GRIST ON-LINE #4 USE COURIER 10 CPI FOR YOUR FONT GGGGGGG GGGGGGGGGGG GGGGGG GGGGGG GGGGG GGGGGG GGGG GGGG GGGG GGGG GGGGG GRIST GGGGGGG GRIST GGGGGGGG GRIST GGGGGGGGGGGGGGRIST GGGGGGGGGGGGGGRISTGRISTGRIST GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGRISTGRISTGRISTGRISTGRIST ONLINEONLINEONLINEONLINEONLINEONLINEONLINEONLINEONLINE S k y B l u e I r i s E y e B l o s s o m ######################################## GRIST On-Line, #4 January, 1994 John Fowler, Editor and Publisher Copyright 1994 by John E. Fowler. All individual works Copyright 1994 by their respective authors. All further rights to works belong to the authors and revert to the authors on publication. GRIST On-Line is published electronically on a monthly schedule. Reproduction of any complete issue of the magazine is permitted for nonprofit distribution as long as the source is cited, i.e., GRIST On-Line, plus the Network, BBS or other carrier, and the author are clearly and prominently identified. 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GRIST On-Line is available for anonymous ftp and by gopher from etext.archive.umich.edu/pub/Poetry/Grist which is the preferred form of distribution. ######################################## TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 EDITOR'S PAGE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 THIRTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY PROFESSION: 15.IX.66 George Dowden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 I L(o)ve NY Kaviraj George Dowden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 WALK (I) Clayton Eshleman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19 WALK (III) Clayton Eshleman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 SHODDY WORKMANSHIP Linda Lerner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 PRICE ON OUR HEADS Linda Lerner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 WON'T MAKE THE TEN MOST WANTED Linda Lerner. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 BRAHMS' GERMAN REQUIEM Will Inman. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 SAFE IN THE OWL'S TALONS Brown Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 MY PILLOW CALLS ME DOUBTING THOMAS Brown Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 LOVE LIFE Clive Matson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Shadow Traffic Clive Matson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Ax Rooster Clive Matson. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 IdEAL ORDER Jeffrey Harrington. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 The Electronic Art & Culture Postcard rgardner@charon.MIT.EDU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 PHILOS - Cyberspace & Virtual Reality Marc Librescu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 PREDICTIONS Jon Lebkowsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Sterling's _Hacker_Crackdown_ online Stanton McCandlish. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Subject: networking ZWOOD@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 MAIL EVENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 E-MAIL ARTISTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 CONTRIBUTOR'S NOTES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 ######################################## ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS "THIRTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY PROFESSION: 15.IX.66" appeared in (the original) Grist #14 "SAFE IN THE OWL'S TALONS" appeared in (the original) Grist #12, copyright 1994 Brown Miller "WALK (I)" and "WALK (III)" appeared in (the original) Grist #12, copyright 1966 Clayton Eshleman "LOVE LIFE" appeared in (the original) Grist #7, copyright 1994 Clive Matson ######################################## EDITOR'S PAGE O.K. so #4 is only half as long--80 some k compared to 100 & 80 k--maybe half as long and twice as good? Want to say? Hey, thanks for all the e/s-mail cards and letters! Feedback keeps the heart pumpin' and the swelling down. Please continue to respond. Not due to lack of material. An all prose issue in the offing; plus more from Cyanobacteria International; and poets of beat and other forms of maturity or innocence. So here's an announcement::heed with joy GRIST ON-LINE Publishing is proud to announce the following forthcoming titles to be published on diskette: GLEANINGS: Uncollected Poems of the Fifties by David Ignatow SELECTED POEMS: Jim McCrary THE DEUX MEGOTS SCENE: Carol Berge UNPUBLISHED STORIES: Carol Berge HIROSHIMA - A Shadow Project Slideshow: John Fowler THE KLEE POEMS & THE BOOK OF FISHES: John Fowler All will be available for download from the GRIST BBS by prepaid subscription as well. The BBS system will be up and running by February 1st. More titles by other GRIST authors are in the works and will be announced in future issues. For further details concerning these titles, the GRIST publishing program, and the GRIST BBS email me via grist@phantom.com. ######################################## THIRTY-FOURTH BIRTHDAY PROFESSION: 15.IX.66 from (the original) Grist #14, (revised, 1993) George Dowden I do not leap out of bed eager to do things this day-- mindless enthusiasm--to do something or be 34 with smiling, chattering wellwishers I cannot say "Be silent" to--"Be silent on the day I have outlived Jesus!" because I have not written or spoken well enough to lose speech freedom, be eliminated in America--because I have been a slow-starter--because I have hidden my power--because I have hidden my violence-- because I wish to understand, to forgive, to heal, because that is my work--because I hate everything I would heal and because I know better but will not stop trying--because I wake on my birthday with clenched teeth for the black Things leaping upon one another and clinging, adhesive, mindless, by their hideous nature, choking off space in my head, bulging the brain cells, stretching the skin--not verifiable, but not an image; it is Brain Pressure--Swift's slobbering and ravings at end--Pound's mouth twisted open in Francis Bacon soundless scream when "they" released him with the usual platitudes--Artaud Le Momo's wasted and toothless face after massively uncom- prehending Roez--(etc.)--IF you survive to be old-- where do I end in fierceness?--it is all Energy--for heaven or hell the same--I would be more home locked brain to brain with hated and (though in most evil of mesomorphic way) GREAT Johnson even--never with bland underlings, never!--but they too might be free if ALLOWED to be free... see, this ranting--this sense of Reality thwarted in men while birds sing--that is one of "their" weapons!-- and recent SHOCK to discover my once (sometimes still) beautiful face getting fiercer--strain to LOOK gentle-- natural need for my work to be recognized very soon, or what?--need for a shaman's place to work--need for some pay for my profession, a building where poet- priest may give good what he's been granted to give--need for an ashram of rooms, plural!--one room for writing and teaching--one for Pauline's painting--one for a graceful bread breaking--one for white chapel incense, yoga, nonsymbolic, smoking together--one where guests may have free vision and be delighted--and we are being shown high-priced one-room "flats" with Victorian wallpaper!--not even our place among English, Irish, West Indian, African, Indian, Chinese children of backlands Notting Hill, where it would do our own Spirits most good to live-- and the businessman, clerk, policeman, mechanic has a place to go to do his work (for which he is "respectable") so also the professors also "respectable", as I was when professor-- but I have no place to go to do mine now, far more ancient, and also "respectable"-- Energy backing up--WILL find its outlet-- Pauline crying out yesterday in the Underground (subway) train, "Somebody help me, he's going to hurt me... please help me..." I twisting her arm and neck, threatening to twist her face off--for what?--for the pain in my head, for someone to receive my Energy to relieve me--incredulous faces around us, gaping "average" riders held against any rescue by the Wolf in my eyes, I could have mangled cautious charge of them with strength, coordination and lucidity of madness they subdued me--Pauline breaking away from my explaining..my explaining..running out when the train stopped--I continuing in it to Waterloo--waiting there for the next train-- she on it--approaches me--I am finished, empty-- takes my arm, leads me, near-catatonic, to next train, home, her soft child-mother body in bed-- understand this, my friends who laugh and drink beer with me at poetry readings and afternoons in the streets and so easily say "Love...the world needs Love"...friends who love me, too, then, and whom I have spared this--understand now what is in me and "Love" yes but love is COSTLY before spoken with Power in the poem--the deja vu purer-than-thou "Love Poem" WHO'S self- expression!-- O, forgive me!