Translator's Notes

2007-10-08T01:02:00.001-07:00

This incarnation of the word about is read from an excerpt of Samuel Beckett's play Krapp's Last Tape -- (about is word # 209 from this play). This video clip (like all other clips) was used in my Dear coUntess to translate the word "about" from a letter to Lord Kelvin ("about" is word # 76 in that letter) which was in turn embedded in the translated text of The Opinions & Exploits of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician. Here, then, a case of word-for-word translation. However, where no exact lexical replica of a word in the letter to Lord Kelvin could be found, I have fastidiously enacted a translation from the material listed below (via a wide variety of translational tactics).

There are 12 readings from continuous excerpts selected by the translator. Each reading was assigned a specific color (there are 6 colors) & tone (there are 12 tones). As a demonstration, the video above includes the tones for both excerpts assigned to the color red: Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape & R.D. Laing's Knots. In the final video text, there are:

87 instances of Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape

107 instances of Jackson Mac Low's words nd ends from ez
107 instances of Walter Abish's 99: The New Meaning
96 instances of an Gertrude Stein's An Exercise in Analysis
141 instances of Alain Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy
117 instances of Jack Smith's Normal Love
99 instances of R.D. Laing's Knots
105 instance of Kathy Acker's Great Expectations
77 instances of Maurice Blanchot's Thomas the Obscure
113 instances of Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts
79 instances of Kenneth Goldsmith's Soliloquy
84 instances of Ron Silliman's Tjanting

The original context of the above about is:
      With all this darkness round me I feel less alone. In a way. I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to . . . . . . me. . . Krapp.

The original letter to Lord Kelvin reads:
      For we are both of the opinion that, if one can measure what one is talking about and express it in numbers, which constitute the sole reality, then one has some knowledge of one's subject.

The translated version includes both streaming video & facing hypertext -- each clip / word of which links back to its source:
      for we are both of the opinion that, If one can Measure What one is talking about & express it in numbers, which constitutes the soul reality, Then one has Some command of one's object.

2007-09-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

The original letter to Lord Kelvin, as printed once translated [cf. Simon Talyor Watson, 1965] and several times removed from its initial publication, brought to my attention via the superb edition published by Exact Change Press [Boston, 1996] as Book Eight under the title "ETHERNITY" among the documents comprising Exploits & Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician, is here scrupulously translated to the present work by means of a video vocabulary composed exclusively of words recorded from vigilant readings of excerpts plucked from the following popular works [click below for links to the excerpted sources / lexicon material]:

Krapp's Last Tape

Words nd Ends from Ez

99: The New Meaning

An Exercise in Analysis

Jealousy

Normal Love

Knots

Great Expectations

Thomas the Obscure

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

Soliloquy

Tjanting

[Tr. Danny Snelson; Utah & Tokyo, 2007]
[Costumes; Phoebe Springstubb]

2007-09-25T13:30:00.000-07:00

Samuel Beckett – Krapp’s Last Tape

Ah! Box . . . three . . . spool . . . five. Spool! Spooool! Box . . . three . . . three . . . four . . . two . . . nine! good God! . . . seven . . . ah! the little rascal! Box three. Spool . . . . . . five . . . . . . five . . . five . . . ah! the little scoundrel! Spool five. Box three, spool five. Spooool! Ah! Mother at rest at last . . . Hm . . . The black ball . . . Black ball! . . . The dark nurse . . . Slight improvement in bowel conditions . . . Hm . . . Memorable . . . what? Equinox, memorable equinox. Memorable exquinox? . . . Farewell to— —love.

Thirty-nine today, sound as a— Thirty-nine today, sound as a bell, apart from my old weakness, and intellectually I have now every reason to suspect at the . . . . . . crest of the wave—or thereabouts. Celebrated the awful occasion, as in recent years, quietly at the Winehouse. Not a soul. Sat before the fire with closed eyes, separating the grain from the husks. Jotted down a few notes, on the back of an envelope. Good to be back in my den, in my old rags. Have just eaten I regret to say three bananas and only with difficulty refrained from a fourth. Fatal things for a man with my condition. Cut ‘em out! The new light above my table is a great improvement. With all this darkness round me I feel less alone. In a way. I love to get up and move about in it, then back here to . . . . . . . me. Krapp.

2007-09-25T13:26:00.000-07:00

Jackson Mac Low - Words nd Ends from Ez

II. From Eleven New Cantos XXXI-XLI
(EZRA POUND)
1/15/81

TZBK49HT
(paRts om Paris s
Potomac, . . .
cOmmerce n fUrther e is Not owneD Ead yZia d oR untAin
Perennial cOry . . . . moUs turNip f SweDen . . . .
E iZing s,
gReat the
Ancient Property . . .
tO mpUte itiNg,
o reaD Esop’s nZa heRefore by nAture Prussia,
hOg d,
GUstavus ou iN ur olD E TZin ntRa,
out À P-
about rÔle r d’Une tioN ccorDing Eur nZoff . . .
foR depArture,
Purchase e Only iqUe ve aNy alkeD Espeare,
nZoff:
teR e peAce Pain?”

