Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
In a message dated 06/27/2000 10:30:46 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << << Kathy Acker's treatments of obscenity might interest you; they hold more > interest > for me than the rather stale patriarchal guilt/desire of, say, Miller. > >> > > I think it was Foucault who pointed out that pornography arises with along > with sexual repression. Before that you get eroticism. How can we reclaim the > erotic? Interesting you should say that--Acker was interesting for me in her moment because she claimed the right for women to be obscene, but unfortunately that right isn't very enjoyable. And yes, I think that eroticism--that is, fun sex w/o punishment and guilt--is highly revolutionary, and probably always will be as long as property and the selling of one's time for money alienates people from their own bodies and those of the people they love. >> I was thinking of Foucault in relation to the Henry Miller thing. I like Acker okay, not my fave writer, but when she first came out I dug her a lot. Barg
Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
<< I have no idea what that had to do with me being a sociopath, but hey. Did someone call you a sociopath? Missed that, and certainly I don't think of you as a sociopath. But I do feel everyone is on a path of some sort. BP
Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
I considered the "lacking empathy" remark a dis, by all means, and found it an unusually strong reaction to a discussion of the phone as a medium. But hey, I guess you can pull that off when you're a list owner. In my experience I have been the target of several prank phone calls, including and not limited to threats of local gang members, jealous former boyfriends of girls I was dating, and the random, useless drunken prank of a random number. The horror, for me, is interesting in that it does serve as an uncomfortable invasion of personal space- the most intimate of spaces, in fact, the ear. To me this proves that the intimacy of the telephone is a very delicate thing; and that which is delicate is a good source of inspiration. If it can provide horror, it should be able, as a medium, to provide bits of beauty as well. I have no idea what that had to do with me being a sociopath, but hey. -e. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Eryk, I didn't see Ann's post as dissing you at all, I think she was just > saying prank phone calls don't seem as artistically interesting to women > who've experienced the violence and hatred aimed at them. I don't think she > was calling for your rape either, just asking that you -- who seemingly do > have a large and wonderful capacity for imagination -- imagine what it would > feel like to actually be the target of such violence and hatred . . .
Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
Eryk wrote: >Look at Burroughs, Kerouac, Neil Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg. The beats took obscenity to a whole new level of art< I would say that only Burroughs worked with obscenity as any kind of concept and even then did he do more with obscenity than DeSade who predates him? Burroughs obscenity seems an accident of his literary concerns I don't think he's actually even that obscene although I remember when I first read Burroughs "The Naked Lunch" I was surprised by it for two reasons, firstly the explicit nature of the material, I was still a teenager when I read it and I'd never before read anything like it, secondly how boring the book was: I read half of it at first and then it was several months later before I finished it. In fact I think it's his worst/most boring book..I much prefer "Queer" or "Cities of the Red Night". For some reason the film of the Naked Lunch bores me too. I went to see it in the cinema when it came out and fell asleep during itthe cinema was half empty and even more empty by the end as people walked out. My second attempt to watch it was on video..again I fell asleep. I'm quite surprised as I can normally watch all manner of dreadful films without falling asleep. The fact is that the film itself seems extremely dull. In fact I secretly suspect that Burroughs' popularity was mostly due to his strange life rather than his fiction. BP mentions Burroughs hatred of women but I always think that's just an act. It was a good way to get attention and to appeal to the misogyny market(gay and straight), he only said most of this long after his marriages. He certainly cared for the two women he married(he seemed a better husband than Kerouac for example in temrs of commitment) and even if he did shoot the second one I am willing to believe it was an accident as most of the biographical data mentions. After all he had no reason to marry her yet he did and had children with her. BP wrote: >And Kerouac. Myself and many other women I know read On The Road and were awe struck, heavily identifying with the male leads and suddenly realizing only the males were on the road and the chicks were pit stops. < I enjoyed "On the Road" again as a teenager, so much so that I read a lot of other Kerouac as well as a couple of biographies. As soon as I read the biographies I could no longer take any of his books seriously. I know one should separate the artist and the man but when you find out that Kerouac in reality lived most of his life with his mother (despite 3 marriages) and was actually only "on the road" for his summer holidays it all seems a bit of a joke. Actually I found that most of the beats' work lost appeal for me after a while. I still like a few of Ginsberg's poems but once you've read the good ones and start reading the rest it's disappointing...esp. "Punks of Dawlish" which is a truly terrible poem. However I must admit that he was a great performer and seeing him read was a great moment in my life. I believe Burroughs has a more lasting appeal because of his ideas. Not the misogynistic rubbish but his ideas on the nature of society and addiction and his audio-visual work: The films made with Brion Gysin and Anthony Balch, and his own visual art (Gun Door and the works/book with Keith Haring) and audio recordings(from Call me Burroughs through Dead City Radio etc.). To make a point, since my wittering on should arguably come to some conclusion: For me Richard Brautigan is the only beat whose work is long lasting(i.e. it never seems to diminish with re-reading) and this is probably because he is not trying to shock. He wrote wonderful stories filled with imagination and great ideas. Anyway, I'll stop now as this post is too long considering it says so little of substance. cheers, Sol.
Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > In a message dated 06/27/2000 3:00:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > << Kathy Acker's treatments of obscenity might interest you; they hold more > interest > for me than the rather stale patriarchal guilt/desire of, say, Miller. > >> > > I think it was Foucault who pointed out that pornography arises with along > with sexual repression. Before that you get eroticism. How can we reclaim the > erotic? Interesting you should say that--Acker was interesting for me in her moment because she claimed the right for women to be obscene, but unfortunately that right isn't very enjoyable. And yes, I think that eroticism--that is, fun sex w/o punishment and guilt--is highly revolutionary, and probably always will be as long as property and the selling of one's time for money alienates people from their own bodies and those of the people they love. I'm currently working on a long series of tar paintings (asphaltum on plywood) of forest-as-field (that is, not pictorialized but the complex visual field of the forest as you walk through it--I take slides, project them, do rough drawings from this, and then kind of carve the drawings out of the ply with the blacks) that are now beginning to incorporate forest elementals. They're erotic figures, male and female, with these leafy heads. They're depicted on 2 ft by 8ft sheets of ply--tall and narrow--the other work is on panels ranging from 4 ft by 8 ft to 12 ft by 8 ft. All freestanding, doublesided. Makes a sort of maze. What's interesting to me is that all these figures are unconscious--that is, sleeping, whatever. They all are sort of flung down. That's how they occur, it's not really a conscious choice. Also interesting is that they are not --how to say-- offering themselves as erotic, they are erotic incidentally. It seems to make some difference. Encountered on their own terms, they are not objectified. Imagining a sexual world in which women are not hated and punished is not easy, but it is becoming increasingly possible. Young writers (have you read "In the Drink"?) are doing, without a lot of fanfare, works in which women do live broadly physical lives (not only do they have sex without being thrown under trains, they also fart, get indigestion, and eat things in nonpathological ways.) I have hope, and am having much fun doing this figurative work right now. AK
Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
In a message dated 06/27/2000 2:49:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Look at Burroughs, Kerouac, Neil Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg. The beats took obscenity to a whole new level of art; perhaps the deterioration of the values in america and the world will now form a new obscenity that of which fluxlist will deem incapable of transmission and censor, censure and moderate. While in fact I didn't even see the offending post and doubt it was such an attempt at art, what would have happened if it was? >> Eryk, I didn't see Ann's post as dissing you at all, I think she was just saying prank phone calls don't seem as artistically interesting to women who've experienced the violence and hatred aimed at them. I don't think she was calling for your rape either, just asking that you -- who seemingly do have a large and wonderful capacity for imagination -- imagine what it would feel like to actually be the target of such violence and hatred . . . in order to see another side to it. Think of the attack on the women recently in Central Park. Or the women in Bangladesh who have acid thrown on them by men whom they've rejected. I like your prank phone call performance, even though whenever I *69 someone, I always get a message that says that number is not available for that service. The Beats have always been a force in my poetic lineage, since my teachers, mentors and poetry scene were deeply connected to some of them, but when it comes to sexuality, I had to look elsewhere, as it was mostly either an anti-female or female exclusionary sexuality the Beats you mention champion. Look at Burroughs with his hatred of all things female: "Women are two-holed freaks with poison juices." And Kerouac. Myself and many other women I know read On The Road and were awe struck, heavily identifying with the male leads and suddenly realizing only the males were on the road and the chicks were pit stops. And Ginsberg himself, whom I actually respect for a lot of things, saying he could never remember the names of women. (He did remember my name, and published me in a collection he edited at the end of his life--published posthumusly-- of political poems for The Nation.) Barg
Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
In a message dated 06/27/2000 3:00:20 AM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << Kathy Acker's treatments of obscenity might interest you; they hold more interest for me than the rather stale patriarchal guilt/desire of, say, Miller. >> I think it was Foucault who pointed out that pornography arises with along with sexual repression. Before that you get eroticism. How can we reclaim the erotic?
Re: FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
I called for no violence directed at you; I asked you to imagine such an event, as you seemed perhaps deficient in empathy. If you didn't see the post in question it may be difficult for you to speak of it accurately. It was very similar to an obscene phone call (which is not a prank phone call--your equating the two was the reason for me to share my experience--which was not a rape, but a battle.) You have been offended by my recounting of a story that occurred in my own life. You offend as easily, then, as anyone. This recounting was meant to bring home to whoever read it the fact that obscenity as threat reads differently to people who live under that threat every day than it does to people who do not live under that threat. That is all it is meant to do. It's no accusation. Re-read it, and I think you'll see that. Events are real; they have consequences. One's reaction to any meaningful construction is colored by the events one habitually experiences. This is the relation of art and life. Kathy Acker's treatments of obscenity might interest you; they hold more interest for me than the rather stale patriarchal guilt/desire of, say, Miller.
FLUXLIST: Dung beetles (was: Prank Phone Call Performances)
Well ann, thanks for that lovely scenario; but what i was suggesting was not that anyone had a responsibility to hear anyone out but that it could in the long term provide a good deal of inspiration and could end up being worth the time. I by no means asserted that anyone should get raped in order to see what they come up with during the endeavor, and I think the tone of your response was absurdly confrontational. (I'm not sure if calling for my rape is a violation of the fluxlist code of conduct, by the way.) My post merely suggestive that, on the thread of transgression, that that which we automatically censor, ignore, delete, can oftentimes be dealt with in a creative manner, rather than to simply ignore, delete, or censor it. You will note that my post dealt exclusively with the value of threats and hang ups and though acknowledging obscenity did not attempt to carry on about its glorious virtue. But now perhaps I should. One person pornography is another persons beautiful documentation of decay; I suggest to everyone on the list the film "Henry Fool" to see what happens when things are treated as filth on account of not understanding them Look at Burroughs, Kerouac, Neil Cassidy, Allen Ginsberg. The beats took obscenity to a whole new level of art; perhaps the deterioration of the values in america and the world will now form a new obscenity that of which fluxlist will deem incapable of transmission and censor, censure and moderate. While in fact I didn't even see the offending post and doubt it was such an attempt at art, what would have happened if it was? Look a little closer at the pile of dung, my friends, one never knows how glorious the beetles inside it will be colored. ann klefstad wrote:
