Everyone
I was thinking about your poems and your comments on Stein and how they might become part of what we are doing for six weeks.
Many lines were beautiful.
I was thinking about your attention.
The factual and the contra-factual (interpretations?) and variable statements elicited by them.
9 comments:
Can anyone post here?
3/21/07 tender buttons
she seems to focus and unfocus and then refocus on what she is writing. paying attention to feelings and thoughts going through at the moment that she writes and she writes it. a quite dark grey is monstrous ordinarily because there is no red. stretched out we come back to the hat. red are black, yellow are green are blue. red is no longer red. red can be anything any color including red, why not. any words can be that way. why does a way have to mean a way? why can it not mean a piano. what is the difference between an incoherent rambling of a crazy or an intelligent or a covert person on a subway and this writing. perhaps not much. one is written and the other is not. it seems to say one thing but you are not sure what but why is that. it is shifty. I read a word and my mind immediately tries to connect the word to some object. if the speed is open, if the color is careless, if the selection of a strong is not awkward, if the button holder is held by tall the waving color and there is no color, not any color. words next to each other like any and neglect make sense except any neglect of many particles to a cracking does not make whole lot of sense as a whole. pretty much all words are appropriately juxtaposed but the sentences fail as coherent. what does to a cracking mean. I see the seltzer bottle eventually even if somewhat fuzzy. attention span. a plate. an occasion shatter petty sweaty we are but not me. plate reminds me of church because a whole thing to be church trembling plates. in roast beef, she says it is so easy to exchange meaning. sure it is. why do these words have to be what they are anyway. certainly some words are descriptive of roast beef. thinner, round, thickness shows such cutting. roast beef equals sleeping. alteration of pigeon. come on. in kind cuts and thick and thin spaces? in kind ham, a kind ham, a kind ham. a description is not a birthday, she says. not everything is an object. a frightful release does not sound like an object. nothing elegant is not an object but maybe it is. she does not trust single thing, it is somehow doubtful or not splendor. a single image is not splendor. a charm a single charm is doubtful, she says. of course anything and you can be mistaken for anything for single time. that doesn’t mean that is their true identity. a waist. a single traumatic sullenness. a single financial grass greediness. colors appear a lot. yellow red rose dark grey. yellow is cold dirty, rose is charm, dark grey is monstrous. white and red are black. yellow and green are blue. pink is scarlet. bow is every color. light white is disgrace. a little called Pauline. take out certain word and the sentence begins to make sense a little. in between place is a narrow. some times she uses words for the sound. listen to this. certainly the length is thinner and the rest. the change the dirt. there are many repetitions. tender and changing. choice and a reestablishment. singular means taking things too easily literally without questioning. so singular splendor. creativity and mystery to flow yet stop. she questions status quo. why should that which is uneven, that which is resumed, that which is tolerable why should all this resemble a smell, a thing is there, it whistles, it is not narrower. ageder? she uses words that do not exist. but who cares. why should ancient lambs be goats? mad. there is a kind, repeats 4 times. suppose there is a bone, repeats 2 times. there is, there are, 68 times in roastbeef. undulates, asks questions, proposes then answers like waves up and down and up and down. omission of punctuations. no question mark. everything is matter of fact. she says if something is such then this is this. this is why this is this. it so matter of fact. tribune. why is there anything. china. Japanese. repeat, I repeat, she repeats. emphasizes the words. a curtain, a curtain which is fastened. climate, climate is not southern. why is there education. there is education because. currents, currents are not in the air. this makes you think about the word. why is there so much useless suffering. why is there. why is there more craving than then there is in a mountain. why. why. why? the care with which there is incredible justice and likeness, all this makes a magnificent asparagus, and also a fountain. so in the end everything comes down to asparagus and a fountain. the world is like that.
sooyoung
GERTRUDE STEIN / TENDER BUTTONS / OBJECTS / RESPONSE
I read it aloud to avoid misreading.
Looks like she picked an object she was looking at and started writing cubistly. Perception in discrete blocks, chunks, but not at the smaller level of word-to-word. At the level of phrases, fragments. Words that describe the object are chosen, but these do not only include adjectives. Nouns, verbs, etc also contribute to the choppy disjointed picture. Repetition is used often, parallel contructions like "MILDRED'S UMBRELLA. / A cause and no curve, a cause and loud enough, a cause and extra a loud clash and an extra wagon," (repetition of cause). Rhythmic. Negation often. She juxtaposes words, uses unusual equations like "If the speed is open, if the color is careless". What kind of sentence constructions? Fragments, simple declaratory sentences. Color is used often-- synesthesia? ("a single hurt color") All objects are domestic objects-- tables, tableware, clothes, etc. Themes include cleanliness and change. She loves the objects in the world: "Is there not much more joy in a table and more chairs and very likely roundness and a place to put them." She loves sounds: "The settling of stationing cleaning is one way not to shatter scatter and scattering." She uses concrete words to describe the objects but also heavier abstractions (mercy, relaxation, resignation, success).
Is it possible to have equal weight/equal volume throughout? Over an extended period of time? When it goes on for so long, does the linear passing through time overpower the circularity? Does it get boring? Does it lose its effect? Does it get cluttered? Somewhat. I don't think it is possible to keep it up for long because we still pick out certain words when we read; our brains are selective. We still make sense of certain nonsensical sections and regard what doesn't make sense as noise.
