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GRIST On-Line, #4 January, 1994
John Fowler, Editor and Publisher
Copyright 1994 by John E. Fowler. All individual works
Copyright 1994 by their respective authors. All further
rights to works belong to the authors and revert to the
authors on publication. GRIST On-Line is published
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
EDITOR'S PAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
THIRTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY PROFESSION: 15.IX.66
George Dowden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
I L(o)ve NY
Kaviraj George Dowden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
WALK (I)
Clayton Eshleman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
WALK (III)
Clayton Eshleman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
SHODDY WORKMANSHIP
Linda Lerner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
PRICE ON OUR HEADS
Linda Lerner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
WON'T MAKE THE TEN MOST WANTED
Linda Lerner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
BRAHMS' GERMAN REQUIEM
Will Inman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
SAFE IN THE OWL'S TALONS
Brown Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
MY PILLOW CALLS ME DOUBTING THOMAS
Brown Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
LOVE LIFE
Clive Matson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Shadow Traffic
Clive Matson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Ax Rooster
Clive Matson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
IdEAL ORDER
Jeffrey Harrington. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
The Electronic Art & Culture Postcard
[email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
PHILOS - Cyberspace & Virtual Reality
Marc Librescu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
PREDICTIONS
Jon Lebkowsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Sterling's _Hacker_Crackdown_ online
Stanton McCandlish. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Subject: networking
[email protected] . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
MAIL EVENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
E-MAIL ARTISTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
CONTRIBUTOR'S NOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
"THIRTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY PROFESSION: 15.IX.66" appeared in
(the original) Grist #14
"SAFE IN THE OWL'S TALONS" appeared in (the original) Grist
#12, copyright 1994 Brown Miller
"WALK (I)" and "WALK (III)" appeared in (the original) Grist
#12, copyright 1966 Clayton Eshleman
"LOVE LIFE" appeared in (the original) Grist #7, copyright
1994 Clive Matson
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EDITOR'S PAGE
O.K. so #4 is only half as long--80 some k compared to 100 &
80 k--maybe half as long and twice as good? Want to say?
Hey, thanks for all the e/s-mail cards and letters!
Feedback keeps the heart pumpin' and the swelling down.
Please continue to respond. Not due to lack of material.
An all prose issue in the offing; plus more from
Cyanobacteria International; and poets of beat and other
forms of maturity or innocence.
So here's an announcement::heed with joy
GRIST ON-LINE Publishing is proud to announce the following
forthcoming titles to be published on diskette:
GLEANINGS: Uncollected Poems of the Fifties by David Ignatow
SELECTED POEMS: Jim McCrary
THE DEUX MEGOTS SCENE: Carol Berge
UNPUBLISHED STORIES: Carol Berge
HIROSHIMA - A Shadow Project Slideshow: John Fowler
THE KLEE POEMS & THE BOOK OF FISHES: John Fowler
All will be available for download from the GRIST BBS by
prepaid subscription as well. The BBS system will be up and
running by February 1st. More titles by other GRIST authors
are in the works and will be announced in future issues.
For further details concerning these titles, the GRIST
publishing program, and the GRIST BBS email me via
[email protected].
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THIRTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY PROFESSION: 15.IX.66
from (the original) Grist #14, (revised, 1993)
George Dowden
I do not leap out of bed eager to do things this day--
mindless enthusiasm--to do something or be 34
with smiling, chattering wellwishers I cannot
say "Be silent" to--"Be silent on the day I
have outlived Jesus!"
because I have not written or spoken well enough to lose
speech freedom, be eliminated in America--because
I have been a slow-starter--because I have hidden
my power--because I have hidden my violence--
because I wish to understand, to forgive, to heal,
because that is my work--because I hate everything
I would heal and because I know better but will
not stop trying--because I wake on my birthday
with clenched teeth for the black Things leaping
upon one another and clinging, adhesive, mindless,
by their hideous nature, choking off space in my
head, bulging the brain cells, stretching the
skin--not verifiable, but not an image; it is
Brain Pressure--Swift's slobbering and ravings at
end--Pound's mouth twisted open in Francis Bacon
soundless scream when "they" released him with
the usual platitudes--Artaud Le Momo's
wasted and toothless face after massively uncom-
prehending Roez--(etc.)--IF you survive to be old--
where do I end in fierceness?--it is all Energy--for
heaven or hell the same--I would be more home
locked brain to brain with hated and (though in
most evil of mesomorphic way) GREAT Johnson
even--never with bland underlings, never!--but
they too might be free if ALLOWED to be free...
see, this ranting--this sense of Reality thwarted in
men while birds sing--that is one of "their"
weapons!--
and recent SHOCK to discover my once (sometimes still)
beautiful face getting fiercer--strain to LOOK
gentle--
natural need for my work to be recognized very soon, or
what?--need for a shaman's place to work--need for
some pay for my profession, a building where poet-
priest may give good what he's been granted to
give--need for an ashram of rooms, plural!--one
room for writing and teaching--one for Pauline's
painting--one for a graceful bread breaking--one
for white chapel incense, yoga, nonsymbolic, smoking
together--one where guests may have free vision
and be delighted--and we are being shown high-priced
one-room "flats" with Victorian wallpaper!--not
even our place among English, Irish, West Indian,
African, Indian, Chinese children of backlands Notting
Hill, where it would do our own Spirits most good to
live--
and the businessman, clerk, policeman, mechanic has a place
to go to do his work (for which he is "respectable")
so also the professors also "respectable", as I was
when professor--
but I have no place to go to do mine now, far more
ancient, and also "respectable"--
Energy backing up--WILL find its outlet--
Pauline crying out yesterday in the Underground (subway)
train, "Somebody help me, he's going to hurt me...
please help me..." I twisting her arm and
neck, threatening to twist her face off--for
what?--for the pain in my head, for someone to
receive my Energy to relieve me--incredulous
faces around us, gaping "average" riders held
against any rescue by the Wolf in my eyes, I
could have mangled cautious charge of them with
strength, coordination and lucidity of madness
they subdued me--Pauline breaking away
from my explaining..my explaining..running
out when the train stopped--I continuing in it
to Waterloo--waiting there for the next train--
she on it--approaches me--I am finished, empty--
takes my arm, leads me, near-catatonic, to next
train, home, her soft child-mother body in bed--
understand this, my friends who laugh and drink beer
with me at poetry readings and afternoons in the
streets and so easily say "Love...the world needs
Love"...friends who love me, too, then, and whom
I have spared this--understand now what is in
me and "Love" yes but love is COSTLY
before spoken with Power in the poem--the
deja vu purer-than-thou "Love Poem" WHO'S self-
expression!--
O, forgive me!--so much at stake here--understand Love
has put me in danger on my 34th birthday--because
THIS Love burns with ambition of Love more than
poetry--but by poetry not sainthood given, so chosen...
this morning--my birthday--hot bath--immobile still
after subway happening--first Purple Heart of my
life--from her mother--
now 6:00 pm--on my way to see Paul and Rhiannon Evans,
having first baby any day now, maybe today on my
birthday--an hour's writing of this in nice Lyon's
tea room shelter from rain in Notting Hill Gate
Rd., flat hunting--out--into Notting Hill Under-
ground--alone and quiet--7:30 sky darkening behind
toylike English chimneypot houses seen through
Underground skylight--going to Stamford Brook to
sit with Paul and Rhiannon, then home to Pauline--
gone out alone to concentrate on this poem that
had to be written--
get out at Stamford Brook--blonde girl in red panties
only, back to me, posing for somebody in third-
floor window on Paul's street--just there in
window as I walk by and see--retreat, watch her
Beauty from behind parked cars for 5 minutes--
walk on, thankful
Paul's father, the Vicar, greets me at door in HIS collar--
beautiful face--church group meeting in sitting
room--that's something
Rhiannon cheerful and busy--still big with baby--we are
all gentle together--they glad I've come--we
read poems to each other (not this one to impose
on the milk of her baby)--they love me
Paul walks me back to the Underground
4 funny little shopgirls in train--"discussing" me--
stealing glances--they like me
this poem writ from fierceness to calm now
"Headache? This is What Happens..." / "With a Bottle of
Sparkling FOLIES BERGERES!"--ads side by side and
across from me who have drunk nothing all week
we pull into Wimbledon--all doors banging open--dark--10:30-
-
cold wind running back and forth through the station--
get on train to Surbiton and bus to home--hot milk--
and I'll be in bed again with Pauline, where warmth
has its reasons
NOTE: this poem must finally be read in sequence with
the long RENEW JERUSALEM poem, which was completed a week
before it and which in fact determined what had to rise to
the surface as rightly here, on my thirty-fourth birthday.
