2018.05 Otoliths 49

2018.05 Otoliths 49

I'd already put this piece online here: Butt Poetry before it got published as part of the online Otoliths 49 . The whole issue is here: https://the-otolith.blogspot.com.au/2018/03/issue-forty-nine-southern-autumn-2018.html & my page is here: https://the-otolith.blogspot.com.au/2018/02/tentatively-convenience.html . Part one, the b&w part of issue forty-nine of Otoliths, 302 pages, $US 16.45, Direct link: http://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young-editor/otoliths-issue-forty-nine-part-one/paperback/product-23634742.html . Part two, the full color part of issue forty-nine of Otoliths: 256 page, $US 41.45, Direct link: http://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young-editor/otoliths-issue-forty-nine-part-two/paperback/product-23634761.html . The piece is self-explanatory. What isn't self-explanatory is what an extraordinary 2 volume book "Otoliths" 49 makes. If the other 48 issues are this stunning then I hope libraries all over the world are collecting them.

- tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE note, May 15, 2018E.V.

review of

the Mark Young edited "Otoliths issue forty-nine, parts one & two"

by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE - June 25, 2018

https://www.goodreads.com/story/show/1001592-otoliths

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2443504634

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40696440-otoliths-issue-forty-nine-parts-one-two

This whole issue is available online ( https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2018/03/issue-forty-nine-southern-autumn-2018.html ) but b/c I have something it it ( http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/Book2018.05Otoliths49.html ) I bought both volumes for my aRCHIVE. As I wrote for the latter webpage: "What isn't self-explanatory is what an extraordinary 2 volume book "Otoliths" 49 makes. If the other 48 issues are this stunning then I hope libraries all over the world are collecting them." See for yourself. The 1st volume's black & white, the 2nd's color.

Ostensibly, the online version is no different from the hard copy. However, that's not true, the hard-copy lacks the bios. My online bio says this:

"tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE self-describes as a:

Mad Scientist / d composer / Sound Thinker / Thought Collector / As Been /

PIN-UP (Postal Interaction Network Underground Participant) /

Headless Deadbeat of the Pup tENT Cult /

booed usician / Low Classicist / H.D.J. (Hard Disc Jockey) /

Psychopathfinder / Jack-Off-Of-All-Trades / criminally sane /

Homonymphonemiac / Practicing PromoTextual /

Air Dresser /

Sprocket Scientist / headitor & earchivist / Explicator /

Sexorcist /

Professional Resister of Character Defamation /

Proponent of Classification-Resistant What-Have-Yous /

tOGGLE nUT cASE /

Princess of Dorkness's Right Hand Man /

Human Attention-ExSpanDex Speculum /

Imp Activist /

SPLEENIUS / Cognitive Dissident

He's written 13 bks (all published in some form or another), made 504 movies, has 208 audio publications, is an early & very active member of the neoist movement & a SAINT in the Church of the SubGenius. More info than anyone is ever likely to read is available here:

http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl

but why stop there? He further recommends that you become completely obsessive & go here too:

http://www.youtube.com/user/onesownthoughts

&/or:

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1054095.tENTATIVELY_a_cONVENIENCE"

- https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2018/02/tentatively-convenience.html

As such, the online version is more complete. The printed matter version is somewhat expensive but that's understandable b/c it's beautifully done.

I didn't take many review notes about this as I read it. Basically, it's contemporary poetry w/ a higher quantity of Visual Poetry than most compilations might offer. That's enough for me.

