Since I haven’t been writing poetry or fiction lately, I decided to start the new year off with a visual arts project. One of my new year’s resolutions was to create one hundred collages on postcards that I could mail out to friends and surrealists. This project was largely influenced by the late Steven Dalachinsky, who would often send me postcards with collages on them. I’m already well on my way to making these collages and will probably surpass my goal. I like the idea of sending the collages through the mail as a sort of potlatch of art. Too often I find myself attached to my own art and I just end up keeping it stored in a drawer forever. If you would like a postcard collage, send me your current snail mail address. I hope to be mailing the cards out this summer.
When I’m not collaging, I’ve been killing time by making simulated images via the Wombo Dream app. This app, which I have on my iPhone, was brought to my attention by artist James Koehnline. The way it functions is you give the app a series of words and the artificial intelligence uses an image database to construct a morphed collage-like image from those words. The melding of these images can often have uncanny results. As I wrote on Facebook, I have conflicting feelings about the creation of these images. It feels like cheating, but it’s also kind of like rolling a pair of dice. Can programmed randomness make poetry too easy? I agree with Koehnline that apps like these are just tools and it’s important to know how to use them. But I also agree with Robert Lindroth that something is disturbing with how these kinds of apps eliminate the human element from art. For an example of some images I created, you can see my Six Portraits of Maldoror here.
A third project I’ve been casually working on is a collection of photos of Brooklyn at night. This project grew out of my tendency to take walks at night and was somewhat inspired by photos Craig Wilson shared years earlier. The night itself can add a level of mystery to any photograph, but, because of the pandemic, the streets of Bushwick are often vacant after sundown. Nothing pleases me more than finding a dark empty street with a bunch of junk lying around to photograph. My iPhone may not have the best camera in the world, but I could care less about professionalism. I also believe the limitations of the camera, the way it captures light, adds to the haunting quality of some of these night shots. At times they remind me of a Giorgio de Chirico painting. I especially like finding abandoned industrial machines at night. Photographed in the dark and out of context, they take on a personality of their own.
The first movie I watched of 2022 profoundly shook me. It’s a Russian film from 1985 called Come and See. It’s about the Nazi invasion of Byelorussia. I don’t think cinema can get much closer to the true horrors of war. It was originally planned to be titled Kill Hitler, but why not War Is Hell instead? I spent the week after viewing it processing what I saw, running the story over and over in my head. How did humankind survive this period of brutality? The movie takes you on an adventure from innocence to a complete loss of humanity as you follow a thirteen-year-old resistance fighter through the bleakness of war. The Nazis roll into town like a gang of bikers from The Wild One and some unspeakable things happen. There are magical moments towards the beginning of the film that counter-balance the horrors to come, but by the second hour, there’s nothing to smile about. Perhaps the best World War 2 movie I’ve ever seen, if not one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. It would make a good double feature with Barefoot Gen or Threads.
I’ve seen some great performances over the past four months. In October, I was lucky enough to catch Narcissister perform at Purgatory. She did her “reverse striptease” routine, which involved her coming out on stage nude, pulling her clothing out from her various orifices, and leaving the stage completely clothed. She’s my favorite living performance artist. Later that month, I saw the industrial noise-punk band Deli Girls live at a three-day DIY all-ages event put on by the photographer Daggers For Eyes. In person, Deli Girls were as primal and aggressive as their recordings. The next month, I saw a friend from Portland, Susan Subtract, perform at Saint Vitus in their electro-punk band High-Functioning Flesh. This was a reunion show for the short-lived band. It’d been years since I’d seen Susan sing on stage (in their former band Terraform) and I was surprised and impressed by the kamikaze feel of High-Functioning Flesh’s live show. In December, I saw my former neighbor Leila Bordreuil perform with Tamio Shiraishi at Trans Pecos. I felt the two complimented each other well, with Leila’s droning chello noise and Tamio’s high pitched saxophone screeches. I could physically feel Tamio in my ears. And finally, in January, I saw Loren Connors, an improv guitarist, parred up with Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth. Connors is one of the unsung heroes of New York’s music scene. Despite his disability he’s constantly bringing artists together to experiment and collaborate with.
As for museum visits, I went to the Museum of Modern Art to see the Sophie Taeuber-Arp show, but found myself not that impressed. Instead, I discovered the work of Joseph E. Yoakum, a self-taught, ball-point pen landscape artist. Yoakum subverts the traditional landscape, mixes perspectives, and sometimes his work appears almost map-like (maybe even dreamlike). Everything seems to be floating in membranes. But, the big museum show of the season was the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Surrealism Beyond Borders exhibit. The exhibit focused on surrealism outside of Europe and the people who spread surrealist ideas, like Ted Joans, EF Granell, and Wolfgang Paalen. There was work from the Caribbean, Asia, Latin America, and beyond. For me, the highlight was the inclusion of the Chicago Surrealist Group, with an entire wall devoted to their pamphlets and publications.
On a personal note, I had an episode of vertigo in November after getting home from work. It was terrifying. It lasted for several hours and I was vomiting and unable to stand or walk. My doctor asked me if the room was spinning or if I was spinning. I told him the room was spinning and he quickly responded that it was probably just an ear infection. In addition to that, my New York curse continues. A few weeks ago, during a thunderstorm, I noticed some water leaking into my room through the window seal. Suddenly, a large section of siding on my apartment building came off right outside of my room. Luckily, it was promptly fixed. I don’t trust the apartments in this city. But, hey, this is the first one I’ve lived in without mice or cockroaches.
January also marked the ten year anniversary of my mother’s death. I hate being a downer, but I don’t think my mother ever really loved who I am. I believe she loved me as a son, but not as a person. She wanted a son who played football and sports. I was never going to be that person. In my high school years, she made me feel like an outcast and instead of supporting me, we were constantly at war. Identity is so important, especially to a teenager. She was embarrassed by her punk, weirdo son. I guess it was beyond her that if I fulfilled her fantasies about being the jock son, I would have killed myself. When I was fifteen I became extremely depressed. She was incredibly insensitive about this. I was put on prozac, and went to a therapist my sophomore and junior years of high school. Thankfully, the therapist told me to be myself and to not worry about what my family thinks. One of the reasons I support people’s identity choices is because I know what it’s like when others try to impose an identity on you. It wasn’t until my mother’s first battle with cancer that she stopped caring about “what the neighbor’s think” and we developed a friendship. All this makes me angry because, as someone who has become a perpetual loner (and reluctant to be attached to anything or anyone), I feel like my life could have been different if my mother wasn’t my mother. I never hated my parents, but if you are my friend and have kids, please don’t be dicks to them. Growing up is hard enough.
What I’ve been listening to on the subway:
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Firstborn is Dead
Nirvana - Bleach
Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - The Mirror Man Sessions
Wipers - Is This Real?
Body Count - Body Count
What I’ve been reading:
Allan Graubard - A Crescent By Any Other Name
Kurt Eisenlohr - Stab The Remote
Alice Paalen Rahon - Shapeshifter
Bob Kaufman - Solitudes Crowded With Loneliness
Valery Oisteanu - Passport to Eternal Life
Movies I’ve been watching:
The Velvet Underground (Todd Haynes, 2021)
And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead (Billy Woodberry, 2015)
Titane (Julia Ducournau, 2021)
The Body Beautiful (Ngozi Onwurah, 1991)
Cuadecuc, Vampir (Pere Portabella, 1971)
Publishing note:
My responses to “An Enquiry Into the Poetry Made by All” appeared on the La Sirena Surrealist Group’s blog.