview as TG at the festival before playing the show. It was strange to find them lounging, resolutely calm, in a Camber Sands chalet, especially as their presence was anything but intimidating. The formidable Genesis P-Orridge is now a woman with a blonde bob and breasts, but that's hardly a shocking transformation for such a character. With all four members - P-Orridge, Cosey Fanni Tutti, Chris Carter and Peter Christopherson - in one room, the conversation was slightly slippery….. ………. Their simple word of advice to aspiring artists is to be honest - something very few people actually manage to achieve. "And I think one of the gorgeous things about TG is that we will go from something amazingly serious and important and significant in terms of the world and life, and then do something ludicrous and absurd," adds P-Orridge. "We take every aspect of our lives and then magnify them because it's interesting and puzzling and baffling all at once to go through each day." the rest of this pretty long article is here Re: THREE As a little addendum to "Three", I just phoned my friend John to tell him about the Throbbing Gristle article. He's a big fan of them, and Psychic TV (yay!!) .... anyway, his response was, Look, Martin, this week you've told me 2 unwelcome things about 2 of my top 3: Kevin Coyne is dead, and Throbbing Gristle are still alive. The third one of the 3 is Bob Dylan. So what's going to happen to him?
Anyway: I guess if Bob Dylan dies in the next few days, or even has a bad fall, it could be my fault. I apologise in advance. Which reminds me: there is a story in the same Independent today about how "Like A Rolling Stone" almost was lost for ever .... I don't know if it's a true story, but the world is full of stories and this is another one. December 12 TRA-LA-LA (NOISE)
I was reading something on the Interweb a few days ago, and someone somewhere mentioned that A Silver Mt. Zion were, if not the most pretentious band ever, then certainly the most pretentious band ever to come out of Canada. There is something faintly absurd about the hypothesis, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. But they kind of ask for it. Every time they release a record the band name undergoes an elongation. They currently perform under the title of The Silver Mt.
![]() ![]() December 14 WHATEVER.... ![]() a poetry reading. I don’t want to talk about it. Forgive me. By this stage of my poetry life I should be used to boredom and staggeringly uninteresting poems by apparently intelligent people. I should be. Forgive me. I shouldn’t even be talking about it. I was in a pretty good mood earlier on. I think I'm not any more. December 15
Re: THE ASHBERY QUESTION
("The Task")
("Soonest Mended")
("Street Musicians") December 17 CLICK THE LINK
I looked about me yesterday and noticed that Christmas is almost here. More almost here than last time I looked about me. I thought perhaps something Christmassy would not come amiss at E&D, but I thought about it a couple of minutes and gave up. Christmas, after all, is only a celebration of shopping, and I have nothing astonishing to say about that. So, rather than struggle against the grain to be seasonal and charming, let me direct you to a Christmas story by “the genius that is Luke Kennard”, as one notable has called him. You can find it by clicking this link. You will find no better.
December 20 THE PLAY IS THE THING
I’ve changed my mind about presenting a special Christmas treat here. For the past year, American poet Mark Halliday and British poet me have been collaborating on a series of short plays. They are somewhat in homage to Kenneth Koch, whose “One Thousand Avant-Garde Plays” is a book of considerable wonder. Our plays are also very good. Some of them, like Koch’s, are pretty short. One only measures about an inch and a half from the title to where it says “CURTAIN”. Others take up three whole sheets of paper. Because it is Christmas, I have chosen a play whose message is, when all is said and done, one of Peace.
THE WAR COUNCIL (Pluvagnorn the King has summoned his Chieftains to a War Council in the throne room. All are dressed in furs and helmets.) Pluvagnorn: What word of the enemy? Scout: The enemy is huge. The enemy's tents are like a forest. The enemy's cavalry are like a storm. The enemy's spears glitter like a million stalks of silver asparagus. Pluvagnorn: Fewer similes and more facts. Scout: Let me put it this way. It's as if -- (Pluvagnorn swings his mace and renders the Scout unconscious, at best.) Advisor: The enemy is said to number over seven thousand, my liege. However, we have the support of several tribes. Pluvagnorn: Which tribes? What mighty chieftains will fight on our side? Cerdic: I will, O King, with all my kinsmen. Tewdric: And I. (A silence falls. Pluvagnorn turns toward the other Chieftains.) Pluvagnorn: And you, Loholt? And you, Cuneglas? Cuneglas: We’re with you in principle, my liege, but we have one condition. Pluvagnorn: Condition? What “condition”, pray? Cuneglas: We want to be called by our real names. We’ve had enough of these stupid made up things salvaged out of Tolkien’s waste paper basket. They may be romantic and fantastic, but you want to try getting through daily life with them. People just don’t know how to pronounce them… Loholt: Who’d have thought Loholt is pronounced “Lilt”, for Godsake? Or that Cuneglas is … Cuneglas: Klaus. …. And people can’t spell them, or anything. I want to be what I was named by my mum and dad: Albert. And Loholt wants to be…. Loholt: Dorothy. Pluvagnorn: Consider it done. Advisor (aside to audience): Flexibility is a quality of great kings. (Enter Second Scout, breathless) Second Scout: My liege, the enemy has marched over Sedgemoor Hill and is now only two hundred rods from the castle! Pluvagnorn: Rods? Advisor: A rod is five and a half yards, my liege. Pluvagnorn: Math hath ne'er been my cup of mead. Advisor: The enemy, sire, is less than a mile away. Pluvagnorn: Zounds! One of our regiments, or cohorts, or tribes -- the precise noun matters little at this juncture -- must charge the enemy immediately. Which of my Chieftains shall claim this honor? Dorothy: Well, I guess me and Albert’ll give it a shot, seeing as how you’ve been pretty decent about our names. Let’s see. I’ve got a legion, a phalanx, a squadron, a wing and a group, two platoons, half a column, a detachment, three brigades and a troop. Albert: And I think I can pull together sundry lancers, grenadiers, snipers, dragoons, wrestlers, pugs, doughboys, bowmen, swashbucklers and cannon fodder. All in all, it should be enough. Dorothy: And we’ll make sure they’re well armed. We’ve got crossbows and grenades, match-locks and flint-locks, howitzers, field-pieces, grape-shot, Gatlings, pom-poms, blunderbusses, fowling-pieces, bazookas, knuckle-dusters, sub-machine guns, doodlebugs, V1s and V2s, guided missiles and hydrogen bombs. Albert: It makes their silver asparagus look pretty sick. Pluvagnorn: You have spoken well. Albert and Dorothy shall lead the charge against the enemy. Smite and smite. Do not forbear to smite. Meanwhile, Cerdic and Tewdric shall guard the castle. Cerdic: Assuredly, O King. Pluvagnorn: There must be no penetration. Dorothy: I hear that. Pluvagnorn: To the fray! Trumpets! (Flourish of Trumpets. Exit all, stridingly. Sounds of battle. Then loud cheering.) (Enter a soldier, crusty with blood but still striding.) Soldier: This was a day when manhood was whetted and stropped. This was a day when men were of manhood and the manly were of martial bearing. Boys on this day stood on the legs of men. We who fought this day shall not forget how tall and brave, how bold -- (Soldier pauses to drink from his canteen) CURTAIN © Mark Halliday & Martin Stannard, 2004 |