--so much at stake here--understand Love has put me in danger on my 34th birthday--because THIS Love burns with ambition of Love more than poetry--but by poetry not sainthood given, so chosen... this morning--my birthday--hot bath--immobile still after subway happening--first Purple Heart of my life--from her mother-- now 6:00 pm--on my way to see Paul and Rhiannon Evans, having first baby any day now, maybe today on my birthday--an hour's writing of this in nice Lyon's tea room shelter from rain in Notting Hill Gate Rd., flat hunting--out--into Notting Hill Under- ground--alone and quiet--7:30 sky darkening behind toylike English chimneypot houses seen through Underground skylight--going to Stamford Brook to sit with Paul and Rhiannon, then home to Pauline-- gone out alone to concentrate on this poem that had to be written-- get out at Stamford Brook--blonde girl in red panties only, back to me, posing for somebody in third- floor window on Paul's street--just there in window as I walk by and see--retreat, watch her Beauty from behind parked cars for 5 minutes-- walk on, thankful Paul's father, the Vicar, greets me at door in HIS collar-- beautiful face--church group meeting in sitting room--that's something Rhiannon cheerful and busy--still big with baby--we are all gentle together--they glad I've come--we read poems to each other (not this one to impose on the milk of her baby)--they love me Paul walks me back to the Underground 4 funny little shopgirls in train--"discussing" me-- stealing glances--they like me this poem writ from fierceness to calm now "Headache? This is What Happens..." / "With a Bottle of Sparkling FOLIES BERGERES!"--ads side by side and across from me who have drunk nothing all week we pull into Wimbledon--all doors banging open--dark--10:30- - cold wind running back and forth through the station-- get on train to Surbiton and bus to home--hot milk-- and I'll be in bed again with Pauline, where warmth has its reasons NOTE: this poem must finally be read in sequence with the long RENEW JERUSALEM poem, which was completed a week before it and which in fact determined what had to rise to the surface as rightly here, on my thirty-fourth birthday. Neither this nor the earlier poem makes me, or anyman, "this" or "that"; with the Energy there, the hope is that the best, not the worst, in these poems, in me--also in society--will prevail, till the Work prosper more fully, more simply, more truly and beautifully some day in Light-- after the ever more fearsome dark nights that will come. A third poem, THE MURDER OF CHRIST, must also finally be read in sequence with these two poems. ######################################## I L(o)ve NY Kaviraj George Dowden Early-winter sunslant on Washington Square earth, trees and benches and on New Yorkers of every possible description co-existing on the benches and on guitars at the Fountain and on dogs playing chase the pigeons and on squirrels and sparrows and on dark Jewish NYU girl students walking to class, deep memories of Sinai, Galilee, Canaan, the wedding feast and the dancing Blackman big, terrible, in boots, flowing pants, headband and Algerian turban, striding through the Square like the emperor's champion wrestler, I wish I could follow and watch him an hour and O to hear his-story, that would be something, but I dare not (I saw him centuries ago in streets of Algiers, Rome, Kabul, Athens, Siam, Congo, Cairo, Constantinople) One black squirrel among the grays in the Square, if I stay in this city I'll come and feed him! Leaves blowing in November wind Madman shows me his feet, filthy stockings, no shoes, and asks where he can take a bath, no money, and I directing him to the Square's toilets, no place else for him, alas, who once was a child, O the promise, the promise, then the human disaster, this one and that one, XX Century and the nuclear family Large man, large dog, the man sitting (manshape against the sky) and the dog sitting beside him (dogshape against the sky) not wanting to run and play but just sit beside him in silence on the grass, perfect, two so different creatures yet One, I see how soft and gentle the creator can be in this city Good to share whiskey with Jamaican, my white lips his black lips the same, no wiping the bottle People from every part of America and the world walking and sitting and being here together in the Melting Pot, I sit and observe and am part of the scene and the passing show several hours in delight, then walk again in the Village and find the Aurora Bar gone from W. 4th Street, I came new to this city in '57 and drank martinis after work with Mahlon the Dwarf, Irky the Dog, Painter Johnny Bowen and Adrian Moolenbrugh "Interior Decorator," now it's the Lichee Nut Old sawdust 5-Star wino Mills bar on Bleeker now empty of the old guys, no more hopelessly gnarled heads bowed to the stark wooden tabletops and the floor Sign on shop, Seventh Avenue South: "Ear Piercing/Your Choice/With or Without Pain" - no prejudice against masochists, all are served in Metropolis I entering into Soho and Village art galleries, here Jackson Pollock of my NY initiation, here someone new to me and another new one, some good but some not really so good and art all mixed up with XX Century commerce, Vincent sold one painting in his life, now Sunflowers worth millions Soho News: epidemic of syphilis, gonorrhoea, herpes (an evil one indeed), urethritis, genital cancer and hepatitis among the swingers (straight and gay) in the city - the sexual revolution now nightmare for its most active adherents, all changes, all is flux and all changes, yet somehow some will find a way out of the vortex New York dogwalkers carrying paper towels to pick up their doggies' droppings and throw them in trashcans, how civilized! In England dogshit all over the place, thank God for much rain Now West River, water, seagulls and me, New Jersey in the distance, Statue of Liberty far away in the bay, good to be by water, fortnight out of Brighton, the Channel Historic S. Klein on the Square (Union and 14th St.) still named but all dark boarded and ghostly, where do immigrants shop now bedazzled? New York! New York! poets, painters, dancers, actors, musicians walking the streets with me! And nobody notices or particularly cares seeing one of us stopping a minute to put pen to paper right on the street or a few steps away in a doorway, no misunderstandings, no preconceptions, no petty comments, all is absorbed and accepted in freedom R. Gross and his Dairy Restaurant, 1372 Broadway, with an official letter in the window certifying that the Rabbi is in control and all is strictly kosher in this place New York Damon Runyan character in loud jacket leering suggestively at passing pretty girl at Broadway and 36th, she's used to it and keeps eyes straight ahead in her walking Empire State Building an elegant massive delight, day of the great liners, art deco, dancing at the Ritz, the Savoy, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Cagney and Bogart, the ganqsters and the socialites and the big bands and all of the dread and glittering Thirties scene I was born into So many yellow cabs zooming, maneuvering, honking and buzzing like angry wasps, and the unreal skyscrapers, and what chaos on the streets and in the buildings if Bomb fell, piles of hot wires in every wall, electrified subways, wires under the pavements, in telephones and computers and all of it crackling and burning and ducks and lobsters spinning in air and splattered on the walls in all the fine restaurants and "Hey! Whatsa matta Russia!" from the gutter Message spraypainted on base of statue in famous little Herald Square park: "WOMEN! DON'T WORK WITH THE POLICE" in red with "YOU'LL GET LAYED" added by someone else in black - big lettering, too, no woman (or copper) could possibly miss it, yet no one erases it O what tragic stories sit here on the benches, remember me! Grass in Greeley Square, guy with headphones and insect antennae cap comes in on his bicycle, rearranges the Square's three central dustbins and rides away, that's all, nobody on the benches pays him the least bit of attention, white, black or Chinese, New Yorkers! Every face here that of a stranger! All these individuals and individualists yet also all manifestations of the great One, and I with them and am them And what mystery the karma that brings this particular one and that particular one and all of us to this one more beat little Square in New York City, this place, this day, this minute, to be New York City? And these particular pigeons on this particular well-and- truly-bombed statue? O, all together such faces (and figures) could only be seen in midtown Manhattan! And hot chestnut and pretzel sellers, what can I say? And these people going in and out of all these huge buildings. And American policemen with guns on hip seemingly just hanging out Mannahatta, Mannahatta, you very real fantasy island you are all the images needed! And all the people in New York, black and white, old and young, who walk the streets talking to themselves! All the crazies roaming loose and I roaming with them "Shit, man," exclaims black bicyclist who almost hits a young white woman at corner of 34th, no one bats an eyelash, not even the woman O colorful city, all the subway trains 100% covered in street-art initials graffiti Look here now, one guard with gun on hip unloading money from an armored car for the bank, his colleague standing grimly at the door his gun in hand at his side, at the ready, O yes, New York is its own metaphor, no need to make up anything, no cause to embellish Not seeing' no films, no shows, no TV, New York is the streets and the places and people, not a second to lose, walking, sitting, being, observing, recording theme of my Consciousness as it meets this incredible city's, and what is this telephone sales job for TIME/LIFE BOOKS I'm supposed to start Monday! Every day fabled Chelsea Hotel sleep and wakeup and out, out to the streets, first wonder today old black man in wool ski cap talking and laughing away to himself in W. 23rd coffee shop, I'm so pleased that he's happy Next wonder, bum sleeping on back steps of NY Public Library with shopping bags at his side, maybe a book in them? "Beauty/Old Yet Ever New/Eternal Voice/and Inward Word," trees, flowers, bushes and blue sky, a good place to crash awhile in the city Blacks in the same Library garden (Bryant Park) laughing and slapping hands and saying "O, man, Stevie Wonder, that's a mean dude!" and turning me on, wow, and we talking of Shiva, Buddha, Walt Whitman and E1 Salvador, not to mention Shorty's height that of a cockroach, more black slap handshakes and Dan saying he got to write this down, "O, man, I got to write this down!" and I doing it also Slice of pizza and papaya juice and young black cat at the counter with me meticulously rolling a joint And the famous (or infamous) Broadway-7th Ave.