Natalie Lyalin Week (2): Water Experiment in Two Parts
Below is perhaps my favorite poem, though there are likely many favorites, in Natalie Lyalin’s Pink & Hot Pink Habitat. It speaks for itself. After it though, following the break, I’ll say a little more about what it does on me, as a human.
Water Experiment In Two Parts
I.
A scientific study reveals: water is alive.
Equal amounts of water is poured into three identical containers.
Zelig Berken died fighting in world war II.
Equal amounts of rice is poured into each container.
Zelig Berken was twenty years old.
The first container is told “I hate you.” The second container
is told “I don’t care about you.” and the third container is told
“I love you very much.”
While Zelig Berken was away at war his entire town was evacuated.
The rice in the first container turned black. The rice in the second container
bloomed. And the rice in the third container rotted.
II.
Water is poured into two identical containers.
The first container goes home with Scientist A.
The second goes to church with Scientist B.
The next day, a droplet is extracted from each container.
The droplet from the first container shows nothing of significance.
The droplet from the second container shows formations of stars
and giant flowers.
Here is a Bunch of Things!
That’s right–many things; one bunch of them.
Faster Times books editor and commenter-in-good-standing-here Lincoln Michel takes on David Shields’s Reality Hunger over at The Rumpus. I have to say that Lincoln’s review is thorough, even-handed and thought-provoking; but after reading it, I can’t imagine anything I’m less interested in reading than this book. I say read Lincoln’s piece and call it a day.
Julia Cohen went to a small press festival in Boulder, CO. Then she ate some crappy pizza from a place called Sexy Pizza. She also talks about the new issues of Horse Less Review and Ugly Duckling’s 6×6. Plus, you know, other stuff–flowers, her brother, March.
Valleywag blows the pickles off the Cheezburger empire–sort of.
Also, Borders is firing lotsa people.
And what the hell has John Gallaher been talking about lately? Well, he likes the new Double Room, he’s interested in the new Sawako Nakayasu book from Letter Machine, he says the Laurel Review is looking for reviewers, and he digs the paintings of Glennray Tutor (see above), whom you know as the guy whose works adorns several of Barry Hannah’s Grove-Atlantic covers. Here’s Tutor’s site.
Some neat book sculptures from Paul Octavious.
A team of publishing nerds Tumblrs what New Yorkers are reading on the subway (etc.) at CoverSpy.
The OED costs $200ish a year to access, but you can enjoy for free their word-of-the-day feature (thanks, jh).
Coudal Partners field tests some books with the help of Jonathan Messinger, Ron Hogan, Eric Sptiznagel, and Jessa Crispin.
One Story is offering editorial mentorships for writers who’d like some thoughts on their work ($25 for 15minutes).
That’s all I’ve got for now.
Blake Butler—
Just finished reading Sandra Simonds’s radical and freaky-chugging Warsaw Bikini from Bloof Books. She rips. Do a look at some poems from the book at Action Yes. “Ransom Note Attached to Wolf’s Ear” alone is worth buying three books: “all the vortex neurons poured through / a diamond shaped keyhole, the back door / of black shards bleed black light.” I want to print the whole of “Let Me Out” on the all above my bed. A book of might, this.
Ken Baumann—
Arianna Huffington: “Self expression is the new entertainment. We never used to question why people sit on the couch for seven hours a day watching bad TV. Nobody ever asked, ‘Why are they doing that for free?’ We need to celebrate [this desire to contribute for free] rather than question it.”
Archive of David Foster Wallace @ UTAustin
Looks like UT-Austin has acquired David Foster Wallace’s archive. From the press release:
Highlights include handwritten notes and drafts of his critically acclaimed “Infinite Jest,” the earliest appearance of his signature “David Foster Wallace” on “Viking Poem,” written when he was six or seven years old, a copy of his dictionary with words circled throughout and his heavily annotated books by Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, John Updike and more than 40 other authors.
You can look at some of the notes he made inside the books in his library here. And here are some notes he made in his dictionaries. The archive will be available to researchers next fall.
(Thanks, jh, for the tip)
Alec Niedenthal—
Yet we can be astounded. Before what? Before this other possibility: that the frenziedness of technology may entrench itself everywhere to such an extent that someday, throughout everything technological, the essence of technology may come to presence in the coming-to-pass of truth.
Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it.
Such a realm is art. But certainly only if reflection on art, for its part, does not shut its eyes to the constellation of truth after which we are questioning. — Martin Heidegger, “The Question Concerning Technology”
Earlier in this essay, H describes the status of art in Ancient Greece: “They [the arts] brought the presence of the gods, brought the dialogue of divine and human destinings, to radiance … It was a single, manifold revealing.”
It seems that art as such has questioned its essence, and answered: art can be anything whatsoever. But is it time for art to question technology? Not technology in its instrumental sense, but what Heidegger calls “the essence” of technology–technology as a revealing. Is it time for art to put technology on stage? Is that what we’re doing? If this is too cryptic, I apologize. I just wanted an excuse to post what I block-quoted above, which is just a beautiful moment to me.
Zucker 5
1.) Rachel Zucker has a webpage pretty snazzy. I just read Museum of Accidents (Wave Books). This is the first poetry book of motherhood/professor-hood/adult-at-this-age I have P-rused in a long while. Sometimes the poetry I read keeps caterwhomping subjects same. Museum more mature tone/thunk yet no fields/piles of snow o o o and no wine bottles (or very little) god no chats or BRAND NAMES (or very little).
Bam review here!
2.) What is experimental? In poetry, 2010? Is there still someone hiding their secret sex fetish? Someone afraid to wear a lobster as a hat? No. They just do it and talk out loud. What’s my point? How many more books of line cut/jagged enjamb/white space/concrete forms/codpiece/canon-chop/punctuation verve/retro-madness? Look, mama, no ground! How many books, year, decades before we can drop the term experimental? Stop it.
3.) Well, why don’t you fucking interview the author?
Jesus. OK. I wheel (rolling, rolling…). Answers in bold.
Mailbag! – Feedback on the Feedback Edition
One of our regular commenters-in-good-standing, mimi, posed this question in a comment on this post of mine from a couple days ago.
>>I sometimes wonder how contributors feel about posts that don’t get any (or any serious) comments, because they _have_ gone to some effort. I for one am paying attention, even though most of my comments are kind of goofy.<<
I started to answer her in the thread, but then thought that maybe this was something more people would like to know about, so I’m posting it here. My longer-than-she-probably-wanted answer after the break.