textimagepoem: 4/4/10

collab fest 43

From: Jim Leftwich
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Date: Tue, Apr 6, 2010 at 1:45 PM
Subject: collab fest 43 (after ray johnson), as a letter-poem to matt ames

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Jim Leftwich

to Matt
Mar 31 (5 days ago)
COLLAB FEST 43: A NOTHING HAPPENING

1.) - zen for television, after nam june paik (blank screen, silence, 3hrs)
2.) - richard hell's "blank generation" repeated on a 3-hour loop
3.) - the hopscotch aporia machine (intermittent arbitrary discontinuities of variable lengths: approx. 3 hrs)
4.) - mustard-covered dimes under a sun lamp (3 hrs)
5.) - nailing a folded pay phone to a bored (3 hrs)
6.) - no talking (3 hrs)

We will not do any of these things. Come by and see for yourself, or commune with us in the comfort of your own home.

NOTHING DOING!

To quote Mark Bloch: "When all of us but Elvis are dead and gone, some sleuth inquiring "who WAS the first Pop artist, anyway?" will undoutedly unearth Johnson's celebrity collages of James Dean, Shirley Temple and the King himself. It will also be discovered that the legendary Johnson did the first happenings (he called them "nothings") when he carefully arranged those collages on the street. Or sat under a sun lamp until somebody told him he might get burned. Or nailed a folded Larry Poons painting to a board. Or dropped mustard-covered dimes into a pay phone. Need I go on?"

From: Jim Leftwich
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Date: Sun, Apr 4, 2010 at 2:07 AM
Subject: 13 - B: Prolegomena to Budanoke Unniversity
To: mattames@yahoo.com

Johnson was legendary for pulling pranks like killing his New York Correspondence School in a "New York Times" obituary (April 5, 1973) and then instantly rebirthing it as "Buddha University."

xx

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A new decision was next: For the upcoming "ARTPOOL'S RAY JOHNSON SPACE", I would invent a background institution, the "BUDA RAY UNIVERSITY" (modeled on the Buddha University).

ladder-carrier
http://www.artpool.hu/Ray/8/ray10.html

floor roll
http://www.rayjohnson.org/trailer/

a ray johnson poem
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2cJZq_9Bdo

XX

Ray copied a poem onto a photograph of an egg that is just beginning to be cracked open by a chick. He does not name an author. With total uncertainty, I venture the hypothesis that the poet is Antonio Machado.
I do feel certain that the date is 1954-55. The last line, "Will carry me forever/ towards somewhere else," seems so apt for Ray's disappearing and evaporating that many people who read the poem both saw its bearing on his final event, mailing himself into the sea, and judged that he had written it.

XX

Nam June Paik interviewed Ray Johnson by submitting ten handwritten questions which I typed and mailed to Ray. He then typed out those ten questions, but wrote responses to thirteen questions. He wrote: "13. I wait, not for time to finish my work, but for time to indicate something one would not have expected to occur."

XX

When Ray saw one object that seemed autonomous or self-contained, he looked for a seam where he could split the object into two parts.

He attended to possible matching between the unmatched, and to possible unmatching between the matched.

XX

statements taken from texts by mark bloch, gyorgy galantai, and bill wilson.

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Date: Mon, Apr 5, 2010 at 2:51 AM
Subject: Fwd: 13 - B: Prolegomena to Budanoke Unniversity
To: Matt Ames

