March 8th, 2011 / 7:43 pm
Behind the Scenes & Craft Notes & Random

On Fandom and Aliens Remaking the World

I am interested in the concept of fandom. Do you have a “fan” kind of relationship with the things you love? I feel like I have a very fan kind of relationship with the things I like, even if the people who make them are “nobodies” to society. I am a fan of random people, people who make beautiful things, people that have what I call the 6th sense—which is a special kind of perception, a special way of seeing or knowing. For example, Bhanu Kapil. I have a list of suspected “aliens”—passionate people that possess certain qualities. Bhanu is on it. Eileen Myles is on it too—I could listen to her talk all day because it’s always like wandering through a very fascinating and specific brain. I guess I don’t understand casual people—people that get enough sleep, people that are regular (as in consistent), people that find it easy to make new friends….

The epic poem that I wrote recently was about trying to find the lost aliens of planet earth, crisscrossing the country on foot in search of the other alien beings. Actually, most of the poem is about obsessively trying to escape through a crack in the sky until I am told by Tupac, who lives in the kingdom in the sky, that I should not try to ascend but should focus on my world—on “this worldliness.” That’s when I start trying to find the lost ones. I chose Tupac because my brothers and I were such big fans as children, and still to this day I think of him as a dynamic figure—tough and sensitive with radical and intellectual tendencies. So Tupac tells me I’ve got it all wrong. He encourages me to redirect my vision. I listened. I stumble upon a mysterious post office in Wyoming that has rows and rows of open postal boxes and I leave letters in the mailboxes knowing that the lost aliens of planet earth are the ones who will reply. We find each other and sing a note real loud and blast all of the beings that are ready to make the new world into the sky. As I am ascending Bjork is below me wearing a big dress while looking at me with tears in her eyes because she is so moved (I was a very big fan of Bjork growing up). One by one, we cross over into a crack that opens in the sky.

Tags: , , , , , ,

11 Comments

  1. stephen

      cool

      i am a fan of people

  2. stephen

      cool

      i am a fan of people

  3. deadgod

      I’m a fan of many people and things and don’t think the inferiority bugaboo that attaches to ‘being a fan’ is reasonable. Just because one thinks that X is ‘great’ doesn’t condemn one to be X‘s bitch. (- unless that, too, is what one wants.)

  4. Tim Jones-Yelvington

      love this.

  5. gina

      YES, such a fangirl relationship to the things i love! james baldwin, emily dickinson, bow wow wow, stevie nicks, beyonce. tori amos, a real figurehead of the fangirl community it’s exciting and endearing to me when i meet others who i can geek out about such things with.

  6. jackie wang

      ahh! i was recently writing about my best friend in high school and our fandom. she was a HUGE fan of tori amos while i was the bjork fan.

  7. M. Kitchell

      i am a bataille fanboy lol
      other things i would feel comfortable in declaring myself a fanboy of:

      andrzej zulawski, philippe grandrieux, antonin artaud, alain robbe-grillet, gregor schneider, john duncan, sun ra, ariana reines, robert morris, pier paolo pasolini, jannis kounellis, robert smithson, anna kavan, kathy acker, jan dibbets, ettore sottsass, hans bellmer, marcel duchamp, nan goldin, guy bourdin, irina ionesco, klaus kinski, john hejduk, raimund abraham, anne-marie albiach, danielle collobert, thomas hirschorn, claude royet-journoud, liliane giraudon, francesca woodman, todd hido, gunter brus, rudolf schwarzkogler, hermann nitsch, pierre guyotat, guy hocquenghem, martin vaughn-james, cf, hans henny jahnn, dennis cooper, thomas ligotti, tony duvert, paul sharits, frans zwartjes, jess franco, JH engstrom, david wojnarowicz, dennis del favero, alix cleo roubaud, agota kristof, sion sono, hans rickheit, paperrad, unica zurn, philippe sollers, maurice roche, and undoubtedly a whole lotta women and men i’ve never encountered before.

      oh and you

      oh and the above would also basically constitute a “canon” for me of “everything that matters” (even though i definitely left things out i bet), so if anybody is obsessed with me, above is a list of where you can find all my secrets.

      i wanna read yr EPIC POEM jackie wang

  8. M. Kitchell

      i am a bataille fanboy lol
      other things i would feel comfortable in declaring myself a fanboy of:

      andrzej zulawski, philippe grandrieux, antonin artaud, alain robbe-grillet, gregor schneider, john duncan, sun ra, ariana reines, robert morris, pier paolo pasolini, jannis kounellis, robert smithson, anna kavan, kathy acker, jan dibbets, ettore sottsass, hans bellmer, marcel duchamp, nan goldin, guy bourdin, irina ionesco, klaus kinski, john hejduk, raimund abraham, anne-marie albiach, danielle collobert, thomas hirschorn, claude royet-journoud, liliane giraudon, francesca woodman, todd hido, gunter brus, rudolf schwarzkogler, hermann nitsch, pierre guyotat, guy hocquenghem, martin vaughn-james, cf, hans henny jahnn, dennis cooper, thomas ligotti, tony duvert, paul sharits, frans zwartjes, jess franco, JH engstrom, david wojnarowicz, dennis del favero, alix cleo roubaud, agota kristof, sion sono, hans rickheit, paperrad, unica zurn, philippe sollers, maurice roche, and undoubtedly a whole lotta women and men i’ve never encountered before.

      oh and you

      oh and the above would also basically constitute a “canon” for me of “everything that matters” (even though i definitely left things out i bet), so if anybody is obsessed with me, above is a list of where you can find all my secrets.

      i wanna read yr EPIC POEM jackie wang

  9. NLY

      I think I’m a fan of things, but I don’t know if I ‘fan’ over things. And really it’s just too much to write that synopsis and not have a book it’s on the back of I can buy.

  10. dole

      The poem sounds sweet.

  11. Frank Tas, the Raptor

      I used to write pieces of flash fiction/prose poetry directly inspired by Bjork songs!

      The closest I think to being a fanboy of something was this anime, Fooly Cooly. I used to watch it every night before I went to bed even though there were only six episodes. I still make an annual event of getting drunk, watching the whole thing by myself, and crying.