Neither this nor the earlier poem makes me, or anyman,
"this" or "that"; with the Energy there, the hope is that
the best, not the worst, in these poems, in me--also in
society--will prevail, till the Work prosper more fully,
more simply, more truly and beautifully some day in Light--
after the ever more fearsome dark nights that will come. A
third poem, THE MURDER OF CHRIST, must also finally be read
in sequence with these two poems.
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I L(o)ve NY
Kaviraj George Dowden
Early-winter sunslant on Washington Square earth, trees
and benches and on New Yorkers of every possible
description co-existing on the benches and on guitars
at the Fountain and on dogs playing chase the pigeons
and on squirrels and sparrows and on dark Jewish NYU
girl students walking to class, deep memories of
Sinai, Galilee, Canaan, the wedding feast and the
dancing
Blackman big, terrible, in boots, flowing pants, headband
and Algerian turban, striding through the Square like
the emperor's champion wrestler, I wish I could follow
and watch him an hour and O to hear his-story, that
would be something, but I dare not (I saw him centuries
ago in streets of Algiers, Rome, Kabul, Athens, Siam,
Congo, Cairo, Constantinople)
One black squirrel among the grays in the Square, if I
stay in this city I'll come and feed him!
Leaves blowing in November wind
Madman shows me his feet, filthy stockings, no shoes, and
asks where he can take a bath, no money, and I directing
him to the Square's toilets, no place else for him, alas,
who once was a child, O the promise, the promise, then
the human disaster, this one and that one, XX Century
and the nuclear family
Large man, large dog, the man sitting (manshape against the
sky) and the dog sitting beside him (dogshape against
the sky) not wanting to run and play but just sit
beside him in silence on the grass, perfect, two so
different creatures yet One, I see how soft and gentle
the creator can be in this city
Good to share whiskey with Jamaican, my white lips his
black lips the same, no wiping the bottle
People from every part of America and the world walking and
sitting and being here together in the Melting Pot, I
sit and observe and am part of the scene and the passing
show several hours in delight, then walk again in the
Village and find the Aurora Bar gone from W. 4th Street,
I came new to this city in '57 and drank martinis after
work with Mahlon the Dwarf, Irky the Dog, Painter
Johnny Bowen and Adrian Moolenbrugh "Interior Decorator,"
now it's the Lichee Nut
Old sawdust 5-Star wino Mills bar on Bleeker now empty of
the old guys, no more hopelessly gnarled heads bowed
to the stark wooden tabletops and the floor
Sign on shop, Seventh Avenue South: "Ear Piercing/Your
Choice/With or Without Pain" - no prejudice against
masochists, all are served in Metropolis
I entering into Soho and Village art galleries, here
Jackson Pollock of my NY initiation, here someone new
to me and another new one, some good but some not
really so good and art all mixed up with XX Century
commerce, Vincent sold one painting in his life, now
Sunflowers worth millions
Soho News: epidemic of syphilis, gonorrhoea, herpes (an
evil one indeed), urethritis, genital cancer and
hepatitis among the swingers (straight and gay) in the
city - the sexual revolution now nightmare for its
most active adherents, all changes, all is flux and
all changes, yet somehow some will find a way out of
the vortex
New York dogwalkers carrying paper towels to pick up their
doggies' droppings and throw them in trashcans, how
civilized! In England dogshit all over the place,
thank God for much rain
Now West River, water, seagulls and me, New Jersey in the
distance, Statue of Liberty far away in the bay, good
to be by water, fortnight out of Brighton, the Channel
Historic S. Klein on the Square (Union and 14th St.) still
named but all dark boarded and ghostly, where do
immigrants shop now bedazzled?
New York! New York! poets, painters, dancers, actors,
musicians walking the streets with me! And nobody
notices or particularly cares seeing one of us stopping
a minute to put pen to paper right on the street or a
few steps away in a doorway, no misunderstandings, no
preconceptions, no petty comments, all is absorbed and
accepted in freedom
R. Gross and his Dairy Restaurant, 1372 Broadway, with an
official letter in the window certifying that the
Rabbi is in control and all is strictly kosher in
this place
New York Damon Runyan character in loud jacket leering
suggestively at passing pretty girl at Broadway and
36th, she's used to it and keeps eyes straight ahead
in her walking
Empire State Building an elegant massive delight, day of
the great liners, art deco, dancing at the Ritz, the
Savoy, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Cagney and Bogart,
the ganqsters and the socialites and the big bands and
all of the dread and glittering Thirties scene I was
born into
So many yellow cabs zooming, maneuvering, honking and
buzzing like angry wasps, and the unreal skyscrapers, and
what chaos on the streets and in the buildings if Bomb
fell, piles of hot wires in every wall, electrified
subways, wires under the pavements, in telephones and
computers and all of it crackling and burning and ducks
and lobsters spinning in air and splattered on the walls
in all the fine restaurants and "Hey! Whatsa matta
Russia!" from the gutter
Message spraypainted on base of statue in famous little
Herald Square park: "WOMEN! DON'T WORK WITH THE POLICE"
in red with "YOU'LL GET LAYED" added by someone else in
black - big lettering, too, no woman (or copper) could
possibly miss it, yet no one erases it
O what tragic stories sit here on the benches, remember me!
Grass in Greeley Square, guy with headphones and insect
antennae cap comes in on his bicycle, rearranges the
Square's three central dustbins and rides away, that's
all, nobody on the benches pays him the least bit of
attention, white, black or Chinese, New Yorkers!
Every face here that of a stranger! All these individuals
and individualists yet also all manifestations of the
great One, and I with them and am them
And what mystery the karma that brings this particular one
and that particular one and all of us to this one more
beat little Square in New York City, this place, this
day, this minute, to be New York City?
And these particular pigeons on this particular well-and-
truly-bombed statue?
O, all together such faces (and figures) could only be seen
in midtown Manhattan!
And hot chestnut and pretzel sellers, what can I say? And
these people going in and out of all these huge buildings.
And American policemen with guns on hip seemingly just
hanging out
Mannahatta, Mannahatta, you very real fantasy island you
are all the images needed!
And all the people in New York, black and white, old and
young, who walk the streets talking to themselves! All
the crazies roaming loose and I roaming with them
"Shit, man," exclaims black bicyclist who almost hits a
young white woman at corner of 34th, no one bats an
eyelash, not even the woman
O colorful city, all the subway trains 100% covered in
street-art initials graffiti
Look here now, one guard with gun on hip unloading money
from an armored car for the bank, his colleague standing
grimly at the door his gun in hand at his side, at the
ready, O yes, New York is its own metaphor, no need
to make up anything, no cause to embellish
Not seeing' no films, no shows, no TV, New York is the
streets and the places and people, not a second to lose,
walking, sitting, being, observing, recording theme
of my Consciousness as it meets this incredible city's,
and what is this telephone sales job for TIME/LIFE BOOKS
I'm supposed to start Monday!
Every day fabled Chelsea Hotel sleep and wakeup and out,
out to the streets, first wonder today old black man in
wool ski cap talking and laughing away to himself in
W. 23rd coffee shop, I'm so pleased that he's happy
Next wonder, bum sleeping on back steps of NY Public Library
with shopping bags at his side, maybe a book in them?
"Beauty/Old Yet Ever New/Eternal Voice/and Inward Word,"
trees, flowers, bushes and blue sky, a good place to
crash awhile in the city
Blacks in the same Library garden (Bryant Park) laughing
and slapping hands and saying "O, man, Stevie Wonder,
that's a mean dude!" and turning me on, wow, and we
talking of Shiva, Buddha, Walt Whitman and E1 Salvador,
not to mention Shorty's height that of a cockroach, more
black slap handshakes and Dan saying he got to write
this down, "O, man, I got to write this down!" and I
doing it also
Slice of pizza and papaya juice and young black cat at the
counter with me meticulously rolling a joint
And the famous (or infamous) Broadway-7th Ave.-42nd Street
lights! the lights! all these Kung Fu and Horror and
Sex cinemas also part of the madly imaginative Creator's
mind manifestations
And here "Spanish Fly, eight flavors"! and "Assorted French
Ticklers"! not to mention "Stay Hard Cream" and the
most explicit fellatio mag covers! O horrendous sexshops
and peepshows and windows!
New Bryant Theatre, 10 New SEXtacular SEXcitinq SEXational
LOVE Acts on Stage and, on screen, "Sexual Heights",
three-hour show - or 25 cents for XXX three-minute movies
in sex shops all around it and busy!