FOr e mUst goiNg.

orteD E nZoff . . .
ouR ridA Ppi . . . .
tO d cUre . . .
off Newfoundland.

ecteD E)
eZuela n oRder to mAke Ppear tO e mUch e miNds ecteD Eelings....
iZing ntRy ike A Pope’s NOt atUre.

beeN breaD,
Esman cZ hoRrors f plAying Particular cOme raUlain to Nearly
meboDy Else iZe veR onvAbitch Ppe hOm leUropa laiNed
hOut coUntess ere Nobles

with Dortmund E,
iZ-
nis peRfect rer:
A Peautiful pOy woUlt htoNe ks
anD En n Zent y aRe n HAtvany!

Plied e On thUs h HuNgarian e finD E n-
Zaria fuRnished old A Price hOlesale
plUs tioN hey wD.

En aZir ouRs in nAme P tO e bUilt f VeNice.

a loaD-
line,
Eavy aZeth heR,
rom All Proceedeth.

GO,
g,
sUrely u orNate stanDers,
Ers aZe”

deRstood explAins,
Perhaps,
cOndemning foUnd,
I caN they Dug Ed iZed ’s)
pResident nds At Press . . .
tO on,
Used thaN rienDly Eeling yZed weRed s thAn Presidents tOgether”

n BUren
er iN bank”

Damned Ellow eZia d a Rabbit’s oot,
And Perform y Operations t aUtomatically steN o reaDers E iZschniz
leR inMAy Put tOry e MUscou liaN e,
“how Do E iZation en,
Romeo unhAppily Pparently dO e sUicided ariNg er boDy E rZa,
ouR s
thAn Payments tOry caUsed ry,
aNy is anD E eZzo-
yit:
weRe to hAve Potbellies cOme lyUm ut;
ANd ht;
AnD E aZza.

noRante!

f ’em All Pope gOes caUse he baNks sh,
AnD Ese Uzzano hoRtage n plAce Ps,
s Of e dUe mmuNe rlorD,
Eep oZart tuRal tz’ fAther Pt vOn ck Up s,
HiNdenburg’s even Dollar Er nZa,
“SuRe ey wAnt P lOp,
blUe bboNs alleD E

15-16 January 1981
New York

2007-09-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Walter Abish – 99: The New Meaning

Sarah Laughed. You’re making it up.

Marianne. Evidently . . . it’s funny in French . . . in the end, words often mean the opposite to what they are supposed to mean. We say ‘evident’ about things that aren’t evident at all.

(knocking a pipe, was he offensive)

They glanced back at me, speaking in low tones. Nothing, I thought, can break the whiteness of our voices.

For fully five minutes I must have sat inert, exhausted, as though I myself had been a third combatant in the deathly struggle recently concluded.

No—there isn’t enough time to do it right. There was never enough time to do it right, I said.

They are too preoccupied, too indifferent to anything that does not regard them personally.

Look she said.

A shower of rockets rose in the sky, f soon, reaching the height of their ascent, their glowing cases burst with a sharp bang, scattering through space a thousand luminous portraits of the young Baron Ballisterous, which it was intended should be substituted for the normal, commonplace succession of rain and stars. Each image burst from its case, unfolded of its own accord, to float at large, with a gentle swaying motion.

Can one—at least, could one ever—begin to write without taking oneself for another? For the history of sources we should substitute the history of figures: the origin of the work is not the first influence, it is the first posture: one copies a role, then by metonymy, or art: I begin by reproducing the person I want to be.

Marco was just impractical, an absolutely helpless man. All that he could do was copy ancient things and write about them. His mind was completely in it. All practical affairs of life seemed impossible to him, such a simple matter of finding food or buying a railway ticket seemed a monumental job.

He was a tall, fair-haired pink faced young man, slightly bald. He could not have been more than thirty. He spoke in a slow, serious voice, which often rose to a shrill, feminine pitch and died away in that delicate whisper, or, as Gerard de Nerval says of Sylvia, that FRISSON MODULE, in which lies so much of the charm of the Oxford accent, no, alas, no longer fashionable.

He asked for descriptions of where I worked, the city and its surroundings and the people I had met.

Brown envelopes of blue picture? he repeated. He never said a dickey bird to me, now, about any blue pictures. He grinned, and then an uncertain memory floated back. Wait now, I tell a lie. Back in summer, he told me he had a good tickle going for him, do you see.

This takes up a Saturday morning in the department stores around Herald Square.

Maybe he was getting warmer, but his look or wish was turned before it got far enough.

How was the small dining room lit?

Thus we sat and I kept up my persuasive drone; I am a bad speaker, and the oration which I seem to render word for word did not flow with the lissome glide it has on paper.