-42nd Street lights! the lights! all these Kung Fu and Horror and Sex cinemas also part of the madly imaginative Creator's mind manifestations And here "Spanish Fly, eight flavors"! and "Assorted French Ticklers"! not to mention "Stay Hard Cream" and the most explicit fellatio mag covers! O horrendous sexshops and peepshows and windows! New Bryant Theatre, 10 New SEXtacular SEXcitinq SEXational LOVE Acts on Stage and, on screen, "Sexual Heights", three-hour show - or 25 cents for XXX three-minute movies in sex shops all around it and busy! Golden Dollar Topless Bar & Lounge, "Exotic Girls!" migod how charming or desperate those girls there just for men to ogle, maybe to touch! not long ago High School cheerleaders in Ohio, Wisconsin, Nebraska And far from Nebraska you can get a Front Page with your name in headlines on Broadway: RALPH BINNS FARTS IN SUBWAY - 67 DEAD! Now black and white tipster and hipster talk at the Broadway and 42nd Street Off-Track Betting Shop, I fading into the picture, just one more jobless john playing the horses Forlorn girl with cardboard sign: HELP ME. MY PURSE WAS SNATCHED, and I giving her a dollar and a little compassion "Jesus Saves" black preacher at 7th Avenue and 42nd street preachers' corner, hellstone and brimfire and no one but the tourists and me looking or caring, everyone's free to do his thing in this city and boy do they do it! Legendary cafeteria Dubrow's, 7th Avenue and W. 38th Street, what food selection, steam tables, steel cookers, small inferno, now respectable middle-class eatery but what New World stories here at all of the tables! Dinosaur cars and trucks as patient as such creatures can be staking out turf rights, horn honking order of the day...and the evening and the night and the dawn of the new day NY forever And O Bowery history! The dead walking, so much gone, such blasted spirit of man, so much forgotten, cigarette and small change for Spectre trembling in light shirt - "I gotta get a coat, I gotta get a coat soon!" winter arriving, one more eternal NY scene for a century And what historical names, late-XIX early-XX Century immigrant insurge to the streets of gold: Mulberry, Mott, Second Avenue, Bowery, Delancey! "Can you spare a cigarette?" "Yeh, right" again on the Bowery. And then the most incredible hard luck story, no way to describe it Old drunks in Bowery bar discussing "years ago" and, surprisingly, bowling, knowing all the names and statistics, and a Mongolian Idiot slobbering happily at the toilet end of the bar and the guy in the black and white TV movie is holding a cross up to the Blob, "Haha, he thinks it's a vampire!" laughs the blackbearded bartender meaning no harm but getting a kick out of the Blob's assimilating poor trusting Christian Lower East Side/East Village of my NY initiation, the Beat, the Hippie, the Immigrant, the Poor, white and black, the offbeat galleries and bookstores and clothes shops on St. Mark's Place, the color, the life of the streets Tompkins Square park where I sit and listen to a lone Japanese jazzman singing through his sax in America O, I L(o)ve NY, the joy both outer and inner! come a long way in seeing since NY young man death & doom vision 22 years ago! Passing the "NY Institute of Classical Yoga," 8th Avenue and 24th Street, I see ex-guru Muktananda photo staring at me! Sorry, Baba, you left out too much of the world for a comic yogi and poet Walking home in evening darkness, "That's nice!" to girl passing, making music, blowing a paper streamer, she's suspicious but as I pass and say nothing more returns faint smile to my smile A stop in bar - historical old faded blonde in low-cut red dress and man, gray and even older, arguing about the deceptions of love in Metropolis, NY drama, W. 23rd Street Green Rooster, both lone, glad to have each other to talk to, passionate four-letter-word talk but no saying nothing too harsh to chase away confidante Star Cafe across from Green Rooster now, black bar, black rhythm and jazz, foxy lady behind bar in glittering silver blouse knows me and is "glad to see you," one white face on bar vine midst bloom of black faces. She remembers that my Guinness is not to be too cold and, pleased with herself as O how pleased I am with her, says "This is strong stuff and it has the vitamins in it!" Eddie comes in and regales me with dread tales of the painting business and the streets and his joys and woes, can't pay for return drink, can't pay for new glasses Home to divine beat old Chelsea to rest feet hot from centuries of walking this planet Yet even indoors I am drawn to the window to see fabulous beings in the streets below, not dominated by buildings, not defeated by grime, noise, crime or whatever, and Bomb doesn't know history herstory or would be struck dumb with shame, little yellow taxis carrying NY guests and natives uptown and downtown only to disappear leaving even 7th Avenue empty, one more American ghost street when Bomb lights the night sky, now not one empty second from sunrise to sunset to sunrise again Now I sit on my bed with my new pair of $30-in-one-hour glasses from mid-Manhattan, this yellow pad I'm writing on with this felt-tipped pen, my journal, my what-to- do-today notebook (and pen, a second one), a rubber band to hold last pen in last notebook, cigarettes and matches, a half-pint of Seagram's 7, I'm in my underwear feeling gleefully beatific, comfortable, secure and at peace in this city, a cockroach for company, jazz on new tiny radio, $5, 8th Avenue Mad Hindu from next room mumbling "Krishna! Krishna! Krishna!" in his lunghi through the halls of Hotel America Sirens below on the street, so many dramas, so many stories, such eternal dream-reality and such courage, Reagan-Brezhnev, don't bomb these people, really, don't bomb them! just don't! "Wow Wow!" go the sirens, police and ambulance, life and death dramas since the beginnings of time, the streets darkening, soon NY night life beginning and is that not amazing! End of week walking and being here, my hand in Shiva's, nobody's knifed me or shot me or mugged me, quit telephone sales job after one hour, weather turning colder, maybe white snow on these fabled streets come tomorrow II bright blooming flowers here too in the city -- not to forget them Beautiful sweet honey-blonde teenager Ami with "So. Laurel Cheerleader" on her blue jacket in her blue jeans and red-white-and-blue sneakers bounces into the beat cafeteria where I'm having a cup of tea, you'd expect to see her in Corn-Is-Green, Iowa, but she is here, New York City! And Anita waitress in W. 23rd and 7th Avenue coffee-'n'-doughnut shop, a Puerto Rican Barbie doll, so petite and pretty in her short white waitress uniform and little red apron, a little cross, too, pouting quite a lot because she has to serve men, she won't smile at them either, Knowing they all want to kiss her And all the little Jewish girls, black girls, Irish girls, Italian girls, Puerto Rican girls, Chinese girls and Nebraska girls, gurls gurls qurls walking these streets! such innocent eyes! such tenderness! this city's made gentler because they are here And the little mink-like creature bundling her pert round bottom into a taxi in the middle of the street, 34th and Broadway, car horns all blaring around her And the fair Kansas maiden seen through Sloane's grocery store window with shopping basket in one hand and in the other her shopping list scrutinized with a faint, mysterious smile, now NY Mona Lisa And the round, soft though brash redheaded teenage angel in jeans chewing gum, ripe red lips moving, outside Bleeker Street deli, "What yuh lookin' at?" and she shatters Poet's dream - but for only a second And sweet stacked lively Irish Mary who giggles at and parries all the madman male thrusts in the Green Rooster Bar, W. 23rd off Avenue Seventh And the young Puerto Rican girl in Mickey Mouse sweatshirt hanging red velvet balls in the window of "New York New York" in the Village, corner of 7th Avenue South and W. 10th Street, with "I L(o)ve NY" stickers all over the windows, rails and steps (I buy an "I L(o)ve NY" badge and pin it to my coat and ah! she smiles at graybearded me) And Christina the Italian-American hooker, 21 looks 16, whom I do not take back to the Chelsea with me from St. Marks Place and Cooper Square bar but give $10 to for kissing and touching