Golden Dollar Topless Bar & Lounge, "Exotic Girls!" migod
how charming or desperate those girls there just for
men to ogle, maybe to touch! not long ago High School
cheerleaders in Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska
And far from Nebraska you can get a Front Page with your
name in headlines on Broadway: RALPH BINNS FARTS IN
SUBWAY - 67 DEAD!
Now black and white tipster and hipster talk at the
Broadway and 42nd Street Off-Track Betting Shop, I
fading into the picture, just one more jobless john
playing the horses
Forlorn girl with cardboard sign: HELP ME. MY PURSE WAS
SNATCHED, and I giving her a dollar and a little
compassion
"Jesus Saves" black preacher at 7th Avenue and 42nd
street preachers' corner, hellstone and brimfire and
no one but the tourists and me looking or caring,
everyone's free to do his thing in this city and boy
do they do it!
Legendary cafeteria Dubrow's, 7th Avenue and W. 38th
Street, what food selection, steam tables, steel
cookers, small inferno, now respectable middle-class
eatery but what New World stories here at all of the
tables!
Dinosaur cars and trucks as patient as such creatures can
be staking out turf rights, horn honking order of the
day...and the evening and the night and the dawn of
the new day NY forever
And O Bowery history! The dead walking, so much gone,
such blasted spirit of man, so much forgotten,
cigarette and small change for Spectre trembling
in light shirt - "I gotta get a coat, I gotta get a
coat soon!" winter arriving, one more eternal NY
scene for a century
And what historical names, late-XIX early-XX Century
immigrant insurge to the streets of gold: Mulberry,
Mott, Second Avenue, Bowery, Delancey!
"Can you spare a cigarette?" "Yeh, right" again on the
Bowery. And then the most incredible hard luck
story, no way to describe it
Old drunks in Bowery bar discussing "years ago" and,
surprisingly, bowling, knowing all the names and
statistics, and a Mongolian Idiot slobbering happily
at the toilet end of the bar and the guy in the black
and white TV movie is holding a cross up to the
Blob, "Haha, he thinks it's a vampire!" laughs the
blackbearded bartender meaning no harm but getting
a kick out of the Blob's assimilating poor trusting
Christian
Lower East Side/East Village of my NY initiation, the Beat,
the Hippie, the Immigrant, the Poor, white and black,
the offbeat galleries and bookstores and clothes
shops on St. Mark's Place, the color, the life of the
streets
Tompkins Square park where I sit and listen to a lone
Japanese jazzman singing through his sax in America
O, I L(o)ve NY, the joy both outer and inner! come a long
way in seeing since NY young man death & doom vision
22 years ago!
Passing the "NY Institute of Classical Yoga," 8th Avenue
and 24th Street, I see ex-guru Muktananda photo
staring at me! Sorry, Baba, you left out too much of
the world for a comic yogi and poet
Walking home in evening darkness, "That's nice!" to girl
passing, making music, blowing a paper streamer, she's
suspicious but as I pass and say nothing more returns
faint smile to my smile
A stop in bar - historical old faded blonde in low-cut
red dress and man, gray and even older, arguing about
the deceptions of love in Metropolis, NY drama,
W. 23rd Street Green Rooster, both lone, glad to have
each other to talk to, passionate four-letter-word talk
but no saying nothing too harsh to chase away
confidante
Star Cafe across from Green Rooster now, black bar, black
rhythm and jazz, foxy lady behind bar in glittering
silver blouse knows me and is "glad to see you," one
white face on bar vine midst bloom of black faces.
She remembers that my Guinness is not to be too cold
and, pleased with herself as O how pleased I am with
her, says "This is strong stuff and it has the vitamins
in it!"
Eddie comes in and regales me with dread tales of the
painting business and the streets and his joys and
woes, can't pay for return drink, can't pay for new
glasses
Home to divine beat old Chelsea to rest feet hot from
centuries of walking this planet
Yet even indoors I am drawn to the window to see fabulous
beings in the streets below, not dominated by buildings,
not defeated by grime, noise, crime or whatever, and
Bomb doesn't know history herstory or would be struck
dumb with shame, little yellow taxis carrying NY
guests and natives uptown and downtown only to disappear
leaving even 7th Avenue empty, one more American
ghost street when Bomb lights the night sky, now not
one empty second from sunrise to sunset to sunrise
again
Now I sit on my bed with my new pair of $30-in-one-hour
glasses from mid-Manhattan, this yellow pad I'm writing
on with this felt-tipped pen, my journal, my what-to-
do-today notebook (and pen, a second one), a rubber
band to hold last pen in last notebook, cigarettes
and matches, a half-pint of Seagram's 7, I'm in my
underwear feeling gleefully beatific, comfortable,
secure and at peace in this city, a cockroach for
company, jazz on new tiny radio, $5, 8th Avenue
Mad Hindu from next room mumbling "Krishna! Krishna!
Krishna!" in his lunghi through the halls of Hotel
America
Sirens below on the street, so many dramas, so many
stories, such eternal dream-reality and such courage,
Reagan-Brezhnev, don't bomb these people, really,
don't bomb them! just don't!
"Wow Wow!" go the sirens, police and ambulance, life and
death dramas since the beginnings of time, the streets
darkening, soon NY night life beginning and is that
not amazing!
End of week walking and being here, my hand in Shiva's,
nobody's knifed me or shot me or mugged me, quit
telephone sales job after one hour, weather turning
colder, maybe white snow on these fabled streets come
tomorrow
II
bright blooming flowers
here too in the city --
not to forget them
Beautiful sweet honey-blonde teenager Ami with
"So. Laurel Cheerleader" on her blue jacket
in her blue jeans and red-white-and-blue
sneakers bounces into the beat cafeteria
where I'm having a cup of tea, you'd expect
to see her in Corn-Is-Green, Iowa, but she
is here, New York City!
And Anita waitress in W. 23rd and 7th Avenue
coffee-'n'-doughnut shop, a Puerto Rican
Barbie doll, so petite and pretty in her
short white waitress uniform and little red
apron, a little cross, too, pouting quite
a lot because she has to serve men, she
won't smile at them either, Knowing they
all want to kiss her
And all the little Jewish girls, black girls,
Irish girls, Italian girls, Puerto Rican
girls, Chinese girls and Nebraska girls,
gurls gurls qurls walking these streets!
such innocent eyes! such tenderness! this
city's made gentler because they are here
And the little mink-like creature bundling her
pert round bottom into a taxi in the middle
of the street, 34th and Broadway, car horns
all blaring around her
And the fair Kansas maiden seen through
Sloane's grocery store window with shopping
basket in one hand and in the other her
shopping list scrutinized with a faint,
mysterious smile, now NY Mona Lisa
And the round, soft though brash redheaded
teenage angel in jeans chewing gum, ripe
red lips moving, outside Bleeker Street
deli, "What yuh lookin' at?" and she
shatters Poet's dream - but for only a
second
And sweet stacked lively Irish Mary who giggles
at and parries all the madman male thrusts
in the Green Rooster Bar, W. 23rd off
Avenue Seventh
And the young Puerto Rican girl in Mickey Mouse
sweatshirt hanging red velvet balls in the
window of "New York New York" in the Village,
corner of 7th Avenue South and W. 10th Street,
with "I L(o)ve NY" stickers all over the windows,
rails and steps (I buy an "I L(o)ve NY" badge
and pin it to my coat and ah! she smiles
at graybearded me)
And Christina the Italian-American hooker, 21
looks 16, whom I do not take back to the
Chelsea with me from St. Marks Place and
Cooper Square bar but give $10 to for kissing
and touching her O so tender cheeks and her
neck and her breasts and her sweet honeypot
treasure she knowingly lent me awhile,
lone drink or two in the gloaming
(What if I could spend one night with each of
them seeing what they do, hearing what they
say!)
And the one of dark eyes of deep Eastern promise
drinking espresso in "FOOD" new bohemia
Soho, Prince and Wooster, looking right at
me with interest through the window as I
write about her this moment
And the fine young black girl who takes a light
off my cigarette in Madison Square park,
5th Avenue and 24th, her fingers touching
mine and saying "Thank you," and I so pleased
saying "You're welcome"
And the two delightful Chinese girls giggling
together at the corner of Lafayette and Canal
Streets, north border of Chinatown in the rain
And the two little blonde ones - so tender! -
carrying roller skates over their marvelous
round dimpled shoulders at 30th Street and
8th Avenue Sunday
And the pretty one giving such a sweet peck to
her boyfriend's cheek in 5th Avenue teashop,
she's auburn-haired, moral and friendly
And the smart pretty receptionists in all the
smart Madison Avenue offices smiling us
OM!
bright blooming flowers
here too
in this city
joying me -
body-senses
mind
heart
and spirit
III
Washington Square Tuesday Morning
Three hours sleep last night, no will to walk
today, just sit in November morning sunlight
in Washington Square drinking and smoking,
watching the people, watching the trees and
the grass, the squirrels and the pigeons
and sparrows, looking up at the sky
Schoolchildren playing in a group in the Square's
playground, very precious as you see so few of
them on the streets, New York City
Black dope dealers dealing, leaf sweepers
sweeping, joggers jogging in track suits,
male and female, madman lying in the leaves
howling, traffic passing, grandmothers
with babies in baby carriages, dog walkers,
citizens down on their luck hanging out,
NYU students going to their classes and
perhaps tender lovers
The ground beneath my feet moves though it
appears to stand still, I sitting on green
bench on the rim of the universe
Unemployed blacks standing around passing a
bottle, far now, very far from Africa
homeland, right here is their world as mine
and I love to study their faces and hear
their black talk and laughter
Boy and girl Passing, she's chewing gum and
talking to him, I wonder what revelations
her spirit has for his spirit
Black woman pushing old white rich woman in
wheelchair, soon Sri Lord Death will have
the old woman (who came into being a sweet
blooming girl child) and the black woman'll
be out of a job
Garibaldi bedecked with pigeon shit eternally
about to draw his sword against all of us -
but he never does it, why would he do it?
Black guitarist in black turban covering head
spaced out in Infinity shares his cosmic
thinking and music with me, most incredible
meeting, scratching his crotch, cursing
passersby (who have a quick glance but don't
blink an eye, native New Yorkers), he's
ready to drop a neutron bomb on New York
for some reason, too much for me though in
his best moments playing and singing
Old white man with cane contemplating his sick
bare foot on a bench
Neat little chicks, blackhaired and blonde,
cutting along dressed as it pleases them
Leaves yellow and falling, the beginning of
winter, life again over, to be resurrected
in springtime
Frisbies gliding through air, bongos and guitars
and joints passed at the Fountain
OM!
I am
at home
here
and
these are
my people
and
deep regret
for finance
of the world
I must leave
this city
tomorrow
-NY 16.XI.81 - 24.XI.81
########################################
WALK (I)
Clayton Eshleman
Over Santa Rosa bridge
at the summit hills cup Lima ash bung.
down
in the slums. Two ladies
green print dresses daughters alike
a hit dog
the Rimac brown
sty of river roils cane
tail green weeds
(Coming down mountain
sierra mule-stop)
boys
splash naked gleaming sun drifts grey haze
3rd bridge
woman battered
hat down in grass fresh sewer water
dipped out for legs
spread
brown men's pants rolled
under dirty flowered skirt
by down under bridge wall
ripe mahogany shit flies
hotter.
hotter.
unnameable slum. wandering. tents. houses.
ground standing with blue water. days.
stands. stands. hanging from shutter photo
biceps up dovetailing overhead Steve Reeves
Man has no ulterior
purpose, he lays claim to
nothing & surrenders himself
to spontaneity
OCTOPUS KILLS
FAMILY OF TEN
########################################
WALK (III)
Clayton Eshleman
To Barranco by collectivo
_lowering of the baths_
thru eucalyptus pressed to sea
swept hills
lines surf chain,
hand love holds.
along shore by foot walking around parked collectiovs,
taxi-drivers & wives, girl-friends down in sand - cold -
colorless beach - they embrace under sticks - stand hands
rubbing under falls other side of road under baked dirt
Barranco cliffs. Not quite human man in bathing suit
keep me to my purposes
to walk straight thru eternity
chains sea decomposing a face
a sun
bleeds gold a lane
black figures
not quite human
play
love holds all human in her
closed hand
The pier concrete Sunday Tired crowds bargain
sumo fishwives behind hampers of squid, piles of tiny
corvina boys hold up scales balanced fishes hooked
There is meat out home so we'll eat here.
I sit down with Barbara under evening canopy. Negro
young muscular goodlooking brings plates of
squid . corvina
The scales balance
aji burns my mouth
along night road headlights a busted sandal.
(Valentine Day 1966)
########################################
SHODDY WORKMANSHIP
Linda Lerner
Co-op is sinking; twenty-five year old
upper middle class...
nearly imperceptible bathtub slope.
Tenant relaxing in
thrown together poem
stretches out accumulated tension cost
of apartment, doesn't notice at first,
matter of inches only
who cares
until some asshole neighbor
drinking perrier, worrying about invested life
savings
organizes tenants. Soon
men with bludgeoning tools, in combat
boots, urban military garb
scaffold his privacy, threaten other investment.
An uncontrollable tantrum he kicks about
in the poem. Foundation no
made to withstand
he falls through: joins
tribes of homeless. Shelters
too full, closed for lack of funds,
executives, artists, academics crowd doorways
digging into pocket;
three million first cost of repairs,
they continue
with pens, paint brushes, digging with
various softwares, degrees...
as last resort use politically correct
generosity once called begging
for foundation repairs' final payment.
########################################
PRICE ON OUR HEADS
Linda Lerner
Yesterday the World Trade Center was bombed.
Arabs. My father's enemy.
`I told you so' warnings
drag me down...
My lover never met
but knows in his Jewish gut,
smells his vodka breath,
under six feet of earth
sniffs out `Irish'
shakes this foundation.
I think of that bigger blast;
fanatics from a world we buried...
destruction of innocence as great as lives.
Who said there is such a thing as death.
Only bodies vanish.
Nobody who ever lived
leaves this earth.
########################################
WON'T MAKE THE TEN MOST WANTED
Linda Lerner
Outlaw
sucking 80 proof breasts,
why don't you stop playing;
take off those combat boots,
let go your parents hands,
run out of that market place.
Same death needling/same kin.
Ride the verb `become'
rebel you pretend
dress/speak like,
brawling poet, why
a horn to blow tantrums?
Isn't hell enough for words?
Why
holstered anger flashing/
undelivered why
moma's boy still?
########################################
BRAHMS' GERMAN REQUIEM
Will Inman
that chorus fills this room with sky and ocean
a windy forest walks the floor of this sea-rushing
this god never stands still in sanctuary walls
what tall grasses root in darkness between stars
listening prelates circumcise themselves of their
small moralities. god's naked flesh will not stay
quite condomed in pieties. these choruses
cauterize with joy tongues of guilt-mongers
mother of creation climbs this singing hill where
sisters and brothers give birth to each other
such melodies are umbilicals that let us go free
the more they wrap joy around our skulls
the sacred brother kisses every child's navel
not one is born but is only begotten, unique
who _dares_ say any sister is not made in the image
of god? he curses himself with false separation
for god is indivisible and will not be
broken by men's fallible stone erections
what dark cloud groans with fresh advent?
how deep does our vision delve below surfaces
into rediscovered marrows of awareness? what
rainbows root in pain, wake now to joy, how
every leaf, yea, every fleck of dust glows
with living presence, how sky fills this sound
24 April 1993, Tucson
########################################
SAFE IN THE OWL'S TALONS
Brown Miller
I am in a hallway of rubber, coal, uranium.
I hear the leading citizens saying "Gosh!"
Pneumonia weeds flank me.
Entrails of birds are discovered in the basement.
I wade in sour cream and wait.
Gnarled veins appear off and on
in the wooden mirror.
Black helicopter ghosts
and ambulances containing collages
stop inside my ears, like needles.
Finally I smell the ocean, lean down
to touch the sand of my own flesh.
copyright 1993 by Brown Miller
########################################
MY PILLOW CALLS ME DOUBTING THOMAS
Brown Miller
A father who tears himself apart
cannot wake me from this doubt.
I want to paste the pieces back
in place to make a tangible face.
He took my mother's death like
cyanide pill on his tongue.
He poked his finger through the
hole he couldn't believe was left.
He put my head to sleep with
a blow from his blunted life.
"Wear this crown," he said,
"It's made of her favorite thorns."
My finger wants to test some flesh,
find a wound red, wide, and warm.
But her corpse fades away like song.
The puzzle I'm stuck with now
still isn't father enough to say
my name, shake me by the shoulder.
So I believe in this feathery doubt,
fingering a hole from the inside out.
########################################
LOVE LIFE
Clive Matson
Well I'm hung on a woman
& that pair of breasts,
high and pointed.
