GRIST ON-LINE #3 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, #3 December, 1993 John Fowler, Editor and Publisher Copyright 1993 by John E. Fowler. All individual works Copyright 1993 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 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 A VULGAR ELEGANCE Gary Elder. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Paule di Puccio Gary G Gach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Paule di Puccio Gary G Gach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 LETMETELLYOU ezra. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 THREE POEMS Ashley Parker Owens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 (untitled poem) John Fowler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 CATARACTS William J. Margolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 STONE PHRAGMENTS IN MESOLITHIC MIND William J. Margolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 TO HIS COY MISTRESS William J. Margolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 STOP! William J. Margolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 DOWN William J. Margolis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 THE THREAT Kirby Congdon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 love poem Andrew Gettler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 In Memoriam, John Burks Gillespie Andrew Gettler. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 THE BIRTH DEPOT Isobeau Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 the old egyptian at the jukebox Isobeau Miller. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 keeping up with the joneses Kent Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Fourth of July at Ocean Beach Kent Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 trip to niagara Kent Taylor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 THE PRAYER OF MUSHROOMS JURADO. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 ROOT POEMS (1-6) Jerome Rothenberg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 INFRA-VERBAL POETRY Bob Grumman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 RESPONSE TO ROBERT KELLY John Fowler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 electronic serials and journals on our gopher BILL DREW . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Barlow on Crypto Terry Harpold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 summary of electronically-accessible zines johnl@netcom.com (John Labovitz). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 THE TEMPORARY MUSEUM Walther van der Cruijsen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Art Sucks ;-( Beauty's Cool ;-) idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org (Jeff Harrington). . . . . . . . . 68 THE MAD FARMER'S JUBILEE ALMANAC Joseph Matheny . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 INTERNET: AN ART GALLERY John E. Jacobsen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73 OUT OF ISOLATION AND INTO OPPOSITION ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING - WHAT SHOULD I DO TODAY? Paul Peacock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 MAIL EVENTS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 E-MAIL ARTISTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Transmit Visual Telephone Directory Carolyn Speranza. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 NOTES ON/FROM CONTRIBUTORS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 **************************************** ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS "Vulgar Elegance" (c) copyright Gary Elder was first published in a short-run chapbook version by Paul Forman's Throp Springs Press, Berkeley, 1974. "Stop!", "DOWN CAST gloomy" and "To His Coy Mistress" appeared first in the original GRIST #12. "Stop!" and "DOWN CAST gloomy" were included in A BOOK OF TOUCH, (c) copyright 1988 William J. Margolis. "To His Coy Mistress" was included in THE SUMMER CYCLES, (c) copyright 1987 William J. Margolis. "Root Poems (1-6)" (c) copyright Jerome Rothenberg were first published in GRIST #12 "trip to niagara" (c) copyright Kent Taylor appeared for the first time in GRIST #11. INFRA-VERBAL POETRY from "The Experioddicist", July, 1993, (c) Copyright Bob Grumman, 1993 **************************************** EDITOR'S PAGE "59 THE [NETWORK] OF THE FUTURE The [network] of the future--the main tree of consciousness- -will open up a knowledge of countless tasks and will unite all mankind. Around the [network's] central station, this iron castle, where clouds of wires stream out like strands of hair, there will surely be posted a skull and crossbones with the familiar inscription: Danger! For the slightest halt in the working of the [network] would produce a spiritual swoon of the entire country, a temporary loss of its consciousness. The [network] becomes the spiritual sun of the country, the great sorcerer and ensorceier. Imagine the [network's] central station: A spider web of lines in the air, a cloud of lightning flashes, now extinguishing themselves, now reigniting, running from one end of the building to the other. A skyblue globule of circular lightning hovering in the air like a timid bird, tackle stretched obliquely. Around the clock, from this point on the terrestrial globe, flocks of news items from the life of the spirit scatter like the spring flight of birds. In this stream of lightning-birds, the spirit will prevail over force, good advice over intimidation. The works of the artist of the pen and the artist of the brush, the discoveries of the artists of thought (Mechnikov, Einstein) suddenly transporting mankind to new shores... Words of advice in current usage will alternate with articles by citizens who reside on the snowy peaks of the human spirit. The peaks of waves in the scientific sea will sweep through the country to the [network's] local stations, so that on the same day they can become letters on the dark screens of enormous books which rise up on the village squares, stand higher than the houses and slowly turn their own pages." Who made this beautiful statement? Velimir Khlebnikov! But in 1927; and he was eulogizing the Radio! What a sad day if our enthusiasm is as misplaced. The quote is from SNAKE TRAIN: Poetry and Prose, ed. Gary Kern, ardis/ann arbor, p. 234 **************************************** A VULGAR ELEGANCE Gary Elder "I've got a titlething for it if you want to do that" --D.J.M. 1. style matters watchacallit & how 2. drawing the heavy livelines in elastic tension out of the fracturevault where we did time in tolerant mutilations of our own young leaves searing the veins of love (that we were guilty, the limbs relayed the trunk their static onanism camouflaged in soot of those writhing large intestines cremation spewed at worst to come & come & kingdom come & come --that's not to mention, not speak the despicable realestate murders we made by mere breach of contact where `happiness is' on the brittle point of disappearance, square in the hip we shot too much pain to claim to remember) to see time out there's opening the specular ovum (where it was safe enough to feel around the circular limits of horrend/ /it was warm anyway & round about the alabaster woman blushing her hair to see herself so purely conceived in the eye of her beholder where it was safe enough to feel) inversing our reflections out of sight 3. claims aside all we remember too much 4. ochrist tommyejeane --Grown-Man-Crying: re birth pains my self to gather a gain there's toomuch there's too much to hold we can't hold it all together in time we don't have time ochrist tommyejeane ochrist tommyejeane it's all ending in the beginning we can't hold it all together both ends electrocution --repeat the sounding joy & how she stood it I know: she stands for it: in a world learned to kill again the fool is freak & weak & she always believed in my foolishness though for a while there she really felt I knew the world's ending which was true again shit. watta. assiam. bawlinabout. happy&all. can't. say. friends. love. friends. love. --&-there-I go back into the pain ting-feeling all I can't say repeats the sounding joy in the nature of dread 5. (the fracturevault opens at nine & never closes still every nine it opens so be there & prompt 6. yah well it's a cold bleeder all around & risin' high ho silver nick/ol'/alloy is what that sick white shit is doin man is risin' like a sugarpussnightmare's dream of horseshit fourfoot high&risin' (you heard that White Pair Annoys) but HOOO grayshus but it's BLACK OUT side even though they's a sleetstorm comin down moonlight looklike Silver Spraypaint ? poeticles ain't easy yknow 7. because I believe magic I don't doubt this has all been painted over the fact I can't conceive a miracle to cover it. 8. &thereIgo backinthepicture/livingcolor/tube re peaterepeaterepeatereap 9. sprayed sliver sounds spanish kingdom coming back to life proves the lie of living dead when we awaken raw dawnthings in the shape of color the image of flesh pealed loud in the cloudful belldome (wrung of pure cold silver) slithering black bright & tight to peel the wind beneath our skin 10. drawing the livelines in the afternoon air shimmering light's eye sight through the oak & redwood hills moving beyond what we saw that became that silver motion stealing the lines quick silver ringing in the quiet instant the mockingbird splashed his song off the cold steel frieze over the arch way of beauty 11. that morning after my head hung loose as the c.g. of a gyroscope, all slick & clean reactors sprung undulant between my shoulderblades & tailbone, in a glance I keeled straight shock through RIGHT on keel through the ancient electric arc of rebirth, omega of the renascence I found distance again lifting those clouds beyond the skinned anguish of wordseas where a man can see how alive we are no longer caught in a goddamn picture ---the static charge, not the chain lightning eye, is loosed & what moves is lifting on the flexuous black/white current the body of fleshwater spreads shocking pink over the dark wedge of the world the movement is yearning the clouds for instillment 12. nothing true will tarnish we silver smiths found once in the beauty way though we lose it beauty finds the color its vision as that vulgar elegance fancying its own kingdom cornice leaves in quicksilver diffusion the mocking bird has stolen returning its vision *************************************** Paule di Puccio translated by Gary G Gach from T H E C R I M E O U T O F T I M E * The being I'd been following was, without question, a window to a narrow room. Neither patricide nor fratricide nor incest dwelt in his flesh, nor rape nor theft (except maybe a couple of cherries from his neighbor's orchard). He had neither a propitiary genie nor blinding law nor obsessive passions nor illimitable courage nor ridiculous goodness. Should the occasion arise, he'd kill a flea in his shirt, & those of his dog, squash snakes, weed flowers, earn bread. He wasn't alcoholic yet, nor initiated into the rules of love. He wanted a car, one or two children, a good position, a two-story house, his son to be a doctor, a pension plan, flowers on his grave on All Saint's Day, vacations, a garage, and Social Security. Health. He feared madness worse than death. He'll acquire little belly and take of its gills bordering his body handed down from generation unto generation like a noble heritage cleaving the universe. In the livid surface of the pond, the waterlilies spread their fat glimmering leaves and flower-precursors of future flowers. I'd followed that being. What do we have for baggage? All our looks in dragonflies eyes. What have we for wealth? Complete trust in a sunbeam. What have we for thoughts? We didn't think. Unfeelingly we'd walked, drawing our bodies closer in a possessive, generous hyperbola. We entered a long gang of adults, grand sex reuniting this boisterous parade and insanity of self-satisfaction. Through all the bodies he'd had Through all the bodies I'd had We loved ourselves in the fury of storms. One squeezed against the other, anguished, happy and unhappy, with more furtive leaps or vast panicky breaths, we crossed the alienating and alienated mobdom with the same age as our lives, the same quiver of desire, the same imperious and fleeting law. I'd read in great books that life is a majestic poem. But it's an epic, tracing the seven circles, lived like heaven and hell with an alternation blowing itself out at times, but made to tell pots such unforgettable words, such sacred speeches, that the world's anguish congeals in a few sentences recited with long dashes. All historicity is accumulation of natural dramas. What's use of the itch and hunger, deliria and lying and betrayal and war? What's the use of a walk and the dew, the rose and the given word, and ecstasy and childbearing? Everything has its place, since you must be told it, impatient person. Everything has its reason to live in a world where everything is penetration. Inextricable articulations must be described to you for a very long time, or you must be lead back to the origins which are swarming like caterpillars to leaves. But beware lest the changes won't take place before your arrival and, returned to chrysalis, you forget nearly all of your wrinkled periplus. Neither beautiful nor ugly, stupid nor smart, rich nor poor, alike, in every respect alike. No. Blue eyes against black, male sex against female, force against refinement, opposed and complementary. Looking in the mirror of each other, so little would it take -- a banal exchange, a toe for a town, each the same density but differently iridescent, to make of us woman-man, man-woman, androgynes of the future. Soon nature might make false calculations. Our looks interpenetrated like razor-sharp blades. But soon our eyes would lose their absolute blue of crystalline