Please join us on Sunday, July 19, 2009 as we welcome

Vanessa Place and Peter Culley

LIVE at 21 Grand
6:30pm | 5 USD | 416 25th St Oakland, CA

VANESSA PLACE is a writer, lawyer, and co-director of Les Figues Press.

PETER CULLEY was born in Sudbury, Ontario in 1958 and

grew up on RCAF bases in Holberg, British Columbia, Cold Lake, Alberta, Dana, Saskatchewan, Clinton, Ontario and for four years in Ayr, Scotland. He has lived in and around Nanaimo since 1972 and now lives in the former coal-mining town of South Wellington, beside the main line of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. His books include Hammertown, The Age of Briggs & Stratton and To The Dogs (Arsenal Pulp Press).

ARTIST STATEMENT
Charles Bernstein

No Hiding Place

I thought language poetry was against emotion in the name of sensation
I thought language poetry was against theory in favor of praxis
I thought language poetry was lots of words making the most of meaning
I thought language poetry was the diehard foe of the massed mediocracy
I thought language poetry was a big tent without roof or floor
I thought language poetry was sympathy without tea
I thought language poetry was ambient sound in serial locomotion
I thought language poetry has branches in Paris, New York, Toronto, and Palm Springs
I thought language poetry was Marxist
I thought language poetry was anarchist
I thought language poetry was the antichrist
I thought language poetry was bourgeois aestheticism
I thought language poetry hated the voice
I thought language poetry was all voicing and never content
I thought language poetry was against realism
I thought language poetry was a new form of realism
I thought language poetry was against dogma
I thought language poetry refused its commissars
I thought language poetry was against closed groups
I thought language poetry was all thought in pursuit of potential action
I thought language poetry was Gertrude Stein all over again
I thought language poetry was trying to make the reader feel smart
I thought language poetry was wary of proclamations of sincere expression
I thought language poetry was a lot of nonsense packaged to look important
I thought language poetry was the possibility for freedom
I thought language poetry was the major precursor to word-salad email spam
I thought language poetry was short for L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry
I thought language poetry favored style over manner
I thought language poetry was too intellectual
I thought language poetry was too difficult to ignore
I thought language poetry was the cat’s scratch
I thought language poetry was neither a school nor a movement but a transient moment
I thought language poetry was a chimerical constellation
I thought language poetry was tendencies and investments not rules or orders
I thought language poetry was minor literature with a vengeance
I thought language poetry was a collective figment of a collective imagination
I thought language poetry was an illusion
I thought language poetry was over
I thought language poetry resists the authority of language poetry

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Charles Bernstein & Judith Goldman

(LISTEN TO THIS READING here and here)

6:30 pm  ||  $5 USD

416 25th St, Oakland, Calif.

CHARLES BERNSTEIN's books include Blind Witness: Three American Operas (Factory School), libretti for Ben Yarmolinksy's music; Girly Man (University of Chicago Press), now in paperback; Shadowtime (Green Integer), libretto for Brian Ferneyhough’s opera on Benjamin; Republics of Reality: 1975-1995 (Sun & Moor Press),  Content's Dream: Essays 1975-1984 (Northwestern), and Controlling Interests (Roof). He lives in New York and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania, where he co-directs PennSound. More info: http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/bernstein/.

JUDITH GOLDMAN is the author of Vocoder (Roof Books 2001) and DeathStar/Rico-chet (O Books 2006), as well as a chapbook, "The Dispossessions" (Atticus/Finch (forthcoming June 2009)).  Her work appears or will appear in recent issues of Wig, Parameter, 580 Split, onedit, model homes, and cannot exist.  She was a coeditor in the Krupskaya Collective from 2002 through 2004 and coedits the annual anthology War and Peace with Leslie Scalapino (#4 due out in June).  Currently, she teaches as a professor and Harper Schmidt Fellow in the arts humanities core and the creative writing department at the University of Chicago; at her home in Chicago, she has started an inter-arts performance series combining music, sound art, visual art and installation, and performance poetry.  