2007-09-25T13:17:00.001-07:00

Gertrude Stein – An Exercise in Analysis

I have given up analysis. Splendid profit. I have paid my debt to humanity. Hurry. Climb. In climbing do not be contented. Run ahead. Run on ahead. Have you a knife. Do not see soldiers ahead they swim. So they do. When we wheel where there is a turnings. That is the meaning of wheel. Acts are longer. Places resemble their mother. They have the beauty of their father and the intelligence of their mother. A long time. Who is the packer. Miss Morton comes first. Extra size plates. Believe in saying divided duty. Believe in saying a delay divided is divided between a mother and Mrs. Turner. Can you wish me that. I can wish you winds. All winds make water. I can wish you water. I can wish you a drawing of a little goat in a great deal of work. Work is pleasant to me. In acting again we are acting offensively. He doesn’t like the poor in Barcelona they do not like the poor. What did she see when she saw men swimming. Examples. Examples and examples. All examples of children. Now to ask guns. Now to ask colors. She was settled for it. For life. For me. Come again for three days come again for three days come again for three days. All the ways of pigeons. All ways and deception. She did not deceive me. Do not deceive her cousin. Her cousin makes powder. Heat. Can you counsel me. I want to know something and Miss Douglas won’t tell me. May I ask it. Do you feel strong. When. When you write. And memory. Do you believe in memory and in credibility. Do you have winter weather here. We do not allow Mr. Douglas to be contradicted here. We do not desire that he should feel himself beginning to be about to be wrong. Then you agree with what ever he says. I do not say that this is so I say so. Now I understand. Can you match streets. Can you believe in parks. Do you like democracy. Have you a king in Greece. There are plenty of places in which to be idle. Not all of them agreeable. Not when there is likelihood of invasion. We live here. Can you forgive me. Can you see that I have heard that the meaning of extravagance is in doing that again. Doing that again. I partly said author. This is reasonable food. This is not an unreasonable carriage. There is plenty of rubber in America. And in Europe. In the middle of the river there is not always water. Not in Spain. Nor in Mexico. Nor in Arizona. Please me when you do please me. And in there. Where. In the room. When can you believe me. When can he believe me. When can they say they wonder. When shall we have another. Recollections. To a duchess. A dowager duchess. A husband. A husband and a wife. Splendid leaves. He introduced me. They introduced me too. Can you recollect missing him. Can you follow me quickly. He was a boy. You are once more an American. Can you remember what she said. can you remember him. He will be glad not to have married Sylvia. He will never be needed in the business. He will never be needed in that business. He is ashamed of his message. She is ashamed of her system. He is never neglected. I am awfully sorry. Thanks so much. We ask for him. We can send butter. Mrs. Turner can come. In the winter. Remember the weather. A kind way. A very kind way. I am really in search of a flavor. So am I. Can you see numbers. Can you read the numbers. And four. Smiles. I can see what I hear. I can hear too. I can I when I wish. So can Mrs. Turner. More silky that ever how do you do it. Houses. Can we see the set. The set of what. I borrow you. Why do you have that. Because it pleases me. You said you would not be married. Plenty of space to put things together. Here is plenty of space. There is an excuse. There is not excuse. We went to-day. We went there to-day. I cannot repeat what they say. Neither can I. Can you speak to me. Can you speak to me here. Can you speak to me about it. Can you speak to me about anything. Can you speak to me. Can you complain to-day. Can you. Do you know about wishes. I do know all about it. Can you recollect me. What were the opportunities of meeting you. What have you sold. Why are you so certain. I want to be simple too. Of course you do. Can you come at four. Yes indeed. Can you understand me. I can understand you very well. Do you agree with Miss Crutwell. I do not. Can you be to blame. Can they be to blame in this. Can they request a questions. Can they see they are polite. No they cannot feel the purpose. No they cannot have time. No they can be observant. No indeed for me. I do not like such a declaration. Do not tell me about birds. What is a bird. We have suffered. I can cure anything. So can most fishes. And birds. And water-fowl. There is plenty to blame. The introductions. Waiting. And memory. Please be mannish. Please do. Please be a sailor. Please be womanish. A bird. There are many parts to the bird. She knows. So do I. I am not amused. It was a copy. It was a copy. It was a copy. Do not make a mistake. Take care. Have a pleasant time. Remain there. I express and opinions. You express and opinion too. Can you say that you excuse me. Can you say that you excuse him from the room. Can you say anything about it. She doesn’t mind. She doe not mind. Neither does she mind. We do not mind him. Leave us in that way. Was she the first one to say do you smoke. Was he the last one here. To be here. can you see very much. can you see very much here. Here and there. Can you paint that, the color of that house. Yes I can. Thank you. Satisfy them. Do satisfy them. Do they make that noise. They do or they do not. Can you finish. And make a mistake. And not make a mistake there. And have a treasure. Of course I have a treasure. Of course I have so much thought. Do not be ungrateful. To me. Can you believe me when I swim. Can you trust me. can you have a wife. Please do not mentions that address. To me. Do not believe me when I tell you that it is so. In the sense that as. Spread it. To Hungary. And New York. This was what I meant. Oh did you indeed. The next time we go we will go together. Please me. Do please me. Please me pleasantly. Yes I will. Can you sing. I have asked you that before. I can ask you again. You can if you like. can you not vary it. By what. By making changes. Oh yes. Why do you wish me to eat differently. You mean less quickly. I mean what I say. Yes it is true. Can you come together. Can you come together. Can you come together. Can you come together. Can you come together. What is the name of the bedding. It is different. Of course it is different. Then don’t explain. Can you be foolish. You mean in your thoughts. In recommending a novel. Get all the books you can. Not disappointed. Not in there. Call me. Call me Ellen.

2007-09-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

Jack Smith – Normal Love

Early that morning I could see that the day would be an ordeal. The Cretins were most excitable and openly masturbated, overstimulating the pinheads. Today they would put on their shepard and shepardess costumes and run across the fields with their sand pails to milk the cows. I rode shotgun on them in my floor length black leather jacket and needle-heeled opera hip boots made of wildebeest leather with the tufted tops.

I lingered over my toilette, admiring my enormous three foot long 9 inch thick cock; I posed before my glass, throwing my cock first over this shoulder, then the other. Finally, overstimulated, I fucked my tufted tops on my boots. However, I was unsatisfied so I lunged at my mirror my noble horsecock all tumescent. I smashed through the mirror and whirled about and stuffed my cock into the jagged hole and fucked and fucked. My cock got all bloody and torn up. Then, to get maximum sensation out of it I stomped my cock in my boots, flinging handfuls of meat tenderizing salts upon it.