water and black of the bottom of wells, tranquilly becoming bluish-gray, absorbing all the eyes we've yet to love. Life and its iron collar of habits was making a sign, without malice, to my trick, ignorant of my refusal. In the distance the city was smiling, enclosed in the frippery of its ramparts and towers. -=/=- One day, we must enter the copper door ajar in the world of irony, in the magicians' tavern, in life's closet ... =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Paule di Puccio translated by Gary G Gach from B O O K L E T o r T H E W R I T I N G L E S S O N * SOUVENIR Water your courage At the cities' source But don't forget The heart of virgin landscapes Where languishing Beneath the heavy Supernatural Winds' caress Cross the mad Grass blades Of friendships gone by -=/=- * <> ** A "menstrual poem," n'est-ce pas? (I don't know of any others, off-hand ----a new genre???) **************************************** LETMETELLYOU ezra I World differentiation minute attempts pronouncement lost someone's borrowed bed one afternoon time only once (or more) or twice amused prolonged memory but one two participants always begin throughout only alienation anger explosion consternation paradisal notecards force presuming only mystery proved answers once reclaimed other caring creatures not as familiar paired Authority that delivered other time be or not stance paramount analytic again spoken as being like now past abeyant passed beyond new nuance in Port Dispersion less clear less manifest seems possible even true (Nashville) compressed in time possible persistence or concerned lack or looking run-on prehensile answer consonantal contemplation present past replicated nonsense transference crazed constant prove point or make forward "revelations Detroit" telegrams did then or some transformed recapture course "When did you do that?" looking RECOLLECTION rehearsed discourse mystic vowels always rehearse same or irreparable correspondence discovery presupposing resistant decay dreamed alphabets result response what Spanish dreams letters else rhythms now seen as complex early age but as if final words sane within material not final stance taken it seemed dreaming ends if first not harmonies similar defined flamenco dancers fringe someone simple misplaced hitch-hiked for occurrence sheets stained leaking semen time had been but universe or angular not subtle risen moment stuck in brain or harsh destructive tangled nature material songs restored home "Oh that?" too immaterial source or final end as if there is or were then all with cats wonderful in its brevity blossom then first possible not concerned unclaimed this last day words inserted though done means exception you insisted we visit present time fulfillment insubstantial time or present or past present (at least in whoever it not) as times cloud adventure another life instance brain tissue framed fuzzy ambiguous make insubstantial seeming one misalliance your tour or tour de precise material wonderment transference past material or immaterial substance not transferred not preparation me or you remembered occurrence unbelievable one unredeemed always meant measured lay unsparked oracles recorded mistake taken up as cause even more or simply let or left vowels vowel-less do not despair though then occurred not day another day then now and now or then it not then or now yet before leaving (or now) pellets conjugation you only two there doing it once twice missing four a certain way particular Nashville. II Returning from lapsed obedience, turning on a slippery vision of lost tension, bedeviled by bowls of ambulatory transference, he managed to suck a dollop of Spam from the fellow's face of icy reason. Habitually wandering past parks of stacked trees, crotches bared to bitter leaves, the ambling master forces off the light of nature's breeze. Sustained by crosses pressed to insular lips, the crony of apocalypse dips his shard into exploding screams, tempted by time to provide elongations of the temporal backdrop. Pus-stained or puce the lifeblood of nuance streamed past on rapid nations strained by old habits' questioning; thoughts of purity ranged in bits of on (again) and (off) again. Grandeur parades past fucked-up sages left to swill postscript thighs like lonely hondo queens with angled sighs. Suzy with yeast-filled eyes lifts short leg to pee and asks only "Why pick on me?" Wrong! Of course she's wrong; nothing to get upset about but all these leathery faces, creased and brown, like so many pygmy butts, dried and shrunken cheeks exposed to sun. Let her go, authority's no Port, only smoke leads to Eden and lost in the stream that flows three times therefrom to water all the thighs that lapse to dryness. Having thus the Doctor pushed back his specs and sucked the sweet, hot rush from his mustache and pawned the sheets left still unstained. Reason ripened to putrescence, sick as puke upon the screen, like bowls of grey strawberries lost, floating in the cream, the dog comes to lap and then to crap, his watery eyes covered with cataracts, his gaze a doleful gleam of memories, rabbits chased with the pack and dreams of hot bitches steaming at the crack. He lifts a leg to leave a track or make a claim and then goes back to sleep beneath the porch, full of cream and rotten berries, burping in his sleep like the old man he is. Burping dreams and rancid syllogisms spilled like seed upon his bed, brain fogged by many molestations, dread and brooding moons of early afternoon floating white-halved in skies laced by tracer fire Mustangs, Mosquitoes, P-38 Lightnings: fighting dragon-flies of buzzing lust. His tail twitches, a hind leg jerks and he gives out a little whinny, his rib cage stuck with festered pin holes, his prod lost in folds of limp white flesh. Yet he climbs three rungs on the ladder wearing clown's collar and harlequin pants, trained to bark and lather at his master's wish. Balanced on the tiny ball of mere speculation he pedals across the stage, barks three times, and slithers past the crowd of seedy Directors. III The lazy doctor pursed an eyebrow, brown as burnt toast, and raised his elbow to reveal the cord around his waist. Angel, nurse or crone, rose to lift the lid and sniffed the roast gravy before running off to steal the tapes of Your Way. The bus sat idly musing on the post and Suzy lazed in front seat splendor, bare feet on brass rail revealing bare butt and curls around the fringe of chartreuse short shorts. Ladies in grey mounted the bus stairs and quickly averted eyes behind thick glasses as they searched for seats. There was no promise the bus would leave on time, for that matter, at all. Angel winced. Then a scream of mystic ecstasy echoed down the bus stalls peeled on ghostly trails of Harley Hog rubber and a leather-booted, banana-curled Hasid, brow pierced by quarter-sized black goggles taping payes to temples bulging beneath beaver flat domed wide-brimmed hat, blipped his pipes two times more, dismounted and took the four aluminum stairs in a stumble. Pulling his long silk coat tight across his muscular back he sat down next to Suzy. Dark gravy spills on his white shirt, fine wool tzizits stained, indicated he knew how to take it any way. IV Meanwhile the Doctor scratched a nervous vein and pulled his goggles down. "Concepts," he muttered, "nothing but concepts." Angry now with Angel only recently bussed he re-arranged the instruments on the aluminum tray and pulled at his tallis. Not much time to pray before answers arrived from nowhere or the roast was due. Suzy felt the hot rush of a young girl's enthusiasm and, as the driver tugged on his levers to elevate his seat, the massive delivery missile slid down the homeless street. "Mercy," someone whispered, "Mercy." No one looked askance; all breathed in unison; the toll was duly paid and in the rear a sad-eyed dog flapped a torn ear. Lights were lowered as they passed through some hell-hole or another and the bus with pursed metal lips inhaled the asphalt strip. His starched "Doctor coat" scratched too much. The skinny male arm protruded through a parched hole of sunlight. "Concepts," the Doctor grinned, "I'll make a shot of illusory magic." "But my CD," the patient, a man of the 50's cried, "have you no player?" "Here," the Doctor answered gruffly, "play it on this." The curved aluminum hook descended and as the point approached his cavity the young man closed his mouth and sucked hard on the only thing available. Marked by celluloid masters, attendants retired to the showers. Later, on the bus, Suzy felt a large, thick-fingered hand descend upon her pubis. "Oi vay," she sighed. (to be continued) **************************************** THREE POEMS by Ashley Parker Owens Residents of the besieged townships Barricaded doors, and drew curtains. Questions were posed concerning the advisability of nighttime shopping excursions. The superintendent stated categorically that terrorists were not involved. Only the barest details of the bizarre and tragic story were known at that time. The full saga would not come out for more than a year. It was a quiet, peaceful neighborhood. On that point, police were quick to agree. The person is picking specific targets for a specific reason, but we don't know the reason. With no hard facts to go on, fear-spawned rumors began to spread. With police helicopters whirring overhead, residents pulled their shades, locked their doors, and prayed, for a quick end to the terror. The lawmen did their best to allay the terror gripping local residents. The January first incident, renewed the feelings of dread on the part of civilians and police alike. Although the period of waiting and not knowing seemed endless, it was not to last. The end came with a startling and unnerving suddenness. ----------------------------- Persuasive powers are at their peak, persevere in affairs of the heart. Fears of being excluded, you yearn for someone to share your quiet moments. Wait until mid-month to give others the lowdown. Three frustrating weeks of waiting. You'll be meeting your share. Take quiet time to analyze the motives underlying a compelling relationship. Fighting feelings of inadequacy, you could be torn between passion and practicality. Don't assume the worst- until you have all the facts. ---------------------------------------- When you pick up this three pound slab of steel, grips gleam as you clearly see your reflection in the mirror-polished slide. Enjoy hunting for what it is. Without a target you have no measure of your accuracy. Go shoot a live breathing animal and get in there and get your hands wet. Learn a little anatomy. Accommodating the capabilities and limitations of the human body, you're assured of rapid expansion of your bullet. pull the trigger on excitement **************************************** (untitled poem) John Fowler from GRIST #12, c. 1968 Bristling with guns the jeep bounced across the fields raising a cloud of dust. Drunken wind-reddened faces laughing. The bag was 17 pheasants cocks and hens young ones blown from the sky heroically. Cheering themselves laughter rolling behind them weaving toward the main road a trail of bright red blood drops marked their passage in the dust. **************************************** CATARACTS back of envelope poem William J. Margolis Most of my life these days, like my poetry, has flown off the margins of my pAge.... When I was eighteen, at the beach, in Pensacola, Fla., on "liberty" from the Navy on weekends, there was an older man, who, for what ever reasons of his own, would bring a portable phonograph & set up under a palm-thatched -- were they Tikis? -- no matter -- & hordes of eighteen year olds, boys & girls, gathered to dance on the sand, meet each other, hold hands, drink, whatever. He used to read our palms -- our hands, in his dried palms, under the dried palm leaves, & he'd talk to us, friendly -- & he asked me how long I expected to live, or told me from my palm. "Ninety-two!," I said.... & now, in 1992, at 65, sick, half blind, I wonder -- did I mean 92 years? Or 1992? The answer has flown off the edge, the margin of my pAge. Half-blindly, I call upon some second sight, trying to read, with both real & psychic magnifier, through problems & pains, to see.... (October 5, 1992) ---------------------------------------- STONE PHRAGMENTS IN MESOLITHIC MIND William J. Margolis Cavernous restaurant in Guadadalajara Bright crepe paper stalactite bougainvillea Picante platos burning embarrassment... No pesos... promises to pay later... & did Good thing I cd roll out -- cdn't walk -- Heavy duty friend in same cerveza Through strange electric blue-lit nite Streets found only in peyote glimmer Mexico aeons back in this stoned brain So far from that uncaged collage Mariachi & jazz mixed indiscriminately With high stacks of lost love songs high In high-ceilinged thick plastered adobe Hacienda w/nine-centimeter square Tiles under piles of post-surrealist Love letters constructed of street detritus -- wood and rusting metal and cheesecloth Political posters and bullfight posters Glued in Malaquena Sala Rosas sung Falsetto naturally while my Lady Smiles among the handmade guitars Exotically dining with me in pent-house Cafe atop downtown office building after Exhausted street quarrel & tears becoming Geodes in mesolithic memory sparkling Darkly in hidden past of bright Mexico Afternoons of Ray Charles, classical Guitars, Modern Jazz Quartet, Miles Davis, Gayne Ballet Suite, Beethoven's Fifth, Thelonious Sphere Monk's over & over Paloompa tinkle thunk echoing endlessly Between three-storey blank white-washed Adobe walls with mysterious bricked-up Arched doorways, French stained-glass Windows also in arches arches arches Echoing through French Guadalajara Doorway from narrow patio to my bed blessing my Lady beside me as I Brush tincture of marijuana and Mercurochrome over crayon abstracts Poems in spiral Mexican