Starting on page 8 there's Lauren O'Connor's "THE HIGHWAY QUEEN: an interview with Louise Landes Levi". I found her interesting. She was part of a performance group about wch she had very interesting things to say:

"The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company - was the first fusion orchestra in America. It didn't become wildly famous, like the orchestras that followed, the Mahavishnu Orchestra or Theater of Eternal Music, in NYC - but there were some great musicians who were involved, Terry Riley, Agnus MaCleise," [I assume that this is meant to be Angus MacLise] "Suzi Archuletta & others. After I left, magnetized by my sarangi teacher & by the instrument, (for better or for worse) there was a write up about the opera in Rolling Stone. Within two weeks of that article, an apparently charismatic individual - Ian Dallas - arrived in Berkeley. Within the next two weeks, the director, the assistant director and his wife, who was my best friend, converted to Shiite Islam. The opera stood for communal, utopian values. It was dissolved and its major proponents were absorbed, at least I think, into a kind of mind control program for the next decade, or so. Linda and Richard Thompson, fr. England's The Fairport Convention were also sucked in. I didn't know the details & the consequences suffered by those involved until 30 years later. My friend fr. California had been a close friend of Linda's in all this. Nothing against the Muslims, some members of that group, friends of mine, did make, in London, a very beautiful & recently released recording (on vinyl) Habibiya but I don't think Ian Dallas was the real thing. I think he was working for the man. He destroyed our opera and he destroyed the spirit of my best friend, who was a really brilliant female musician." - pp 12-13, part 1

Fascinating. Levi's search for spiritual enlightenment is an extraordinary narrative but it seems to me that the lesson to be learned from the above is that most or all such quests are prey to authoritarian megalomaniac control freaks & that that's <i>intrinsic</i> to the way all religions operate.

If there are any recordings of "The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company" I'd definitely like to hear them. Terry Riley's having been involved is enuf to interest me right there. Angus MacLise is reputed to've been the 1st drummer w/ The Velvet Underground & was also in The Theatre of Eternal Music. He's described on Wikipedia as "A heavy drug user who was never particularly mindful of his physical health, MacLise died of hypoglycemia and pulmonary tuberculosis at the Shanta Bhawan Hospital in Kathmandu on June 21, 1979, aged 41. The cause of death has also been attributed to malnutrition. He was cremated to the traditions of Tibetan Buddhists in a funeral pyre." ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angus_MacLise ) I quote the negative part of the bio b/c I think it ties in w/ the 'spiritual' aspect. Here's an excerpt from the Wikipedia entry re the opera:

"The opera company was based in North Berkeley, California, from around 1966 to sometime in 1969, and for three years presented two major musical ritual dramas, The Walls Are Running Blood, and Bliss Apocalypse. The cast, crew and orchestra members were primarily enthusiastic amateurs, many originally painters or artists in other mediums who were intrigued with the vision of The Floating Lotus and eager to participate in what was a celebration and expression of the tribal consciousness "in the air" in Berkeley, California at that very explosive and expressive time. Often, however, the orchestra in particular was graced with actual musicians of some stature, such as poet and musician Angus MacLise (formerly of the Velvet Underground), poet, musician and translator Louise Landes Levi, light-artist and musician Daniel Conrad, writer and musician Marc Allen and others. Internationally famous composer Terry Riley occasionally played his erhu with the orchestra and provided some musical direction, as did Ramon Sender, who spent some time coaching the players and dancers as well." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_Lotus_Magic_Opera_Company

I was surprised to learn from reading the above that a friend of mine was a member & that Riley played erhu rather than keyboards or saxes. It's also interesting to me that Levi describes the group as "the first fusion orchestra in America". When I think of what I thought was the most commonly used musical sense of "fusion" I think of music that combines jazz & rock. On Wikipedia the category of "Fusion music genres" is divided into 35 subcategories w/ 79 pages discussing them. The closest I find to the apparent sense of Levi's usage is "Shaman punk" & "World music". Levi's usage seems to mean a fusion of cultures, in this case, perhaps, a fusion of hippie & Buddhist culture - w/ World Music in there somewhere. I'd probably credit The Incredible String Band as important in this area but they weren't "in America" so they don't really apply to Levi's claim.