ARTIST STATEMENT -- David Buuck

I had the Dizziness

I had the Double vision

I had the Coordination problems

I had the Blurred vision

I had the Nausea

I had the Vomiting

I had the Drowsiness

I 11had the Irritated or runny nose

I had the Sore throat

I had the Cough

I had the Abdominal pain

I had the Insomnia

I had the Back Pain

I had the Headaches

I had the Shakiness

I had the Weakness

I had the Fatigue

I had the Flu-like Symptoms (such as body aches or chills)

I had the Indigestion

I had the Painful menstrual cramps

I had the Diarrhea

I had the Bronchitis

I had the Fever

I had the Dry mouth

I had the Constipation

I had the Chest pain

I had the Weight Loss

I had the Worsening of seizures

I had the Depression

I had the Anxiety

I had the Suicidal Thoughts

I had the Unusual Bruising

I had the Bladder infection

I had the Concentration problems

I had the Joint pain

I had the Loss of appetite

I had the Neck pain

I had the Sinus infection

I had the Sensitivity to the sun

I had the Nervousness

I had the Vertigo

I had the Memory loss

I had the Dry Skin

I had the Signs of Liver Damage, such as yellow eyes or skin

I had the Frequent Infections

I had the Signs of a dangerous allergic reaction

I had the Hives or any rash

I had the Swollen nodes

I had the Severe Muscle Pain

I had the Painful sores in or around the Mouth

I had the Swelling of the Lips or Tongue

I had the Suicidal Thinking or Behavior

I had the Vaginal infection or irritation

I had the Bloody nose

I had the Sweating

I had the Increased sex drive

I had the Speech problems

I had the Collaboratives

ARTIST STATEMENT -- Juliana Spahr

I frequently felt dizzy.

I lost my coordination.

I felt confused.

I felt restless.

I had memory loss.

I sweated a lot.

I had vivid dreams, vision changes, and fainting.

I had unusual feelings of well being.

I had blindness and low vision, visual disturbances, eye edema and swelling, eye irritation and itching, and conjunctivitis.

I had uncontrolled movements.

My eyes and skin were yellow.

I had gas.

I had nausea and vomiting.

I was shaking the entire time.

I had diarrhea and gastric symptoms.

I had constipation, dysphagia, and gastroesophageal reflux.

My urine was very dark.

I had an increased incidence of malformation, such as a short tail/short body and also vertebral disorganization.

I had the signs of infection.

I had a fever and persistent sore throat.

I was unusually pale.

I was unusually tired.

I had nipple discharge, breast swelling, and primary malignant breast neoplasm.

I had decreased inhibition, e.g., aggressiveness and extroversion that seem out of character, similar to that seen with alcohol.

I had bizarre behavior, agitation, hallucinations, and depersonalization.

I had complex behaviors such as “sleep-driving” (i.e., driving while not fully awake after ingestion of a sedative-hypnotic, with amnesia for the event) or I had other complex behaviors (e.g., preparing and eating food, making phone calls, or having sex).

I was rashy.

I had an itch and it swelled.

I had severe dizziness and trouble breathing.

I had drowsiness.

I had confusion.

I had coma.

I had respiratory depression.

I had hypotension.

I had hypovolemic shock.

I renally excreted 60% of this collaboration.

The additional 40% I excreted in my feces.

Whenever I got up from collaborating, I had to remember to get up slowly to minimize falls.

Please join us at 21 Grand

Sunday, May 17th @ 6:30 p.m.

Juliana Spahr & David Buuck

$5 USD
(liquids provided, BYOB encouraged)

JULIANA SPAHR was born in Buffalo; she was raised in Oakland; she went to school in Chillicothe; she retired in New York City; she died in Hawaii. Single children always read more. There were always places where the more natural, undeveloped areas surrounding the city would butt up against the outlying post-industrial sections of the city, and she'd find herself walking through these border zones, she'd silently name the plants to herself, the sages and the shuttered auto plants, the scrub brushes and the old rubber factory, the oaks and pines and the timber plant, the poison oak and ivies and vines and seasonal weeds and the plastic jewelry plant, and she'd name these things to herself and then take the pedestrian bridge across the river or turn down the dirt road that led to the parking lot behind the bar where she'd go for Thursday afternoon reading group, or back home to a heated kitchen, where she would take off her combat boots, pull on an extra pair of wool socks, and settle down on the rickety old couch with her notebook and pens.