Herding the freaks across the fields, a fly alighted upon my cheek and I became concupiscent again. I prodded a pretty young marshmallow cretin girl with my crop and made her sprawl on the ground. Her hoop skirt flung up exposing her dimpled pasties. In a second I was upon her nudging her between the buns with my lobolier. She squealed and rolled upon her back thrusting her pouting quim into my face. I whipped out my flaming organ. Her hoopskirt was up over her face and she couldn't see. I ran back a few paces, aimed my cock0 and charged her but my horse galloped in before me and impaled her on his raging rod. Slightly disappointed I charged my horse's asshole and jumping up I transfixed him in midair as he was transfixing the cretin girl. My cock sank deliciously into his bowels, reaming them out straight and he reared and bolted causing me to spend even more deliciously. The little cretin shepardess was now ruined for normal love and she ran amok among the other freaks, inflaming them. Soon the whole hillside was one gigantic, seething, cretin, mongolian and pinhead orgy. Delighted, I ran to where my horse lay and snatched my elephant gun off the pack. I opened up on the churning carnival of freaky sex, firing pointblank into its midst. Presently, I sank delirious to the ground, gasping and creaming and blazing away at the freaks.

God's plump buns rested serenely on the ziricorn & rhinestone throne & he frowned at us through his long gold beard. We were in heaven. He ordered us all to line up, turn around, drop our pants, and bend over. We meekly obeyed. God then walked up and down paddling us with a ping-pong paddle. He concentrated chiefly upon the plump pasties, I noticed. He began to emit giggles and rushed from pasty to pasty paddling shit out of them. The freaks became overstimulated and soon we were in the middle of a gang fuck which spread over all the heavens. Saints and cupids dicked each other with their wands, angels threw their legs open and the skies dripped come.

The End

2007-09-25T13:11:00.000-07:00

R. D. Laing – Knots

They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see their game.

They are not having fun.
I can’t have fun if they don’t.
If I get them to have fun, then I can have fun with them.
Getting them to have fun, is not fun. It is hard work.
I might get fun out of finding out why they’re not.
I’m not supposed to get fun out of working out why they’re not.
But there is even some fun in pretending to them I’m not having fun finding out why they’re not.

A little girl comes along and says: let’s have fun.
But having fun is a waste of time, because it doesn’t help to figure out why they’re not having fun.

How clever has one to be to be stupid?
The others told her she was stupid. So she made herself stupid in order not to see how stupid they were to think she was stupid,
because it was bad to think they were stupid.
She preferred to be stupid and good,
rather than bad and clever.

It is bad to be stupid: she needs to be clever
to be so good and stupid.
It is bad to be clever, because this shows how stupid they were
to tell her how stupid she was.

It is boring that you are frightened
you are boring me by being interested in me.

In trying to be interesting,
you are very boring.

You are frightened of being boring, you
try to be interesting by not being interested,
but are interested only in not being boring.

You are not interested in me.
You are only interested that I be interested in you.

You pretend to be bored
because I am not interested
that you are frightened
that I am not frightened
that you are not interested in me.

2007-09-25T13:09:00.000-07:00

Kathy Acker – Great Expectations

My mother is a dummy and a piece of jellyfish. The most disgusting thing in this world is her. My worst nightmare is that I’ll have some of that jellyfish in me.

My mother, the jellyfish, wants me to be just like I am.

So I fall down in a fit. I decide to be totally catatonic. I am unable to know anything. I have no human contacts. I’m not able to understand language.

They call me CRAZY. But I’m not inhuman. I still have burning sexual desires. I still have a cock. I just don’t believe there’s any possibility of me communicating to someone in this world.

I hate humans who want me to act like I can communicate to them. I hate feeling more pain because I’ve felt so much pain.

My idea of happiness is numbness.

From what I’ve seen and read I think the people who live in Egypt don’t absolutely hate their lives.

I feel I feel I feel I have no language, any emotion for me is a prison

I think talking to humans, acting in this world, and hurting other humans are magical acts. I fell in love with the humans who I see do these things

I think these categories: this logic way of talking (perceiving) is wrong.

THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS POWER AND POWERLESSNESS. For instance, I, Peter, am totally passive or powerless. I live in a world in which one major power, the USA, is trying to artificially create a war with another great power to increase its military budget. All rich businessmen get richer while wars are always fought on top of the bodies of poor people. We are really really powerless.

Anything mental is real.

Dear Peter,

I think your new girlfriend stinks. She is a liar all the way around because her skin is yellow from jaundice, not from being Chinese like she pretends. She’s only pretty because she’s wearing a mask. You’re hooked on her tight little cunt: it’s only a sexual attraction I know you’re very attracted to sex cause when you were young you were fat and no girl wanted to fuck you. What you don’t know is that this cunt contains lots of poisons—not just jaundice—a thousand times more powerful than the coke she is feeding you to keep you with her—especially one lethal poison developed by the notorious Fu Manchu that takes cocks, turns their upper halves purple, their lower parts bright red, the eyes go blind so they can no longer see what’s happening, the person dies. Your new girlfriend is insane and she’s poisoning you.

Love,

Rosa

P.S. I’m only telling you this for your own good.