As for Ian Dallas? I'd never heard of him - but then I take it for granted that charismatic religious leaders are megalomaniac control freaks looking for weak-minded individuals to manipulate. As such, if the director & assistant director of the Opera converted to his religion w/in 2 wks then that doesn't say much for their resistance to mind-control does it? If you follow the torch of the charismatic leader you might just find him or her burning your life w/ it. I looked up Dallas online & found an article wch I quote briefly:

"Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi has founded mosques in England, Spain and South Africa but clearly his hatred is clear for all to see. Of course, he likes to use words like kafir but of course when he was born he was but a poor and lost kafir who then found Sunni versions of Islam along the Sufi path of hatred and he hates in abundance.

"Indeed, it amazes me why many Muslim converts try to rise even higher up the hatred ladder but maybe it is because of the need to belong? Sadly, it appears that age will not mellow Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi and instead he just espouses hatred and clearly much of this hatred is aimed at the Shia."

[..]

"In the article I mention the Sufi leader of hatred can't hide his loathing and somehow the person born Ian Dallas is now entering the Sunni-Shia sectarian world. Of course, to this religious bigot called Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, then he, like Osama bin Laden, deems the Shia to be un-Muslim.

"Yes, Ian Dallas is clearly in the schizophrenia world of radical Sunni Islam where this non-Muslim convert to Islam is now telling people who are or who are not Muslim. Despite this, his deluded followers will either turn a blind eye or if they have been brainwashed enough, then they will probably follow the same path of hatred." - https://islamicpersecution.wordpress.com/tag/ian-dallas-the-convert-to-hate/

The above-quoted article's from June 3, 2011. Maybe Dallas is still at it. Don't be put off by the somewhat awkward English of the above. The article's from the "Modern Tokyo Times" & English might not've been its 1st language. Lest you think that the Modern Tokyo Times is a daily hard-copy newspaper:

"Modern Tokyo Times is a fully interactive e-journal that mainly publishes in-house articles. At the same time, Modern Tokyo Times is honored to have the right to publish major international think tanks in the area of terrorism and geopolitics.

"Modern Tokyo Times is always looking for positive partnerships, investment, independent writers that can fit neatly within our target area and other areas related to finance, social media and members to support our independent work." - http://moderntokyotimes.com/about/

Maybe English is their 1st language. Dunno.

"Abdalqadir as-Sufi (born Ian Dallas in Ayr, Scotland in 1930) is a Shaykh of Instruction, leader of the Darqawi-Shadhili-Qadiri Tariqa, founder of the Murabitun World Movement and author of numerous books on Islam, Sufism and political theory. Born in Scotland, he was a playwright and actor before he converted to Islam in 1967 with the Imam of the Qarawiyyin Mosque in Fez, Morocco."

[..]

"Abdalqadir as-Sufi advocates adherence to the original legal school of Islam, the tradition of the people of Medina as recorded by Malik ibn Anas, since he considers this the primal formulation of Islamic society and a necessity for the re-establishment of Islam in the current age.

"Abdalqadir has been responsible for the establishment of the Ihsan Mosque in Norwich, England, the Great Mosque of Granada, and the Jumu'a Mosque of Cape Town

"Abdalqadir as-Sufi teaches that suicide terrorism is forbidden under Islamic law, that its psychological pattern stems from nihilism, and that it "draws attention away from the fact that capitalism has failed." He has stated that Britain is on "the edge of terminal decline" and that only Britain's Muslim population can "revitalise this ancient realm". He has written extensively on the importance of monarchy and personal rule. He also regards the face-veil (or Niqab) of Muslim women as unislamic. describing it as an "evil hinduisation of women".

"In 2006, he issued a fatwa, following a visit and speech given by then Pope Benedict XVI in Germany. In his Fatwa Concerning the Deliberations of Pope Benedict XVI in Germany, he stated that "in my opinion, Pope Benedict XVI is guilty of insulting the Messenger of Allah". He was an early mentor of American Sufi scholar, Hamza Yusuf."