this is a poem in which the video (not included) has footage of spaceships
flying around roanoke. it is a hypertext poem with links like holes in the
membrane opening to parallel dimensions. aliens and metaphors enter
through the link-holes and invade roanoke. the floor-roll becomes an event
score and we perform it at a collab fest. we have to avoid the predictable
question: "what happens if we do this?" when we ask that question we
create too large of an opening for a uselessly dismissive "nothing". we
must ask: "what is happening when we do this?" "nothing" is not a
thoughtful response. refusal to give the question any thought is a probable
response, one which might tell us quite a lot about what is happening when
the alien floor-roll event invades roanoke: (1. i have no sense of humor; 2.
i am interested in uninteresting things; 3. folks really do have better things
to do; 4. what is interesting to one person is not necessarily interesting
to another; 5. people are rarely given sufficient credit for making informed,
considered decisions to be different or indifferent). we should do this twice:
once, i am willing to roll the length of the water heater, out the door, down
the sidewalk and into the alleyway in front of the "arts district" mural. then,
again, i am willing to carry a ladder (the ladder-carrier photograph also having
morphed into an event-score) from the back of the water heater to the front,
out the door and down the sidewalk to the alley. i will do these things if you
will collaborate with me by videoing the performance(s). (i'd like to suggest
richard hell's "blank generation" for the soundtrack.) what is happening
when we do this? for one thing, "something one would not have expected to
occur" - johnson's response to (unasked) question #13 (to which the title of
my poem refers, as an appendix) is happening. also: "possible matching
between the unmatched" is happening. ray johnson and roanoke? buddhism
and roanoke? budapest and roanoke? what is "unniversity"? i think it refers
to an anti-university, or at least a non-university, but i am probably only partially
right. it could refer to the UN - or it might refer to an important anniversary. i
suppose i could make signs to hold up in front of the arts district mural, or i
might even make them while standing (or sitting) in front of the mural:
0) Black Mountain College
1) The New York Correspondance School
2) Buddha University
3) Buda Ray University
4) The Institute for Study and Application in Kohoutenberg
5) Budanoke Unniversity
6) Bent Mountain Collaege
then hold them up to the camera, in sequence, 0 through 7. i could fold them
into paper airplanes and fly them out over 5th street when i'm finished. alien
hovercraft could fly through the alley and disappear down 5th street.
according to bill wilson part of johnson's interest in the number 13 came from
the fact that with a slight shift of the 3 towards the left the number 13 becomes
the letter B. 13 - B, then, is at least potentially B - B, which is, in roanoke, at
a collab fest (which is at least potentially a kind of miniaturized marginal arts
festival): Bill Beamer, Be Blank, Between Both, Both Both... what is happening
when we do this? maybe "nothing" is a thoughtful response... but not simply
"nothing"... and not simply "something"... not either "something" or
"nothing"... what is happening when we do this is both "something" and
"nothing". it is perhaps a playful kind of "nothing", which is simultaneously
"something one would not have expected to occur"... we create something,
call it "art" or call it "nothing", and in the process we create connections -
again, at least potentially - matching the unmatched, connecting the
unconnected - by triangulation - by placing a new dot on the map...
something to consider, even if we choose to consider it "nothing" - which,
when all is said and done, will be entirely alright with me - because this kind
of "nothing" is something i find interesting...

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from tomislav butkovic via matt ames

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stamp, ribbon and marker collage made by sue leftwich and henry, kurt kindermann's 3-year-old son

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rimbaud's illuminations with cover image by ray johnson

John Crouse and Jim Leftwich

ACT SIX THOUSAND EIGHTY EIGHT

crucifixion tummy castaway: "cathartic glass fish"

poop vestibule communique: "skins the lamb"

anteater laps visionary: "minty pepper frisbee"

frisbee pus halo: "ants eaten loop"

peppermint snowflake postmortem: "crucial fixation tumors"

lambskin toaster cataract: "invested bull flaps"

catharsis switchblade genie: "plus flaky snow"

graven gravif gravy: "hammers jack spoon"

icecube referee grapefruit: "fed fried ice"

refried milkshake suitcase: "cubes graven switch"

spoonfed slut knuckle: "blades gravy ferret"

jackhammer fruitcake jockstrap: "grape shake suit."

ACT SIX THOUSAND EIGHTY NINE

cudgel pettiness fawning: "abuses reptilian nothingness"

devised seclusion harsh: "throat raptures tastes"

humor alluring balmy: "night ruptures humid"

benighted range happiness: "devil seed cudgel"

tastes gratification emotion: "petty nests illusion"

throaty carries latter: "coils purple flexed"

reptures perplexed intoxicated: "fawning cold logic"

abuses recoils stresses: "unless nothingness shadows"

shallow library describes: "parsed tuition criminal"

uselessness balance collapse: "in taxi cabs"

logical criminal aside: "stresses scribes ballast"

scolding partition release: "lapse beside grease."

ACT SIX THOUSAND NINETY

preempt valleys deterioration: "needle haystack worship"

snatch dangle deliver: "real estate hangars"

dart contempt civilian: "art batch prescriptive"

changes capture details: "rattler wedge inversion"

fealty aversion violation: "rapture conscript wrangle"

worship hedge menial: "volleys bank notes"

wheedle battle denotes: "penal volatility retail"

escape cringe hesitation: "emphatic commence stories"

climber infirm conductors: "limber escape bombardment"

story versus morbid: "red hat verses"

commerce hatred evident: "confirm fringe dahlias"

emphasis bombast manias: "confident forbid reductions."