her O so tender cheeks and her neck and her breasts and her sweet honeypot treasure she knowingly lent me awhile, lone drink or two in the gloaming (What if I could spend one night with each of them seeing what they do, hearing what they say!) And the one of dark eyes of deep Eastern promise drinking espresso in "FOOD" new bohemia Soho, Prince and Wooster, looking right at me with interest through the window as I write about her this moment And the fine young black girl who takes a light off my cigarette in Madison Square park, 5th Avenue and 24th, her fingers touching mine and saying "Thank you," and I so pleased saying "You're welcome" And the two delightful Chinese girls giggling together at the corner of Lafayette and Canal Streets, north border of Chinatown in the rain And the two little blonde ones - so tender! - carrying roller skates over their marvelous round dimpled shoulders at 30th Street and 8th Avenue Sunday And the pretty one giving such a sweet peck to her boyfriend's cheek in 5th Avenue teashop, she's auburn-haired, moral and friendly And the smart pretty receptionists in all the smart Madison Avenue offices smiling us OM! bright blooming flowers here too in this city joying me - body-senses mind heart and spirit III Washington Square Tuesday Morning Three hours sleep last night, no will to walk today, just sit in November morning sunlight in Washington Square drinking and smoking, watching the people, watching the trees and the grass, the squirrels and the pigeons and sparrows, looking up at the sky Schoolchildren playing in a group in the Square's playground, very precious as you see so few of them on the streets, New York City Black dope dealers dealing, leaf sweepers sweeping, joggers jogging in track suits, male and female, madman lying in the leaves howling, traffic passing, grandmothers with babies in baby carriages, dog walkers, citizens down on their luck hanging out, NYU students going to their classes and perhaps tender lovers The ground beneath my feet moves though it appears to stand still, I sitting on green bench on the rim of the universe Unemployed blacks standing around passing a bottle, far now, very far from Africa homeland, right here is their world as mine and I love to study their faces and hear their black talk and laughter Boy and girl Passing, she's chewing gum and talking to him, I wonder what revelations her spirit has for his spirit Black woman pushing old white rich woman in wheelchair, soon Sri Lord Death will have the old woman (who came into being a sweet blooming girl child) and the black woman'll be out of a job Garibaldi bedecked with pigeon shit eternally about to draw his sword against all of us - but he never does it, why would he do it? Black guitarist in black turban covering head spaced out in Infinity shares his cosmic thinking and music with me, most incredible meeting, scratching his crotch, cursing passersby (who have a quick glance but don't blink an eye, native New Yorkers), he's ready to drop a neutron bomb on New York for some reason, too much for me though in his best moments playing and singing Old white man with cane contemplating his sick bare foot on a bench Neat little chicks, blackhaired and blonde, cutting along dressed as it pleases them Leaves yellow and falling, the beginning of winter, life again over, to be resurrected in springtime Frisbies gliding through air, bongos and guitars and joints passed at the Fountain OM! I am at home here and these are my people and deep regret for finance of the world I must leave this city tomorrow -NY 16.XI.81 - 24.XI.81 ######################################## WALK (I) Clayton Eshleman Over Santa Rosa bridge at the summit hills cup Lima ash bung. down in the slums. Two ladies green print dresses daughters alike a hit dog the Rimac brown sty of river roils cane tail green weeds (Coming down mountain sierra mule-stop) boys splash naked gleaming sun drifts grey haze 3rd bridge woman battered hat down in grass fresh sewer water dipped out for legs spread brown men's pants rolled under dirty flowered skirt by down under bridge wall ripe mahogany shit flies hotter. hotter. unnameable slum. wandering. tents. houses. ground standing with blue water. days. stands. stands. hanging from shutter photo biceps up dovetailing overhead Steve Reeves Man has no ulterior purpose, he lays claim to nothing & surrenders himself to spontaneity OCTOPUS KILLS FAMILY OF TEN ######################################## WALK (III) Clayton Eshleman To Barranco by collectivo _lowering of the baths_ thru eucalyptus pressed to sea swept hills lines surf chain, hand love holds. along shore by foot walking around parked collectiovs, taxi-drivers & wives, girl-friends down in sand - cold - colorless beach - they embrace under sticks - stand hands rubbing under falls other side of road under baked dirt Barranco cliffs. Not quite human man in bathing suit keep me to my purposes to walk straight thru eternity chains sea decomposing a face a sun bleeds gold a lane black figures not quite human play love holds all human in her closed hand The pier concrete Sunday Tired crowds bargain sumo fishwives behind hampers of squid, piles of tiny corvina boys hold up scales balanced fishes hooked There is meat out home so we'll eat here. I sit down with Barbara under evening canopy. Negro young muscular goodlooking brings plates of squid . corvina The scales balance aji burns my mouth along night road headlights a busted sandal. (Valentine Day 1966) ######################################## SHODDY WORKMANSHIP Linda Lerner Co-op is sinking; twenty-five year old upper middle class... nearly imperceptible bathtub slope. Tenant relaxing in thrown together poem stretches out accumulated tension cost of apartment, doesn't notice at first, matter of inches only who cares until some asshole neighbor drinking perrier, worrying about invested life savings organizes tenants. Soon men with bludgeoning tools, in combat boots, urban military garb scaffold his privacy, threaten other investment. An uncontrollable tantrum he kicks about in the poem. Foundation no made to withstand he falls through: joins tribes of homeless. Shelters too full, closed for lack of funds, executives, artists, academics crowd doorways digging into pocket; three million first cost of repairs, they continue with pens, paint brushes, digging with various softwares, degrees... as last resort use politically correct generosity once called begging for foundation repairs' final payment. ######################################## PRICE ON OUR HEADS Linda Lerner Yesterday the World Trade Center was bombed. Arabs. My father's enemy. `I told you so' warnings drag me down... My lover never met but knows in his Jewish gut, smells his vodka breath, under six feet of earth sniffs out `Irish' shakes this foundation. I think of that bigger blast; fanatics from a world we buried... destruction of innocence as great as lives. Who said there is such a thing as death. Only bodies vanish. Nobody who ever lived leaves this earth. ######################################## WON'T MAKE THE TEN MOST WANTED Linda Lerner Outlaw sucking 80 proof breasts, why don't you stop playing; take off those combat boots, let go your parents hands, run out of that market place. Same death needling/same kin. Ride the verb `become' rebel you pretend dress/speak like, brawling poet, why a horn to blow tantrums? Isn't hell enough for words? Why holstered anger flashing/ undelivered why moma's boy still? ######################################## BRAHMS' GERMAN REQUIEM Will Inman that chorus fills this room with sky and ocean a windy forest walks the floor of this sea-rushing this god never stands still in sanctuary walls what tall grasses root in darkness between stars listening prelates circumcise themselves of their small moralities. god's naked flesh will not stay quite condomed in pieties. these choruses cauterize with joy tongues of guilt-mongers mother of creation climbs this singing hill where sisters and brothers give birth to each other such melodies are umbilicals that let us go free the more they wrap joy around our skulls the sacred brother kisses every child's navel not one is born but is only begotten, unique who _dares_ say any sister is not made in the image of god? he curses himself with false separation for god is indivisible and will not be broken by men's fallible stone erections what dark cloud groans with fresh advent? how deep does our vision delve below surfaces into rediscovered marrows of awareness? what rainbows root in pain, wake now to joy, how every leaf, yea, every fleck of dust glows with living presence, how sky fills this sound 24 April 1993, Tucson ######################################## SAFE IN THE OWL'S TALONS Brown Miller I am in a hallway of rubber, coal, uranium. I hear the leading citizens saying "Gosh!" Pneumonia weeds flank me. Entrails of birds are discovered in the basement. I wade in sour cream and wait. Gnarled veins appear off and on in the wooden mirror. Black helicopter ghosts and ambulances containing collages stop inside my ears, like needles. Finally I smell the ocean, lean down to touch the sand of my own flesh. copyright 1993 by Brown Miller ######################################## MY PILLOW CALLS ME DOUBTING THOMAS Brown Miller A father who tears himself apart cannot wake me from this doubt. I want to paste the pieces back in place to make a