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdalqadir_as-Sufi

Ok, I'm an anarchist, so it's no surprise that I get as fucking sick as I do of all this talk about Islamic law. Islamic law, like any law, serves the purpose of keeping some people, like Abdalqadir as-Sufi, in power while criminalizing &/or demonizing whoever gets in the way of that. To quote myself: "We are all UNEQUAL under the LAW & THAT is its PURPOSE". The fact that the world keeps producing sheep for Dallas to shear is a depressing one but it shows how intrinsic it is to most people to think they need to be subserviant. Der Untertan. Get a life!

At any rate, you can read the entire interview w/ Levi here: https://the-otolith.blogspot.com/2018/02/lauren-oconnor.html . Otoliths is full of work by people I know & people I don't know - both, of course, of interest. Jim Leftwich is someone in between those 2 categories, we've brushed presences in passing for many yrs &'re social networking friends but we've never communicated much. My interest in his piece here was excited by his mention of Sun Ra's "Magic City" record, one of my personal favorites:

"Sun Ra is from Birmingham, Alabama, nicknamed The Magic City because of its rapid growth. Roanoke is called the magic city for the same reason.. Magic business financing the Pocahontas coalfields." - p 33, part 1

Interesting. Each section of Leftwih's piece has a boldface heading specifying what he's listening to as he's writing. Most of it is music I know & like. "Anthony Davis - Episteme" (p 40, part 1) Given my obsession w/ music this appeals to me. Sometimes when I write reviews I list what I'm listening to. Lately, I've mainly been iistening to a 16 volume tape retrospective that I assembled of Pierre Boulez's music or work that he conducted. In this rm, tho, the rm that I'm writing this review in, my personal library, I've been listening to "Two Halves Volume Three", a compilation of duets curated by & published on BandCamp by {AN} EeL ( https://panpanpanaviandistresscall.bandcamp.com/album/two-halves-volume-three ).

Clara B. Jones contributes a "Love Sonnet" wch doesn't surprise me by not being in traditional sonnet form but wch I enjoyed as something that might be looking at various notions of what constitutes 'love' in 14 numbered sentences:

"1. You planned a life together, but something went terribly wrong."

"11. What happend to Kathleen Cleaver?" - p 116, part 1

What did happen to Kathleen Cleaver, (married to Eldriidge Cleaver)?

"After leaving Eldridge, Kathleen Cleaver went back to university in 1981, receiving a full scholarship from Yale University. She graduated in 1984, Phi Beta Kappa and summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. In 1987, she divorced Eldridge Cleaver. She then continued her education by getting her law degree from Yale Law School in 1989. After graduating, she worked for the law firm of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and followed this with numerous jobs including: law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia under Judge A. Higginbotham, the faculty of Emory University in Atlanta, visiting faculty member at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, the Graduate School of Yale University and Sarah Lawrence College.

"In 2005, Cleaver was selected an inaugural Fletcher Foundation Fellow. She then worked as a Senior Research Associate at the Yale Law School, and a Senior Lecturer in the African American Studies department at Yale University. She is currently serving as senior lecturer at Emory University School of Law. In addition to her career, she works on numerous campaigns, including freedom for death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal and habeas corpus for Geronimo Pratt. Cleaver has also worked for many years on and published her book Memories of Love and War. She and other former members of the Black Panther Party continue to meet and discuss issues and heal from the movement."

Kathleen Cleaver is still alive & kicking, thank the holy ceiling light.

5 typewriter VisPos by fátima queiroz appear on the following 5 pages (117-123, part 1). I'm reminded a bit of work by Karl Kempton. 12 pages of one word concrete poems by Andrew Topol in wch the graphical presentation expresses the meaning appear on 143-154, part 1. I'm reminded of Richard Kostelanetz. Kostelanetz has 4 pages of 4 word sentences in large typeface (167-170, part 1). The 1st of these is "Alphabets are language's numerals."

