One Possibility

How to tackle this morning's ambiguity?

One possibility, as always, is to surf the web for some idea, some sentence, some passing thought that connects with how I feel (Feelings are Facts is the title of dance and film artist Yvonne Rainer's new memoir published by The MIT Press. It's reviewed in by the New York Times here).

Tooling around net space, I came across this thought from Charles Bernstein writing about Barbara Guest:

...her work is not an extension of herself—herself expressed—that is, not a direct expression of her feelings or subjectivity, but rather is defined by the textual composition of an aesthetic space—herself (itself) defined.

My gut tells me that by poetically hacking into aesthetic space without feeling the need to express myself, I then unconsciously compose my work as a network of internally generated feelings intersubjectively jamming with the external world (and that as poet, it's my job to pick up the vibes [signals] that are coming in). Some would say that this is old-school thinking, in which case I am feeling old school today. But keep in mind that that last sentence is not a direct expression of my feelings per se and may be the gut itself awakening.

Is it possible that the itself Bernstein refers to when writing "herself (itself) defined" is itself a feeling being de-defined?

In Rainer's book, she includes both dairy entries from her youth as well as extracts from some of the dialogues and pseudo-autobiographhical voiceovers in her films. In other words, she turns to blogging the itself and something I am calling personal subtitling. In one of the diary entries written in 1951 at the age of seventeen, Rainer writes:

It is only with the conviction that [his] love will arouse the Good that lies dormant behind every soul's facade of hypocrisy and selfishness that one should seriously try to eradicate the querelous cries of the ego. For hypocrisy is itself hypocrisy, murky water that obscures the face of the seeking self.

Itself, de-defined.

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Metadata: feeling, body, aesthetic, poetry

Metafictional Meet-Ups (Dig Your Persona)

Sukenick's novel, OUT, opens:

It all comes together. Don't fall. Each of us carries a
stick of dynamite. Concealed on his person. That does
several things. One it forms a bond. Two it makes you
feel special. Three it's mute articulation of the conditions
we live in today I mean not only us but everybody the
zeitgeist you might say if not the human condition
itself and keeps you in touch with reality. This is your
stick. Don't fall. We know one among us is a government
agent that's inevitable. Maybe it's you. Maybe it's me. The
way we deal with that is as long as everyone does his job
what's the difference. You're either part of the plot or
part of the counterplot. Everybody's got to be either one
or the other they all have their own opinions about which
they are. Personally that's not part of my assignment. Part
of it is having meets. This is a meet. The way you have
meets is you take out your stick of dynamite that's your
i. d. Don't fall. This is a two person meet there are
bigger ones. When we get all our dynamite together we have
a bomb. Then we set it off. It's all chance. Don't trust
anyone you don't know that's the big thing. It's all who
you like who you can work with who you fuck. Personal
affinity. Of course we don't have real names we have
aliases. Today I'm Harrold. Two r's. Tomorrow I might be
someone else. Don't fall. Of course all this probably
sounds wacky to you. That's because none of it is true.
It's just a joke a way we have of testing people's
reactions. The dynamite stick's a dud. Light the fuse and
see. Or maybe you better not. Maybe it'll blow your head
off. Well you never know till you try. Right?

Right.

Today's social networking assignment: if we don't have real names, and it's all who you like who you can work with who you fuck, then go on to Myspace and have a meet. Find someone who is willing to part with Theirspace and accept it as your own. Then share Yourspace as if it's a completely made-up fiction that stars You as your own Persona.

See how long the meet lasts and if poss, don't blow it.

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Metadata: myspace, theirspace, yourspace, ourspace

Melting Writer's Block

Kathy Acker once wrote:

Masturbation Journal.

DAY 1.

(This might not make any sense.)

the movement in my clit is like going, {this
a movement, {is still
in a wave >>> my expectation {description

I haven't gone anywhere, to the realm, yet.

"strap" >>> it begins

There is nothing: it is here that language enters:

1. To calm the irritation. Just calm the irritation. Where is the opening, the door that opens?

Irritation is happy to be touched, but if it turns too expectant or excited without relaxing, it will become rigid.

The arising is a single, growing clit;

2. lose myself (beginning to lose myself)

3. becoming music. The more I become it, the more I trust it, hold on, just hold on, follow, don't have to do anything else.

4. purely holding on. Now, the more, the better. I'm there, I'm there, (have made the transfer to another person which is music)

going over.

When writing wouldn't come, then she would turn to her body and let the language speak itself.

In an interview conducted with R. U. Sirius and published on Alt-X, she said:

I'm starting to worry about self-censorship -- that I might be internalizing some shit. I might be writing what people expect me to write, writing from that place where I might be ruled by economic considerations. To overcome that, I started working with my dreams, because I'm not so censored when I use dream material. And I'm working at trying to find a kind of language where I won't be so easily modulated by expectation. I'm looking for what might be called a body language. One thing I do is stick a vibrator up my cunt and start writing -- writing from the point of orgasm and losing control of the language and seeing what that's like.

Writing as discharge.

(A counter-spillage to Derridean dissemination? I'm sure she would have something to say about that)

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Metadata: Kathy Acker, body, language, music