She is my first love &
the one I'll die of,
who was my sweetheart
at nineteen years when
I boosted her from her mother's
cage and sweet college life
into the sweet agony
of our bodies and soul.
Forever changing poses
on the big bed and thru
decorated rooms
& green forest on
U.S.Route 1 with blue sky above,
forever I
connive to feel again the
first bliss of young love 1961
and the Garden of Eden remembered,
I walked there at peace
with a woman
but not with her.
With my true love the most
beautiful of them all,
who is only a dream I nourish
in my heart
since I was seven
and I blow my mind
to hang her live on
the face and ass of the woman
now dressing
and hanging on beads
before a mirror.
I fail, Goddamn.
And later
across the table pull some casual
tightrope act focused one eyed
on joy,
rap
and await her feedback
pretending we get along
while I yearn for new lust
& freedom or to close my eyes and
dream the rest
til death.
Oh I put
drugs in my veins against pain
and dulling desire to
make living easier
& we share Heaven and Hell
eyelids drooping behind heroin,
the woman I addicted & hooked myself for
inside joy
& in despair I'd leave or lose her
and the feel of her soft arms.
But I left so many times and
leave her for new blood, adventure &
loneliness
in empty rooms,
who
I came back to and come back
to the same joy and pain as
we enjoy and exhaust the magic
our separate lives contain,
trap
ourselves with the dark sorcery
alive in every heart
too evil
to leave again and let time heal us
in solitary pain
we maul each other
for what pleasure's left, loving
the color of our blood and the
razor edge swipe of nail and mind
that draws it,
hooked for life.
Black is her soul.
The terrible witch charms me into
handing over
heart & soul & body,
hexes my enemies so
they can't come near or
draws them in on strings
when I'm bad
to do her dirty work, tie me
with guilt and frustration
into knots
only she can undo.
She is a telepath and reads many
thoughts as I read hers,
who I hide with lies from
love affairs on the side
or use them against her when
she's too grabby
& bad trip her
saying how to think or fuck or act
and sneer disgusted at her tears,
explode the nasty groove with blows
putting scars on her body or
paint her image with shit
so I dim the fierce light of her
person and the look of need &
love
I put on her face.
I've done it all and we withdraw
into private tombs
to return another day
trembling on sight of each other
and the strange creatures we become
& she reveals her flesh in bed
as this morning with breasts
swelling and skin coloring red,
eyes rolled back into her head
& moaning, writhing open mouth
at the moments of coming.
I file this scene with memories
of happiness &
for duplication later
but it's impossible
riding the
seesaw between whatever she is
and what I want her to be
I married her one winter & wiped
tears from the twisted features.
Exchange one scene for another
with the same geometry,
caught anew
in the snare we have woven
across the continent from city
to city, across rooms
bound in the
companionship of shared routines, years
and tears together and afternoons
high on rooftops
and falling down
naked and shameless before the clear eyes
that know me so well,
maybe underneath
on the bedrock some other
quiet love solidifies.
I'm prince & prick
in my own house where
fucking is the answer to most everything
and when it isn't,
a smack or two will do
or jive or fake nonchalance or
I don't know what &
I blunder thru it all
trying to con her fully in my power,
sop up love like
a sponge from
the woman who takes me on
while I watch with one eye half cocked
for some escape.
April 1966
########################################
Shadow Traffic
(A stunned dawn when the mind realizes powerful,
unfamiliar emotions reside in the body.)
Clive Matson
Animals and trucks
move around in my body.
You don't know what they are.
I don't know what they are.
A gorilla with peaked head,
ship's anchor with barnacle ropes,
yards of cowshit on a flatbed,
a snake ball, getting fuzzy.
Fuzzier. Clear shapes
and I could shoot bull's eyes,
or direct traffic over-under
at the cloverleafs.
Shadows rumble through bottom
groin and center chest. They move
through each other without pain.
Each one carries a load.
I don't know what they are.
You don't know what they are.
Clear and I could ride
a hayload into the meadow.
Clang out a cherry-red shovel
on the portable anvil.
No one could match the speed.
"We are finding that emotions
at some level enter into most
of what happens during the day."
I'm walking in a wool and pigment
forest or maybe the city dump,
or a mall getting landscaped.
I don't know. You don't know.
Knee deep then neck high
in gray water, from the roof?
Peptides flowing over the top
of the expanding liver?
You don't know. I don't know.
I am a clear glass pane
with thoughts and actions
written so clearly
they are not written at all.
Can you see your next act?
You think your next thought
without looking. Without looking
I do my next act.
Animals and trucks
move around in my body.
########################################
Ax Rooster
(What my older brother looked like
while we were growing up.)
Clive Matson
Ax Rooster pecks
at a worm. His beak
is three inches wide,
steel, and razor sharp.
"Straighten up!" he crows
and jerks his head
to the side. He pins
the flawed protein
with a beady eye.
Peck-peck.
This worm's dead.
Now the next.
Ax Rooster is always
right. Behind his eyes
a little cock pulls
the shades up and down,
down and up.
He sees what he sees.
Peck peck.
This worm's dead.
As Rooster
has a mission.
When the shade's up
he sees a flaw.
When it's down
he figures what to do.
He better do it right
"Straighten up!"
he caws and cuts
another slice of midriff.
That worm died.
The little cock
feels a bigger ax
hanging over his head.
Right is the only way
to be. Or else the great
slicer in the sky
will chop his neck.
Peck peck.
That worm's dead.
Now who's next?
Ax Rooster doesn't
know he's strange.
His steel beak
turns his plucky strut
into a stagger.
At night
that beak gets heavier
and pulls him
to the ground. He curls
up his whole body on top
and sleeps, keeping
the steel warm.
########################################
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 08:18:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Hank Roth <
[email protected]>
Subject: OK to post poetry here
To:
[email protected]
It has been awhile since anyone has posted poetry here. It
is encouraged to have you post poetry you want to share
with us. It should relate to the human condition. Lets try
some:
POETRY
Poetry is also encouraged here with certain qualifications.
One can say so very much with metaphor. One can speak with
passion and often touch the core of an issue using poetry;
yours and others. Read a good poem lately? Share it with us.
Our only requirement is that it be relative to the "HUMAN
CONDITION" and *sparingly* interspersed between other
comments. Anotherwords, this is an echo conference PRIMARILY
for *discussion* and only incidentally for poetry. As a
suggestion you might like to post a poem and comments about
it, i.e., what it says specifically to you about human
suffering, aspirations, angst, etc.
******************************************************
******************************************************
Poetry often serves as the conscience of society. It is
interesting that many people who have had an impact (good
and bad) on history have also been poets. To name just a
few: Karl Marx, Mao-Tse-Tung, Stalin, Shelley, Byron,
Pushkin, Sean O'Casey, Yehuda Amichai, Yevgeny Yevtushenko,
Henry David Thoreau. Some probably come to your mind as
well.
+---------------Hank Roth-------------+
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 14:16:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Doug Henwood <
[email protected]>
Subject: Re: The Food Chain
Is this a comment on vegetarianism?
Doug
Doug Henwood [
[email protected]]
Left Business Observer
212-874-4020
On Sat, 18 Dec 1993, Hank Roth wrote:
THE FOOD CHAIN
Glazed blue plate specials
served with stinking
jock strap hard ons,
Hot black beer
and hotter still
fish smell cunts
And DNA slime
from gray ocean deep
feeding upon itself.
Everything eats everything.
by Hank Roth
########################################
M A N I F E S T O / H I S T O R Y O F I d E A L O R D E R
IdEAL ORDER was founded in 1982 as an outlet for
anarchic/artistic activism by Elsie Russell and Jeffrey
Harrington. The intent was twofold: to create collaborative
and issue-oriented art which was designed to provoke a
chaotic zen consciousness in the viewer and to create an
awareness of the telepathic activism of Jeffrey Harrington.
Disappointed with the usual formats of political art (the
poster, the tabloidal text-based format, i.e.) they began
experimenting with new techniques employing subliminal
messages; loading images with beautifully chaotic texts and
setting them in unusual public situations/contexts.
The initial works of IdEAL ORDER were displayed in the
subways and streets of NY City in 1982 and 1983. First
there were a series of heads of the Greek gods pasted on the
streets of NY. The intent was to take graceful beauty out
of the museum and back to the streets, hoping to provoke
sudden bursts of deep aesthetic appreciation in the
unsuspecting public. The second project was called "The
Seven Seals." It was designed as a series of pseudo-
religious confrontational rubber stamp image/text formations
stamped on the street and in the white spaces of subway
placards. Their largest installation to date was at the
infamous School Book Depository in the lower west side docks
of Manhattan. (Closed by a police action in July 1983).