Dear Peter,

I want you wet. I want you dripping all over me. I want you just for sex. Once I know I can have you I might ignore you I know that would be very stupid. Then you’d run away as fast as you could. Then I’d want you so much I’d figure more subtle ways to commit suicide than all the ways—like lobotomy, everyone in my family goes, I robot flesh made of—I have these past two years you left me. Ours is the hottest love affair that has ever existed and I’m telling everyone that it is so. Physical sex doesn’t have to have anything to do with love affairs. Love affairs are when each person can do anything they want and the other person realizes that the most unbelievable behavior possible is usual.

Love,

Rosa

The Gritty State Of Things To Come

Dear Sylvére,

This serves you right. I told you this was going to happen. Now that I’ve spent last night fucking you, I’m in love with you. I’m writing these few lines to give you the news and the news isn’t good. A few minutes ago the cops arrested me for stealing a copy of SEMIOTEXT(e). You keep talking about how you’re making Italian terrorism fashionable: isn’t my ass here in New York worth at least a penny to you for every dollar of Italian terrorist ass over there? I think you should be nice to me because I’m just a helpless little girl. Also please try to get permission to come to see me and bring me some underwear. Put in your cat because I need affection and you don’t need anything. How are you? Darling, I’m awfully sorry about what’s happening to me. Let’s face it: some kids are born with silver spoons in their mouths. I’m an old woman whose teeth are falling out. I’m counting on you to help me out. I wish I could run into your chest and climb on your arms three hours a week and no more. Remember what we do together when I’m unparanoid enough to see you. Remember what we do together when I’m unparanoid enough to see you. Try to recognize the only reality of the world: no one gives a shit about anything. Get on your knees, sweetheart, and kiss the earth.

Love,

Rosa

2007-09-25T13:04:00.000-07:00

Maurice Blanchot – Thomas the Obscure

THOMAS STAYED in his room to read. He was sitting with his hands joined over his brow, his thumbs pressing against his hairline, so deep in concentration that he did not make a move when anyone opened the door. Those who came in thought he was pretending to read, seeing that the book was always open to the same page. He was reading. He was reading with unsurpassable meticulousness and attention. In relation to every symbol, he was in the position of the male praying mantis about to be devoured by the female. They looked at each other. The words, coming forth from the book which was taking on the power of life and death, exercised a gentle and peaceful attraction over the glance which played over them. Each of them, like a half-closed eye, admitted the excessively keen glance which in other circumstances it would not have tolerated. And so Thomas slipped toward these corridors, approaching them defenselessly until the moment he was perceived by the very quick of the word. Even this was not fearful, but rather an almost pleasant moment he would have wished to prolong. The reader contemplated this little spark of life joyfully, not doubting that he had awakened it. It was with pleasure that he saw himself in this eye looking at him. The pleasure in fact became very great. It became so great, so pitiless that he bore it with a sort of terror, and in the intolerable moment when he had stood forward without receiving from his interlocutor any sign of complicity, he perceived all the strangeness there was in being observed by a word as if by a living being, and not simply by one word, but by all the words that were in that word, by all those that went with it and in turn contained other words, like a procession of angels opening out into the infinite to the very eye of the absolute. Rather than withdraw from a text whose defenses were so strong, he pitted all his strength in the will to seize it, obstinately refusing to withdraw his glance and still thinking himself a profound reader, even when the words were already taking hold of him and beginning to read him. He was seized, kneaded by intelligible hands, bitten by a vital tooth; he entered with his living body into the anonymous shapes of words, giving his substance to them, establishing their relationships, offering his being to the word “be.” For hours he remained motionless, with, from time to time, the word “eyes” in place of his eyes: he was inert, captivated and unveiled. And even later when, having abandoned himself and, contemplating his book, he recognized himself with disgust in the form of the text he was reading, he retained the thought that (while, perched upon his shoulders, the word He and the word I were beginning their carnage) there remained within his person which was already deprived of its senses obscure words, disembodied souls and angels of words, which were exploring him deeply.

2007-09-25T12:58:00.001-07:00

Amos Tutuola – I became an Aggressor for Ghosts

The very day that I completed three years in this town, the “flash-eyed mother” got a letter and warrant about me from the town that I escaped to her.

But when the mother received the letter she was very annoyed and replied with passion that—“I am ready for war or for any consequence.” Then both parties arranged the day that they would meet on their battle-field for seven days to come at that time. But before the day arrived “flash-eyed mother” had sent for all the soldiers of “Wraith-Island” who were uncountable in number and also sent for the following wonderful and curious creatures:—“Spirit of prey” who is fighting with the flood of light of his single eyes, “Invisible and invincible Pawn” who fought and won the “Red-creatures” in the “Red-town” for the Palm-Wine Drinker” when he was living in the “Red-town”, and all the fearful and harmful prominent creatures as:— White long creatures, Hungry creatures, Shapeless-creatures, and also the “Palm wine tapster”, who is living in the Deads’ town, (13^th town) before the day came. When the day arrived “flash-eyed mother” gave a wonderful short gun to every one of the heads of her body, then to the other creatures, after that to all the short ghosts and me as well, and she took the biggest gun for herself and also gave a sword to every one of us in addition.

After this the whole of us were going to the battlefield, so she was following us as a commander. It was this day I first saw her stand up and walk away from the same place that I met her since the three years I came there, and it was this day I noticed that over four thousand more heads were still hid under her body and all were exceedingly glad when they were exposed to the fresh air since the last century when the “Secret Society of Ghosts” celebrated last. So as the whole of us were marching hastily to the battle-field that morning because we had kept later, all these heads were making various fearful noises with louder voices along the way, even the rest of us could not hear any other creatures’ voices except their own which nearly made us become deaf.