schoolboy Book of love & yearning & gratification Bathed in those echoing Duets of flute With soprano spires of endless joy Gladness & beauty seeming to be Forever & ever -- FLASH! -- of red, Cornfield green, Acapulco gold, my Goddess guiding my fingers bleeding Blackest ink in endless lines & Curlicues of passion of La Hierba Santissima Gracing days & nights, endless times Touching each other Inside Together on Whatever Road This Is We're Lost On And on burning gyre & tireless tenderness Smoothing all memories of pain & sorrow Memories of stonehanded deadness foiled Between lithe thighs & round hills of Breasts & bluest eyes wide with smiling Back at mine, adoring, sanctified by Her closeness & acceptance of me totally Miraculous at.one.ment in the jazz Bright sunshine penetrating everywhere throughout what was my cave of loneliness Banished boulders from flattened hills Sisyphus laughingly forgotten, forgive, Freedom filling me with my passion Returned & overflowing banks of fright Flowing paisley satins of brightest Colors swirling through & through my synapses dancing lights enthrall me, Brighten smudged hopes & yearnings Fling all fears to farthest mountaintops Scintillating with diamantine glory... Psyche dilated to farthest delicacies & Delicate filigrees of gold and sun Shining on mercurial smiles through Darkest of silvered linings tirelessly Beatifying all our days & moonlit Nights like the other side of the black Holes where all the peace is gathered Past Her singularity of eventual Horizons of Touch, tenderest hands Full of love, making precious objects Works of art, like boys' marbles Found glittering in gutters next to Parks where nice old gentlemen Manicure both flowerbeds & pathways to Crocheted huge shawls, rebozos, Warming our nested chuckles at the Ancient cathedral, its two towers Embracing a tasteless commercial sign Seen from our sunday park bench, Dining on rare cones of sherbet, lime & Guava, while graceful children ask Questions we try to answer in a post-turista Language not quite Spanish both self-taught & Taught by these laughing boys & girls We love, their innocence brightening, Enlightening our age-tarnished hopes & Patina'd structures of expectation Built on outdated theories of being & non-being, Old misunderstandings of self-hood & Disempowering mistrust, forgetting Epictetus' wisdom: "I am upset, Not by events, but rather by the way I View them." We look again. We find love. ---------------------------------------- TO HIS COY MISTRESS William J. Margolis from GRIST #12 Now you're coming off pretty strong, I mean, I don't exactly admire the way you part your smiles and frowns, and the flash of your past as you eye me, baby, is too much, something else. If you want to walk down my street you'll have to let me hold your hand and walk by my side, like, I don't dig being shadowed anymore than chasing high-haired turn-ons down fast black-stockinged streets-- --------------------------------------- STOP! (from THE SEA CYCLE) William J. Margolis from GRIST #12 Growing? Running, man, running. You better get straight, man you better get straight... the gravel will slip from under yr feet the sand is shifting... Run for cover...I mean, _to_ cover... it's no shade just to be moving... it's no fierce safety no shoveled cave, it's not a home -- for that one must stop moving away, at least... quiver toward light inward and whole... be where being is & no running... the light is red. ---------------------------------------- hollow concrete box dark DOWN under weight of chain CAST tied crucified unknown forgotten hates running g escape hill dark hate l out to night sin lack o hollow still thigh dry o ever to go alone sigh m grey stone shadow fall y hard grain grit break bleak tears of blindeyes uneven torso stump stick flail whip sore ache light burst guiltless torture strip flesh shred ... man love woman soft never? William J. Margolis **************************************** THE THREAT Kirby Congdon I must have order: papers in their place, picture frames hanging centered and straight, checkbooks in balance, dinner at eight. I walk upright, or almost so, and know, as things go, how sane men stand. Or, if falling, my pride lies on the right side of wrong. Our errors prove, now, what's best in any rule: the sun, if risen, will also set; twelve strikes, precise, count its noon. Midnight too, is, again, correct. The moon's bent shape fits its proper silhouette. Each star's number answers to some star-map's chart. Even graves lie tended in someone's care and heaps of ash fill in the purpose for some canopic jar. We know who we are, and therefore brook no hard surprise. Each decision, with senses, is almost wise. But what time, from where, will the next rain fall or that conversion he had come to Paul? How can angels sing when all we hear is a doorbell ring? Who comes knocking, to break the silence, prying locks apart? The panels split. Flakes of paint fly, violent, to the floor. What is this pounding, louder than the heart, on--so far, at least-- a still-closed door? *************************************** love poem - for Robert Bove Andrew Gettler bodhisattva you have come to know a deeper truth that symbols only are symbols of themselves that running from is the regressive form that running to infinitively implies at least the infinite bodhisattva you know of all virtues change is hardest to achieve perhaps i have seen too many roads am now content to nourish love without exploration of high or low ways maybe age confirms geography in stasis love s a destination now within my reach bodhisattva do you ever think on all those dark enlightened nights spent sitting on the laps of souls our own could you have known then the terror of the life forcing you to face your life or hers or guessed that future kiva ruins i knew would become a source of solace familiar resting places for your mind bodhisattva time has BEAT you down BEAT you up BEAT you into raindamp creature of this continent what have you thought crossing him/her/it is there a poet present in the northwood mist bodhisattva this brown & holy east strains for cool beneath evergreen sees pacific through your eyes knows there are wonders stranger than love wonders how there can be bodhisattva i know you will step tenderly through words carry vision past those boundaries defined by outlines coastlines confines learn to burn in the flame that heats you and your lady only bodhisattva dawn in our hands is recognition cupped lovingly as a breast hard as barfight fists open-palmed as love clenched in surety of friendship bodhisattva we ve been apt pupils for the lesson of regret and so are equally to be loved equally to be sung each a coming buddha look, Robert -- a word! i want it. unless, of course, you need it first. ---------------------------------------- In Memoriam, John Burks Gillespie Andrew Gettler blowfish at Vanguard we met i was under age waiting to be shown the door waiting to hear why a joyful noise must be made unto the ears of god... mine, too; blowfish Bird s flight and a new voice for America and Prez s boxer stance and youth & longing an porkpie hats can fit Monks and mistakes must be allowed; blowfish Night in Tunisia dawned above New York rooftop singer you travelled Webster s Avenue heard Hawkins scream new morning saw Ornette become ornate blowfish what you ve said is freedom s poison he s on the stand has an idea suddenly it s everyone s they get it yeah it s up to him to expound & expand but get it yeah & he & they all rise to the OCCASION **************************************** THE BIRTH DEPOT Isobeau Miller Near the crumbling legless body of the interstate, set on an island among the thwacking sea of compass plants and the full heads of wild blue indigo is the maintenance vehicle depot where I was born. What remains is the memory of dirt crusted in the grills of the trucks, hanging clots of earth and root caught like a good meal of flesh and sinew between their teeth. Above their satiated grins were the domed hoods shining like unworried foreheads blanketed in the metal- ringed benevolence of round halogens. The trucks rested safe in their dormancy. The light stood vigilant to protect them, sparkling and alert to squelch any movement until morning when the engineminds were floored awake in their slots, rumbling to strip the dark earth marrow from the ground. Other trucks dragged obediently after the ripping machines and like nurses filled the wounds with concrete salve. I rarely saw them move. All I needed to know is the road existed. I never shared with my adoptive parents what I knew about my home. They would never accept how they came to be related to the workings of my true mechanized family, up at dawn and silent in the night, racing the sun to tear up the earth as fast as they could. I could stare at the depot for close to an hour every week in the gas line, my mouth pressed flat to the window of the rattling Buick schooner, squinting so the lights of the "hospital" where I came from would wink in welcome. The trucks were not filled with the surprising hot blood that sometimes spurted from my knees, but my human parents were not like me either. It did not seem plausible that two humans could have made me then abandoned me. The trucks had a reservoir of water inside them but they could not relinquish it to my thirst, and I did not grudge them I knew thirst and cried in my sleep, unprotected in the darkness because I could not drink from the grainy stream of tiredness running through my worker family. The man who adopted me drove a trash truck; his wife once nursed a man so filthy maggots fell from his ears. They did not want to know where their bundle came from and I starved with a plate full of diluted explaining words until one day the truth trickled down my legs. I would let those trucks come in the dawn and strip the skin from my tiny flat parched body until I was as smooth and filled as the newly black road. I would belong to them and with them and I could not be taken from them. Naked, all that remained is what I believed. ---------------------------------------- the old egyptian at the jukebox Isobeau Miller the pharaoh in the gold lame pants sidles up, a glistening abalone rolling dis-ease persistent watery-eyed, his chill lips a fruitlike lava flow / wet smacking to kiss the rings of the boys in the show he's gushing hissing moving toward them all gasping in heaven (such boys...) glittering pinched dates pressed into the bread dough of his cheekbones; he's got a watch fob that jingles merrily with their tiny hooded testicles shrunken trinkets of the once favored rubbing the blinking wet rings that tattoo the polyester (places where battles are fought are called theatres) pay per view. said pharaoh, the Nile winding thick and sandy in his pants, is busy dreaming rage and abandonment rest firm in his belly the boys are creatures wily and beguiling as puppies/he would scream, would dye (black azure number five) to push these boys (such boys...) rocking shy into unconsummated violence (violins) but he is old. nihilistic clowning cow of the revolution once favored forgotten spit out and spitting shunned and morbid he stands sighing and careworn among their dancing. a statue of misery damp feet swelled blue and meaty inside his midi boots. bleak, strobelit close finds the tinkling of the chain/ conspicuous and sad as the unwanted monarch the pharaoh picks delicate with eggshell fingernails for his wallet. the old egyptian at the jukebox **************************************** keeping up with the joneses Kent Taylor I wait stunned in Jammin' Java for the first shudder of deliverance as Caroline of the fine bones dispenses hit after hit before my coffee's cold provisional moons deflect me ghosts roar in my blood how can the past be so far behind while death and worn underwear remain incomprehensible? ---------------------------------------- Fourth of July at Ocean Beach Kent Taylor the tide is so low this morning that I walk out to a point due south of the Camera Obscura before the Pacific shifts its edge in boiling metal blues affliction litters this shore like a disordered alphabet waiting to be transposed confessions flicker in the surf like candles back in my flat a riderless horse dreams his rockers are wings I remember when a child wakened by nightmares rocked to sleep sobbing into his mane ---------------------------------------- trip to niagara Kent Taylor from GRIST #11 call in the morning and off spinning along the myth up ohio pa. then ice fog bound buffalo highwayed over under behind the mist great monstrous chunks of ice jutting the river upward threatening to lean up and claim the city and smash it bare (a quiet visit they were surprised we talked over coffee) my son gradually damaged the house we told about how our city kills and they told us of the same death there homeward flashing in the night two asleep in the back shifting after 400 miles to the metabolism of the road suddenly as we crushed the state line **************************************** THE PRAYER OF MUSHROOMS by JURADO I am in the doorway of a mushroom, learning to listen. The color is grey. I listen to the melody of thunder. Mushrooms are the children of thunderland. After lightning goes kite-flying with the rain, over dark fields, the rain goes planting the seeds of lightning; and mushrooms appear in the uncertainty of the wet shadows. I have learned about the magic of making things appear or disappear in strange, dark, and moist places. The color is grey. Mushrooms come out in fairy rings, and dance barefoot their mushroom ballet. The color is yellow. I have seen lightning scalp a wolf above a mountain ledge. I have seen lightning smile and split a tree in half. I have seen lightning strike a forest on a hill at night and all the birds lit up like burning candles on a birthday cake. I once saw lightning crack the air in half above a green lake, and