Cinema x 3: Melancholia, The Tree of Life, Feature Friday
1.
You no doubt read Greg Gerke’s deeply critical post about Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. Curtis White has now posted his own much more positive impressions of the film. I’ve tried convincing the two of them to go at it like me and Chris Higgs—I even introduced them during AWP—but they’re being too polite. Chime in in the comments section, demanding blood!
2.
Martin Seay is currently posting a series on Tree of Life; the first part went up yesterday, and part 2 is supposedly forthcoming today. (Meanwhile, don’t miss Martin’s meditations on Anonymous.)
(My own thoughts on Tree are here. I have nothing to say about Anonymous.)
3.
Every Friday at Big Other, I’m posting links to feature-length films that are up at YouTube. And I’m doing it for you!
Blake Butler—
I am home from The Dollar Store Show Tour, thanks to all who came out and hung out and were rad people, I had a blast. Back to living on a netbox. Upon my return, I’d like to welcome the advent of the newest HTMLGiant contributor Chris Higgs, who I couldn’t be much more excited about having on board. Welcome, Chris.
8
A LONG-ASS INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS HIGGS
chris higgs was nice enough to do an interview with me at my request. here is the interview. it is long.
(interview after break)
Uncategorized / 101 Comments
June 14th, 2009 / 5:39 pm
June 14th, 2009 / 5:39 pm
Chris Higgs’s COLORLESS GREEN IDEAS SLEEP FURIOUSLY
New from Publishing Genius’s ‘This PDF Chapbook‘ series, what is now probably my favorite of all of the releases thus far, a new one from the megabrained Chris Higgs:
Winner of Diana George’s DISCPLINES
Earlier this week there was a giveaway for Diana George’s DISCIPLINES offered to readers and commenters on the new issue of Lamination Colony.
From among them (though there were quite a few that were really smart and interesting), Chris Higgs’s response to Peter Davis’s 4 Poems, as it caught something I think very subtle in the work and drew it out in a way that to me seemed right on:
I would like to coin a neologism for what Peter Davis is doing in his contribution, 4 Poems. The neologism is: NextGen MetaPoetry.
It’s sorta like metafiction, except that it’s poetry. And it’s next generation because instead of the old generation of metatextual self-referencing, he uses the meta device as the entire content of the piece.
This is a brilliant example of what Gertrude Stein meant when she noted, “There is no There there.” You see, there is no poem in Peter Davis’s poems. There is only the metatextual self-referencing. They are “poems” about writing poems, but they aren’t poems themselves. That’s what makes it NexGen (and in my opinion badass): the act of noticing the act of writing is old hat if that act is in service of something greater – but in Davis’s “poems” the act is the end, not the means to anything.
It is the ultimate form of communication because it cuts through all fakeness, all language trickery, all costuming, all putting on makeup and trying to impress everybody at the party with witty metaphors and unlikely similes. These “poems” are like the most pure phone conversation you’ve ever had with anyone. You know what I’m talking about, when you cut the crap and say what’s really on your mind without hiding behind anything.
That’s how Peter Davis’s NextGen MetaPoetry strikes me. & to be honest, I find it delightful and refreshing. There, I said it.
Chris will get a copy of the aforementioned DISCIPLINES from Noemi Press. (Chris please drop me a line with your address so I can mail it out.)
Thanks to all who commented and took time to read, and those who continue to do so. :)