tangible face. He took my mother's death like cyanide pill on his tongue. He poked his finger through the hole he couldn't believe was left. He put my head to sleep with a blow from his blunted life. "Wear this crown," he said, "It's made of her favorite thorns." My finger wants to test some flesh, find a wound red, wide, and warm. But her corpse fades away like song. The puzzle I'm stuck with now still isn't father enough to say my name, shake me by the shoulder. So I believe in this feathery doubt, fingering a hole from the inside out. ######################################## LOVE LIFE Clive Matson Well I'm hung on a woman & that pair of breasts, high and pointed. She is my first love & the one I'll die of, who was my sweetheart at nineteen years when I boosted her from her mother's cage and sweet college life into the sweet agony of our bodies and soul. Forever changing poses on the big bed and thru decorated rooms & green forest on U.S.Route 1 with blue sky above, forever I connive to feel again the first bliss of young love 1961 and the Garden of Eden remembered, I walked there at peace with a woman but not with her. With my true love the most beautiful of them all, who is only a dream I nourish in my heart since I was seven and I blow my mind to hang her live on the face and ass of the woman now dressing and hanging on beads before a mirror. I fail, Goddamn. And later across the table pull some casual tightrope act focused one eyed on joy, rap and await her feedback pretending we get along while I yearn for new lust & freedom or to close my eyes and dream the rest til death. Oh I put drugs in my veins against pain and dulling desire to make living easier & we share Heaven and Hell eyelids drooping behind heroin, the woman I addicted & hooked myself for inside joy & in despair I'd leave or lose her and the feel of her soft arms. But I left so many times and leave her for new blood, adventure & loneliness in empty rooms, who I came back to and come back to the same joy and pain as we enjoy and exhaust the magic our separate lives contain, trap ourselves with the dark sorcery alive in every heart too evil to leave again and let time heal us in solitary pain we maul each other for what pleasure's left, loving the color of our blood and the razor edge swipe of nail and mind that draws it, hooked for life. Black is her soul. The terrible witch charms me into handing over heart & soul & body, hexes my enemies so they can't come near or draws them in on strings when I'm bad to do her dirty work, tie me with guilt and frustration into knots only she can undo. She is a telepath and reads many thoughts as I read hers, who I hide with lies from love affairs on the side or use them against her when she's too grabby & bad trip her saying how to think or fuck or act and sneer disgusted at her tears, explode the nasty groove with blows putting scars on her body or paint her image with shit so I dim the fierce light of her person and the look of need & love I put on her face. I've done it all and we withdraw into private tombs to return another day trembling on sight of each other and the strange creatures we become & she reveals her flesh in bed as this morning with breasts swelling and skin coloring red, eyes rolled back into her head & moaning, writhing open mouth at the moments of coming. I file this scene with memories of happiness & for duplication later but it's impossible riding the seesaw between whatever she is and what I want her to be I married her one winter & wiped tears from the twisted features. Exchange one scene for another with the same geometry, caught anew in the snare we have woven across the continent from city to city, across rooms bound in the companionship of shared routines, years and tears together and afternoons high on rooftops and falling down naked and shameless before the clear eyes that know me so well, maybe underneath on the bedrock some other quiet love solidifies. I'm prince & prick in my own house where fucking is the answer to most everything and when it isn't, a smack or two will do or jive or fake nonchalance or I don't know what & I blunder thru it all trying to con her fully in my power, sop up love like a sponge from the woman who takes me on while I watch with one eye half cocked for some escape. April 1966 ######################################## Shadow Traffic (A stunned dawn when the mind realizes powerful, unfamiliar emotions reside in the body.) Clive Matson Animals and trucks move around in my body. You don't know what they are. I don't know what they are. A gorilla with peaked head, ship's anchor with barnacle ropes, yards of cowshit on a flatbed, a snake ball, getting fuzzy. Fuzzier. Clear shapes and I could shoot bull's eyes, or direct traffic over-under at the cloverleafs. Shadows rumble through bottom groin and center chest. They move through each other without pain. Each one carries a load. I don't know what they are. You don't know what they are. Clear and I could ride a hayload into the meadow. Clang out a cherry-red shovel on the portable anvil. No one could match the speed. "We are finding that emotions at some level enter into most of what happens during the day." I'm walking in a wool and pigment forest or maybe the city dump, or a mall getting landscaped. I don't know. You don't know. Knee deep then neck high in gray water, from the roof? Peptides flowing over the top of the expanding liver? You don't know. I don't know. I am a clear glass pane with thoughts and actions written so clearly they are not written at all. Can you see your next act? You think your next thought without looking. Without looking I do my next act. Animals and trucks move around in my body. ######################################## Ax Rooster (What my older brother looked like while we were growing up.) Clive Matson Ax Rooster pecks at a worm. His beak is three inches wide, steel, and razor sharp. "Straighten up!" he crows and jerks his head to the side. He pins the flawed protein with a beady eye. Peck-peck. This worm's dead. Now the next. Ax Rooster is always right. Behind his eyes a little cock pulls the shades up and down, down and up. He sees what he sees. Peck peck. This worm's dead. As Rooster has a mission. When the shade's up he sees a flaw. When it's down he figures what to do. He better do it right "Straighten up!" he caws and cuts another slice of midriff. That worm died. The little cock feels a bigger ax hanging over his head. Right is the only way to be. Or else the great slicer in the sky will chop his neck. Peck peck. That worm's dead. Now who's next? Ax Rooster doesn't know he's strange. His steel beak turns his plucky strut into a stagger. At night that beak gets heavier and pulls him to the ground. He curls up his whole body on top and sleeps, keeping the steel warm. ######################################## Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 08:18:35 -0500 (EST) From: Hank Roth Subject: OK to post poetry here To: pnews.d@world.std.com It has been awhile since anyone has posted poetry here. It is encouraged to have you post poetry you want to share with us. It should relate to the human condition. Lets try some: POETRY Poetry is also encouraged here with certain qualifications. One can say so very much with metaphor. One can speak with passion and often touch the core of an issue using poetry; yours and others. Read a good poem lately? Share it with us. Our only requirement is that it be relative to the "HUMAN CONDITION" and *sparingly* interspersed between other comments. Anotherwords, this is an echo conference PRIMARILY for *discussion* and only incidentally for poetry. As a suggestion you might like to post a poem and comments about it, i.e., what it says specifically to you about human suffering, aspirations, angst, etc. ****************************************************** ****************************************************** Poetry often serves as the conscience of society. It is interesting that many people who have had an impact (good and bad) on history have also been poets. To name just a few: Karl Marx, Mao-Tse-Tung, Stalin, Shelley, Byron, Pushkin, Sean O'Casey, Yehuda Amichai, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Henry David Thoreau. Some probably come to your mind as well. +---------------Hank Roth-------------+ Date: Sat, 18 Dec 1993 14:16:50 -0500 (EST) From: Doug Henwood Subject: Re: The Food Chain Is this a comment on vegetarianism? Doug Doug Henwood [dhenwood@panix.com] Left Business Observer 212-874-4020 On Sat, 18 Dec 1993, Hank Roth wrote: THE FOOD CHAIN Glazed blue plate specials served with stinking jock strap hard ons, Hot black beer and hotter still fish smell cunts And DNA slime from gray ocean deep feeding upon itself. Everything eats everything. by Hank Roth ######################################## M A N I F E S T O / H I S T O R Y O F I d E A L O R D E R IdEAL ORDER was founded in 1982 as an outlet for anarchic/artistic activism by Elsie Russell and Jeffrey Harrington. The intent was twofold: to create collaborative and issue-oriented art which was designed to provoke a chaotic zen consciousness in the viewer and to create an awareness of the telepathic activism of Jeffrey Harrington. Disappointed with the usual formats of political art (the poster, the tabloidal text-based format, i.e.) they began experimenting with new techniques employing subliminal messages; loading