effing blog

effers

jay faulkner, doug warriner, farid matuk

thursday none

there are no minutes for this past thursday night.  hard to write when you are on fire.  can't remember from which side my head blew out but it's there, on the wall, a paisley-like smear. 

The heap of Thursday night

Nine souls on board.  They are so named Philip, Jay, Farid, David Ha., David He., Pat, Scott, Mark, and Zach.

pre-group

talk of indeterminacy before the mass arrive, talk of Tom Clark, was he an ass kicker in his youth?  possibly.  talk of Kyger, talk of Bolinas.  Reminisce the beach scene one year ago, also the poem "J.K. hit my pipe!" co-written with Anna Eyre, ages ago it seems, a best day of my life. 

what follows henceforth are my jottings from the night's readings by the peops mentioned above.  fill in the blanks as you like.  if you can find the blanks.

there is a message, there is no message, street report, the point is the point, the point is the underlying texture of eventuality, the fabric of things subversive and dark, this city is violence, is funny

read a letter from Lucas in St Petersburg. blood in a parking lot or elevator in every letter. nazi youth, hard rooskies. star in helsinki.

reads W Benjamin, work vs. gambling (opposites). previous earnings not considered in a gamble, workman loses pride for work, gambling - psuedotension, polarized emptiness, trace of participation (captivity). simulife.

spectacle makes time

jay sketch in corner, sock-less.  concern for paper in posture.

quickpoems. 

the stiffness.

selective glimpse of the plan. how figures figure in the mind. existence in change. (Gilgamesh). primitive victory in speech. attention as application.  summoned to various office.  moves along with his gun.  depths of stupidity.  "look and leave."  nice n dead in a cold, fishy way.  rough portrait of community.  essential conservatism of method.  modern mind struggle up through undergrowth of ordinary.

contents / components of contents.  chance and mood: remember our appeals.  didactic content mashed in. improper behavior manager. hours of sleeping, waking, ignoring mental furniture within ongoing composition. predominant motif - infrastructure of oafs possibly to be written in. mimetic action, the passing hours seemed many. 

world view in long run lost to grinding particulars

innocence lost that never was

array of good / bad men

NEVER BE AN EXPERT ON ANYONE

consider yourself unnecessary, ineffable in charge of ineffable.  abstract (cap A) refuses its involvement and sells for millions.

deny composition.  write headlines.

visual roughage.

read from Melville's joruanls.  Instanbul.  how many mosques can one man visit in one day.

remove shoes before entering.  more sensible than removing a hat.  muddy boots vs. muddy head.

love the Melville.  he gives good walking tour.

tidy the studio

gather beer bottles

empty ash trays

good night effing room

you held us pretty good

-

take out the trash.

pills. Thursday night, the minutes

I never post the minutes of Thursday night anymore.  Nobody takes the actual minutes anymore.  We still start at 9pm and go to whenever.  Now we do it in the effing studio where Philip's paintings grace the wall and the windows let in the warm, gentle wind.

so let us revive the minutes of thursday night however inaccurate.  here it is from my slowhead 15 hours later:

participants:  Ty, Scott, Philip, Doug, Christine, Jay, Mark and David.  That's David Hess for those blogheads in the know.

xanax, coil of light rope on the floor, drape them over your shoulders when you read, read poems from our sheaths, nothing from Doug or Jay, Jay sketches in his pad, Christine reads from 01 and new stuff overhead at last Thursday night, Ty reads two poems, Mark two short stories, Philip a long suite of beautifully wrought complaints, I with my slur lines meaningless, AB's fine effing manuscript under my arm but never got to it, David speaks of Breton and Mexico, talk of Surrealists painters other than Dali, talk of Eluard, other stuff, some stuff, hold off on the cigarettes, okay I smoked 2, some warm beers, brewing storm, heavy wind, sideways rain, falling limbs, lightning, Ty called away - house flooded, listen to KJ's "33 Rules for Poets 23 and Under" piped through laptop (hey, downtown Austin now has free wireless internet, and we are downtown, so if you come see us and you stay at Effing B&B you get free wireless, computer not included, stick that in your pocket), talk, more talk, some silence, burning plant, storm speculation, post-rain coolness, midnight, folks sleepy, leave,  Doug and I stay, find places on floor and snooze, wake at 2, look at each other, huh that was weird, see ya, someone already put the garbage on the street. 

HD in my ear

My mind was totally blown last night in our Thursday night session when we listened to a recording of HD reading from Helen in Egypt.  If I were to hear someone around me speaking like that I would drop to the ground and lock my arms around their legs for all time.  O!

You can find the recording at http://factoryschool.org/content/sounds/havanaglen.html.

the minutes of Thursday night

Who:  myself, Philip Trussell, Eric Furbish, Doug Warriner, Farid Matuk

Where:  Philip's studio

Heat, mosquitoes, ice cold beer, wheat crackers.

decipher this best I can

read from Olson's accounts of meeting Pound for the first time at St. Elizabeth's.