There are many things that one can say about David Buuck and I will take this time to say some of them. When he danced as a child, he danced in agroup but he distinguished himself by gyrating his right foot up and down and around and at the same time raising his hands in the air over his head, his head bent back, shaking back and forth, a model of abandonment. He has deep emotions that he keeps in his eyes and sometimes these emotions leak out and project kindness and generosity and this might cause someone near him at those moments to say, oh how I love this guy, more than anger and jealousy, although he has those other emotions also. Many years ago, he went to many a sleepover where everyone had their own sleeping bags and they all piled them on top of one another in a sort of slippery, static-y sleeping bag bacchanal, sweating, screaming, writhing and this moment felt so good to him, oh how happy he felt at this moment, and he has never been able to recapture this feeling of contained and warm and slippery thrashing with and near others and somemore schooled in the psychoanalytic arts might begin their analysis of David Buuck’s sexualized relations with other humans with this feeling of loss.

STATEMENT FOR 21 GRAND -- CHET WIENER


Take the privilege of being asked or any decision

Given the transforms along with the privilege of

Being asked or take any opportunity or any time

Between the granted and the granting as if saying

Pieces of language lean one way or another or

One could pick the path scour or disperse or as

If we all could pick etc and discern or derive

Looking forward to the next step calling on

Notions of step and or about leaning one or

Another and or who picks or experiences what is

Experienced or changed when it is potentially

Who as the what makes or in choices modes

Illustrate foreground partaking if you stop

Another ripple gauging feel from repetition or

Divide including from the confidence of going on

Notwithstanding any abundance or echo makes

Goes gauges why anyone would poised in leaning

Balance recognize an ancillary rank step whether

Back or otherwise mutual give and take sense one

Or another already however much you grant along



ARTIST'S STATEMENT -- TAN LIN

SOM Heath by Tan Lin by Kristen Gallagher by Wikipedia

I think of Tan Lin as someone who tries to bring reformat art practice the systems of reading & writing and also to outsource the space of the book. When you read Tan’s new book Heath: Plagiarism/Outsource –it helps to LOOK at it. You’ll see a lot of obvious cut and pasted stuff from the web, and a lot of unformatted text. As a matter of fact, it reminds me of the typical student plagiarized paper, the way a chunk of prose copied from an ASCII environment and then pasted into Word produces odd line breaks and shows up in courier, the ugliest of all fonts.

As a matter of fact, on the 2nd or 3rd page (it’s hard to say which page because in a book like this the front matter and the colophon are as much poetry as the rest of it) you see a close up of what looks like a description of an electronic book from Project Gutenberg, referring to ASCII as the format in which the following text will appear.

ASCII means no font specified: a “plain” code for the appearance of the western alphabet on computers. It’s what came with the original email environments: unix, pine, etc, where there was no choice of font or style by the user—just text as it is defined at the root level of the operating system. Flavorless, unstyled text.

ASCII, or American Standard Code for Information Exchange, is a coding standard. And this is important for thinking about Tan’s work, plagiarized and outsourced as it is. In a recent inteview on Pennsound with Charles Bernstein, Tan says of his forthcoming book Seven Controlled Vocabularies that he’s interested in creating “not a book, but a reading environment” I think you can see that tendency in all his publications. Heath: Plagiarism Outsource constantly makes it clear that it is playing with ignoring or maybe even disrespecting the conventions of the book. Some text copied and pasted from a Google search result for an article “The Arts of Contingency” runs right through the margin, into the fold of the book.

BlipSoak splays single lines of text across facing pages and works with varying font sizes in a way that suggests less a book-object than a video game that moves through words, or some other immersive environment—something you zoom in on or gradually “rez” into.

These textual strategies make it clear that Tan Lin is interested in ambient language, a transitory area of language practice, rather than the more typical avant-garde move of challenging the reader/listener to hang closely at the edge of the word or the line. In web development, a mashup is a Web application that combines data from one or more sources into a single integrated tool. The term Mashup implies easy, fast integration, frequently done by access to open APIs and data sources to produce results that were not the original reason for producing the raw source data. He wants you to be bored, perhaps like you are sitting at your computer taking in the news feeds on Jessica Simpson’s latest boyfriend, or in the presence of (but not exactly watching) a long, slow movie in the late night hours. Tan says, “I want people to relax, and if you fall asleep, that’s ok too.”