images with beautifully chaotic texts and setting them in unusual public situations/contexts. The initial works of IdEAL ORDER were displayed in the subways and streets of NY City in 1982 and 1983. First there were a series of heads of the Greek gods pasted on the streets of NY. The intent was to take graceful beauty out of the museum and back to the streets, hoping to provoke sudden bursts of deep aesthetic appreciation in the unsuspecting public. The second project was called "The Seven Seals." It was designed as a series of pseudo- religious confrontational rubber stamp image/text formations stamped on the street and in the white spaces of subway placards. Their largest installation to date was at the infamous School Book Depository in the lower west side docks of Manhattan. (Closed by a police action in July 1983). During the same period while Jeffrey was employed at Liberty Audio/Video he had begun experimenting with a capability developed as an offshoot to his Zen meditative practices. He discovered that he could cause broadcasting television camera lenses to glow. He began using this luminescent effect as a tool to harass media and politicians. The process is called IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV. Unfortunately, instead of achieving an artistic notoriety and provoking discussion, a frenzy of celebrity/saint hysteria was created. This attracted the attention of right-wing Islamic fundamentalists which quickly became life-threatening. Because of Jeffrey's ability to produce luminescent effects and because of the imagery employed by IdEAL ORDER (they had begun using a stamp of an angel with a Saracen sword) they had come to see Jeffrey and Elsie as demons; as agents against Khomeini whom they considered "The Light of the World." After fleeing NY in 1983 because of death threats IdEAL ORDER regrouped in Montana and later New Orleans and continued the telepathic activism on a continual basis. In 1984 IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV began a nightly zapping of the CBS Evening News and the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour and constant telepathic harassment of the Reagan administration during televised news conferences and news show appearances. IdEAL ORDER also began networking their works through the European, American, and Japanese mail art network. Since 1989 IdEAL ORDER has operated primarily through the computer networks. Images are digitized, processed and then distributed over the InterNet computer networks, GEnie, CompuServe, and local BBS's. In November 1991 IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV began focussing on a once a week disruption of the CBS Evening News so that skeptical viewers might be able to compare the illuminated with the non-illuminated broadcasts. The project continues every Thursday night. The ABC Evening News is psychically disrupted all of the other nights of the week. This year IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV successfully disrupted all three presidential debates, intending to prevent the re-election of George Bush. *********************************************************** EXPANDED HISTORY OF THE IdEAL ORDER PSYCHIC TV PHENOMENON There is _no_ connection between the rock group Psychic TV, i.e. Mr. Orridge's "product" and this process! (Except for the fact that they probably named their group after my phenomenon ;) In 1982 I was employed as a salesman at an audio/video store in New York City and I would sit and stare at a bank of television sets. I have been involved with Zen meditation for over 20 years and while in a state of no-mind (at work) I discovered that the people on television were responding to fluctuations in my mental state. I was later to learn that I was producing a spot of bright light in the lens of the broadcasting television camera. Since 1983 I've been using this luminescent effect to wreak havoc in the incipient mind of the media/state. I have learned to control the effect so that I can induce more eye blinking, more stammering, etc. by changing the brightness and location of the spot of light which I cause to appear in the broadcasting TV camera. In 1991 I decided to create an experiment which would be verifiable to the public at large, so that I might prove the existence of the phenomenon to the skeptical community. So, I came up with the Thursday test. Every Thursday I illuminate the cameras of the CBS Evening News. Watchers of the show can do various things to prove the veracity of my claims. They can count the number of times Dan Rather blinks on Thursday as compared with Friday or Wednesday. They can measure the reflected luminosity of the spot of light on Dan's eyeballs or they can count the number of mis-speaks. I've been zapping all presidential tv appearances since late 1983. If you watch the first 1984 Reagan debate you will notice my efforts. I've zapped the presidential and vice-presidential debates this year and will do it again for the next two. Millions of people know about this phenomenon and harbor knowledge of it through a "cult of secrecy." There is no real conspiracy in the public, it is just that people do not tell others of this story unless provoked. There have been quite a few pop songs written in homage; these usually use innuendo to refer to the phenomenon. My intent on Internet is to inform the public of this process. My intent is infinite and immaculate in its beautifully chaotic illuminative interventions; wreaking havoc with light. Photonic agents of bliss infiltrating the minds of commerce and conspiracy. Jeff Harrington idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org ######################################## Subject: The Electronic Art & Culture Postcard rgardner@charon.MIT.EDU Date: Mon, 03 Jan 94 22:30:34 EST From: "stuff available list" available on request--just ask for it! Status: RO The Electronic Art & Culture Postcard is distributed electronically twice a month, usually around the 1st and 16th. It is a list of free art events (gallery opening receptions, lectures, concerts, dance, theater, movies, etc) in the Boston area. The date (YYMMDD) is in the leftmost column (excuse me, please, if extra long lines sometimes extend beyond the end of a line and... continue on column one!), followed by day of the week, time, place, and a short description. Information about how to get your name added to the email list follows the list, as well as directions for submitting information about new free events. And now, ladies and gentlemen, appearing for the first time ever on our stage tonite... will you welcome, please, The Electronic Art & Culture Postcard: 931218 Sat 3-5pm Sackler Museum,Harvard University,495-2397,Buddhist Art, etc 931229 Wed 5-8pm Piano Dave's Gallery,157 Hampshire St,Cambridge,Kid's Show Opening Reception 931231 Fri Evening First Night,Boston,various events,Midnight fireworks finale over Boston Harbor,542-1399 940105 Wed 7pm BBN,70 Fawcett St,325-5351,SIGGRAPH/NE Film & Video Show 940107 Fri 6-8pm Gallery NAGA,67 Newbury St,267-9060,Ken Beck/Joseph Barbieri Reception 940107 Fri 5-7pm Photographic Resource Center,602 Commonwealth Av,Dore Gardner(Photography) Reception 940107 Fri 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury St,859-7222,Cynthia Packard Reception 940107 Fri 5-8pm Howard yezerski Gallery,11 Newbury St,262-0550,Richard Rosenblum--Cybermontage,Opening Reception 940108 Sat 5-8pm Kingston Gallery,129 Kingston St,423-4113,Liane Noddin(painter) Opening Reception 940108 Sat 3-5pm Barbara Krakow Gallery,10 Newbury St,262-4490,Kiki Smith--Prints & Multiples,Opening Reception 940108 Sat South Station,Last day to see the model train exhibit! 940109 Sun 2-5pm Boston Sculptors Gallery,60 Highland St,West Newton,244-4039,Robert Schelling Bronz Sculpture Reception 940109 Sun 3-5 Bromfield Gallery,107 South St,20th Anniversary Afternoon Tea 940109 Sun 2-5pm Genovese Gallery,195 South St,426-2062,Pat Keck--Opening Reception 940113 Thu 5:30pm Federal Reserve Bank,600 Atlantic Av,Art And The Lucid Dream Reception/Discussion/Music/Story-telling 940114 Fri 5-7pm MIT List Gallery,253-4680,Maria Fernanda Cardoso--Recent Sculpture,Opening Reception 940118 Tue 8pm MIT, KillianHall, 253-5623, Lecture/Demo, Yuyachkani Peruvian theater company,Teresa Ralli leading 940120 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest St,Waltham,891-3400,Bentley Community Art Opening Reception 940120 Thu 8pm MIT,Killian Hall,253-5623,Yuyachkani-Peruvian theater company,Performance of Work in Progress 940121 5-7pm Fri MIT,Compton Gallery,10-250,David Bakalar Sculpture & Paintings,Opening Reception 940121 FRI 6:30PM Federal Reserve Bank,600 Atlantic Av,Panel Discussion on Lucid Dreaming 940204 Fri 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury St,859-7222,John Dowd & Allen Whiting Reception 940209 Wed 4:30pm Harvard,Sanders Theater,Luciano Berio lecture: o alter Duft 940210 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest St,Waltham,891-3400,Bagenal/Field/Lehndorff Opening Reception 940215 Tue 8pm Emerson College Forum,219 Tremont St,578-8540,David Brinkley--ABC anchor 940302 Wed 4:30pm Harvard,Sanders Theater,Luciano Berio lecture: Seeing Music 940303 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest St,Waltham,891-3400,Patricia Elliott Opening Reception 940315 Tue 7pm MIT,Bartos Theater,253-4680,Dan Graham: Public/Private,Lecture 940406 Wed 