There's Scott MacLeod & Texas Fontanella's "Stop Every Tragedy Except This One", a détournment of a comic (171-189, part 1) whose 1st panel shows an airman in uniform standing at attn in front of a superior officer. The airman is made to say: "I know I can find a more attractive way of life." to wch the officer replies "In this storm? Why Jackson you couldn't live a minute out on the balcony."

It's little details that help a reader relate when the bigger picture may not be so apparent: "We are like stink bugs together-no one smashes us in their homes because of our emissions, and then we die soon, in only a day or so, falling from the ceilings and are vacuumed up." (p 211, part 1, Joseph V. Milford) I never even knew what a stink bug was until they became very dominant here in Pittsburgh for a few yrs starting around 2008 - I don't kill them, I scoop them up if they're slow enuf & put them out a window.

Linc Madison presents a dysfunctional relationship, or skirts it, in alternating diary-like entries & text messages from the other party:

"Text from Dick

Sorry u know me when my life

is so fucked up. I am better than

this.

"Selling merchandise most of the day and into the night." - p 236, part 1

Txt msgs have gotten to be part & parcel of so many people's lives that their presence in a larger text makes it seem more personal - much as hand-held (or pseudo hand-held) camera in a Hollywood movie makes it seem believable that the scenario cd happen to you. Txt msgs & other electronically enabled means are so omnipresent that tech-speak might be more prevalent than ever as a result. Take Thom Sullivan's "'Diesel & Dust' homestead [a landscape]":

"Make -PENTAX

Software - Adobe Photoshop 7.0

Date and Time (Modified) - 2011:07:03 12:06:26" - p 279, part 1

The brands are, of course, domineering in their struggle for survivial, apps are 'everywhere', such specificity of date & time is enabled by the software. One doesn't have to check the date & time to note it, it's done automatically. That, combined w/ GPS, is useful for historians such as myself AND for Big Brother, a surveillance I cd do w/o.

I didn't take many review notes about either part 1 or 2. Read it all yourself online at the above provided URL &/or buy a copy & support the editor/publisher's efforts to present a selection of work that you might not see elsewhere.

********************************

Aaahhhhhhhh.. part 2, the color part, the part that has my piece in it. Gotta love it. This is a Visual Poetry bk more than anything else but there are exceptions. The thing about today's day & age of Print-On-Demand (POD) is that publishers don't have to be quite so concerned about the size of their marketplace. Mark Young can edit together a perfectly lovely high quality full-color bk, put it online for those who want to see it, & make it available on an on-demand basis for those who, like myself, are willing to spend the money for a hard-copy. To be able to produce a compilation of work of this quality w/o having to be too concerned about will-I-sell-enuf-copies-to-pay-for-it?! is a giant leap for (wo)mankind.

For people who've been looking at & reading VisPo for decades, much of this work won't strike them as anything remarkably new. That said, given what a dearth of opportunities there are to even see such work at all, a compilation of any VisPo is more than welcome even to a jaded person such as myself. Take Kyle Hemmings's "pages from A Nuclear Fallout Shelter Primer": it doesn't break new ground in terms of visuals, after all, it's just photographs with a short text overlaid in a way that doesn't block reading the image - nonetheless, how much work does one see that has a dark image of someone taking a selfie in a mirror w/ a text to the side that reads: "Taking a selfie during a nuclear attack may or may not bolster self-esteem"? (p 20)

& then there's John M. Bennett whose work is known & loved by all of us on the not-so-lunatic fringe. There're 5pp of solo work (pp 62-66) & 7pp of work in collaboration w/ Thomas M. Cassidy (known to many as "Musicmaster") (pp 67-73). You probably won't be seeing any of John's work in a Norton Anthology anytime soon (Am I wrong about this?) but <i>why not</i>?! His pen & ink calligraphy alone is remarkable & that placed w/in sparse collages is even more remarkable. This particular series of works all feature photocopied & colored condoms. I'm reminded of work by the late, great d.a.levy. As art I find them very enjoyable to look at, as Visual Poetry I find them highly suggestive (& I don't, perhaps oddly, mean sexually suggestive). This is imagist poetry w/ the imagery being evoked by the material means rather than the meanings of the words.