In Heath: Plagiarism Outsource we are in an environment of what, most of the time, feels like an RSS feed—a syndication format that gathers content from blogs, online news sources and other frequently updated web sites and pulls it into a single location, allowing you to, as you “surf” the web, also “build your own newspaper.” The foreground of the book presents a series of Project Gutenberg descriptions of the etext of Samuel Pepys, the famous diarist, while the main character who pops up throughout is Heath Ledger—the ultimate absent subject—whose death and “troubled life” appear as a series repetitions from news feeds and blog entries.

Speaking of “absent subjects,” here the “self” is present only through rumors, reports, data sets, and standardized consumer choices. The content is sometimes described as being "pulled" to the subscriber, as opposed to "pushed" with email or IM. Unlike recipients of some "pushed" information, the aggregator user can easily unsubscribe from a feed. The subject becomes more like a quadrant of the ocean--porous, saturated, clearly marked off but strangely indefinite—not internal experience, but an atmospheric condition produced by wavelengths, repetitions and redundancies.

Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates. Towards the front of the book, a reader will find this text: “Heath: or Samuel: was not “something inserted into the video: they were watching on You Tube “ “ (ie storage) but something taken away or outsourced (dissemination), i.e. the process was more like erasing each other (plagiarism) rather than viewing.”

Though the art data [environment] of this book is not entirely about viewing, rather about re-distributing observing texts and the meta data component construction of authors, there is something theatrical about the project. Today, RSS and BitTorrent based broadcatching provides a web based distribution channel capable of delivering broadcast media to a large group of consumers at a low cost. BitTorrent provides the low cost method for distributing large files to a large group, and RSS enables a website to easily provide a subscription to a series of BitTorrent files. The book opens with a series of ambient, half-heard language you get entering a theatre, “tickets for film programs in theatre 3 are available at the Museum lobby information desk,” alerting the reader that there’s a bit of a show [observation] being put on here, but the show will not be spectacular, it will be filled with the banal stuff no other poet would ever put in his or her writing.

“like a descriptive catalog of 40 or 50 different sweaters in an American Apparel or J. Crew catalog that are the same except for their colors, and // [they] [you] are beautiful pop ups”

THIS INTRODUCTION WRITTEN BY KRISTEN GALLAGHER AND DELIVERED AT THE SEGUE READING SERIES AT THE BOWERY POETRY CLUB APRIL 11, 2009, WITH ENTRIES FROM WIKIPEDIA AND EMENDATIONS ENTERED LATER, FOR A READING SPONSORED BY 21 GRAND AND SMALL PRESS TRAFFIC. EOM

Saturday, April 18

The (New) Reading Series at 21 Grand and Small Press Traffic present
Tan Lin & Chet Wiener

6:30 pm
5 USDollars

(refreshments provided; BYOB encouraged)

416 25th St. (at Broadway), Oakland

TAN LIN is the author of Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe, BlipSoak01, Ambience is a Novel with a Logo, and Heath (Plagiarism/Outsource). 7 Controlled Vocabularies and Obituary is forthcoming from Wesleyan University Press. His work has appeared in numerous journals including Conjunctions, The Boston Review, Artforum, Cabinet, Hambone, the New York Times Book Review, New American Writing, Tripwire, The Voice Literary Supplement, Artforum, the World, Art in America, and Purple. His video, theatrical and LCD work have been shown at the Marianne Boesky Gallery, the Yale Art Museum, the Sophienholm Museum (Copenhagen), the Ontological Hysterical Theatre, and at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Soundcheck Series.

Lin is the recipient of a Getty Distinguished Scholar Grant for 2004-2005 and a Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Arts Writing Grant. He has taught at the University of Virginia and Cal Arts, and currently teaches creative writing at New Jersey City University. He is completing a book on the writings of Andy Warhol.

He has just completed a sampled novel, entitled Our Feelings Were Made by Hand.

CHET WIENER writes poetry in English and French. He is the author of a book of poems in French, Devant l’abondance (P.O.L 2003) and the chapbook WalkDontWalk (Potes and Poets 1999). He has translated Félix Guattari, Pierre Alferi, among others, into English, co-edited, with Stacy Doris, the collection of translations: Christophe Tarkos; Ma Langue est Poétique (Roof Books, 2000), and his poems, translations and essays on translation have appeared in publications in the United States and France. He is a specialist in 16th-century French literature and philosophy, translates for the French Ministries of Culture and European and Foreign Affairs and writes medical filing documents for review by the FDA and other regulatory agencies internationally. He lives in San Francisco.