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Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Literature Today
Adam’s praised by someone who doesn’t already like him. Some day, I will too. Some day, so will we all. (Except you. You suck. Sorry, but someone had to say it.)
In the meantime, check us out. We’re special too, you know. (Who’s that I spy, mistaking hits for individual visits again?)
Speaking of me: I’ve posted another anti-psychoanalytic broadside, this one with facts to complement the usual vitriol.
Graphic novels are better than you think they are. Good, even.
The time has come to Remix literature:
The remixing of literature started from Nigel Tomm’s work “Shakespeare’s Sonnets Remixed”, where the author took the original text of Shakespeare’s Sonnets and deconstructed them into modern language with changing form and meaning beyond physical recognition.
Awesomeness.
Literature above all signifies empowerment. That’s it. Just empowerment. Alright, alright, wax too.
Jack is better than Hemingway and Ginsberg, but his dreams and values are slowly being consigned to textbooks.
Finally, someone who isn’t preoccupied with literary theory. At least, not there.
Donald Maass, one alveolar sibilant removed from powerful irony, prepares to reveal the secret of the novel. To Nashville.
Penguin Books appoints Mother to a very important post. Father quite upset, hops into white van.
Watch out for White Van Man! He drives too close! Cyclists beware!
Speaking of excessive exclamation, could someone tell me how to pronounce this band’s name? Because if people pronounce it like it looks, well:
Kid #1: I like! That band.
Kid #2: So! Do I.
Kid #1: We! Should form a band.
Kid #2: But! What should we! Name it!
Comments
My favorite band with a questionably placed exclamation point has always been “Godspeed you! Black emperor” after the film of the same title.
Ah, ambiguity, the poet’s friend.
You’ll pardon me for asking this, I hope, but seeing as I’m personally involved: “Adam’s praised by someone who doesn’t already like him. Some day, I will too.“ What ... someday you will also praise Adam? Or someday you’ll be praised by someone who doesn’t already like you?
Does the Valve really have ten thousand visitors a day?
McLemee: “That realization hit home while interviewing Scott Eric Kaufman . . . “ Wow, how does it feel to be interviewed by a realization?
Nope. We get 10,000 hits per day, but only between 3,500 and 4,000 unique visitors last I heard. (Hence my self-mockery up there.)
Adam, I’ve already praised you, but someday I’d like to be praised by not only by people who don’t already likely, but possibly even a few who don’t already know me. Complete strangers, see, walking up to me on the street and telling me how great I am. That would be awesome.
red fox, I didn’t realize Godspeed You! Black Emperor had the internal exclamation, too. Well, they’re at least not crap, like the other. But everytime I said Godspeed’s name, I did so normally, as if there wasn’t even an exclamation point in there. I suppose that’s what the kids do nowadays, too.
Maybe you could have a spot in your sidebar for daily links, rather than doing a post. I’m sure there’s some way to set it up so that it would be a queue of 20 links, which would push the old ones off the bottom and into oblivion.
Yeah, there were too many links to follow them all (in this economy of attention), so I found the obscurity in this post frustrating. I think the band’s name is pronounced more like the way you pronounce The Go! Team’s. Most people just say, “Are we still gaga for Godspeed,” or “Godspeed You has a deep understanding of the crescendo.”
Adam K., there certainly is. I have that “Of Interest Elsewhere” column on my left sidebar, which tracks what I post to my del.icio.us. Of course, I have no idea how to do that with Expression Engine.
Adam R., I admit that I was a little obscure today, but there just wasn’t that much out there of interest posted in the past day. By which I mean, “I couldn’t find it for some reason.” (Note: Anyone who wants to volunteer links, just email me when you find them. I should probably put this in the body of the post, not in a parenthetical.) Also, I hope I’m not being too obscure. My intent’s to amuse, and for whatever obscurity there to vanish as soon as you click on the link.
That said, in the future I’ll clarify which ones are important and stick ‘em toward the top.
Best exclamation point band:
!!!
(Pronounced as any three identical sounds in a row, most commonly “chik chik chik,” but sometimes “bang bang bang” or “aaa aaa aaa” or . . .
Plus they’re a brilliant band. With a songs called “Me and Giuliani Down By the Schoolyard” and “When The Going Gets Tough The Tough Get Karazzee.")
And I think John Cage and Jackson Mac Lowe have been remixing literature for a long long time. Then there’s Ronald Johnson’s *Radi Os*, a long poem made up by removing graphemes from *Paradise Lost*. And Ron Silliman recently posted about Michael Koshkin’s *Parad e R ain*, a similar version of *Paradise Regained* dedicated to Johnson (see http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/2006/07/i-told-anne-waldman-earlier-this-week.html )
The fabulous poet Kevin Young remixed one of his own volumes, *To Repel Ghosts*, a book-length treatment of Basquiat’s life and work.
But for sheer overwhelming beauty, check out Tom Phillip’s *A Humument*, a remix of the obscure Victorian novel, *A Human Document*, made by painting over each page, leaving cartoon-like bubbles of poetry-like stuff surrounded by gorgeous images.
There’s a million of these sorts of works. Nigel Thomm is late to the game, as far as I can tell.
Question: how can we all convince Ron Silliman to write a history of 20th century American poetry? Say what you will about the tone of his blog sometimes, but the guy knows more about what’s really happened this century in the nation’s poetry than any man alive. (And his poetry is brilliant too.)
That’s what I meant. I didn’t know which were the important ones. Thanks.
Comment about literature’s remixing
(to Scott Eric Kaufman)
I think that you probably didn’t understand the conception of lietrature’s remixing if you are comparing Nigel Tomm to Giuliani Down, John Cage, Jackson Mac Lowe, Kevin Young or even Tom Phillip. Have you read Shakespeare’s Sonnets Remixed by Nigel Tomm? In the core of Nigel Tomm’s remixes lies the language itself, he isn’t changing surface of the text like adding some pictures or replacing some words, and he doesn’t search text’s contact with a music, he is remixing Text and its Meaning. Just read Sonnets Remixed and you will understand me.
Cordell, sorry for the confusion--which has been exacerbated by the fact that the link’s died--but I didn’t say that, the person I’d linked to had. I found the concept interesting, but at a month’s remove, the details have become a little fuzzy.