Pop Corpse - Lara Glenum
Allusion to original mermaid myth : her suffering is trivialized and yet becomes the emblem of stuff we as a society judge important, but is artifice. "ornament and excrement". The mermaid is a half breed , all she can do is live poorly, and die. She presents the mermaid as being utterly unsexy, as being a cut off of a human body. She wishes she were human so she can have sex. XXX seems to be the daughter of the Sea and is depicted in a very negative way. The Seawitch sends obscene memos to the mermaid. She meets the Smear, who is a very handsome human man; he and the mermaid seem to fool around. Later he doesn't recognize her.
Vision Machines are a sort of obscene theater made to gain money. The King and Queen of the Sea choose the gender of their kids for political reasons. Tragedy of mermaids having breasts but no vaginas. The Disaster implies loss of real sexuality? XXX wants her own sex instead of being blank. Before the Royal Disaster Party she cuts herself a snatch and dreams about it. Her parents sentence her to the Slice Ward; her mutilating is well known throughout the kingdom. At the party she sees the Smear again and no one really likes him; he is as sick as she is. Then XXX goes to the rehab Slice Ward.She talks about her body, how she cuts it, how other people look at it, and its deformities. She claims dead girls are the best. She gets the treatment of the Gate of Heaven and then gets out of rehab. She goes to the Sea Witch and asks for a real crotch. She goes see the Jizzler who says he can give her one, unmermaid her, but she won't have nerve endings. A little unwillingly, she agrees. As she's walking on her prosthetic legs, she moves too much and everything comes off. It's all superficial. She talks to her father, who reserves an orgy for her, more suitable to her desires he feels are the best. XXX makes a deal with the Seawitch who says that as long as the Smear is interested in her, she can keep human form. As soon as he loses interest, she is iced; she loses her life. Her impressions of humans on land are grotesque. It is illegal for mermaids to be on land, and to make matters worse she goes to the Meat Brothel. She is taken in by the police and put in a re-education camp for the sexually deviant. The Smear, unbeknownst to her is also held in the same camp. The Orphaned Nihilist Society is used to put them on the "right track" but in reality, they turn them into freak shows, sex slaves. The Smear's crime was that he was dating a hermaphrodite.The Smear talks with the guard (the latter which presents XXX to him) and talks about the Meadow, which is a rarity considering the degradation of the natural world. The Smear states he is "cockdead" incapable of really feeling desire, despite the guard's attempt to pimp out XXX to him. She ends up on the sea floor with her tail cut off, watching seal porn. The Sea Witch finds her and gives her back her tail. She asks her to kill the Smear, and she can keep her life and her snatch. XXX goes to the Orphaned Nihilist Society where the Smear is, putting on an operetta. XXX goes up to the Smear and kisses him, uncaring that she is interrupting the televised show. Then the theatre is attacked. The Smear asks XXX to meer him at his castle. Her friends are concerned that she wants him, because the rumors say he's a porn freak and a sadist. They consummate their 'love' and XXX grows a real crotch and his dick stays up. They go off together to indulge in art and crime.
Lara Glenum reading : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fqP20pA3QE
Lara Glenum Welcome to the Gurlesque The New Grrly, Grotesque, Burlesque Poetics
It's a feminine genre which takes a leaf from the burlesque genre. "Their work assaults the norms of acceptable female behavior by irreverently deploying gender stereotypes to subversive ends." In performances, gender was purposefully mocked and subverted. Anything absurd could happen. The Gurlesque is a performance of self, there is no true identity. "Notes on ‘Camp’” writes, “the essence of Camp is the love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.” The Gurlesque makes fun of the Natural which is in itself contradictory: such as how women are associated with Nature but are also inclined toward artificial stuff. The kitsch element in those types of writings are meant to dominate stylistically. The kitsch or "The Cute" is destructive as much as it is ridiculous. The very sappiness and cuddliness of the subject implies helplessness, lack of power and invites harsher powers to take control of it. Cuteness if deformity. Gurlesque poetry features writing and characters that are always changing; no fixed identity, no fixed gender, no fixed desire. The Gurlesque also under its quest for equal female rights in society and politics is actually a quest for sexual satisfaction. Women put their sexual pleasures at the center of their poetry as well. "Gurlesque poetry thus investigates the collision/collusion of fantasy and ethics at the core of Western cultural battles." The Gurlesque takes its distinct flair from many different previous genres for ex: in the way of deconstructing the male gaze, of using implicit violence to make a point, of blurring the line between genders, the monster as cultural object, the abject... etc The Gurlesque is even inspired by Dickinson!