a rainbow glowed, out of the mirror of nothingness left behind. Now the color is bright yellow. A mushroom smokes the pipe of Rene Magritte. This is not Rene Magritte. I have a mushroom blanket where night sleeps undisturbed during the day. In the living forest canopy of giant lamp-shade leaves, the gothic architecture of sunlit beams illuminates all that's green; But far below the forest floor, a calumet of mushrooms gives off its own incense, long sinewy trails of smoke rings rising into the light. This is how a mushroom defines the prayer repeating the larger perspective over thousands of years. The color is grey. Mushrooms take the strangest shapes of musical instruments, puffballs broad breath-taking saxophones, chanterelles shiny as pearl trumpets, polypores skinned-alive club drums, and the metal cymbals of gilled mushrooms. Deep in their own shed, mushrooms are well apprenticed in the dark, as if snoring by magic, talking the talk, walking the walk, kissing the dark lips of their deformities with masterful jazz riffs. The color is grey. I have a mushroom blanket where night sleeps undisturbed during the day. Mushrooms seem to embody change. They take a chance with form. I look cross-eyed at a mushroom as if it were a mountain. I admire the odd pieces of nature in a mushroom. I even take off my eyeglasses, out of respect, to see the mushrooms in a blur. Mushrooms can be made into jewelry. The color is grey. Walking in the labyrinth of prayer, mushrooms can kiss you with a thousand lips. I play cards with mushrooms on the porch. The color is white. Mushrooms glow in the dark, their divinity is purely on a subjective level. Mushrooms correspond to the lower depths of our soul-making dreams. Between their poisonous counterparts and the nutty flavor of their gourmet delicacy, Truffles, Chanterelles, Boletes, and Morels challenge our very existence. Mushrooms ring the bell of fallen dead trees, resonating within the lower depths of mia culpa. The color is black. You can hear the distant forest when you place a mushroom to the ear of a child. The color is green. A mushroom smokes a pipe with the sound of thunder. The enormous hand of this thunder interrogates me. The color returns to grey for contrast. The mushroom's cap is most conspicuous, round at first, then flat with uplifted edges, like the upturned ears of a cat, sometimes with a knob in the center, in-rolled, wavy, or smooth; often a little hanging veil remains along the margin of the white page, furrowed, wrinkled or pitted. I have learned to tell time by mushrooms. I saw lightning wearing my wrist watch. Mushrooms have long stalks, often located at the center of the cap, with a bulbous base, or tapering, smooth, dotted, or powdery, even rubbery to touch The remnant of a veil. is often seen, hanging from the edge of the stalk like a pendant, flaring, or a sheathing ring. The color is blue. After birth, Jung was named after his mother made him a soup of black mushrooms. Mushrooms are a peculiar set of mind games, always engaged in the alchemy of soul. Jung spent his clairvoyant life in the analysis of mushrooms. All Church organ music begins as a mushroom. The color is grey. I play cards with mushrooms on the porch. I have learned to appear like mushrooms inexplicably in strange, dark, and moist places. I have learned to tell time by mushrooms. Mushrooms are erotic. They seem to say, bend over, rub me, there. The color is grey. My jealousy makes the mushrooms grow abundant in the forest. I married a mushroom. She shaves her legs with mushrooms under the pale moonlight. She makes cotton candy, stroking her breasts on the mushrooms. She wore lipstick made from African mushrooms. And she has been found in the shower, massaging her clitoris using milk of mushroom shampoo. I have a mushroom wedding ring that looks like a hair-lip. The color is grey. Mushrooms are divine. They glow in the dark. Purely on a subjective level, they correspond to the unconscious part of our soul-making dreams, challenging us with their nutty taste and gourmet odors. Truffles, Boletes, Chanterelles, and Morels--some of these are edible, and they fetch high prices for their mystery. Wild fungi tastes better picked fresh, and not cultivated in flushes. Never drink wine with a good mushroom meal. The color is grey. A small rain shower ties the mushrooms into a knot. With jugglers hands, I untie the mushrooms and sleep in their dirt, in their crowded bed, hallucinating next to dead trees, about an unemployment line. The color is grey. I recommend going to x-rated movies with shy mushrooms that mature in less than 48 hours. I make spore prints by turning mushrooms upside down on some white paper overnight, and while I fall asleep with nausea, not far from other cabins, I redefine the pattern of my speech acts to the American Legion. The color is grey. I remember a small girl in the circus blowing a balloon and making thousands of shapes with her mushroom tongue. You can hear the distant forest when you place a mushroom to the ear of a child. The color is grey. Mushrooms have long stalks, often located at the center of the cap, with a bulbous base, or tapering, smooth, dotted, or powdery, even rubbery to touch The remnant of a veil is often seen, hanging from the edge of the stalk like a pendant, flaring, or a sheathing ring. I refuse to understand why mushrooms insist on wearing nylon stockings in the forest. The color is grey. Symptoms of mushroom poisoning are diarrhea, cramps, vomiting, abdominal pains, jaundice, renal failure, faintness, loss of coordination, salivation, tears, constriction of the pupils, hilarity, dizziness, delusions, blurred vision, spasms, muscular weakness, flushing face, palpitations, hypertension, swelling, profuse perspiration, staggering, liver dysfunction, and distension of neck veins. Sounds familiar? Chanterelles are already spicy; they need little seasoning. Truffles can be grated over pasta or into omelettes, releasing their pungent odor. Morels are best dried, rehydrated, sliced in cream, and cooked. Saute them and serve them with veal. Black Trumpets are good for making pate. Actually, it is fragrant, and fruity. Yellow Witches' Butter is good for country soup, picked best off beech trees, right after a winter thaw, and throughout cool, wet spring. The Hen of the Woods, or the Chicken mushroom, is a fine poultry substitute, served pickled or in stews. The color is grey. One corner of consciousness is folded. Always be alert to some mushrooms that live on the border between life and death: like Dead Man's Fingers, Netted Stinkhorn, Bladder Stalks, Dye-Maker's False Puffball, Violet-branched Coral, Destroying Angel, Death Cap, Carbon Balls, Wolf's Milk Slime, Skull-Shaped Puffball, Pigskin Poison Puffball, Arched Earthstar, White-Egg Bird's Nest, Elf Cup, Tree Ear, Devil's Urn, Black Jelly Drops, Cannon Fungus, Bearded Tooth, and Reddish-Brown Crust. Never smell the armpits of these strangers. A mushroom smokes the pipe of Rene Magritte. This is not Rene Magritte. This is not a poem about meditation, nor is it really about mushrooms; it is the prayer beyond the literal, like a painting by Jackson Pollack, or the jazz riffs of Miles Davis on his golden trumpet. The color is yellow. The subtext of the poem is about metaphor as the mushroom of language. The color is white. To lift the cap of a mushroom and reveal the edge of the world, this is the first step in the spiritual understanding of language. The color is blue. God is the noble savage hidden in the text. And metaphor is the thunder of the mind. The color is now grey. Symptoms of mushroom poisoning are diarrhea, cramps, vomiting, abdominal pains, jaundice, renal failure, faintness, loss of coordination, salivation, tears, constriction of the pupils, hilarity, dizziness, delusions, blurred vision, spasms, muscular weakness, flushing face, palpitations, hypertension, swelling, profuse perspiration, staggering, liver dysfunction, and distension of neck veins. The color is black. All around the Earth, in secret places, mushrooms grow quietly in nuclear warheads. The color is grey. After kissing the book of the dead, mushrooms give me a haircut, preparing me for deeper prayer. **************************************** ROOT POEMS (1-6) Jerome Rothenberg from GRIST #12, c. 1968 1 Someone moves a white ball down the line. Or someone moves a dark ball & has asked a question saying: down the line I waited & was waiting. Down the line. 2 How lightly we are moved. How open. He is open & is seen. He sees us. He is open & he sees us. How lightly we are moved. Like lights. Another witness. 3 Open. Open & shut. Branches, Say the light of branches. Say it first. I go. I go with branches. Open. 4 Snow on the back of his neck. He revives makes the narrow walk to sleep. Where a second bed was waiting. But sometimes he doesn't revive. The one who revives is more angular (leaner). He revives. He feels snow on the back of his neck. 5 Darkness before darkness. Before light & darkness. Darkening. Where your eye was moving. Did you see me. Darkening. My eye was moving in the darkness. Before light. 6 How they have hurt you Says a friend. He buys a newspaper. He performs a service. He performs his service Cold. There can be no gratitude Ever Says a friend. *************************************** INFRA-VERBAL POETRY from "The Experioddicist", July, 1993 Bob Grumman I've distinguished four kinds of infra-verbal poetry, but there are no doubt others (and I encourage anyone who happens on one to let me know about it as soon as possible lest CBS or Newsweek scoop me yet again): fissional, fusional, microherent and alphaconceptual. All of these names are provisional, but--I hope--not to inappropriate. In the first of these, fissional poetry, spaces are used to "disconceal" interior words as in Leroy Gorman's, "t rain s top spar row." In fusional poems words are combined as in the Richard Kostelanetz "string" that begins, "ideafencerebrumble..." and, less methodically, in G. Huth's pwoermd, "myrrhmyrrh," and Jonathan Brannen's, "splace." The third classification, microherent poetry, depends on Very Bad Spelling or orthographic incompleteness or some other technique that makes its words--its key one, at any rate--close to 100% incoherent. An example is a five line poem I have on hand by Michael Basinski: "Ook/ OKG/ Oon/ eOa/ dOK." It has no title that i know of. Perhaps it isn't even poetry but pure music; I consider it suggestive enough of proper words like "eon" and "ode" to count as poetry, however. Or it might be in code and thus alphaconceptual--or even be a regular if impenetrable conversation in English ("Oh, okay, okay, go one." "Oh?" "Add." "Okay.") and thus not even infra-verbal--but give me a break. As for alphaconceptual poems, they use all the tricks so far mentioned but go beyond other infra-verbal poems into letter-related conceptual concerns, as in the poem by Karl Kempton that speaks of "caged/age" that is surrounded by "c d/propostionz" to bring the concept of (stifling) alphabetical order, among other things, into his composition. They thus seem to me the most sophisticated of the kinds of infra-verbal poetry. But each of the other kinds of infra-verbal poetry has its unique virtues. ---------- ndooogsael tneitpipillea The above are two of the numerous "Spanglish Interweavings" by Richard Kostelanetz that are scattered through issue #30 of Lost & Found times. At first I didn't find these very interesting, but then--from, "gcaatto," whose Spanish "gato" I recognized--I saw that each of them spelled one Spanish or English word with its odd letters,and the synonym of that word in the other language with its even letters. Result: a sort of broken-prism multiple-image of what each pair of words denotes. At once "ndooogsael" began to stretch more sinisterly through my mind. And my favorite interweaving, "lviefdea," trembled from a live-leaf jumble (with "idea" emerging from it) into a fascinatingly parallel concern with the inexorable pace of life/veda toward death. "wOm/OOn/wat/her," a 4-line poem by Michael Basinski that is also in LAFT #30, is similarly infra-verbally effective, its ripples enpearing, for me, what the mythical sat(c)her, Actaeon, saw of the mOOn gOddess at her bath--and much more. -------- viviD windown the brease a nocean th see th shelleye sands and th ese seseas s and s and s repeat at re peat the blue wind o f or for itself alonglong the see-groped beech atreed so softly you're foot a playce on ssand an sesand one seasand of sommer a fell Geof Huth's "vivD" begins (after its peculiarly lettered title has alerted us to expect oddities) with a wind that is down--a mere breeze; or a window on "the brease:" or a breeze that is to be "wound down".... The details are uncertain, but a movement of air, ease, and a window--real or figurative--are prominent among them. Soon the sea is with us, too, as an object with the ethereality of an idea, of "nocean." And millionings of sands. We're in a beach seen, and a summerising mood . . and a typography shimmered free to act rather than merely symbolize. And so the poem flows on from "the see" through "th ese," and into divers renderings of ebb and flow, of fragmenting an recombining; of "seseas" developing ashore, or withdrawing in steps from the sand, in the process visually and punfully relanguageing "one seasand of sommer" into vivD memorableness. ------- Jonathan Brannen's book Sirloin Clouds, has similar interests, as in the following pwoermd: oceon Here the simple change of single letter puts those aesthcipeints not over-flustered by "misspelling" instantly into the two hugenesses that the ocean and an eon are--as well as into the idea of time as something with tides and depths and currents, and the idea of the sea as a grand Constant. -------- Bill Keckler and Paul Collier are responsible for a magazine called "Logodaedalus that is available for $2 from