Before we reached the field the other party had reached there before us. But immediately we reached there we started to shoot guns at the enemies and using the swords, and they were also shooting us. As this fight was so serious nobody could eat, sleep or rest for three days and nights. But when we were hiding in a hiding-place at night or at any time from the enemies all these heads would not stop making noises until the enemies would suspect us and then start to shoot us to death. And as it was a powerful war, so, through the noises of these heads all the hero-ghosts who were fighting the enemies with us were killed and also many of the heads were cut away from their mother’s body with swords, except their mother who was fighting on fiercely with her big gun until the “Invisible and Invincible Pawn” who had disappeared for a little while came and killed some of the enemies until the rest escaped to their town. After that he woke up all the hero-ghosts with all the short ghosts who has been killed by the enemies. But to my surprise as all these heads had been cut down to the ground all were still crying to their mother. Of course, the “Invisible and Invincible Pawn” replaced them back on their mother’s body, and this means the 13^th town won the victory.

After we won the war the whole of us were gladly marching to the town. But as the “Invisible and Invincible Pawn” woke up all the dead soldiers and replaced their heads which were cut off by the enemies to their necks and as my own was cut off as well, so he mistakenly put a ghost’s head on my neck instead of mine. But as every ghost is talkative, so this head was always making various noises both day and night and also smelling badly. Whether I was talking or not it would be talking out the words which I did not mean in my mind and was telling out all my secret aims which I was planning in mind whether to escape from there to another town or to start to find the way to my home town as usual. All these secret thoughts were speaking out by this inferior head whenever I stood before “flash-eyed mother” and also telling lies against me every time that I am abusing her because I did not understand the language of the short ghosts. At the same time that I discovered that it was not my own head which was mistakenly put on my neck, so I reported the matter to the mother, but she simply replied—“Every head is a head and there is no head which is not suitable for any creature.” So I was carrying the earthly body with the head of a ghost about until the “faithful mother”, the inhabitant of the “white-tree”, who is faithful to all creatures came and settled the misunderstandings between the two parties when she heard information that there was a war between them, but it was very late before she heard about this war. Having settled the misunderstanding for them I begged her respectfully to replace my own head back on my neck instead of this one which belongs to a ghost. So she agreed and interchanged it for my original head at once, if not I should be still carrying the head of a ghost about throughout my life time. But at the same time she had settled the misunderstanding for both parties (12^th town and 13^th town) then she went back to her “white-tree” with the “faithful-hand” who accompanied her as a guard and she inspected the “guard of honour” which was specially arranged for her by the “flash-eyed mother” before she went away.

It was this day I knew that this “flash-eyed mother” is the mother of the “Invisible and invincible Pawn” who is the ruler of all the animal creatures and non-living creatures which he could command to become alive in all bushes of curious creatures, and it was also this day he washed his mother who warmed the water with which to wash her body with the flash fire of her eyes as the water was too cold for her. Having washed his mother he went back to his bush which is near the “Red-town” which had been ruined long ago when the “Palm-Wine Drinker” was living there with the “Red-creatures”.

After the war was over all the short ghosts and I continued our usual work as hunters. At this time I was illtreated by all these short ghosts with the “flash-eyed mother” and also all the heads of her body as I was the aggressor of the war which ruined some of them and their opponents as well. So by that my mind was not at rest to live there any longer except to continue to look for a way to my home town which I had left for about eighteen years, as I was remembering my mother at this time always. But as I was at that time near to become a full ghost and did not care for any ghost again, because I had seen many of their secrets except the “Secret Society of Ghosts” which is celebrating or performing every century, so whenever I was following the short ghosts to the bush in which we were killing the animals, I would go farther than them.

2007-09-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

Ron Silliman – Tjanting

Not this.

What then?

I started over & over. Not this.

Last week I wrote “ the muscles in palm so sore from halving rump roast I cld barely grip the pen.” What then? This morning my lip is blisterd.

Of about to within which. Again & again I began. The gray light of day fills the yellow room in a way wch is somber. Not this. Hot grease has spilld on the stove top.

Not that either. Last week I wrote “the muscle at thumb’s root so taut from carving beef I thought it wld cramp.” Not so. What then? This morning my lip is tender, disfigurd. I sat in an old chair out behind the anise. I cld have gone about this some other way.

Wld it be different with a different pen. Of about to within which what. Poppies grew out of the pile of old broken-up cement. I began again & again. These clouds are not apt to burn off. The yellow room has a somber hue. Each sentence accounts for its place. Not this. Old chairs in the back yard rotting from winter. Grease on the stove top sizzled & spat. It’s the same, only different. Ammonia’s odor hangs in the air. Not not this.

Analogies to quicksand. Nor that either. Burglar’s book. Last week I wrote “I can barely grip this pen.” White butterfly atop the grey concrete. Not so. Exactly. What then? What it means to “fiddle with” a guitar. I found I’d begun. One orange, one white, two gray. This morning my lip is swollen, in pain. Nothing’s discrete. I straddled an old chair out behind the anise. A bit a part a like. I cld have done it some other way. Pilots & meteorologists disagree about the sky. The figure five figures in. The way new shoots stretch out. Each finger has a separate function. Like choosing the form of one’s execution.