Even within a section, there is not equal weight / equal volume. For example: "There is no gratitude in mercy and in medicine" is much heavier than "A blue coat is guided guided away, guided and guided away". Though in this case both are highly stimulating (the second more viscerally?).
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STIMULATING PASSAGES I picked out from the noise:
"Sugar is not a vegetable."
"A closet, a closet does not connect under the bed."
"A SELTZER BOTTLE. / Any neglect of many particles to a cracking, any neglect of this makes around it what is lead in color and certainly discolor in silver. The use of this is manifold. Supposing a certain time selected is assured, suppose it is even necessary, suppose no other extract is permitted and no more handling is needed, suppose the rest of the message is mixed with a very long slender needle and even if it could be any black border, supposing all this altogether made a dress and suppose it was actual, suppose the mean way to state it was occasional, if you suppose this in August and even more melodiously, if you suppose this even in the necessary incident of there certainly being no middle in summer and winter, suppose this and an elegant settlement a very elegant settlement is more than of consequence, it is not final and sufficient and substituted. This which was so kindly a present was constant."
"A LONG DRESS. / What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary waist. What is this current. / What is the wind, what is it. / Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it."
"and how soon does washing enable a selection of the same thing neater."
"Wondering so winningly in several kinds of oceans is the reason that makes red so regular and enthusiastic. The reason that there is more snips are the same shining very colored rid of no round color."
"A blind agitation is manly and uttermost. / Supposing a single piece is a hair supposing more of them are orderly, does that show that strength, does that show that joint, does that show that balloon famously. Does it."
"Colored hats are necessary to show that curls are worn by an addition of blank spaces, this makes the difference between single lines and broad stomachs, the least thing is lightening"
"I hope she has her cow. Bidding a wedding, widening received treading, little leading mention nothing."
"SUPPOSE AN EYES." <-- sooo good
"Little sales of leather and such beautiful beautiful, beautiful beautiful."
"THIS IS THIS DRESS, AIDER. / Aider, why aider why whow, whow stop touch, aider whow, aider stop the muncher, muncher munchers. / A jack in kill her, a jack in, makes a meadowed king, makes a to let."
--H
Just a very short note
I thought Tamiko's piece raised some fine issues about Stein and description. I thought the writing was very fine how the footnotes worked within the text and took us outside it, making the mediation between inside and outside, surface and center a rather beautiful extensionn of the "text" that was being inundated or breathed throuh. So the outside came in but effortlessly. Her note on "one continuous description" (in Rooms) was fine--what are the implciations of a continous, as opposed to a discontinuous description??? --and it relates to the whole work and how one manauvers (continouslly vs >?) from objects to food to rooms.
THis has also to do with Jen's structural decomposition of TB--which suggests that TB is over all a "classifcatory structure" or perhaps a system of sorting. If so, one must ask why why does one need a system of sorting, and what are the implications for domestic (interiors) in general (As Helena remarks of the varous objects) as opposed to something ? beyond? them?
What are some of the underlying assumptions here in Tamiko's remark: Is narration a part ( i.e. inside)or( subsumed by) of the description-- is some instrinsic dichotomy between narration and description at work and can this be related to the notion of "continuous"? This i think is related to Helena's fine comment about the themes of TB: cleanliness and change. Change is not generally a function of continuity, so what again is the function of change vis a vis continuity in her "description" of Objects Food and Rooms. This idea is also raised, blown the top off really, in Ilisa's posting on the bomb. Cd we all read that and perhaps comment on the nature of communication system at work? Note again Helenas comment about "circularity" can that be linked to change and narration. What are the essential structural categories we might use to describe the work, following stein's remarks about
"interesting" and "not interesting"/
Steins final three sentences in the bomb reflections are brilliant I think and puzzling. Can anyone put them together--here we have eq vol eq weight as it deploys itself across a surface that I'd like to call semantics. What is common sense. What is a story? what is "natural"
Tan
With so much papering yesterday somehow I didn't circulate my tag shade poem, so here it is...
Fly certainty. Shade
free pretty tag
gone shade over napes
pool tag shining. Done
money shade more tag
gone tag run never shade wick
shade revolt open? Some
shining tag never glitter?
Light rake knowledge only shimmer
did talk artifacts resting.
Rake quietly poor foot feet.
Showing talk. Done
trimester rake ajar lane
air talk. Common reckon
rake so we lean tame matter
talk favor never glitter.
On second thought if possible please ignore the above (is there a way to unpost?). I just made revisions with last class conversations in mind in case you can take a quick look at this instead.
Wade certainty litter shade
free. Tag pretty
shade over napes
damp pool tag shining.
Nothing money shade more
deep end tag over thicker
shade glowing open? Some
shining tag never depth glitter?
Rake knowledge only shimmer
holding talk resting.
Rake quietly light foot feet
showing further under talk.
Deep sea sharing rake
opening talk? Common reckon
rake so lean near matter
talk further sometimes glitter.
I've posted my blog poem here.
I forgot to say - I got really interested in the hyperlinking possibility in a poem. So I'd love to hear about your experience of clicking or not cliking on the links and how that affected the reading of the poem.
happy sunday!
t
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