Selections from Macular Hole - Cathy Wagner
My what to replace my favorite trick; wanting to please but fighting against it, against God's injunction
I'm Total I'm all I'm absorbed in this meatcake ; she gives power to a reader but it is not taken; talks about power and life, choices ; the necessity of the individual
The Divinity of Man: talks about the mundane stuff we humans do, then goes into discourse of why certain drugs were used in certain decades; the answer is to bolster the human spirit.
I was at Congress with myself: talks about being in control of one's life; making crucial decisions like in Congress
I Walked in the House: talks about how the narrator did everything she could, both detrimental and beneficial to her to get the house; it's about money. She pays for everything; she wants to be outside the 'exchange' yet there still will be a transaction
Kill so we feel Safe and Comfortable: killing is directly related to sex. It is asked for.
Freely Esposa: Dating advice about attracting yet repelling man. themes of image to other people through the house and its cleanliness.
Wrought in Filigree and wrought in Granite: describes the ships that come into the forbidding sea ; have a different facet to them at any time of the day. they are women, and swim ashore. The young boy is wrought in filigree, he is scared and is trying to escape a barbed fence. contrast between sexes.
Scary Ballad: girl is lured into taking cold medicine through a pie she eats. No one knows what really happened or who did it.
Song: The sick talented boy cannot ask for compliments but he wants them. but when the question is asked, it is harmful: different imagery of rotting and harmful processes.
A Bash and I wanna look Good: The narrator feels ugly, and compares herself to another person who is pretty ; makes it clear that if that person were ugly, she would use her as a fool.
San Francisco Ballad: The narrator has a problem and doesn't know what to do with he/she sees. The song lyrics try to convey comfort. Narrator mentions sleep and then things will be fine.
An hendy hap: seems to talk about a bad marriage; how the wife views the husband as a tyrant, but when she is in her space it is fine. The end mentions how it's useless to blame someone for it.
There was a place in the brain, a red knot: talks about the past catching up to narrator and she births a big child. She asks questions to 'the Delver' about life
Big bang: like a strange sort of Frankenstein animal that is reanimated, reaches its peak and reforms to rot again.
Who admitted you: animosity towards life and mother; questions who let her in life.
Song: Scary Several light: talks about pregnancy and a certain Wagner character. mentions the fear and progress of pregnancy; like a lullaby.
Perfect Love: talks about birth and how we as humans come from 'bags'. she seems to resent baby's presence, her time is no longer hers. she writes a poem to feel better. she mentions exhausting herself for him is not perfect love.
Inmost: talks about relationship between the skin and the outside world and vice-versa. Talks about inner reaction to pregnancy which is natural, and outer reaction to pregnancy which is surprise.
For you everywhere Phoebus the fields of song are laid out: talks about how a baby got poked; but it was still alive, and she helped it, fed it, with his head in a glass jar. Not clear whether he's real or not.
Imitating: narrator hopes she is kind and good, but her jealousy and hate is inimitable. She is alone.
I harnessed my powers, I didn't have time not to burn myself (she mentions how she messed up), she dances and mentions how happiness is energy and capability. narrator realizes she is imitating someone in that she is making movements other people do. A jealousy fit attacks her and goes away. she mentions how god is a questionnaire but she finds the answer: herself and a man. She is greedy for something, and digs a hole in herself. She is hungry for something and frightened, and she tries to stay awake. I think she is hungry for information.
Kathy Acker - Blood and Guts in High School
Janey and her father are sleeping together but when he starts sleeping with Sally she is afraid he will leave her. She talks to Bill, who he is treating poorly, and she introduces identity crisis. Bill tells her it's because John is trying to find out who he is without her.
She talks with John and he tells her he needs a break/ aside with Mexican tradition about maleness.
John wants to sleep with Janey and yet tells her he feels very strongly for Sally. She refuses his suggestions to dine with him. Bill advises her to get out of his way because he's trying to hurt her. / divergent flashback to the ruins in Merida, where great art is done with great destruction. Father and daughter go to dinner together and they talk about Sally, which he regrets and fires her jealousy. At home, he explains to her why he hates her now and she realizes he staged the situation with Sally to break up with her.
She goes to the USA to treat her pelvic inflammatory disease and he tells her he wants her to go away. he doesn't tell her it's because she terrorizes him.
He sends her to New York because he's sick of her. But he tells her he'll still keep paying stuff for her. When Janey goes to school she sleeps with as many boys as possible to forget her loneliness and gets pregnant. she gets an abortion and is very cold about it. She is very analytical about the process and the light it sheds on modern women. She talks about how she is so desperate for love and is willing to sleep as much as she needs despite the risk of pregnancy and the pain of it. She describes drugs, pain of second illegal abortion, and how she ends up stealing and wrecking stores. She takes up residence in the hotel where her father and Sally are staying, and she lets men abuse her sexually and physically. She knows how far she's fallen. Then she works in a hippy bakery where she mentions how money is the omnipresent fact of American life/ aside of transaction in a bakery where customers are obnoxious and claim salespeople don't care for them. The salespeople seem to find their job boring. She is rebuked by a customer that she is acting like a hypocrite by not enjoying the job, and she alienates everyone around her. Her father stops sending her money and she meets Tommy who only wants to use her. She loves him though and states loving him turns her back to crime. They kidnap children, wreak havoc in every way possible, very violently. The sex gets out of control. Episode in rock club where there's pandemonium and then Sally is there, acting dirty. There is a car accident and everyone dies except for Janey and Monkey.