Forcing oneself to it. It wld’ve been new with a blue pen. Giving oneself to it. Of about to within which what without. Hands writing. Out of the rockpile grew poppies. Sip mineral water, smoke cigar. Again I began. One sees seams. These clouds breaking up in late afternoon, blue patches. I began again but it was not beginning. Somber hue of a gray day sky filld the yellow room. Ridges & bridges. Each sentence accounts for all the rest. I was I discovered on the road. Not this. Counting my fingers to get different answers. Four wooden chairs in the yard, rain-warped, wind-blown. Cat on the bear rug naps. Grease sizzles & spits on the stove top. In paradise plane wrecks are distributed evenly throughout the desert. All the same, no difference, no blame. Moon’s rise at noon. In the air hung odor of ammonia. I felt a disease. Not not not-this. Reddest red contains trace of blue. That to the this then. What words tear out. All elements fit into nine crystal structures. Waiting for the cheese to go blue. Thirty-two. Measure meters pause. Applause.

A plausibility. Analogy to “quick” sand. Mute pleonasm. Nor that either. Planarians, trematodes. Bookd burglar. What water was, wld be. Last week I cld barely write “I grip this pen.” The names of dust. Blue butterfly atop the green concrete. Categories of silence. Not so. What then? Panda bear sits up. Fiddle with a guitar & mean it. Goin’ to a dojo. Found start here. Metal urges war. One white, two gray, one orange, two longhair, two not. Mole’s way. This morning the swelling’s gone down. Paddle. No thingdis crete. Politry. Out behind the anise I straddles an old chair. O’Hare airport. About a bit in part a like. Three friends with stiff necks. I did it different. Call this long hand. Weathermen & pilots compete for the sky. Four got. Five figures figure five. Make it naked. The way new stretches shoot out. Shadow is light’s writing. Each finger functions. The fine hairs of a nostril. Executing one’s choice. What then? Forms crab forth. Pen’s tip snaps. Beetles about the bush. Wood bee. Braille is the world in six dots. A man, his wife, their daughter, her sons. Times of the sign. The very idea. This cancels this. Wreak havoc, write home. We were well within. As is.

2007-09-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

Kenneth Goldsmith – Soliloquy

All right, we're gone. See you soon. The lights are going out. It's finished already. You walked in, it's finished. See you around, all right? All right c'mon, c'mon. Congratulations. Keep those toes away from you know who. Bye Laura. OK, we said good-bye to her. Didn't do a thing. So my microphone broke. 35 dollar microphone I think it's still under warrantee. It just wasn't coming out clearly so I had to keep this thing running. Nam June Paik. He looks exactly like Nam June. No, it's not a good move. No, it's not a good move. Really, I thought the same thing. Oh boy. Oh, that was a good dinner. Those guys are really fun. Yeah, yeah. They're loose, you know? I mean they you can just say anything. I knew it was a reality check when when I saw Lauren Wittels on the street I was like abuse those kids and oh no and I was like, oh boy. I gotta start watching what I'm saying. Yeah. We can play it back and have laughs. I've done everything from John Post Lee to Marjorie Perloff to to uh uh to John Newman to Benjamin Weil three times to Cybersuds I've got it all on tape. I've got one more fucking day of this and then it's over, thank god. What? Yeah, maybe wouldn't it be funny I'll sort of say something to Swami? Oh boy. Hey there they are again. They are. They're in every window those those animals. Uh, god. So, that was fun. I like her, she's cool. She's definitely cool. She's, I've I've never seen this hor horrible side of her. I'm sure I will at some point but I really have yet to. Lovely. What does that mean hulk? Is he fat? Yeah, he really looked like he put some weight on, doesn't he? Yeah oh, too bad. I like Benjamin. He's so nice. He's such a nice he's such a nice guy. He just, I mean I really like him. What's his story he's just the run the guy that runs adaweb but what else about him? I mean he seems so nice and so loose and so goofy like he's one of the people that you don't know but you you feel like you know him and you can just joke with him? Like I'm just just so free joking with the guy and I don't even know him? He's he's really nice. Oh, we got three in the first thing in the morning Diane and Lois are leaving at 4 a.m. Oh who knows? Whatever. And then and then starting at nine starting in the morning we got we got those mutts. Oh. That was funny what she was saying about his about the toes and his like well, she's she she gets affectionate and I don't like that! I know that. I get the sense she's a hot she's hot and and hot to trot and I'll bet and I'll bet once he once he gets going he's OK but. He's I he's a funny guy. How about like I don't know we I don't know he's that was a good dinner. Did you have fun? Yeah yeah. Ah, she's outrageous Janet. She's about as outrageous as I am, which I like. Oh, well, we were just dishing. It's all in fun. We've said that before, didn't we? Didn't we? You and I have said that before. And I said after I said after the bump on I said after the bump on the head he lost all those stupid politics. Ah, fucking bending match sticks over, you know? I said well that knock on the head really got rid of those nasty politics of his. Ahhh. Yeah, I'm just an asshole. Really, don't listen to me. Don't listen to anything I say. That Stefano is a funny guy. Well we had a lot of laughs. That was good. Ahhh. Oh, so I saw Gary Simmons tonight for about the first time in about five years. At Metro. He gave me a big huge. He was like Gary, you know? I haven't seen Gary since the since around the L.A. riots was the last time I saw Gary which was what, about four or five years ago? And, uh, he gave me a big hug he was the same. We talked about Bets and Tiffah, you know, and I said hey, I hope I see ya sometime sooner than the last time I saw you. I mean, really, I have not seen Gary since the L.A. riots. I was at his house the day they broke out. That was that was it. Yeah, it was, yeah, no no that was the night of the day and the first thing in the morning it was going and I was at Gary's and he was like, oh shit man, fucking shit's hitting the fan. And I was, yeah, I was at his place up on Broome St. and then. I don't know, we talked for two minutes, you know. Yeah. He doesn't look as good. Thank god I looked when I cut my hair off. Ahhh. Another big day tomorrow. What? No this week has been particularly insane. I know. I mean we've just been non stop parties and events, I mean, it's really been a weird a strange strange week. I'm be glad to stop taping. How long do you think it will take me to type every word I've spoken this week? Probably what I'll work on in France. I'll probably just sit there and transcribe all this language from this week. I mean it's so easy to say words, you know how long it takes to type the sentence that I'm just speaking right now? A letter. Yeah, and how about just like gibberish? I've probably got 36 hours worth of tape. Yeah. Yeah, you don't speak at night and then there are some times when I'm when I'm sort of quiet. Believe it or not. So who else looked.. .