During the same period while Jeffrey was employed at Liberty
Audio/Video he had begun experimenting with a capability
developed as an offshoot to his Zen meditative practices.
He discovered that he could cause broadcasting television
camera lenses to glow. He began using this luminescent
effect as a tool to harass media and politicians. The
process is called IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV. Unfortunately,
instead of achieving an artistic notoriety and provoking
discussion, a frenzy of celebrity/saint hysteria was
created. This attracted the attention of right-wing Islamic
fundamentalists which quickly became life-threatening.
Because of Jeffrey's ability to produce luminescent effects
and because of the imagery employed by IdEAL ORDER (they had
begun using a stamp of an angel with a Saracen sword) they
had come to see Jeffrey and Elsie as demons; as agents
against Khomeini whom they considered "The Light of the
World." After fleeing NY in 1983 because of death threats
IdEAL ORDER regrouped in Montana and later New Orleans and
continued the telepathic activism on a continual basis. In
1984 IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV began a nightly zapping of the
CBS Evening News and the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour and
constant telepathic harassment of the Reagan administration
during televised news conferences and news show appearances.
IdEAL ORDER also began networking their works through the
European, American, and Japanese mail art network. Since
1989 IdEAL ORDER has operated primarily through the computer
networks. Images are digitized, processed and then
distributed over the InterNet computer networks, GEnie,
CompuServe, and local BBS's. In November 1991 IdEAL ORDER
Psychic TV began focussing on a once a week disruption of
the CBS Evening News so that skeptical viewers might be able
to compare the illuminated with the non-illuminated
broadcasts. The project continues every Thursday night.
The ABC Evening News is psychically disrupted all of the
other nights of the week. This year IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV
successfully disrupted all three presidential debates,
intending to prevent the re-election of George Bush.
***********************************************************
EXPANDED HISTORY OF THE IdEAL ORDER PSYCHIC TV PHENOMENON
There is _no_ connection between the rock group Psychic TV,
i.e. Mr. Orridge's "product" and this process! (Except for
the fact that they probably named their group after my
phenomenon ;)
In 1982 I was employed as a salesman at an audio/video store
in New York City and I would sit and stare at a bank of
television sets. I have been involved with Zen meditation
for over 20 years and while in a state of no-mind (at work)
I discovered that the people on television were responding
to fluctuations in my mental state. I was later to learn
that I was producing a spot of bright light in the lens of
the broadcasting television camera.
Since 1983 I've been using this luminescent effect to wreak
havoc in the incipient mind of the media/state. I have
learned to control the effect so that I can induce more eye
blinking, more stammering, etc. by changing the brightness
and location of the spot of light which I cause to appear in
the broadcasting TV camera.
In 1991 I decided to create an experiment which would be
verifiable to the public at large, so that I might prove the
existence of the phenomenon to the skeptical community. So,
I came up with the Thursday test. Every Thursday I
illuminate the cameras of the CBS Evening News. Watchers of
the show can do various things to prove the veracity of my
claims. They can count the number of times Dan Rather
blinks on Thursday as compared with Friday or Wednesday.
They can measure the reflected luminosity of the spot of
light on Dan's eyeballs or they can count the number of
mis-speaks.
I've been zapping all presidential tv appearances since late
1983. If you watch the first 1984 Reagan debate you will
notice my efforts. I've zapped the presidential and
vice-presidential debates this year and will do it again for
the next two.
Millions of people know about this phenomenon and harbor
knowledge of it through a "cult of secrecy." There is no
real conspiracy in the public, it is just that people do not
tell others of this story unless provoked. There have been
quite a few pop songs written in homage; these usually use
innuendo to refer to the phenomenon.
My intent on Internet is to inform the public of this
process. My intent is infinite and immaculate in its
beautifully chaotic illuminative interventions; wreaking
havoc with light. Photonic agents of bliss infiltrating the
minds of commerce and conspiracy.
Jeff Harrington
[email protected]
########################################
Subject: The Electronic Art & Culture Postcard
[email protected]
Date: Mon, 03 Jan 94 22:30:34 EST
From: "stuff available list" available on request--just ask
for it! <
[email protected]> Status: RO
The Electronic Art & Culture Postcard is distributed
electronically twice a month, usually around the 1st and
16th. It is a list of free art events (gallery opening
receptions, lectures, concerts, dance, theater, movies, etc)
in the Boston area. The date (YYMMDD) is in the leftmost
column (excuse me, please, if extra long lines sometimes
extend beyond the end of a line and... continue on column
one!), followed by day of the week, time, place, and a short
description. Information about how to get your name added to
the email list follows the list, as well as directions for
submitting information about new free events. And now,
ladies and gentlemen, appearing for the first time ever on
our stage tonite... will you welcome, please, The Electronic
Art & Culture Postcard:
931218 Sat 3-5pm Sackler Museum,Harvard
University,495-2397,Buddhist Art, etc
931229 Wed 5-8pm Piano Dave's Gallery,157 Hampshire
St,Cambridge,Kid's Show Opening Reception
931231 Fri Evening First Night,Boston,various
events,Midnight fireworks finale over Boston Harbor,542-1399
940105 Wed 7pm BBN,70 Fawcett St,325-5351,SIGGRAPH/NE Film &
Video Show
940107 Fri 6-8pm Gallery NAGA,67 Newbury St,267-9060,Ken
Beck/Joseph Barbieri Reception
940107 Fri 5-7pm Photographic Resource Center,602
Commonwealth Av,Dore Gardner(Photography) Reception
940107 Fri 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury
St,859-7222,Cynthia Packard Reception
940107 Fri 5-8pm Howard yezerski Gallery,11 Newbury
St,262-0550,Richard Rosenblum--Cybermontage,Opening
Reception
940108 Sat 5-8pm Kingston Gallery,129 Kingston
St,423-4113,Liane Noddin(painter) Opening Reception
940108 Sat 3-5pm Barbara Krakow Gallery,10 Newbury
St,262-4490,Kiki Smith--Prints & Multiples,Opening Reception
940108 Sat South Station,Last day to see the model train
exhibit!
940109 Sun 2-5pm Boston Sculptors Gallery,60 Highland
St,West Newton,244-4039,Robert Schelling Bronz Sculpture
Reception
940109 Sun 3-5 Bromfield Gallery,107 South St,20th
Anniversary Afternoon Tea
940109 Sun 2-5pm Genovese Gallery,195 South St,426-2062,Pat
Keck--Opening Reception
940113 Thu 5:30pm Federal Reserve Bank,600 Atlantic Av,Art
And The Lucid Dream Reception/Discussion/Music/Story-telling
940114 Fri 5-7pm MIT List Gallery,253-4680,Maria Fernanda
Cardoso--Recent Sculpture,Opening Reception
940118 Tue 8pm MIT, KillianHall, 253-5623, Lecture/Demo,
Yuyachkani Peruvian theater company,Teresa Ralli leading
940120 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest
St,Waltham,891-3400,Bentley Community Art Opening Reception
940120 Thu 8pm MIT,Killian Hall,253-5623,Yuyachkani-Peruvian
theater company,Performance of Work in Progress
940121 5-7pm Fri MIT,Compton Gallery,10-250,David Bakalar
Sculpture & Paintings,Opening Reception
940121 FRI 6:30PM Federal Reserve Bank,600 Atlantic Av,Panel
Discussion on Lucid Dreaming
940204 Fri 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury St,859-7222,John
Dowd & Allen Whiting Reception
940209 Wed 4:30pm Harvard,Sanders Theater,Luciano Berio
lecture: o alter Duft
940210 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest
St,Waltham,891-3400,Bagenal/Field/Lehndorff Opening
Reception
940215 Tue 8pm Emerson College Forum,219 Tremont
St,578-8540,David Brinkley--ABC anchor
940302 Wed 4:30pm Harvard,Sanders Theater,Luciano Berio
lecture: Seeing Music
940303 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest
St,Waltham,891-3400,Patricia Elliott Opening Reception
940315 Tue 7pm MIT,Bartos Theater,253-4680,Dan Graham:
Public/Private,Lecture
940406 Wed 4:30pm Harvard,Sanders Theater,Luciano Berio
lecture: Poetics of Analysis
940407 Thu 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury
St,859-7222,George Gabin Reception
940414 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest
St,Waltham,891-3400,Cuhna/Stockwell Opening Reception
940425 Mon 8pm Emerson college Forum,219 Tremont St,Maya
Angelou--poet, educator, historian, activist
940505 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest
St,Waltham,891-3400,Clarke/Brugnola Opening Reception
Permision to copy and distribute this file is granted.
Please feel free to send it to anyone you think will be
interested.
Additions, corrections, and "Thanks for making this." can be
sent to:
[email protected]
To get future editions of the Electronic Art & Culture
Postcard, send me email saying you want to get future
editions of the EAACP.
Send information about events to the above email address,
or:
R Gardner
Box 381067 Harvard Sq Stn
Cambridge MA 02238-1067
########################################
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 11:12:39 -0500 (EST)
Subject: PHILOS - Cyberspace & Virtual Reality
from:
[email protected] (Marc Librescu)
I'm afraid I'm going to posit an unpopular (even heretical)
opinion and it is this: Cyberspace, while being a neat
metaphor, does not currently exist.
I, for one, fail to see how communication consisting of the
exchange of printed words sent back and forth over
telephone lines constitutes andything resembling the
popular notion of "cyberspace."
As I type these words, I am sitting in my room, not your
room and not some mythical place that is neither my room or
your room or somewhere in between. If I get up to go to the
bathroom, I am not leaving Cyberspace to take a piss, I am
getting out of my chair in my room.
There is no Cyberspace. At least not yet. I will believe the
metaphor when there is an actual virtual reality, Gibson's
Neuromancer reality, or something approaching it. If I am
interfacing with the computor in a manner which actually
creates virtual space, virtual reality, if you will, then
perhaps Cyberspace is something that we can talk about.
Until then, all this is just electronic mail to me.
Marc Librescu
########################################
PREDICTIONS
Date: Sun, 2 Jan 1994 08:01:22 -0800
from:
[email protected] (Jon Lebkowsky)
Here's what I'm seeing for 1994:
1) The genesis of the Information Superhighway. Until now,
it's been vapor, but I think '94's the year that we'll see
groundwork for the InfoSup infrastructure. What does that
mean? Among other things, it means we better damn well be
on our toes...or on somebody's toes.
2) Commercial development within the Matrix will continue,
if not explode. Ordinary People will move into the
neighborhood. Parts of the digital underground will adapt to
the mainstream, other parts will dig deeper.
3) In the USA and globally, we'll see the economic scene
grow more diverse, and perhaps more crazed. A redefinition
of markets will continue to evolve. That small is beautiful
will be more obvious. We'll still have megacorporations, but
(like IBM) they'll fragment to some extent into smaller,
leaner, more manageable sub-orgs.
4) Some of us will be rethinking our relationship to
technology. There'll be a growing contingent of
post-technoids who'll push flexible, adaptable, and to some
extent DIY (Do It Yourself) technologies...i.e. those that
can be altered and repaired by non-engineers. Reprogrammable
computers for cars, for instance. We'll also see increasing
emphasis on face-to-face gatherings of participants in
virtual communities, and some of these folks may buy land
and create geographical intentional communities in physpace.
5) End-of-World scenarios in which we drown in our own shit
will proliferate, and they'll be taken more seriously,
resulting in larger and more vocal movements encouraging
sustainable economic development. Whether you think
these'll be taken seriously probably depends on the degree
to which you're paranoid...
Comments? Visions?
########################################
Subject: MEDIA - Sterling's _Hacker_Crackdown_ online at EFF
ftp/www site
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 11:17:59 -0500 (EST)
from:
[email protected] (Stanton McCandlish)
As noted, Sterling's book is now available as one ~500k file
on ftp.eff.org,
pub/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/hacker.crackdown.
Our sysadmin, Dan Brown, just made it available via our new
WWW server,
http://www.eff.org/, which also has some other
Good Stuff, like the latest Web version of the Big Dummy's
Guide to the Internet, and general information on the
Electronic Frontier Foundation.
This is now also available from ftp.eff.org in one file.
anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org, get
pub/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/hacker.crackdown
########################################
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 13:44:36 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: networking
From:
[email protected]
To:
[email protected]
John-
Here's a little something to put in the next GRIST ONLINE
about my life as a networker.
Best wishes for the New Year,
-Reid
My Life and Networking
I have been a visual artist for a bit over 20 years,
involved in mailart for the last 10 years (using the name
State of Being), used computers in the creation of my
artwork for the last 4 or 5 years, and a practicing
Internetworker for the last 6 to 8 months. While a lot of
the activity which takes place on the Internet seems to be
in text form, I am interested in the interactive
possibilities with visual forms. Practicality necessitates
that the images not be in color (I'm working on a Powerbook
100), and while I'm comfortable with e-mail and have done
some work with ftp, so far the only successful things I have
gotten into usable form on my computer are text files. As
you can see, any specific advice anyone could give about
working with and transferring graphics on the Internet would
be greatly appreciated by me. I would be happy to hear of
other projects (especially visual) in which I might
participate. My own artwork at the moment consists of hard
copy (laser prints) and also HyperCard stacks.
Best wishes for the New Year,
[email protected] (Reid Wood)
########################################
Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 16:55:33 -0800
From: Leard Reed Altemus III <
[email protected]>
To:
[email protected]
Subject: GOL#3
Hi John,
I've really been enjoying seeing your new venture
develop. I am one of the "few others" mentioned by Chuck
Welch as having assisted him with the Telenetlink 1992.
About GOL#2 it was very interesting to see Cyanobacteria
featured.
I would appreciate it if you would take me off of the
listing of email artists since what I do with email is not
art in that mail art sense. I use email to communicate only
and never answer email enquiries or projects. I work on the
network for FineArt Forum and that takes up all of my time.
Also, please stop listing my bibliography project, it's over
and dead.
Best of luck with GRIST- I think it's an excellent
addition to the network magazines.
Reed Altemus
Online Database Moderator, FineArt Forum
----
[email protected]
[email protected]
tel/fax: +1 207 829 6306
----
########################################
****************************************
MAIL EVENTS
* = new listings per FaGaGaGa
* BRAIN CELL - regularly published graphic work, send your
artwork for inclusion c/o Ryosuke Cohen 3-76-1-A-613
Yagumokitacho, Moriguchi City, Osaka 570 Japan.
* 30 April, 1994 ENDLESS PROJECT - c/o Deedra Ludwig/The
Sanctary 51-55 Brunswick St E. Hove, East Sussex BN3 1AU
England
* 31 January, 1994 - EXPOITATION/EXPLOITED c/o Coyote
Gallery, Butte College 3536 Butte Campus Dr., Oroville, CA
95965-8399
* MANI ART - ongoing compilation magazine that consistently
produces excellent images. Send 60 copies of your works
21x15 cm max. to Pascal Lenior, 11 Ruelle De Champagne,
60680 Grandfresnoy France
* TEMPLE POST'S WINDOW GALLERY because there are no forums
for Jose VandBroucke to exhit mail in his town, he has
designated his home's windows as a gallery. Send him your
works, not greater that 90cm. to be shown. He will return a
photo of this "Street Exhibition" Pikkelstraat 49, 8540
Deerlijk, Belgium
* FIRST INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION OF NETWORKERS IN PANAMA is
organizing a mail art exhibition for The Nation Museum of
Mail Service. The theme is open, mail to Ruben Contreras,
Dewa-Estafeta Universitaria, Universidad de Panama, Panama,
Rep. of Panama
* No deadline, but hurry. "DON'T TOUCH YOURSELF THERE" - c/o
1961 Cedar St, N. Merrick, NY 11566. Stop the sexual abuse
of yourself at the price of others.
3-11-21, A.I.M. AIDS INTERNATIONAL MAIL ART PROJECT CW Poste
4308 Greenwood Ave., N. Seattle, WA 98103 USA or BUCKWHEAT
TORNADO, O.O. Box 31792, Seattle, WA USA.
No Deadline, Visualizing Chaos Project, N-Eurovision, Enrico
Ciceri, Via Mascagne 22, 20034 Giussano (MI) Italy.
No Deadline, The Mouth, Visual Poetry, Alberto Rizzi, Via
Trento 51e, 45100 Rovigo, Italy.
No Deadline, Peacedream Project, Art project about visual
and experimental poetry, 100 copies, 21x14.8 cm (A-5).
Uni+verse(e), Guillermo Deisler, Riebeckplatz 12, 4020
Halle/Saale Germany.
Ongoing, Tensetendoned, Send 56 originals or 120 stickers
5"x9" or smaller and receive an assembled collection of
submitting artists' work. P.O. Box 155, Preston Park, PA
18455
No Deadline, Art Against Fascism, ongoing MailArt Project.