Frida Kahlo memoir I Will Never Forget You: Frida Kahlo to Nick Murray (Farid is reviewing for P******** Weekly).  The stache was her thing.  NM's photographs look fake and beautiful.  Basically invented modern fashion photog.  We scrutinize the possible lighting scenarios for several shots. 

Scott reads dream poem "I smite in the ever brightening sun shard..."

Farid reads his poem "Do the Moth".  His poems break my heart, his deliberate incantation, precise repetition.  Bring you back to the vital noun.

Doug reads ranch poems, his trademark character sketches.

Eric recounts his wild dream, his wild "thump it against the fence" dream.  Mustache to the nape of the neck!

Philip wax on:

no vision sanctioned...free of hard facts (the new young)...functionalist attitude toward time...if still in the habit of blanking the brutal impact of the real...syntactic sprawl...the happy-to-just-be-babbling...pay rent to the underplex...all backs to the storefront as the transformation passes...postponing in advance all upward mind... "adrenaline hotplate"...sullen-faced laptopery.

PC is one big rubber on your brain

read Spicer, we love it, drunk and stunned.

Farid is bleeding.  (We took a break outside for air.  Doug then Farid rode Eric's bike around the lot across the street.  Farid returned bleeding and bruised.  Crashed in the alley where the gravel is loose.  Skinned palm and knee.  He seems calm.  Philip applies Peroxide, a little blood drips down the shin the remainder of the night, poor dude. )

A "Popish butt"?  Someone mentions this.  I cannot explain.

Philip is reading Spicer aloud. I'm writing this.  Farid is still bleeding.  Eric is poised at the edge of the bed one hand over another, listening.  Doug is crosslegged - will leave when he can drive.

some stuff is taking flight

one keeps reading the stuff

clock ticking thursday night

here's a sound emitted, I

mean: __________

--

Farid is bleeding (a poem)

negotiating alleyways

is tough drunk

bicycle or not

line up the humans along the curb.  garbage cans high five and stagger home to sleep.  Until next week.

the minutes of Thursday night

A little late posting this but here is a jumble jangle of drunken notes from Thursday night (not necessarily my own which were most illegible)

Participants:  myself, Doug Warriner, Philip Trussell, Eric Furbish, and Farid Matuk.
Location:  Philip's studio

coffee, beer, soda.  wheat crackers.  and earth heat.  and earth heat.

it started outside, scattered around the stoop, each adding to the beer pile.  doug excited to talk about the fiddle shop he'd been to and the stand-up-bass like a pregnant lady in the cab of his truck - "i'll hit you in the baby."  inside Philip read some full-lined poems, tipping his normal scale a little away from the discursive and toward the phenomenal (maybe even he'd qualify those terms to within an inch of their lives).

-

Doug fucked with the a/c.  not really, but some thought so.

Scott with a suite of parking lot poems.

Doug evoked so-and-so in panties.

Farid stumbled over some old notes.

Eric kept his beautiful posture.

-

aion and kundalini.  the same fluid directed upward becomes intellect, directed downward becomes sperm.  homunculus, out of nowhere.

doug in a snowfield punched from the inside by clear boy.

jefferson / adams letters.  weavers in virginia (?) are better than those in massachusetts (?).

farid, shirtless.

'slimefall of slang'

the people you trust absolutely.  observing without understanding.

phillip says 'goodnight house' and blows a kiss.

drag the cans, etc and dump the cans.  See you next week.

the minutes of Thursday night

4 participants:  Philip Trussell, Farid Matuk, Eric Furbish and myself.

rough notes

a Geof Huth show n tell.  Yesterday I received a generous parcel from Geof Huth full of broadsides, chapbooks, and various printed matter.  We went through a lot of it.  Had fun with his one word/combined word poems and invented alphabets

cheese n crackers

Real Ale (Blanco Pale)

6 new paintings on the west wall.  More nudes, awash in copper, blue, red, and brown, and two black n whites.  A scattering of color on the canvas in progress on the easel

Discuss the art of Rackstraw Downs (book provided by Farid).  Best name ever.  Also the art of Fairfield Porter (whom Downs studied with at Yale), and Kenneth Irby.  All great names.

Frank Stella pinstripes. 

"Who?" someone asks.   "Motherfucker," Philip answers.

Philip reads from his own notes:

"...behind the haggard light of both-handed immediacy..."

"...launch order at opening puddle..."

"...audience in action complete in participation..."

"...steamy cattle..."

"...brain-shaped magma..."

"...whose food-for-thought might we be?..."

"...handwipe cliches to mop up any misconception of artistic intention..."

Take in some fresh air outside beside the house, rap about painting and printing.  Philip explicates decision in late 60's to not go to New York to become famous.  Get off the grid instead.  Invest in one's own learning and exloration of self. 