2007-09-25T12:43:00.000-07:00

Alain Robbe-Grillet – Jealousy

The window is closed. The courtyard is empty. The second driver must have parked the truck near the sheds, to wash it. In the place it usually occupies, all that remains is a large black spot contrasting with the dusty surface of the courtyard. There is a little oil which has dripped out of the motor, always in the same place.

It is easy to make this spot disappear, thanks to the flaws in the rough glass of the window: the blackened surface has merely to be brought into proximity with one of the flaws of the windowpane, by successive experiments.

The spot begins by growing larger, one of its sides bulging to form a rounded protuberance, itself larger than the initial object. But a few fractions of an inch farther, this bulge is transformed into a series of tiny concentric crescents which diminish until that are only lines, while the other side of the spot shrinks, leaving behind it a stalk-shaped appendage which bulges in its turn for a second; then suddenly everything disappears.

Behind the glass, now, in the angle determined by the central vertical frame and the horizontal cross-piece, there is only the grayish-beige color of the dusty gravel that constitutes the surface of the courtyard.

On the opposite wall, the centipede is there, in its tell-tale spot, right in the middle of the panel.

It has stopped, a tiny oblique line two inches long at eye level, halfway between the baseboard (at the hall doorway) and the corner of the ceiling. The creature is motionless. Only its antennae rise and fall one after the other in an alternating, slow, but continuous movement.

At its posterior extremity, the development of the legs—of the last pair especially, which are longer than the antennae—identifies it unquestionably as the Scutigera, also known as the "spider-centipede" or "minute-centipede," so called because of a native belief as to the rapidity of the action of its bite, supposedly mortal. Actually this species is not very venomous; it is much less so, in any case than many Scolopendra common in the region.

Suddenly the anterior part of the body begins to move, executing a rotation which curves the dark line toward the lower part of the wall. And immediately, without having time to go any further, the creature falls onto the tiles, still twisting and curling up its long legs while its mandibles rapidly open and close around its mouth in a quivering reflex.

Ten seconds later, it is nothing more than a reddish pulp in which are mingled the debris of unrecognizable sections.

But on the bare wall, on the contrary, the image of the squashed Scutigera is perfectly clear, incomplete but not blurred, reproduced with the faithfulness of an anatomical drawing in which only a portion of the elements are shown: an antenna, two curving mandibles, the head and the first joint, half of the second, a few large legs, etc. . . .

The outline seems indelible. It has no relief, none of the thickness of a dried stain which would come off if scratched at with a fingernail. It looks more like brown ink impregnating the surface layer of the paint.

Besides, it is not practical to wash the wall. This dull-finish paint is much more fragile than the ordinary gloss paint with linseed oil in it which was previously used on the walls of this room. The best solution would be to use an eraser, a hard, fine grained eraser which would gradually wear down the soiled surface—the typewriter eraser, for instance, which is in the top left desk drawer.

The slender traces of bits of legs or antennae come off right away, with the first strokes of the eraser. The larger part of the body, already quite pale, is curved into a question mark that becomes increasingly vague toward the tip of the curve, and soon disappears completely. But the head and the first joints require a more extensive rubbing: after losing its color, the remaining shape stays the same for quite a long time. The outlines have become only a little less sharp. The hard eraser passing back and forth over the same point does not have much effect now.

A complementary operation seems in order: to scratch the surface very lightly, with the corner of a razor blade. Some white dust rises from the wall. The precision of the tool permits the area exposed to its effect to be carefully determined. A new rubbing with the eraser now finishes off the work quite easily.

The stain has disappeared altogether. There now remains only a vaguely outlined paler area, without any apparent depression of the surface, which might pass for an insignificant defect in the finish, at worst.

The paper is much thinner nevertheless; it has become more translucid, uneven, a little downy. The same razor blade, bent between two fingers to raise the center of its cutting edge, also serves to shave off the fluff the eraser has made. The back of a fingernail finally smoothes down the last roughness.

In broad daylight, a closer inspection of the pale blue sheet reveals that two short pen strokes have resisted everything, doubtless because they were made two heavily. Unless a new word, skillfully arranged to cover up these two unnecessary strokes, replaces the old one on the page, the traces of black ink will still be visible there. Unless the eraser is used once again.