4:30pm Harvard,Sanders Theater,Luciano Berio lecture: Poetics of Analysis 940407 Thu 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury St,859-7222,George Gabin Reception 940414 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest St,Waltham,891-3400,Cuhna/Stockwell Opening Reception 940425 Mon 8pm Emerson college Forum,219 Tremont St,Maya Angelou--poet, educator, historian, activist 940505 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest St,Waltham,891-3400,Clarke/Brugnola Opening Reception Permision to copy and distribute this file is granted. Please feel free to send it to anyone you think will be interested. Additions, corrections, and "Thanks for making this." can be sent to: rgardner@charon.mit.edu To get future editions of the Electronic Art & Culture Postcard, send me email saying you want to get future editions of the EAACP. Send information about events to the above email address, or: R Gardner Box 381067 Harvard Sq Stn Cambridge MA 02238-1067 ######################################## Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 11:12:39 -0500 (EST) Subject: PHILOS - Cyberspace & Virtual Reality from: mlibresc@world.std.com (Marc Librescu) I'm afraid I'm going to posit an unpopular (even heretical) opinion and it is this: Cyberspace, while being a neat metaphor, does not currently exist. I, for one, fail to see how communication consisting of the exchange of printed words sent back and forth over telephone lines constitutes andything resembling the popular notion of "cyberspace." As I type these words, I am sitting in my room, not your room and not some mythical place that is neither my room or your room or somewhere in between. If I get up to go to the bathroom, I am not leaving Cyberspace to take a piss, I am getting out of my chair in my room. There is no Cyberspace. At least not yet. I will believe the metaphor when there is an actual virtual reality, Gibson's Neuromancer reality, or something approaching it. If I am interfacing with the computor in a manner which actually creates virtual space, virtual reality, if you will, then perhaps Cyberspace is something that we can talk about. Until then, all this is just electronic mail to me. Marc Librescu ######################################## PREDICTIONS Date: Sun, 2 Jan 1994 08:01:22 -0800 from: jonl@well.sf.ca.us (Jon Lebkowsky) Here's what I'm seeing for 1994: 1) The genesis of the Information Superhighway. Until now, it's been vapor, but I think '94's the year that we'll see groundwork for the InfoSup infrastructure. What does that mean? Among other things, it means we better damn well be on our toes...or on somebody's toes. 2) Commercial development within the Matrix will continue, if not explode. Ordinary People will move into the neighborhood. Parts of the digital underground will adapt to the mainstream, other parts will dig deeper. 3) In the USA and globally, we'll see the economic scene grow more diverse, and perhaps more crazed. A redefinition of markets will continue to evolve. That small is beautiful will be more obvious. We'll still have megacorporations, but (like IBM) they'll fragment to some extent into smaller, leaner, more manageable sub-orgs. 4) Some of us will be rethinking our relationship to technology. There'll be a growing contingent of post-technoids who'll push flexible, adaptable, and to some extent DIY (Do It Yourself) technologies...i.e. those that can be altered and repaired by non-engineers. Reprogrammable computers for cars, for instance. We'll also see increasing emphasis on face-to-face gatherings of participants in virtual communities, and some of these folks may buy land and create geographical intentional communities in physpace. 5) End-of-World scenarios in which we drown in our own shit will proliferate, and they'll be taken more seriously, resulting in larger and more vocal movements encouraging sustainable economic development. Whether you think these'll be taken seriously probably depends on the degree to which you're paranoid... Comments? Visions? ######################################## Subject: MEDIA - Sterling's _Hacker_Crackdown_ online at EFF ftp/www site Date: Mon, 3 Jan 1994 11:17:59 -0500 (EST) from: mech@eff.org (Stanton McCandlish) As noted, Sterling's book is now available as one ~500k file on ftp.eff.org, pub/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/hacker.crackdown. Our sysadmin, Dan Brown, just made it available via our new WWW server, http://www.eff.org/, which also has some other Good Stuff, like the latest Web version of the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet, and general information on the Electronic Frontier Foundation. This is now also available from ftp.eff.org in one file. anonymous ftp to ftp.eff.org, get pub/Publications/Bruce_Sterling/hacker.crackdown ######################################## Date: Tue, 21 Dec 1993 13:44:36 -0400 (EDT) Subject: networking From: ZWOOD@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu To: fowler@mindvox.phantom.com John- Here's a little something to put in the next GRIST ONLINE about my life as a networker. Best wishes for the New Year, -Reid My Life and Networking I have been a visual artist for a bit over 20 years, involved in mailart for the last 10 years (using the name State of Being), used computers in the creation of my artwork for the last 4 or 5 years, and a practicing Internetworker for the last 6 to 8 months. While a lot of the activity which takes place on the Internet seems to be in text form, I am interested in the interactive possibilities with visual forms. Practicality necessitates that the images not be in color (I'm working on a Powerbook 100), and while I'm comfortable with e-mail and have done some work with ftp, so far the only successful things I have gotten into usable form on my computer are text files. As you can see, any specific advice anyone could give about working with and transferring graphics on the Internet would be greatly appreciated by me. I would be happy to hear of other projects (especially visual) in which I might participate. My own artwork at the moment consists of hard copy (laser prints) and also HyperCard stacks. Best wishes for the New Year, zwood@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu (Reid Wood) ######################################## Date: Fri, 3 Dec 1993 16:55:33 -0800 From: Leard Reed Altemus III To: fowler@phantom.com Subject: GOL#3 Hi John, I've really been enjoying seeing your new venture develop. I am one of the "few others" mentioned by Chuck Welch as having assisted him with the Telenetlink 1992. About GOL#2 it was very interesting to see Cyanobacteria featured. I would appreciate it if you would take me off of the listing of email artists since what I do with email is not art in that mail art sense. I use email to communicate only and never answer email enquiries or projects. I work on the network for FineArt Forum and that takes up all of my time. Also, please stop listing my bibliography project, it's over and dead. Best of luck with GRIST- I think it's an excellent addition to the network magazines. Reed Altemus Online Database Moderator, FineArt Forum ---- altemus@tmn.com raltemus@well.sf.ca.us tel/fax: +1 207 829 6306 ---- ######################################## **************************************** MAIL EVENTS * = new listings per FaGaGaGa * BRAIN CELL - regularly published graphic work, send your artwork for inclusion c/o Ryosuke Cohen 3-76-1-A-613 Yagumokitacho, Moriguchi City, Osaka 570 Japan. * 30 April, 1994 ENDLESS PROJECT - c/o Deedra Ludwig/The Sanctary 51-55 Brunswick St E. Hove, East Sussex BN3 1AU England * 31 January, 1994 - EXPOITATION/EXPLOITED c/o Coyote Gallery, Butte College 3536 Butte Campus Dr., Oroville, CA 95965-8399 * MANI ART - ongoing compilation magazine that consistently produces excellent images. Send 60 copies of your works 21x15 cm max. to Pascal Lenior, 11 Ruelle De Champagne, 60680 Grandfresnoy France * TEMPLE POST'S WINDOW GALLERY because there are no forums for Jose VandBroucke to exhit mail in his town, he has designated his home's windows as a gallery. Send him your works, not greater that 90cm. to be shown. He will return a photo of this "Street Exhibition" Pikkelstraat 49, 8540 Deerlijk, Belgium * FIRST INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION OF NETWORKERS IN PANAMA is organizing a mail art exhibition for The Nation Museum of Mail Service. The theme is open, mail to Ruben Contreras, Dewa-Estafeta Universitaria, Universidad de Panama, Panama, Rep. of Panama * No deadline, but hurry. "DON'T TOUCH YOURSELF THERE" - c/o 1961 Cedar St, N. Merrick, NY 11566. Stop the sexual abuse of yourself at the price of others. 3-11-21, A.I.M. AIDS INTERNATIONAL MAIL ART PROJECT CW Poste 4308 Greenwood Ave., N. Seattle, WA 98103 USA or BUCKWHEAT TORNADO, O.O. Box 31792, Seattle, WA USA. No Deadline, Visualizing Chaos Project, N-Eurovision, Enrico Ciceri, Via Mascagne 22, 20034 Giussano (MI) Italy. No Deadline, The Mouth, Visual Poetry, Alberto Rizzi, Via Trento 51e, 45100 Rovigo, Italy. No Deadline, Peacedream Project, Art project about visual and experimental poetry, 100 copies, 21x14.8 cm (A-5). Uni+verse(e), Guillermo Deisler, Riebeckplatz 12, 4020 Halle/Saale Germany. Ongoing, Tensetendoned, Send 56 originals or 120 stickers 5"x9" or smaller and receive an assembled collection of submitting artists' work. P.O. Box 155, Preston Park, PA 18455 No Deadline, Art Against Fascism, ongoing MailArt Project. We need your contributions now to show the German public international reaction against racism, neo-fascism, and violence toward foreigners in this, our country. Good images influence the attitudes of the indifferent silent masses. Black and white simple drawings and writings to be reduced in size to make 4x7 cm artistamps in PortoEdition Sheets. Angel and Peter NetMail (Kuestermann) PB 2644 D 495 Minden, Germany. 