Then back inside the oven-hot studio.  Budweiser nascar tallboys.  for that neck experience.  gripping / crushing the face of Dale Jr.

Eric reads from his dream journal:

"...inner space like horsestalls..."

"...when I turn to the ocean I throw all of this off guard..."

"...dirt promenade..."

"...car flooded, push it back to land in France, every space taken by advertisement..."

"...dad's at his most square..."

"...poker chips form goose V's in the air..."

Discussion:  talking up/down (ref.  Ali G)

Philip: 

"departing from what I know I'm doing...refusal of the contract of being real...no amount of sincerity...yet you know control gives birth to dead things...consider the mind...poetry always seems larger than any craft... your will:  bound to be destructive to oneself and other people...  you should know you are not eternity...enforcement of your will to communicate with another that you have the truth and he does not is in error ..."

Cage:  no occult

Burroughs:  occult

Scott reads exploder notes and poems writ in parking lot at work.  beer buzzed, discusses his problems with exloder poetic.  notes toward containment, want the opposite.  leads to discussion of tightness or cohesiveness in manuscript.  then the general idea of manuscript and tightness.  poets writing toward an end.  book still the prize.  cohesiveness a current winning trait.  discuss indeterminacy.  a note to self to look for essay by ? (sontag?  howe?  whom?) "Indeterminate Poetics" somewhere in a box along with Brakhage notes and essays.

egyptian perception, first toke on good reefer

90% more of the messaging the Immanent is sending to you

full of intent

means to move through you, change your being

event particles

tune antennae

WCW:  the great concrete

Duncan: the great reverberator

enacting vs. discription

Farid reads some art crit

no Spicer tonight, Farid reads into our eyes, we chin we look down we agree we turn inward, do stuff with our hands

antiromantic burbs (rise into ruin)

Nutron bomb to leave infrastructure standing.  Readymade architecture, foregone, looks good a month or two, or: money shows itself soon after (consider Frost Bank Tower)

ideacity

Idea City

buildings begin to look like computer jobs.  undone.  owls embedded in local towers of glass and brick

shinless highrise

post 911 height fear, twin tits houston-style

buildings of the mind, philip's paintings early 80's, megolithic, cyclopic stones, stairways to stuff.  "I called it Ruins of the Future", he said.  Solid buildings, unenterable. 

ziggurat

wave your arms

tourists queued for the future spank, smooth to drive through

---

exuent.  gather paper, books, beer cans, the millions of geof huth ephemera.  move the garbage cans to the curb.

until next week.

the minutes of thursday night

Each Thursday night I meet with a group of fellas and we read poems and notes - our own as well as from books both new and old - and chat about art, music, and poetry and whatever else that comes up.  We have been meeting like this for nearly two years and there have only been a few weeks when we did not meet at all. 

This Thursday as usual we met at Philip Trussell's studio.  Participants were Philip, Eric Furbish, Doug Warriner, Farid Matuk, and myself.  Some of us drank beer, some of us coffee or soda.  Three new paintings of Philip's were on the west wall of the studio. Nudes in scenes of complex dream light.  Deep browns and reds and cool limes and pinks.   A half-painted canvas leaned on an easel beneath a lamp.

• Began the session with a round robin of lines from various issues of Combo magazine which I had received in the mail a few days before.  This was good fun full of interesting accidents and one, using this method, can get the feel of this strange, often funny poetry journal.  As each person reads one random line from a random page the eye scans quickly for a conjunction or enjambment from his own random page that it might carry the grammatics of the previous line.  There were instances in which the lines fit together seamlessly and the results were often hilarious.  There was one string in which 3 or 4 of us randomly chose lines that used the word "blood."  Using lines from a Drew Gardner or Kassey Silem Mohamed poem usually increased the humor factor.  We did this, surprisingly, for at least forty five minutes.   It's a great way to have fun with poetry journals.

• Some of us read from our own poems.  I had nothing.  Philip read a small lyric poem, Farid a set of journal entries, Eric read some dream accounts, and Doug gave us new poems for the first time in months.  (I didn't keep notes this time so I have no key lines for ye.)

• Continued on with The Collected Books of Jack Spicer, beginning with the second book Admonitions then on to the next, and then a few more, then a few more.  "This is the most important letter you will ever receive" he wrote to Robin Blaser. 

• I smoked cigarettes on the side porch, watched their faces through the window fan, the amber tones of lamp lit bookshelves and drawings.  People bent toward each other in discussion, knees almost touching.  A voice or two coming through the oscillations of a couple of fans.  Moths and junebugs bounce off a light bulb.

• Before going home some time past midnight we drag the trash and recycling bins into the street and line em up between parked cars.  Finish our beers in the moon light in front of the house.  Laugh a little, commenting on some earlier lines.  Hugs, then off to sleep.  Until next week...