ACT SIX THOUSAND NINETY ONE

the rainbow scientist: "the nothingness diary"

the basketball jones: "the pointy worlds"

the implication becomes: "the imbricate tasks"

the words counterparts: "the bowling parables"

the points consideration: "the canonical conscription"

the hairy canonball: "the parsed beacons"

the unlikenesses parallels: "the bones scientific"

the red ball: "the everted happening"

the confab electrocution: "the cello fabrication"

the monticello dovetail: "the read organic"

the happening baby: "the maybe tales"

the everlasting orgasm: "the eloquent bill."

ACT SIX THOUSAND NINETY TWO

casket glimmer handshake: "sod light broom"

orgasm helicopter icecube: "velure vernacular swearing"

wearing big hats: "gasp baskets his"

vehicular pustule edition: "sought bags shuffler"

vellum sniffle tricycle: "muscular wig helicopter"

boom shag jellyfish: "glimmer collateral dead"

fright fought triumphant: "elephant room murder"

god is dead: "fish tricycle audition"

states statements states: "verbs dig states"

statesmanship mandate mansion: "verbs hiss dates"

dog his head: "mint sates verbs"

verbs verbs verbs: "bread musters slates."

ACT SIX THOUSAND NINETY THREE

air breath dreams: "nothing honed casket"

hopes gropes ropes: "awl trains hop"

translation yogurt almanac: "fair span road"

anvil manhandle panhandle: "fig candle yurt"

casket wig transfigure: "grapes breath south"

horned toad wheelbarrow: "every thing depends"

nautical spandex mealymouth: "transfigure panhandle almanac"

pancake lipstick subtext: "rusts breaded lease"

potty ought hottie: "pout at read"

crease crisis grease: "criss cross bought"

reddened head shredded: "lips tongue shed"

bust a dungheap: "green potted subtext."

ACT SIX THOUSAND NINETY FOUR

vacant lot cookie: "toward emergent lack"

charade with mirrors: "sorts ice parade"

voice recorder blues: "vacate haven ace"

snoring dog heartthrob: "commodity fog recorder"

black commode ode: "with lottery peels"

emergency face savings: "awnings code rob"

torques shaved eel: "toes minor crooked"

woodpecker minus wannabe: "lids certain that"

dingbat electronic banana: "but woodpecker reckless"

fat book biopsy: "curved nook electrons"

insertion swerve hardcopy: "sinus copse bard"

gellid freckles copious: "shops sky banana."

The 2nd Avant Writing Symposium

Avant Writing Symposium set for Aug. 19-21

The 2nd Avant Writing Symposium is set for Aug. 19-21 in Columbus, Ohio.

The Festival, and the archive with which it’s associated, focuses on a group of primarily North American writers, most of whom became active starting in the 1970s. They are primarily interested in poetry and visual poetry, but are also writing prose, and in numerous transgeneric forms not easily classified.

Archive curator and festival manager John M. Bennett says many of the writers are also involved with visual arts, photography, sound art, music, performance, conceptual art, mail art, and/or artists’ books. These writers are all quite unique, but almost none of them are associated with any of the prevailing literary or institutional establishments of the day.

This year’s event will include a number of special presentations from writers and artists invited from Spain and Latin America.

The symposium is open to all interested persons.

Bennett is accepting proposals for presentations for 30-minute slots (with some exceptions for longer presentations) for papers, performances, digital presentations, and other activities, having to do with innovative and avant-garde writing, broadly conceived. Include a brief bio. Deadline: May 17, 2010. Send proposals to:

Dr. John M. Bennett, Curator
Avant Writing Collection
19 Thompson Library
1858 Neil Av. Mall
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43214 USA

Or by email, Bennett.23@osu.edu

Registration fee is $30 US.

Information on hotels and lodging availabilities will be forthcoming closer to the event.

Information on the Avant Writing Collection

Photos from the First Symposium

The collection’s 2 catalogs in PDF versions

http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/avant/Avant2.pdf

http://library.osu.edu/sites/rarebooks/avant/VisualPoetry.pdf

Sponsored by
The Rare Books & Manuscripts Library
The Ohio State University Libraries
The Department of Spanish and Portuguese
The Center for Latin American Studies
The Ohio State University