We need your contributions now to show the German public
international reaction against racism, neo-fascism, and
violence toward foreigners in this, our country. Good
images influence the attitudes of the indifferent silent
masses. Black and white simple drawings and writings to be
reduced in size to make 4x7 cm artistamps in PortoEdition
Sheets. Angel and Peter NetMail (Kuestermann) PB 2644 D 495
Minden, Germany.
95-10-1, About Face - Cross Gender Issue(s), 1. are you
cross about how your gender is treated in the network? 2.
face feminism in mail art and tell us your vision, 3. please
send a self portrait as a person of the opposite sex; no PC
restrictions,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Ars Nova Guild, A video/electronic
music/performance group at New Mexico State Univ. looking
for co-conspirators, fellow travelers, and solicitations for
submissions....email, MIDI, vid, fax et cetera ad nauseum.
Contact Eric Iverson,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Face Zine, FaGaGaGa interested in Email about Mail
Art and Networking for a zine chock full of Net news and
rants,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Global Mail, Send email numbers, art projects, mail
art shows, tape, fax, audio, anarchist projects, and
whatever, Ashley Parker Owens, at
[email protected], or
[email protected]
95-10-1, Herd - the girls & mailart zine, Contributions
welcome on the theme of women and mail OR anything by women
in the mail. , Next issue is 1994: Celebrate the Femail
Artist Campaign, Jennifer Huebert c/o Lewis & Hubener,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Permeable Press, We are accepting submissions for
our upcoming issues on Science Fiction and Sexuality. We are
also looking for contributions for our tape compilation
project PRESS PLAY, We love to receive email and mail art,
and will reply, Brian Clark,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Practical Anarchy Online, Send articles and bits of
new from everywhere to this electronic zine concerning
anarchy from a practical point of view, Mikael Cardell at
Internet,
[email protected] and Fidonet Mikael Cardell,
2:205/223
95-10-1, PURPS, We'd love contributions of art, articles,
essays, or whatever. We reprint most everything we like,
Publishes the OTISian Directory, which will review just
ABOUT ANYTHING (except fecal matter- we're touchy in that
respect), Jeffrey Stevens,
[email protected], OR Purps,
[email protected], OR Intergalactic House of
Fruitcakes, 955 Massachusetts Ave, #209, Cambridge, MA
02139-9183 USA
95-10-1, We Press, We can send you WE Magazine, issue 17
over the internet, Chris Funkhouser,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Please send me news of computer animation/animation
video festivals. Susan Van Baerle, Visualization Laboratory,
Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843-3137,
[email protected]
95-10-1, I enjoy any mail on the arts, weirdness in our
world, the occult, ancient history, and anarchy, Don Webb,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Send anything- everything, esp. cyberpunk, techno,
zines, and hacking,
[email protected]
95-10-1, Send me listings of mail art shows and whatever
else you would like, Reid Wood (State of Being),
[email protected]
95-10-1, Send anything- everything, esp. news of mail art
shows and general contact, Linda Hedges,
[email protected]
94-10-1, I am interested in receiving general information
about art shows, events, animation, film/video. I am the
chair of the SIGGRAPH Art Show for '94, deana morse,
[email protected]
########################################
**************************************
E-MAIL ARTISTS 13:13 January 4, 1994
* = new listings per FaGaGaGa
[email protected] Don Webb
[email protected] Ashley Parker Owens
[email protected] Hubener, HERD
[email protected] James K-M
[email protected] FaGaGaGa
[email protected] Artur Matuck
[email protected] Burning Pr, Taproot
[email protected] Permeable Press
[email protected] Bob Gale
*
[email protected] Bryon Grush
[email protected] Annick Bureaud
[email protected] Crackerjack Kid
[email protected] Carl Eugene Loeffler
[email protected] Anna Couey
[email protected] Uncle Don
[email protected] George Brett
*
[email protected] ezra
[email protected] Forrest Richey
*
[email protected] Fred Truck
[email protected] Fringeware Magazine
*
[email protected] Elide Monzeglio
*
[email protected] Pete Fischer
[email protected] Honoria
[email protected] Jeff Harrington
IP25196%PORTLAND.bitnet Reed Altemus
[email protected] Wim van der Plas
[email protected] Fact Sheet 5
[email protected] Judy Malloy
[email protected] Joachim Frank
[email protected] PURPS Magazine
[email protected] Jan Zita Grover
[email protected] Kevin Goldsmith
[email protected] Linda Hedges
[email protected] Mark Bloch
[email protected] Matt Hogan
[email protected] Deana Morse
[email protected] Hiroshi Okuno
[email protected] Fishtank Magazine
[email protected] Pete Fisher
[email protected] Paul Rutkovsky
[email protected] Richard Gardner
[email protected] Roman Verostko
*
[email protected] Doc Simpson
[email protected] Scot Art
[email protected] Ashley Parker Owens
[email protected] Transmit Visual
Telephone Directory
[email protected]
[email protected] Krylon Underground
[email protected] Tex A&M Vis Lab
[email protected] ARTSNET Australia
[email protected] Steven Jacobs
[email protected] Greg Tramel
[email protected] Reid Wood
########################################
CONTRIBUTOR'S NOTES
George Dowden writes:
"...that poem (Thirty-Fourth Birthday Profession: 15.IX.66"
was 27 long years ago and I have, I'm glad to say, well
transcended my hangups expressed in it. Pauline divorced me
in 1969. I went to India in 1971 for a year and in an
ashram had my Kundalini (Universal Energy or Consciousness)
awakened by a very great, rare Siddha Guru, Swami
Muktananda--who also gave me the name KAVIRAJ ("Poet King")
which I have been using with my writing since. I have now
had 19 books published. I have justified my NOTE at the end
of "Thirty-Fourth Birthday Profession: 15.IX.66" by becoming
a positive person and poet, a "singer and celebrator" of
life in my work, a la my Poet-Yogi Father Whitman. So, for
a very different kind of poem than the above, I enclose "I
L(o)ve NY," I call it a poem-prose poem, the definition of
which I give in my next book, THE DEEPENING--which will be
published in 1994. It seems I have become one of the
leading "Post-Beat Independent" poets writing today. We
have mags. in some several countries and soon there will be
a potentially-important ANTHOLOGY with about 10 of us in it.
If you're innarested, ask me for more details..... Born 15
Sept, 1932, so I'm now 61."
Kaviraj George Dowden
Top Flat
82 Marine Parade
Brighton, E. Sussex
BN2 1AJ
England
Brown Miller wrote from San Francisco "Great to see that
GRIST is on-line--plus all the new stuff it will encompass.
In the mid-80s I started doing on-line stuff with computers.
Have not been doing as much lately but intend to do more
soon. P.S. GRIST was one of my favorite mags of that era!"
Clayton Eshleman is editor of SULPHUR, A Literary Annual of
the Whole Art. His UNDER WORLD ARREST will be published by
Black Sparrow in 1994.
Clive Matson was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and grew up on
an avocado ranch in northern San Diego County. He served an
apprenticeship to poetry in New york City in the 1960's and
later earned an M.F.A. Poetry, School of the Arts, Columbia
University, 1989. His books of poetry include HOURGLASS
(1986), EQUAL IN DESIRE (1983), ON THE INSIDE (1982), HEROIN
(1972), SPACE AGE (1969) and MAINLINE TO THE HEART (1966);
he has been featured in 12 anthologies and published in more
than 100 journals. His full-length comedy, CACTUS was
produced in workshop at the Nat Horne Theater in NYC,
September 1989 and ASTOR PLACE, one act, was produced in
workshop June, 1992 at New Traditions Theatre, Berkeley, CA.
He has been a member of the Faculty in Creative Writing at
University of California Extension, Berkeley since 1985.
Will Inman of Tucson, AZ says "I keep trying to restore the
living connection between sexuality and spirituality that
should never have been separated by St Paul and the other
deadsoul moralists. We're infested all over the world now
(maybe we've always been in civilized times??!) with
fundamentalISTS--when we need fundamental LIVING
relationships with the universe but not self-hating, body-
hating pietists." Will is widely published and has appeared
in prior issues of Grist On-Line.
Linda Lerner was born and educated in N.Y.C. Her work has
appeared in numerous journals throughout the country. Among
them, THE NEW YORK QUARTERLY, BOUILLABAISSE, THE CHRISTIAN
SCIENCE MONITOR, SLIPSTREAM, CHELSEA and EPOCH. Three
collections of her poetry have been published, the most
recent, CITY GIRL (Vergin Press, 1990) and NO-ONE'S-PEOPLE
(New Spirit Press, 1993). For the past ten years she has
conducted an annual reading series at Polytechnic
University.