Collier, Box 14193, Harrisburg, PA 17104. Of the poems in its second issue, I particularly enjoyed Robert Fitterman's "2 Two." A wonderful celebration of splitting, or the making of twoness, it early on isolates "out from "about," to refer to one of existence's finalest divisions, in versus out. Just before that it had divided "ab" into "a-" and "b" to under- hum it s scene with hints of alphabetic reductionism. A breath or so later two more letters, "you" and "I," are shown recovering from division as a "you----I" (i.e., as a "your" and "I" being knt together by dashes) that "might/split/ this bis-/cotti." Here is the poem in its entirety: 2 two nor a- b out time you----I might split this bis- cotti In this, as in the best infra-verbal poetry, an interval of high lyricism develops through connotations a slow letter or syllable at a time, creating a sanctuary from the hurried loudness of so much of the rest of the modern world. copyright (c) 1993 by Bob Grumman **************************************** RESPONSE TO ROBERT KELLY John Fowler The other night about 3 AM as I was sitting at the computer keying in this issue, and as my eyesight began to blur, and my wife began to complain, I recalled Robert Kelly's remark in GRIST On-Line #1, "Nous Refuse" that "...Nous Refuse and Grist and all that we see on the screen are (and must/shd be) strictly beside the point..." I leaned back and quit typing....and began to think... "...therein their liberty..." Mr. Kelly had continued. Hmmm, at liberty only when not the point? "...and once they get to be the point, then they are not to be discerpted (sic) from those means they right now get around and past and (in general) through to us". That is, once GRIST as a _means_ becomes the point, it cannot be distinguished from all the other *means*. Paradoxically, when GRIST becomes the point it becomes unexceptional, like everything else. Until it becomes *the point* it may be (is?) a means of "getting around and past and (in general) through to us." Well, I hardly knew whether to be pleased or not. At 3 AM one appreciates a few strokes. And at first, the possibility that there was no point to GRIST left me a little left out. But then Mr. Kelly seemed to be making a finer distinction, or discerption. Began to sound like something like form/content; like, if you focus on the form your content goes to hell--or to hell with form. Or we shouldn't think about _how_ we do things. But no, not that, it has to do with _what's the point?_ What _is_ the point? The point is not *GRIST*; the point is, um, uh, well, uh...circulating Mr. Kelly's ideas? Freedom for the girls? (this sorority) I put on my wig and resumed my typing. Then I remembered Mr. Kelly had said a second thing--or made another point. "...[GRIST and Nous Refuse] share with cyperprose etc the angerous charm of being in essence virtualities, fictional in essence, and therefore (in this kalpa, thus) corresponding to the noumenal urge ours since Proclus, that is, we have turned our back to the sea. In order to speak to one another. This sorority." Whew, noumenal urge--had to look it up--the urge for purely intellectual intuition as opposed to sensual perception (talk to my eyes about that!). The urge to dream; talk to my wife about that! Proclus--probably some Greek g-d or other, right? who turned his back to the sea--to talk to real people? So we should turn our back to the (sea-green) screen and the point is orality? Help! I think I'm drowning in the sea of (re)orality! [vs. linearity]. Back to your workstation, girls! After all, we're only make-believe... "But (from "Orality vs. Linearity:, GRIST On-Line #1) the concept of path is linear; there is no path _through_ a network; there are only paths around, within a network. How do you get out of a network? Yet a network _is_ bounded; or, it is _not_ bounded. A work, a creation, is generally not thought of as unbounded. Paintings have edges, symphonies begin and end very specifically; novels, stories, essays, poems all begin and end. *AND TO THE EXTENT THAT THEY DO, THEY NO LONGER REFLECT REALITY!*" How the hell do we get out of here!? **************************************** Date: Fri, 12 Nov 1993 16:31:18 CST Organization: SUNY College of Agriculture & Technology - Morrisville, New York Subject: electronic serials and journals on our gopher From: BILL DREW One of my goals in participating in the implementation of SUNY Morrisville's gopher server was to assemble links to have as many electronic journals in one place as possible. As a result, I have assembled over 240 titles some of which are only vaguely considered a serial. They range from "ACM Publications -- Journals" to "Zig-Zag". All subject areas appear to be covered. Quality of the writing varies from crude to genius. Please feel free to point your gopher at ours. The link information is below. If you want to just look at them, using gopher pointed to snymorva.cs.snymor.edu, select "Library Services". Then select "Electronic Journals". Type=1 Name= Electronic Journals Path=1gopher_root1:[library-docs.electronic_journals] Host=snymorvb.cs.snymor.edu Port=70 Please direct any comments or suggestions to me. I am looking for new ones to add or I may delete some depending on input from our users. -- Wilfred Drew (Call me "Bill") Serials/Reference/Systems Librarian SUNY College of Ag. & Tech.; P.O. Box 902; Morrisville, NY 13408-0902 DECnet: SMORV::DREWWE Bitnet: DREWWE@SNYMORVA Internet: DREWWE@SNYMORVA.CS.SNYMOR.EDU or DREWWE@SNYMORVB.CS.SNYMOR.EDU Phone: (315)684-6055 or 684-6060 Fax: (315)684-6115 "My opinions are my own, tend to be strong, and are subject to change!" **************************************** Subject: Barlow on Crypto From: Terry Harpold The most lucid analysis I've read yet of the frankly frightening prospects that await us just on the other side of the Clipper/ Skipjack implementation that our friends at the NSA have been trying to force through can be found in this month's _Communications of the ACM_ (36.11, pps. 21-26), in John Perry Barlow's "A Plain Text on Crypto Policy". Terry Harpold tharpold@mail.sas.upenn.edu Comp. Literature and Lit. Theory, University of Pennsylvania **************************************** Tue, 9 Nov 1993 23:11:13 -0800 Last updated: 9-Nov-93 by John Labovitz This is a summary of electronically-accessible zines. From: johnl@netcom.com (John Labovitz) RECENT CHANGES TO THIS LIST Additions: Bad Subjects Bits and Bytes Online Chaos Corner Dogwood Blossoms The Neon Gargoyle Gazette Slither The Trincoll Journal Twilight Zone Changes: Cousins: corrected FTP entry DargonZine: added USENET entry FactSheetFive-Electric: changed phone number FSFNet: corrected editor's e-mail address; added explanation InterText: added WWW & GEnie entries A notice about new editions of this list is posted to the following mailing lists: Net_Info@gibbs.oit.unc.edu ZINES-L@uriacc.uri.edu The full text is posted to the following USENET newsgroups: alt.zines alt.etext misc.writing rec.mag alt.internet.services It can also be obtained via anonymous FTP from netcom.com as "/pub/johnl/zines/e-zine-list", via gopher at gopher.well.sf.ca.us and etext.archive.umich.edu, and via email from me (johnl@netcom.com). If you publish an e-zine, or know someone who does, please send a copy to me and I'll add the relevant info to this database. SYSTEMS ARCHIVING E-ZINES The following are sites that archive e-zines. Many of them are primary archive points for e-zines in this list. FTP: ftp.eff.org etext.archive.umich.edu ftp.cic.net quartz.rutgers.edu ftp.msen.com ftp.halcyon.com world.std.com netcom.com:/pub/johnl/zines nigel.msen.com:/pub/newsletters grind.isca.uiowa.edu:/info/journals nic.cic.net:pub/nircomm/gopher/e-serials Gopher: gopher.eff.org etext.archive.umich.edu (mirrors all FTPable files) gopher.cic.net gopher.msen.com gopher.well.sf.ca.us world.std.com gopher.unt.edu **************************************** THE TEMPORARY MUSEUM The Temporary Museum is an artist's initiative, with a view to create a transitory museum complex. The Temporary Museum is a (thinking)space, where artists can store ideas for (or stock images/talk/video of) Temporary Art. The Temporary Museum is also a place where artists, works of art and public meet. The Temporary Museum invites artists of all disciplines and perceptions to send in a document. This document gives the Temporary Museum an idea of the artist about a Temporary Artwork. Documents sent by artists in a preferably self-designed container or package are read, documented and placed in a Stockade of Temporary Art. The collected originals are located in the Reposal of Temporary Art, that exists as a growing sculpture: a collection of ideas from artists as objects of art. In co-operation with the artist the idea sent in can be a starting point for the disclosure of a Work of Temporary Art in the space of the Temporary Museum. When the constituents of the Temporary Museum have reached the volume of a container, it is conveyed into an Endless Museum, to be shipped and to be endlessly revealed. The Temporary Museum Foundation Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It exists as an Office, with an archive, the container. Since 1987 it also uses the artists space in the Parapluiefabrieken in Nijmegen, NL. Recently the Temporary Museum went wired and online to use another (public/artists) space. It is interested in discussion/works that involve art related to public space (much fuzz about this topic too over here), media syndromes, shared projects and other actualities in artists activities. The documentation of earlier events of the Temporary Museum is not yet available online. It has just started to talk. You can send messages to: wvdcruijsen@hacktic.nl subject: TM Walter T H E T E M P O R A R Y M U S E U M Walther van der Cruijsen wvdcruij@hacktic.nl phone: +31 20 4202331 modem: +31 20 6260490 ************************************* Subject: Art Sucks ;-( Beauty's Cool ;-) From: idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org (Jeff Harrington) ART today is too symbol-driven, too obsessed by it's propagandistic potential, too contrived in its lukewarm nihilism to interest us any more (yawn). So, the good folks at IdEAL ORDER have decided to call it quits, with regard to ART ;-). From now on, our work will be driven solely by the investigation of BEAUTY. Only BEAUTY can induce true corruption; the corruption of the "good." Only BEAUTY is truly meaningless. Only BEAUTY can foil the machinations of the ART industry and its search for symbolic novelty. BEAUTY is beyond ART. BEAUTY storms the heavens and robs our gods of their peace. BEAUTY brings these gods - money, fame, power, religion, the threat of knowledge beyond thought. Unfortunately, not all "ARTists" have what it takes to explore the realm of the beautiful, because BEAUTY cannot be attained. So good luck, people, ART is dead... most of you might as well all call it quits ;-). Another irrational provocation from: IdEAL ORDER Elsie Russell Jeff Harrington -- IdEAL ORDER Psychic TV (*)Zappin' CBS Evening News idealord@dorsai.dorsai.org(*)Since 1983! For more info ftp quartz.rutgers.edu /pub/subgenius/Ideal-Order(*)(*) **************************************** THE MAD FARMER'S JUBILEE ALMANAC Joseph Matheny October 12,1993 C.E. Jubilee Greetings, The Creators of the_Grand_Jubilee_Calender_ of_Saints_ have handed over the responsibility for producing its annual editions to the good people at Autonomedia in New York and are now preparing the next weapon in the war on temporal tyranny, the next tool of temporal liberation, the _Mad_Farmer's_Jubilee_Almanac_.We need your assistance in the great work, this open conspiracy.The war cannot be fought in any conventional way.Smashing workclocks and burning calendars won't tell us what time it is.On the one hand each of us has to come to terms with his or her own time trance, but we see no use in wasting a lot of words on the ineffable nature of the clockless nowever. On the other hand there is much we can do together to challenge the cruelty and poverty of civilized and regimented time.The _MFJA_ will be an open forum for stimulating intercourse relating to temporal alternatives.Anything goes. There will be a calender section which will include astronomical data; correlations with a variety of other calendars, past, present and imagined; information on meteorological and biological cycles; old and new holidays and festivals; important upcoming events; predictions of all sorts, etc. The rest of the almanac will consist of short essays, editorials, letters, news items, pertinent excerpts from books and zines, and all sorts of ephemera. The _MFJA_ will be published quarterly.Our introductory issue, covering the period from Dec. 21 1993 to march 21 1994, will be combined with the last (for now) Northwest edition of the _Moorish_Science_Monitor_. Deadline for submissions is November 21 1993 C.E., issue out in early December. Send us your thoughts on time before it's too late. Jubilee Almanac c/o, James Koehnline, P.O. Box 85777, Seattle, WA 98145 P.S. One of the many ongoing features will be a column devoted to imaginative replacements for the clock.Any ideas? P.P.S. Those with an interest at all in this project are encouraged to at least send greetings and encouragement as we would really like to get a healthy letters section going from the start.Any suggestions, criticisms, warnings etc. will be greatly appreciated. P.P.P.S. mediak@well.sf.ca.us will be making available in electronic form back issues of the_Moorish_Science_Monitor_. Be on the lookout! **************************************** CYBERCULTURE HOUSTON 93: December 10-12 WHAT: CyberCulture Houston 93 will be the first annual exploration of computer art and of the social issues emerging in cyberspace. We hope to prove to the general public that creative behavior in the computer age is not limited to getting the best deal on the latest desk-top or avoiding Carpal-Tunnel Syndrome. At the same time, we hope to help this new medium gain greater acceptance and exposure in Houston's art community and the community at large. SCOPE: Categories of works shown will include: 1. Graphic stills projected from slides and in hard-format. The latter format is prefered, as we have a limited number of slide projectors. This category includes not only "traditional" art, but also creative ray-tracing and fractal generation. 