“The M.F.A. is a degree in servitude.” Mr. Cohen said. “It is a way to keep writing safe–to keep reading safe from writing. That I would be criticized as being romantic, or impractical, for making that statement just goes to show everything that’s wrong. Writing is a conviction before it is a craft.” — Joshua Cohen, in an interview (and profile on his forthcoming Witz) with the Observer here.

I’m not sure what to think about this (NSFW) sort of disturbing account of a recent SXSM performance. A very unsettling phenomenon, to be sure. I have no interest in this guy–I had no idea who he was before I stumbled upon this write-up–but how do you react to this very, uh, performative performance? What is your visceral reaction?

What’s the difference between this type of performance (GG Allin we could place under this “criminal transgressor” rubric), and the same performativity in, to be timely–and because for both of these types the music itself is only a stage for the performance–someone like Lady Gaga’s project? I mean, assuming Lady Gaga is a “cultural transgressor,” what is the differing mechanism, if there is one, in Fat Mike’s performance? Or are neither legitimately transgressive? Blah blah. Just thought this was an interesting thing.

Story by James Franco up over at Esquire. I can’t say it’s great–if it weren’t by James Franco, this 100% would not be in Esquire–but I can’t say it’s bad, either. Seems like a pretty typical “MFA story,” if that’s even a type of story.

Mega-congratulations to our own Roxane Gay on Ayiti, a collection of stories and poems about Haiti, which the folks over at Artistically Declined Press announced today they’ll be publishing this fall. Congrats also to Jereme Dean, HTMLG personality, whose collection of poems Of Many Departures has found a home with the same!

In light of yesterday’s “shittalking”: has Tao Lin been cannibalized by “Tao Lin”? Has he fictionalized the commonplace–in the shape of both blog and book–to such an extent that “Tao Lin” the artist has appropriated and swallowed Tao Lin the person? that “Tao Lin” has substituted art with life, or has blended the two? Will his fictions from now on only take place as extensions of the fiction, the theater piece, which he has signed “Tao”? Which Tao Lin is realer: the one who blogs, or the one “out there”? Or does any difference between the two Taos remain?

Or are these simply the demands, more or less, of writing what we might call “a singular vision” in 2010? Are there alternate paths with different demands–is such a path desirable?

Is “Tao Lin” the most quiet transgressor? Or is his style just another wave of the “meta” bullshit that’s been around forever? (I don’t think that’s true, but…)

I’m not “shittalking.” Just talking.

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.

“Historia in nuce [history in a nutshell]. Friend and Enemy. The friend is he who affirms and confirms me. The enemy is he who challenges me (Nuremberg 1947). Who can challenge me? Basically, only myself. The enemy is he who defines me. That means in concreto: only my brother can challenge me and only my brother can be my enemy.”– Carl Schmitt, while interned by American forces following World War II

My mom just called me to tell me that this interview with the late Barry Hannah is airing on NPR right now. It will also be online at 5 PM ET.