Aside with bear and beaver and monster. Ironically the monster is scared of the bear and he successfully avoids bear the first time. In bear's second attempt to come in, there is an interesting point mentioned by the monster when he thinks the bear is a bill collector; mentions injustice of society and profiteering people. The monster's pet Fritzy is caught by the bear and she bargains her way to freedom in exchange for the house. The ploy works, but the bear doesn't end up in the house.He turns into an elephant. The bear has visions of blackness, of people who have failed in some way in society. He makes a song about life and not caring about the world and its troubles.
Then the story goes back to Janey and the people in the area; all kinds of people and how they regard each other. Janey mentions in her diary how she is sleeping with this 80 year old writer and how their sex is violent. She wants sex yet she doesn't know what she really wants. At one point two hoods break into her apartment and beat her and carry her off to become a whore.
Mr. Linker talks about how a healthy body leads to a healthy mind; reference back to history. To him, culture comes from disease; poverty is beneficial and detrimental to the human race. He is Persian and became a lobotomist, ironic, considering he's brainwashing Janey to be a whore. Janey talks in her diary about the messed up society she lives in; she references Hawthorne's A Scarlet Letter and how wildness and non conventional women are cast away by society. Janey mentions how she wanted to be a good woman like Hester Prynne, but her father cast her off, just like Hester was cast away. Janey mentions how teaching is intellectual but terrible at the same time, and how people who scream the most at outcasts are immoral themselves.
Then we go to Persian poems Janey invents of herself and offers very interesting cut ups of her life, of the Persian city, of the prison she's in. Through vocabulary words, through verbs and adverbs she describes herself, her body, and how people see her.
Janey goes back to talking about Hester in The Scarlet Letter and her child Pearl; how the child is a social outcast because she's wild and doesn't stick to the physical and psychic roads of society. She mentions the people who keep those roads intact, how being a couple automatically make you respected, how the world is hell. The end finishes with a plea to a person she badly wants, she doesn't know how to satisfy and who left her hanging. No doubt she's talking about her father.
William Burroughs - The Cut up Method
method in which the surrealists used computer generated poems in composition; many examples through the years where authors have used different computer generating methods to produce text, then was later edited by a human hand.
Tristan Tzara first introduced the idea by proposing to do poem on the spot by pulling words from a hat (1920s)
Minutes to Go done by Brion Gysin with cut up journal articles. Argues that any art is spontaneity, and cut ups are the very symbols of spontaneity. Cut ups allow poems to be accessible to anyone. poems can be made 'alive' again with cut ups.Argues also that writing is in fact cut ups, like any art: cut ups of ideas, words...
Christina Miletti - Violent Acts, Volatile Words, Kathy Acker's Terrorist Aesthetics
culture of terrorism demonstrated by Stockhausen ; terrorism is related to art.... Acker uses terrorist prose style in her work. her power lies in the language and how it's used. she uses tactics of guerilla warfare in her language in order to change concepts in society. Acker plagiarizes and embodies the concept of literary terrorism; she considers the rational mind has caused many shockwaves in the course of history and so she wants to challenge it. the very term terrorism has changed in our culture: it used to mean analyzing the Western world with different eyes; since 9/11 it means violence and intolerance to the Western world. she uses power, language and sexuality in order to make a statement. her bombs in literature consist in spurring subjects to action. Terrorism is a term used to protect as well as disenfranchise. Acker loves exploring fluid definition of terrorism: who it used against, how it's used, what the goal is.... in her works she examines different goals. She uses society biases (particularly Arabs linked to terrorism) to twist and break them in her literary challenges. Her prose is performative. she views the reader as a desirer and her language must be visceral in order to overcome clutter of grammar, syntax, and patriarchal influence of writing. she uses concept of theater of cruelty in order to aggressively interact with the reader. "stupid writing" is a terrorist form of writing in order to connect with reader on basic level. she explores link between prohibition and power; like sex and how it's exploited through its taboo-ness. Acker plays with gender; she considers gender to be a purely biological thing; she even subverts biology by using characters as 'constructs' or cyborgs. the issue of whether the shock of Acker's texts will stop working on the reader is not an issue: it will prove that she succeeded. but due to society's prohibitive nature, it is highly unlikely Acker's works will stop disturbing on some levels.