95-10-1, About Face - Cross Gender Issue(s), 1. are you cross about how your gender is treated in the network? 2. face feminism in mail art and tell us your vision, 3. please send a self portrait as a person of the opposite sex; no PC restrictions, honoria@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu 95-10-1, Ars Nova Guild, A video/electronic music/performance group at New Mexico State Univ. looking for co-conspirators, fellow travelers, and solicitations for submissions....email, MIDI, vid, fax et cetera ad nauseum. Contact Eric Iverson, iverson@nmsu.edu 95-10-1, Face Zine, FaGaGaGa interested in Email about Mail Art and Networking for a zine chock full of Net news and rants, ae705@yfn.ysu.edu 95-10-1, Global Mail, Send email numbers, art projects, mail art shows, tape, fax, audio, anarchist projects, and whatever, Ashley Parker Owens, at soapbox@well.sf.ca.us, or 72162.1573@compuserve.com 95-10-1, Herd - the girls & mailart zine, Contributions welcome on the theme of women and mail OR anything by women in the mail. , Next issue is 1994: Celebrate the Femail Artist Campaign, Jennifer Huebert c/o Lewis & Hubener, 72630.2465@compuserve.com 95-10-1, Permeable Press, We are accepting submissions for our upcoming issues on Science Fiction and Sexuality. We are also looking for contributions for our tape compilation project PRESS PLAY, We love to receive email and mail art, and will reply, Brian Clark, bcclark@igc.apc.org 95-10-1, Practical Anarchy Online, Send articles and bits of new from everywhere to this electronic zine concerning anarchy from a practical point of view, Mikael Cardell at Internet, cardell@lysator.liu.se and Fidonet Mikael Cardell, 2:205/223 95-10-1, PURPS, We'd love contributions of art, articles, essays, or whatever. We reprint most everything we like, Publishes the OTISian Directory, which will review just ABOUT ANYTHING (except fecal matter- we're touchy in that respect), Jeffrey Stevens, jstevens@world.std.com, OR Purps, HailOtis@socpsy.sci.fau.edu, OR Intergalactic House of Fruitcakes, 955 Massachusetts Ave, #209, Cambridge, MA 02139-9183 USA 95-10-1, We Press, We can send you WE Magazine, issue 17 over the internet, Chris Funkhouser, CF2785@ALBNYVMS.BITNET 95-10-1, Please send me news of computer animation/animation video festivals. Susan Van Baerle, Visualization Laboratory, Texas A & M University, College Station, TX 77843-3137, sue@archone.tamu.edu 95-10-1, I enjoy any mail on the arts, weirdness in our world, the occult, ancient history, and anarchy, Don Webb, 0004200716@mcimail.com 95-10-1, Send anything- everything, esp. cyberpunk, techno, zines, and hacking, sprother@nyx.cs.du.edu 95-10-1, Send me listings of mail art shows and whatever else you would like, Reid Wood (State of Being), zwood@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu 95-10-1, Send anything- everything, esp. news of mail art shows and general contact, Linda Hedges, lindah@ssecmail.ssec.wisc.ed 94-10-1, I am interested in receiving general information about art shows, events, animation, film/video. I am the chair of the SIGGRAPH Art Show for '94, deana morse, morsed@GVSU.EDU ######################################## ************************************** E-MAIL ARTISTS 13:13 January 4, 1994 * = new listings per FaGaGaGa 0004200716@mcimail.com Don Webb 72162.1573@compuserve.com Ashley Parker Owens 72630.2465@compuserve.com Hubener, HERD a8288@mindlink.bc.ca James K-M ae705@yfn.ysu.edu FaGaGaGa am4g+@ANDREW.CMU.EDU Artur Matuck au462@cleveland.Freenet.edu Burning Pr, Taproot bcclark@igc.apc.org Permeable Press bgale@well.sf.ca.us Bob Gale * byrgrush@mp.cs.niu.edu Bryon Grush bureaud@altern.com Annick Bureaud Cathryn.L.Welch@dartmouth.edu Crackerjack Kid cel+@andrew.cmu.edu Carl Eugene Loeffler couey@well.sf.ca.us Anna Couey dpmilliken@amherst.edu Uncle Don ecsvax!ghb@uncecs.edu George Brett * fowler@phantom.com ezra far@medinah.atc.ucarb.com Forrest Richey * fjt@well.sf.ca.us Fred Truck ringeware@wixer.cactus.org Fringeware Magazine * gfaunode@fox.cce.usp.br Elide Monzeglio * hatfield@indirect.com Pete Fischer honoria@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu Honoria idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org Jeff Harrington IP25196%PORTLAND.bitnet Reed Altemus isea@rug.nl Wim van der Plas jerod23@well.sf.ca.us Fact Sheet 5 jmalloy@garnet.berkeley.edu Judy Malloy joachim@tethys.ph.albany.edu Joachim Frank jstevens@world.std.com PURPS Magazine jzgrover@kitchen.mcad.edu Jan Zita Grover kmg@esd.sgi.com Kevin Goldsmith lindah@ssecmail.ssec.wisc.ed Linda Hedges markb@echnoy.c.com Mark Bloch m91hogan@acs.syr.edu Matt Hogan morsed@gvsu.edu Deana Morse okuno@ntt-20.ntt.jp Hiroshi Okuno pdivine@unixg.ubc.ca Fishtank Magazine Pete.Fischer@stjhmc.fidonet.org Pete Fisher prutkov@mailer.cc.fsu.edu Paul Rutkovsky rgardner@charon.mit.edu Richard Gardner roman@mcd.edu Roman Verostko * scott@plearn.bitnet Doc Simpson Scot.Art@f909.n712.z3.fidonet.org Scot Art soapbox@well.sf.ca.us Ashley Parker Owens speranza@hamlet.phyast.pitt.edu Transmit Visual Telephone Directory sprother@nyx.cs.du.edu stbob@pro-woolf.cts.com Krylon Underground sue@archone.tamu.edu Tex A&M Vis Lab suephil@peg.pegasus.oz.au ARTSNET Australia sxjnce@ritvax.isc.rit.edu Steven Jacobs tramel@tenet.edu Greg Tramel zwood@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu Reid Wood ######################################## CONTRIBUTOR'S NOTES George Dowden writes: "...that poem (Thirty-Fourth Birthday Profession: 15.IX.66" was 27 long years ago and I have, I'm glad to say, well transcended my hangups expressed in it. Pauline divorced me in 1969. I went to India in 1971 for a year and in an ashram had my Kundalini (Universal Energy or Consciousness) awakened by a very great, rare Siddha Guru, Swami Muktananda--who also gave me the name KAVIRAJ ("Poet King") which I have been using with my writing since. I have now had 19 books published. I have justified my NOTE at the end of "Thirty-Fourth Birthday Profession: 15.IX.66" by becoming a positive person and poet, a "singer and celebrator" of life in my work, a la my Poet-Yogi Father Whitman. So, for a very different kind of poem than the above, I enclose "I L(o)ve NY," I call it a poem-prose poem, the definition of which I give in my next book, THE DEEPENING--which will be published in 1994. It seems I have become one of the leading "Post-Beat Independent" poets writing today. We have mags. in some several countries and soon there will be a potentially-important ANTHOLOGY with about 10 of us in it. If you're innarested, ask me for more details..... Born 15 Sept, 1932, so I'm now 61." Kaviraj George Dowden Top Flat 82 Marine Parade Brighton, E. Sussex BN2 1AJ England Brown Miller wrote from San Francisco "Great to see that GRIST is on-line--plus all the new stuff it will encompass. In the mid-80s I started doing on-line stuff with computers. Have not been doing as much lately but intend to do more soon. P.S. GRIST was one of my favorite mags of that era!" Clayton Eshleman is editor of SULPHUR, A Literary Annual of the Whole Art. His UNDER WORLD ARREST will be published by Black Sparrow in 1994. Clive Matson was born in Los Angeles in 1941 and grew up on an avocado ranch in northern San Diego County. He served an apprenticeship to poetry in New york City in the 1960's and later earned an M.F.A. Poetry, School of the Arts, Columbia University, 1989. His books of poetry include HOURGLASS (1986), EQUAL IN DESIRE (1983), ON THE INSIDE (1982), HEROIN (1972), SPACE AGE (1969) and MAINLINE TO THE HEART (1966); he has been featured in 12 anthologies and published in more than 100 journals. His full-length comedy, CACTUS was produced in workshop at the Nat Horne Theater in NYC, September 1989 and ASTOR PLACE, one act, was produced in workshop June, 1992 at New Traditions Theatre, Berkeley, CA. He has been a member of the Faculty in Creative Writing at University of California Extension, Berkeley since 1985. Will Inman of Tucson, AZ says "I keep trying to restore the living connection between sexuality and spirituality that should never have been separated by St Paul and the other deadsoul moralists. We're infested all over the world now (maybe we've always been in civilized times??!) with fundamentalISTS--when we need fundamental LIVING relationships with the universe but not self-hating, body- hating pietists." Will is widely published and has appeared in prior issues of Grist On-Line. Linda Lerner was born and educated in N.Y.C. Her work has appeared in numerous journals throughout the country. Among them, THE NEW YORK QUARTERLY, BOUILLABAISSE, THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, SLIPSTREAM, CHELSEA and EPOCH. Three collections of her poetry have been published, the most recent, CITY GIRL (Vergin Press, 1990) and NO-ONE'S-PEOPLE (New Spirit Press, 1993). For the past ten years she has conducted an annual reading series at Polytechnic University.