Some of my favorite poetry, at a formal level, is poetry written on objects, such as the works found on pp 82-84 by Julien Blaine, Jean-Claude Moineau & J. Rabinowitz, & Carl Fernbach-Flarsheim in the the jean-françois bory edited "ONCE AGAIN" anthology. In the case of this anthology the work is by József Bíró on pp 82-83. Is there a numbering conspiracy?

PP 106-113 are part of a series by Jeff Bogato called "The World According to Gonch". Bogato explains:

""The text pieces are new work using a vocabulary limited to words invented from the nonsense phrase "All Gonch." It's an attempt to create a new language, imagining also the structure behind it through the shape and structure of the words, that might arise after the death of the current (American) culture and language.

""The images are part of another phase of the Gonch project: the Gonchlog. In this process, I search through consumer magazines and cut out the five letters of "gonch," then glue them onto accounting paper. The source, its date of publication, and volume number are noted. The intention is to draw out that key nonsense word from these commercial propaganda vehicles in order to find a way forward.["]" - p 113

As a skeleton for creating a series the above justification/explanation deepens my interest & amuses me. As "an attempt to create a new language" it's rather shallow in contrast to things like Joachim Becher's "Character pro notitia linguarum universali" (1661). I was reminded of fake Gaelic, of On Kawara's Date Paintings, & of Asemic Writing. Here's a sample line: "Ghal hagallag noacha canh hachanach" (p 112).

I found "Izzy Oneiric"'s (Is he dreamlike?) palimsest "from Bibliomantic Peotica pleasantly mysterious: "A Long Murmur of Applause Slowly Buzzed Away" (p 115) even though it seems to fit the typical poetic pattern that I sometimes object to as vague in a way that the poet might feel is loaded w/ meaning but that the reader might just find w/o-a-clue.

Eileen R. Tabios provides a series where she draws lines that start by covering over a particular vowel & then link each of the coverings-over w/o covering over anything else. Hence, in the 1st poem, the 1st appearance of the vowel "a" in the word "speak" has a blue blob over it from wch arches a blue line that lands on the "a" in the letter's next appearance in the word "became", etc, etc. The 2nd poem in the same series shows the same text with the same blue lines on it but adds a similar procedure in red starting w/ the 2nd appearance of the vowel "e" (perhaps the missing of "e" in "hope" was a mistake) in the word "he". This continues thru the obvious progression of i, o, & u. I like systematic work of this kind but I like my own work from 40 yrs ealier more ( http://idioideo.pleintekst.nl/W1978.Connect-the-Alpha-1.html ).

Sabine Miller & Richard Gilbert provide a piece akin to a Color Field painting called "Anarchic Sanctuary" (p 188) that was made w/ "tulip petal pulp, lily pollen, lemon juice, water, and Elmer's glue on watercolor paper" the color of wch is quite vivid. I call nature the "Anarchist City".

Some of the work is by people that I may've previously known thru Mail Art, such as Carla Bertola. Her work on pp 223-227 seems like more Asemic Writing, a genre that seems to be enjoying some popularity these days. Ruggero Maggi, another Mail Artist, has work on p 228.

All in all, if you're new to poetry outside the usual discursive stanzas & open to it as a visual artform, this collection, esp the 2nd color part, will be an eye-opener to you.

tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE

idioideo at verizon dot net

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Anti-Neoism page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Audiography page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Bibliography page

to my "Blaster" Al Ackerman index

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE BYOC page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Censored or Rejected page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE Collaborations page

to the tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE (d) compositions page

to Amir-ul Kafirs' Facebook page

to the "FLICKER" home-page for the alternative cinematic experience