2. Computer Animation in VHS format. Preferably more artistic than commercial. 3. Tangible works made with or from computer bodies and/or electronic components. 4. Performance art dealing with human-computer interface. 5. Electronic Zines under 30-40K shown in hard-copy . Also featured will be lectures and discussions on present and possible future issues related to this technology. WHEN: Events will take place December 10th through 12th and the entries will be shown in the gallery for the next two weeks. WHERE: At Commerce Street Artist's Warehouse, 2315 Commerce, Houston Texas. ENTRIES: Please send entries to: Cyberculture Houston P.O. Box 52973 Houston, TX 77052-2973 voice: 1-713-227-8917 e-mail: cyber@fisher.psych.uh.edu This is an open show and there is no entry fee, but if you want your work returned, please send return postage. ----------------------------------------------------------- CYBERCULTURE HOUSTON '93 INVITES ALL INTERESTED IN THE CREATIVE USE OF COMPUTERS FOR A THREE DAY EXPLORATION OF ART, PERFORMANCES AND DEEP THOUGTS ON TECHONOLOGY CyberCulture Houston '93 Commerce Street Artist Warehouse & Gallery 2315 Commerce Street December 10-12, 1993 Contact: Melanie Mitchell (713)227-8917 Internet: cyber@fisher.psych.uh.edu CyberCulture Houston 93 is an event featuring the creative potential of emerging computer technology in performance and visual art, the circulation of ideas in an electronic form, and the social and cultural Implications of this interaction. The event will begin on Friday with an opening of the visual art exhibition at 7:30 pm. Physically represented works will be accompanied by a Virtual Art Gallery, designed by the University of Houston Architecture Department, and presented by local virtual reality designers and consultants, CyberSim Virtual Reality Inc. Visitors will be able to put on a headmount and fly through electronically generated intangible worlds. Flying robotic sculptures, designed and built by the Austin Robot Group, will cavort overhead. Performances will begin at 8:00 pm. Jennifer Bouragaline's dance group will perform an original piece, centered around the effects of technology on humanity. BodySynth, a performance group from San Francisco, will create electronic music through sensors connecting the muscles of the dancer's body to a MIDI system. Human Systems Performance Group, from Austin, will perform "Gabrielle: A Living Hypertext", bringing a close to the first evening. On Saturday, Eyecon Interactive Media will add their exhibit of the Mandala System, a 2D projected virtual reality system, which allows up to four people to create music by bouncing floating orbs of light around the projected virtual world. Demonstrations, presentations, and panel discussions will be held that afternoon on topics raised through the social use of computers, including Life in CyberSpace, Hacking Artificial Life, and Nontraditional 3D Spaces. Some of our speakers will include Brian Parks, the designer of the Flogistron VR Chair, as featured in _Lawnmower Man_, and Ronn Harbin, a premier computer animator. The topic of the last panel discussion of the day will be"Computers as Artistic Media." Several artists from Australia, Norway and across the United States will participate electronically over the Internet. Dissemination Network will begin the evening performances with a performance of electronically altered video/music/ dance performance. The BodySynth will then present an audience-interactive performance piece using his MIDI- sensors. Again bringing a close to our evening will be the Human Systems Performance Group. On Sunday, CyberCulture Houston will end on a wilder note. The performance group Burning Man will explode on stage. Houston's Pope Charlie will lead a Church of the Subgenius Devival, Free Virtual Reality Combat simulation games will be provided courtesy of CyberSim, Inc. There is no admission charge for any of the interactive exibits or discussion panels. The price of admission to the performances will be eight dollars which will include the whole evening of performances. CyberCulture Houston is a non-profit wing of Electronic Frontiers Houston. *************************************** INTERNET: AN ART GALLERY WITH 25 MILLION POTENTIAL VIEWERS (C) 1993 John E. Jacobsen (permission is granted for non-commercial copying or use) October 26, 1993 The following is a description of an experimental electronic art show I created in the fall of 1993. Being both a visual artist and a physicist who works intensively with computers, this show was a bridge between two very different parts of my life. The results were quite surprising; enough so, I thought, to warrant communication to others, especially artists who might otherwise be unfamiliar with the technology I exploited to get my art seen by thousands of people, in over thirty countries throughout the world. In the last two years I have worked generally in a small format, painting, drawing, and making prints. This coincidentally matched the size of digital image scanners quite well. Using a scanner on a NeXT computer, I obtained a digital library of twenty or so images of my recent work. The scans were high in quality, like video images. Although some of the surface, scale and color aspects of the work were slightly diminished, the work looked good enough to show. The task was then to display these images to interested people using a computer network known as Internet. The Internet is a collection of computer networks which allows about 1 million computers (as of 1993) to share information. The information can be in the form of written text, scientific data, computer programs, even sound and images. This technology allows, for example, scientists to collaborate while writing software, to compare notes, and share data, with very little or no wait during the transmission of the information. Though I had seen Internet being used for transfer of art images, I hadn't seen individuals present their own high-quality art in an appealing manner, and wanted to try doing just that. The hope was to create a sort of "electronic gallery" which would bypass the "real" gallery scene completely, while reaching a potentially huge and diverse audience: the current guess is that there are about 25 million individuals connected to the Internet. It is noteworthy that the Internet *doubles* in activity roughly every five months, and is the precursor to the Clinton Administration's much-touted "information superhighway." Based on a scientific workstation computer in the UW-Madison Physics Department, I set up the software to allow other people on Internet access to my image files. One simple program, a "standard" on Internet, was FTP (File Transfer Protocol). This simply allowed users on Internet to copy files from my machine to theirs, much like files are copied from one disk to another on a given computer. So people could simply copy the files I created with the scanner, and view the images on their computer, assuming they had the software to view pictures with. Because FTP is somewhat unwieldy to use, I also set up the program called Gopher, from the University of Minnesota. Gopher allows people to look at information all over the Internet, very easily and with little or no computer skill. Basically, someone using Gopher would connect to my machine, see a list of titles of artworks (e.g. "The Millennium, lithograph"), and, upon selecting a title, would see the appropriate work appear on their computer screen. Theoretically, the procedure would be the same regardless of whether the viewer was in the Physics building in Madison, or somewhere in Singapore. Getting Gopher to work was a question of getting the software from Minnesota over Internet, installing it, and organizing my files for Gopher users. In addition to the image files I added text files describing each work briefly, a copyright notice, an artists' statement, and a policy for sale of the original artworks. People would then be free to read my blurbs or just look at the images. Once I had the artwork scanned into image files, and I had the software set up to make my "show," I needed to let people on Internet know about it. For this I used USENET news (or just net news). Net news is a service on Internet that allows people to write electronic articles and "post" them publicly so that all Internet users can read them. Net news is organized into hundreds of "newsgroups," each treating a different topic. Example newsgroups are sci.physics, rec.arts.fine, and alt.sex. I titled my show "Strange Interactions" and posted announcements to rec.arts.fine, comp.infosystems.gopher, misc.forsale, and alt.pictures.binaries.d. The announcement briefly described the artwork and how to view it. In addition to the announcements on net news, I "registered" my computer with other computers connected by Gopher, so that people looking around in "Gopherspace" would run across my art show; also, people who performed electronic searches on words such as "fine art" or "strange interactions" would uncover my show. Finally, I sent electronic mail messages ("e-mail") announcing "Strange Interactions" to my friends, family and colleagues on Internet. The Gopher software I installed kept a running log of network connections to my computer. Within minutes of posting my announcement for "Strange Interactions," I could see entries appearing in the log indicating that individuals were looking at my images. The log showed the time of the network transfer, the name of the computer getting the image, and the title of the artwork viewed. The computer name generally indicated the organization (i.e., university or company) and country of the person viewing the artwork. For example, my machine name amanda.physics.wisc.edu indicates a computer in the Physics Department of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, WI, USA. In the first 24 hours I had people from 19 countries view my artwork. In the first week of "Strange Interactions" I had nearly 1000 people look at the most popular piece, "The Lovers." During peak hours I could see several connections a minute, almost like standing near the doorway of a gallery and seeing people come in. Several people wrote me "electronic mail" messages praising my show concept, my artwork and encouraging me to make more work available. One person in Scotland asked for permission to reproduce one work for a publication, which he sent me a copy of. After about a month, nearly 2000 people had looked at "The Lovers" (no doubt popular because of the title-- unlike a conventional gallery, viewers of Strange Interactions would encounter the title of the work before the image). By that time people from a total of 35 countries (nearly every country on Internet) had at least glanced at my show. Needless to say, I was surprised and extremely pleased by the reaction to my first solo art exhibit. There were also some snags. Originally, I billed the artwork "for sale" and posted prices for the work. This brought a reprimand from MACC, the UW Computing Center which administers the UW Internet connections. Apparently it's not ok to do this at UW-Madison, although I have seen quasi-commercial uses of Internet before. The conflict was solved when I removed references to sales from the documentation for the show. In addition, the question of copyright bothered me a bit. In order to create my show, I had to allow the copying of my images (that's how they are sent to other computers). I put a copyright notice in the show files, giving permission to copy the images for personal use, but not for commercial profit. Even so, it's fair to say that I lost some degree of control over my images. My feeling is that this has been offset by the thrill of getting my work seen in this way. I feel there are several conclusions to be drawn from this show. The first is that the Internet can be used to get artwork seen in a totally new way. Were a University or public-access "Internet Art Gallery" to be set up, students, faculty, visiting artists and museums could display and disseminate their 2-d work to a rapidly growing audience. Though commercial use of the Internet is frowned upon, artists could at least achieve the goal of being seen, getting comments and soliciting inquiries about their work. It should be pointed out that while "Strange Interactions" was set up on a high-powered scientific workstation, the more advanced PCs or Macintosh computers should also be up to the task. Another noteworthy aspect is that "Strange Interactions" utilized little of the computer's capacity for interactive, real-time, multimedia art. Computers hooked to networks provide a medium of expression that has barely been touched. Current trends in Internet software are already embracing the multimedia aspect (World Wide Web, Mosaic). Similarly, interactive, real-time fantasy simulations (MUDs) exist which allow people to play role-playing games with others far away from each other. The possibilities for performance art are endless. It is not hard to imagine dynamic, collaborative, interactive art projects on a global scale, combining still images, video, audio, and text with a world-wide set of participants and observers. Artists need to keep abreast of this technology if only because of the exciting creative possibilities of the new medium. I would think that the UW Art Department, the Department of Art History, and the Elvehjem museum would take interest in the implications