Moving one more time

In an effort to evade the authorities, we have moved. This should be it. Apologies for any inconvenience.

Just about right?

"a slight collectivisation of ideas and material" (Simon Cutts)

Peter Culley has been posting some interesting photographs of trees lately.

Back from the printer: B After C, Volume 4, Number 1

Elizabeth Bachinsky, Jonathan Ball, Ken Belford, Gregory Betts, Ryan Bird, Rob Budde (on Ken Belford), Stephen Collis, Jesse Ferguson, Janis Butler Holm, Jake Kennedy, Alana Madison, Joseph Massey, Chuck Stebelton, Hugh Thomas.

Available here.

Chris Piuma's response to Daniel f. Bradley's complaint about the "cute and silly" tendency in Canadian poetry begins as follows:

I've certainly read Eunoia more than once (or, at least, some sections). But I hardly see what that has to do with anything; you never step in the same river twice, as they say, and the only advantage of being strongly affected by the same text twice on different occasions, or being strongly affected by different texts on two different occasions, is the sheer number of trees that died. It doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the text; I would hardly diss a text for having a one-time-only effect -- that alone is an achievement!

I think Piuma's response is uncharacteristically (and perhaps revealingly) beside the point. What Daniel seems to be talking about is work that he thinks doesn't compel a second look, that doesn't warrant a second encounter regardless of the fact that such an encounter will certainly be different from the first (we can imagine even Hereclitus avoiding a particular stretch of endlessly moving river after an unpleasant experience there). While I disagree with Daniel with respect to a number of the works he mentions, and while my own concerns lead me to a different inflection, I'm with the thrust of his argument. Most of the poetry I don't like lately strikes me as merely satisfying an assignment the poet has given him- or herself. Who cares? I find myself thinking. Frankly, in many cases, I doubt the poet him- or herself really does beyond whatever care attends having produced an aesthetic object or completing a project.

It's no secret that we in the "post-avant"/"avant-garde"/"experimental" "community" frequently talk about poetry in conceptual terms. And I agree with Piuma that aspiration to a one-time-only effect shouldn't disqualify work from favourable regard. But there's more to poetry than whatever conceptual or theoretical framework it embodies or engages, whatever politics it aligns with, or whatever conceit it carries out. There's the often ineffable quality that suggests the poet didn't know and wanted to, even (or perhaps especially) if such knowledge is likely impossible; or was simply attracted or beguiled; or was aware that something about his or her world is other than that which our ethical systems allow, etc. I'd argue, to pick an example from Daniel's shitlist, that Apostrophe points to a compelling sense of 'world' that I realized I had already felt intimations of only after having spent some time with the book and engine. Likewise, much of Kenneth Goldsmith's work resonates in such a way that I want to keep thinking about it. Maybe what I'm talking about is simply imagination.

So, yeah, I need to acknowledge that there are very good reasons for not wanting to go too far in this direction. There's an obvious danger of willfully obscure thinking and derivative art. And doubtless I'll be accused by the dogmatic of regression to an outdated humanism. But to claim that work is empty or lacking the kind of spark I'm talking about above, or the one Daniel seems to want to see, seems perfectly valid to me. It also strikes me as important.

Anyway, this post is along the lines of the thinking I was hoping to do when I started this blog. I'd appreciate any thoughts people have.

From Interaction of Color, Joseph Albers

Some quotes:

The aim of such study is to develop—through experience
—by trial and error—an eye for color.
This means, specifically, seeing color action
as well as feeling color relatedness.

•

This way of searching will lead from a visual realization
of the interaction between color and color
to an awareness of the interdependence of color with form and placement;
with quantity (which measures amount, respectively extension
and/or number, including recurrence);
with quality (intensity of light and/or hue);
and with pronouncement (by separating or connecting boundaries).

•

By exercising comparison and distinction of color boundaries, and new and
important measure is gained for the reading of the plastic action of color,
that is, for the spatial organization of color.
Since softer boundaries disclose nearness implying connection,
harder boundaries indicate distance, separation.

•

[N]o mechanical color system is flexible enough
to precalculate the manifold changing factors, as named before,
in a single prescribed recipe.

•

Besides a balance through color harmony, which is comparable
to symmetry, there is an equilibrium possible between
color tensions, related to a more dynamic asymmetry.

Again: knowledge and its application is not our aim;
instead, it is flexible imagination, discover, invention—taste.

•

Yes!

Today Sam tore up about half the pile of drawings that sits on a table in his playroom. He didn't seem at all upset. In fact, he seemed to be enjoying himself quite a bit. It also seemed that he stopped primarily out of boredom. I think this may turn out to have been an important moment in his development as an artist.