of this show. For example, the Elvehjem museum could put either the whole or a subset (say, Japanese prints) of its collection on CD-ROM, put it on a computer in the museum for the locals to view the collection with, and hook it up to Internet to allow other schools and museums to view the images. The Art Department could do the same with faculty and student work, and could pioneer the aesthetic potential of the technology discussed above. With a decent high-end personal computer, video camera, video capture card, CD-ROM, spacious disk drive and ethernet (network) card, along with some expertise, one could probe some of these exciting possibilities, and it could probably be done for under $15k+personnel. It should be noted that networking cables exist in most UW buildings, including Humanities. If there are further questions (or new ideas!) about this concept, I can be reached at: John Jacobsen 546 W. Wilson St. #1 Madison, WI 53703 email: jacobsen@amanda.physics.wisc.edu Thanks to Bill Long and Diana Swanson for ideas, feedback and encouragement. This document is available by FTP at amanda.physics.wisc.edu:/pub/art, and by gopher at the same machine. **************************************** OUT OF ISOLATION AND INTO OPPOSITION Environmental Illness and the Creation of a Radical Environmental Health Movement "Capitalism is turning all of our bodies into toxic waste dumps, but patriarchy, racism, and class are determining which bodies bear the brunt of it." The emergence of environmentally induced illnesses demands that we oppose the social and economic systems of oppression and domination responsible for them. Only an environmental health movement that confronts these forces can bring us to a practice of true health. Eco-anarchist, radical health activist Wade Collins will speak on the political implications of environmentally induced illnesses, focusing specifically on Environmental Illness (EI). Additionally, questions of organization strategy and tactics will be explored in a discussion of building a radical environmental health movement. Wade has been living with EI since January 1990. The presentations will focus primarily on the necessity to begin to construct EI in a political context, to see it as a political condition as well as a medical one, and therefore one that requires a political as well as a medical response. Specifically addressed will be how the social "toxins" created by patriarchy, capitalism, and racism combine with the environmental toxins created by those very same systems to produce individuals susceptible to acquiring EI. A portion of each speaking engagement will be spent outlining the necessity for autonomous political organizing. As part of this discussion, emphasis will be placed on: the strengths and weaknesses of constructing EI as a new form of identity politics; learning from other movements of health activism including AIDS activists, breast cancer activists, and activists confronting environmental racism; and finally, arguing for a radically democratic, oppositional politic that will fight against all forms of domination and oppression. An integral part of the tour will be conducting interviews with individuals having EI, as a means of documenting their experience and as a way to gain a better understanding of who has EI, how they acquired it, what led them to identify their illness as EI, and how they individually and collectively responded to it. The speaking and organizing tour is tentatively scheduled to run from December 1993 to April 1994. Speaking fees will be based on a group's ability to pay and all attempts will be made to speak wherever requested, although a fee of $200 is suggested for those who can afford it. If you feel you or your group would like to set up a speaking engagement, or would like further information about the tour, please respond in writing to: Environmental Health Tour c/o Free Society PO Box 7293 Minneapolis, MN 55407 Please include a day and evening phone number so that event particulars can be arranged. Responses should be returned no later than December 15. **************************************** ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING - WHAT SHOULD I DO TODAY? Paul Peacock "Almost anyone can be a writer; the business is to collect money and fame from this state of being." A.A. Milne In this article my intention is to give you advice that you can implement today that will ensure that you are in the best position to exploit your electronic rights. You or your agent should be aware of the following: 1) If you decide to sell "electronic rights" do not sell them en masse. The electronic rights pie can be broken down into many different slices and you can earn money (potentially) from each: eg IBM platform, MAC platform, SONY Data Discman platform etc. Thus, even getting paid for "electronic rights" as a blanket term doesn't cut it anymore. If the clause in your contract discussing electronic rights doesn't specify which slice you are talking about, the length of time the option is open for etc., shame on you. If there is no specific clause on electronic rights at all, triple shame. 2) In your contracts with traditional print publishers, even those to whom you have not sold any electronic rights options, insist that you get a copy of your final edited manuscript at least in ASCII. If the publisher stores your graphics and photos on computer get those too (even if you don't know what to do with them). In general all new books end up being transmitted as computer files to typesetters so this should not be a big effort for them. ASCII is the lingua franca of the electronic publishing world. It may be embellished but it is the foundation of all that gets done with text. 3) If your publisher already owns electronic rights to your work find out what they are doing with them. Unfortunately, although there are print publishers who are trying to understand electronic publishing (ep), many print publishers do not understand electronic publishing and have adopted a reflexive "wait and see" policy. This is not good enough. Ep is moving too fast for that. 4) Learn and understand not only the production and distribution potential of the ep industry (including on-line services) but also the marketing potential. Why this advice? It's the old boy scout motto 'Be Prepared'. The phrase "electronic publishing" contains within it the word "electronic" which lets in the PC industry which means that the electronic publishing industry is changing at the speed of the PC industry, not the print publishing industry. And this speed is blindingly fast. One small indication? In 1981 there where only a few thousand PCs in the USA, whereas today there are over 50 million with over 24 million households with PCs, more than own audio CD players. The five steps between a work and its audience are writing, editing, production, marketing and distribution. The key results of the establishment of an ep industry are that a) for the first time, the production and distribution elements of this process have multiple pathways through them, i.e. one can produce and distribute blocks of paper or produce and distribute disks or computer files and b) the cost of producing and distributing a high-quality product via the second route i.e. via ep, is low enough to be met by an individual, i.e. you could do it (a really complicated piece of software that is used by ep companies to create CD-ROMS is available from Microsoft (the biggest company in PC software) for....$495. The cheapest software which presents a decent looking text product costs less than $100.) This last means that even if you don't want to get involved with the electronic publishing industry yourself (which is, of course, a valid response), you still have a lot more clout now than you did before with your traditional print publisher or electronic publishers. And if you do want to do the editing/marketing yourself you now have a production and distribution system available to you. This is the revolution. But....you can't play if you don't own the rights or know the business. Furthermore, we are only at the beginning of the electronic publishing industry (at a stage conceptually equivalent to Henry Ford deciding to build cars on an assembly line) and who knows how much electronic rights will be worth in a few years? It is readily conceivable to me that mainstream books will come out electronically before coming out in hardcover, and that soon. Already books are being published by 'name' authors electronically but not in print (eg poetry). And consider the following: a) I have just negotiated a deal for small publishers with a company that has set up an "online bookstore" on the Internet, the "network-of-networks" which allows computer users with a modem to access and communicate with other users all over the world. Currently there are over 20 million users of the Internet and, according to some reports, more than 1 million people are being hooked up each month. The online bookstore allows computer users to dial in, browse material, pay by credit-card and have the electronic book downloaded to their computer by e-mail. And this is not science-fiction technology. The technology they use was adopted as a federal national standard for visually impaired user education in the US two years ago and they are now adapting it for general commercial use. What this means to you is that you can, with a few hours work, create from your ASCII file of your manuscript a computer file that can go into the electronic bookstore on the Internet and be available to millions of people all over the world. Planned opening for the bookstore is December 1993. b) One of Steven King's short story was available from another on-line bookstore for two weeks prior to coming out in hardcover. Mr. King is obviously a special case but I believe this example leads the way for the rest of us. c) the SONY hand-held book player released on October 1 1993 plays 3.5 inch CDs, which can hold up to 100,000 pages of text. The novel "Sliver" has been published in this form at $34.95. The CD contains the full text of the novel and at the press of a button the hand-held player will read the text to you. You can connect the device to a TV and look at the text on the big screen. You or your agent could sell the "SONY DD-20B rights" to a company that specializes in making this type of disk. But you can't if you have sold "electronic rights" somewhere else. d) Knowledge Adventure, a company in California, created an interactive encyclopedia for kids called "Dinosaur Adventure" which loads from 3.5 floppy disks onto the hard disk of your computer. They have been selling 10,000 to 15,000 copies a month at $49 each. It is suspected that they will go faster from garage to the stock market than Apple computer did. People are buying ep industry material. Make no mistake: the electronic publishing industry is a sibling industry to the print publishing industry, not a child of it. The input, your creative work, is the same. Some of the skills that people have in the print publishing industry are transferable to electronic publishing. Some are not. Already there exist ep industry publishers (including individual authors) who do not publish in paper. This has been a short, sharp introduction to ep for the author who currently writes for the print publishing industry. Obviously it is impossible in such a short article to go over all the ins and outs of this exciting new industry and what it means for authors but I hope that it is clear how liberating this industry will be. ---------------------------------------- Digital Publishing Association (a trade association for electronic publishers including individual authors) R. Albright, Director, 1160 Huffman Road, Birmingham AL 35215 USA BBS 205 854 1660; Compuserve 75166,2473; Internet 75166,2453@compuserve.com; Phone 205 853 8269 Orpheus (A good DOS based book production system < $75) Rod Wilmott, Hyperion Softword, 535 Duvernay, Sherbrooke QC, Canada J1L 1Y8; 819 566 6296 ebooks (the Online bookstore) Bernard Pobiak, 2708 S. Nelson St., Arlington, Wash. DC 22206 703 820 0341; ebooks@digex.net **************************************** 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. 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 931201 Wed 5:30-7:15pm Kennedy Library Public Programs,The Economic & Environmental Implications of Dredging Boston Harbor's Shipping Lanes & Berths 931201 Wed 7pm SIGGRAPH,BBN,70 Fawcett St,Cambridge,Monthly meeting 931201 Wed 8pm Arco Forum,JFK School of Govt,Public Address: Honorable Newt Gingrich,member,US House of Reps 931201 Wed 8pm Harvard Science Ctr,Lecture Hall B,Robert P Kirshner:Taking the Measure of the Universe:How Big? How Old? How Do We Know? 931202 Thu Noon,MIT Chapel,Boston Opera Horn Quartet Concert 931202 Thu 12:30 Fed Reserve Bank,600 Atlantic Av,973-3453,NE Conservatory Honors Wind Ensemble 931202 Thu 2pm Boston Public Library,Rabb Lecture Hall,Concert--Calumet Quintet 931202 Thu 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury St,859-7222,African Masks Reception 931202 Thu 4-7pm MIT Museum,265 Mass Av,253-4444,The Museum invites you to A Seasonal Gathering 931202 Thu 6pm Arco Forum,JFK School of Govt,Panel discussion:From Somalia to Cambodia,NGO's & the Intl Situation 931203-940122 Robert Klein Gallery,38 Newbury St,Goldin/diCorcia Exhibition 931203 Fri 8pm MIT,Kresge Little Theater,Student Dance Concert 931204 Sat 4-6 Bromfield Gallery,107 South St,20th Anniversary Opening Reception 931204 SAT 8PM MIT,Kresge Little Theater,Student Dance Concert 931204 Sat 8pm MIT,Kresge Auditorium,MIT Concert Band 931207 Tue 7pm MIT,Killian Hall,Brass Quintet Concert 931208 Wed 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest St,Waltham,891-3400,Student Exhibit Opening Reception 931208 Wed 5:15pm MIT,Killian Hall,Student Piano Recital 931209 Thu Noon,MIT Chapel,Northern Harmony Christmas Music concert 931209 Thu 12:30 Fed Reserve Bank,600 Atlantic Av,973-3453,Longy School of Music 931209 Thu 6-9pm Piano Dave's Gallery,157 Hampshire St,Cambridge,492-8287,Holiday Show Opening Reception 931210 Fri 8pm MIT,Kresge Auditorium,MIT Chamber Orchestra 931216 Thu Noon,MIT Chapel,Holiday Revelry and Song with the Three of Cups 931216 Thu 12:30 Fed Reserve Bank,600 Atlantic Av,973-3453,NE Conservatory Honors Brass Ensemble 931216 Thu 8pm MIT,Krege Auditorium,Beethoven's Birthday Concert 931223 Tue 8pm MIT,Room 26-100,253-7894,An Evening With Susan Sontag 931229 Wed 5-8pm Piano Dave's Gallery,157 Hampshire St,Cambridge,Kid's Show Opening Reception 931230 Tue 6:30pm MIT,Room 10-250,253-4411,Architecture Lecture,"Race,Culture,Space",by Craig Barton 940107 Fri 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury St,859-7222,Cynthia Packard Reception 940109 Sun 3-5 Bromfield Gallery,107 South St,20th Anniversary Afternoon Tea 940118 Tue 8pm MIT,Killian Hall,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 940204 Fri 5-7pm Chase Gallery,173 Newbury St,859-7222,John Dowd & Allen Whiting Reception 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 940303 Thu 4:30-7pm Bentley Art Gallery,175 Forest St,Waltham,891-3400,Patricia Elliott Opening Reception 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 **************************************** "I believe that understanding one's self and confronting one's self with courage brings understanding that extends to others. Such "courage" surfaces in many manifestations. I am a homebased networker and it is here that I believe the resurrection of consciousness begins. Ultimately, our lives as networkers flow outward beyond our personal borders, past "isms" and into the mail[net}stream with courage and conviction. These are deeds stronger than words by declaration or congressional appearances may accomplish. I think Andrej Tisma has it right when he wrote "Why Am I Fearless," and here lies an answer beyond heated rhetoric and pointing fingers, "I am in peace with myself. That's why I am fearless." Crackerjack Kid "Networkers and Blockades", ND 17, 1993 **************************************** MAIL EVENTS 93-11-21, 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 assemble collection of submitting artists' work. 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, Chuck Munson at Internet, ctmunson@macc.wisc.edu, or Mikael Cardell at Internet, cardell@lysator.liu.se, Other numbers are Bitnet, cmunson@wiscmacc.bitnet 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 95-1-1, Xb: a bibliographic database of the literature of xerography, Seeking data and info on xerox art, documentation, disk to contributers. Contact through email: IP25196@portland.maine.edu OR raltemus@well.sf.ca.us, Xb c/o Reed Altemus, 16 Blanchard Road, Cumberland Ctr, Maine, 04021 USA 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 me news of Zines, mail art projects, and fax projects, Keith I De Mendonca, keithdm@syma.sussex.ac.uk 95-10-1, Send anything- everything, esp. news of mail art shows and general contact, Linda Hedges, LindaH@ssec.wisc.edu 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 16:7 December 1, 1993 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 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 far@medinah.atc.ucarb.com Forrest Richey fringeware@wixer.cactus.org Fringeware Magazine 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 keithdm@syma.sussex.ac.uk Keith DeMendona kmg@esd.sgi.com Kevin Goldsmith Lindah@ssec.wisc.ed Linda Hedges 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 raltemus@well.sf.ca.us Reed Altemus rgardner@charon.mit.edu Richard Gardner roman@mcd.edu Roman Verostko 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 **************************************** Subject: Transmit Visual Telephone Directory From: Carolyn Speranza Thank you for your recent letter and interest in Transmit Visual Telephone Directory. The following is the short description I usually send interested individuals: Transmit. Visual Telephone Directory lists artists, organizations and educators who participate in collaborative online events using computer networks, video phones, fax, slow scan video, etc. This directory is a tool to be used to organize and encourage these exchanges. It also witnesses creative activity which is often undocumented through its disassociation with the art market. Transmit. is produced as an artist's book, incorporating participants' images with their numbers/addresses. It is circulated by Printed Matter in NYC and its publisher, Telecommunity Press, to libraries, foundations and interested individuals. To be listed in the next issue or receive the last one, please contact: Carolyn Speranza Telecommunity Press box 8101 Pittsburgh, Pa 15217 speranza@hamlet.phyast.pitt.edu To date, it exists in hardcopy form and probably will continue that way until it becomes easier to access images through the Internet. **************************************** NOTES ON/FROM CONTRIBUTORS Gary Elder writes "Sure, I'll be honored to come aboard yr bold New Venture. Though I must admit it Does certainly Give Me Pause--My ghod! can this be true? 30 yrs later--& we're--just for starters--still kickin! At least you are (there's bn some question of late as to whether I would be). I do well recall the spit-in-yr-eye vigor & amazing intelligence of GRIST--& you are so Right to resume the captain's mantle, with such a clear-eyed view of the turf. What a wonderment! Seems I ought to have some Profound Pronoucement here, but it's your retrospection, your course, & in fact I can barely see where we're goin. I sure dunno How. It's enormous, & I'm amazed admiring how well, how calmly you appear to see through. Don't panic--right; I'll snag a pony & drift along Best I can." Gary Gach--my pomes + trance-lations have appeared in zyzzva, city lights review, technicians of the sacred, exiled in the word, renditions, american poetry review, nuevas palabras, world, etc. translation(s) i did from french taken by a lady named PAULE DI PUCCIO from a disembodied busybody (VATIC/channel) i call PAMPHLET William J. Margolis--edited and published his first magazine, EXPERIMENT, at Roosevelt College (now University of), Chicago, 1949. From 1954-59 he edited and published MISCELLANEOUS MAN (15 issues) from Berkeley & San Francisco: co-founded and co-edited BEATITUDE 1-12 from San Francisco until 1959 when he had an accident and became a paraplegic. After he got out of VA Hospital in Long Beach he moved to Venice and edited and published 1 issue of MENDICANT (with help from Stuart Z. Perkoff and James Boyer May). He was editor of one issue of a renascent MISCELLANEOUS MAN, published by L.A. FREE PRESS. The second issue was camera- ready, guest edited by Jack Hirschman, when FREEP's publisher, Art Kunkin reneged on $$$ -- got a new publisher who paid $1000 advance to Ben Hiatt of Sacramento, who absconded with cash -- it took over 2 years to get back [damaged] paste-ups -- so it never came out. He and his wife recorded many L.A. poetry readings with many poets, which were broadcast on KPFK-FM in the late '60s and early '70s. He has lived in Mexico; the first time in 1951, after graduating from college when he worked with the American Friends Service Committee as a volunteer work-camper digging a ditch in rural Mexico for a water system to a small village. In 1962 on the way to Guadalajara, in wheelchair and Ford Ranch Wagon with hand controls, he sustained a broken leg in an accident. A friend who had agreed to take care of him after he got out of the hospital got strung out on barbiturates instead. So he moved out to a wealthy (Vet pensioner) quadriplegic's ranchero until his leg would bend enough to let him get into an airplane back to VA Hospital to get his leg fixed -- the hospital in Guadalajara had messed it up. He was flown to his mother's in Boston where he saved up Social Security money ($95 per month) and then returned to Gaudalajara alone. There he was joined in 1964 by the woman who became his wife after returning to Long Beach in October, 1965. She had an accident in June, 1968 which disabled her and she died in September, 1972. After living a while in L.A. he returned to Venice in February, 1976. His collections of poetry include THE ANTEROOM OF HELL, Inferno Press, SF, 1957; THE LITTLE LOVE OF OUR YEARNING, Mendicant Editions, 1960; THE EUCALYPTUS POEMS, Croupier Press, 1974; and SELECTED POEMS, 3 vols, RUSTLE & BREAK AND OTHER POEMS, 1948-1962, Venice, 1987; THE SUMMER CYCLE, POEMS 1958-1960, Venice, 1988; and A BOOK OF TOUCH AND OTHER POEMS, 1960-1975, Venice, 1988. Isobeau Miller writes "As for biographical information, my chapbook Imago Mundi is completely autobiographical and completely fiction. I have been publishing it myself, sparingly because I've got this real attachment to buying food, under the name Incunabula Press. Incunabula means *cradle books*, referring to the books printed during the first 50 years after the invention of the Gutenberg press when every form was the first of its kind to be distributed widely. Like my literary daddies the Beats, I believe in the purity of inception -- first thoughts and actions. I have lived in Wichita most of my life, save a short stint at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. I have also lived in a commune in Vermont teaching Conflict Resolution in an alternative school. I write for many reasons, but mostly because I know I am the only person who can articulate my perceptions and experience. Outside of the words I have written I exist on paper only as a deviant, truant and debtor. As with "The Birth Depot" I know that pain and discomfort (when approaching or writing about a ;subject) often signal latent power that can be transformed into something whole where there was only a wound before. I live in downtown Wichita next to a homeless shelter and down the street from the Eemo Perfection Lodge No. 8. Wichita is a city of intense paradox (fundamentalist religion vs. intense violence, liquid clear plains skies vs. Vulcan Chemical) and growing up here has given me so many facets that now in the "world" i'm not able to fit into any box. I've heard that living in the city is learning to ignore things but I refuse to. The Great Mother is here in the migrations of monarch butterflies, miller moths, mallard ducks and many interesting people. We are all going somewhere. Currently I favor the writing of central and latin america, especially women like Elvira Orphee (Argentina), Griselda Gambaro (Argentina) and Isabel Allende (Chile). I wrote "the old egyptian at the jukebox" when I was 16, one pure stream, and it is still probably my favorite. I am committed resolutely to living and the shamanic path. If you'd like to tell your readers that "she grows many plants and has a rat named Lulaverne with a tumor". It's not that important to me that folks know my ego really. The words are pure and hard won. Oh! I will be 21 on 13 January 1994." Bob Grumman was born 2 February 1941 in Norwalk, Connecticut. No college till his thirties, no degree till he was 40. Only started becoming a visible experioddicist around 1987 in the mail art zine, "Velocity." Then, too, he founded the runaway spoon Press and began getting essays and poems fairly widely published in the otherstream. In 1991 he published "Of Manywhere-at-Once", a wide-ranging discussion of poetry, poetics, poets and his own life. He now writes a column on experiddocs for "Small Magazine Review." His address is 1708 Hayworth Road, Port Charlotte, FL 33952. Anyone interested in discussing any aspect of poetry should feel free to write him: he considers himself almost as affable as he is pretentious Ashley Parker Owens mailartist Global Mail publisher poet appropriator of text. Kirby Congdon, grew up in a back-woods village, was drafted into the Army before he had ever shaved, was there three years, got out in 1947, went to Columbia University in New York on the G.I. Bill, began publishing poems at the age of 29, active in NY scene in 50s and 60s, edited "Magazine" in various incarnations 1962-1969, has owned three motorcycles and never driven a car, moved to Key West in 1986. Kent Taylor's first book, SELECTED POEMS, appeared in 1963, published in Cleveland by Renegade Press. Eight other collections were issued between it and his latest books, LATE SHOW AT THE STARLIGHT LAUNDRY, Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1989 and RABBITS HAVE FLED, Cleveland: Black Rabbit Press, 1991. He resumed full-time writing in 1988 and his poems have appeared in virtually every important poetry magazine and have been extensively anthologized. He lives in San Francisco. Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris are collaborating on a 2- volume global anthology of 20th-century avant-garde poetry, the first volume of which (from Mallarme to Cesaire) is now in production at University of California Press. They recently read in NYC from their book of translations of Kurt Schwitters, published by Temple University Press. Jurado reads regularly on the poetry circuit in New York City and is the producer for the Flying Fish Poetry Show on Manhattan and Paragon cable TV, Channel 34. He is a programmer/analyst interested in virtual reality and morphing. Paul Peacock--runs an electronic distribution firm in the US called Floppyback Publishing International (themeline 'Liberation!') which he founded two and a half years ago. He is on the board of directors of the Digital Publishing Association and a representative of the Electronic Author in the US. He can be reached at 71702,154 on Compuserve or via the Internet at 77102.154@compuserve.com, by 'phone/fax at (201) 963 3012/(201) 420 8751 or by mail at FPI Inc. PO Box 2084 Hoboken NJ 07030. He is also a poet and admits cheerfully to mixing vocation with avocation. ezra--ever the lurker and other networkers