The Call to the Annual Meeting

As Chair of the Lichtenbergian Society, I hereby enjoin our membership to attend the Annual Meeting, set according to the Charter for December 19, being on or before the Hibernal Solstice, to begin at or around 7:00 p.m.

Herewith is the Order of Business:

  1. Roll Call, including confirmation of new members
  2. Toast to GCL
  3. Acclamation of the Officers
  4. Corroboration of the Validity of our Claims
  5. Consignment of the Corroborative Evidence to the Flames
  6. Engrossment of the Year’s Efforts
  7. Meditation on the Year’s Efforts, followed by a Silent Toast
  8. Engrossment of the Proposed Efforts for the Next Year
  9. Toast to the Proposed Efforts
  10. Agenda: ??

With 12 days, 7 hours, and 41 minutes until the Annual Meeting, it’s probably time to see if there’s any consensus on what the agenda should be.

Writing Slogans

I came across these in a post at , and I thought we might want to examine them.

ALLEN GINSBERG”S MIND WRITING SLOGANS

“First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.” –William Blake

I. GROUND (Situation, or Primary Perception)

  1. “First Thought, Best Thought” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  2. “Take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  3. “The Mind must be loose.” –John Adams
  4. “One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception.” –Charles Olson, “Projective Verse”
  5. “My writing is a picture of the mind moving.” –Philip Whalen
  6. Surprise Mind –Allen Ginsberg
  7. “The old pond, a frog jumps in, Kerplunk!” –Basho
  8. “Magic is the total delight (appreciation) of chance” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  9. “Do I contradict myself?
    Very well, then I contradict myself,
    (I am large. I contain multitudes.)” –Walt Whitman
  10. “…What quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature? …Negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” –John Keats
  11. “Form is never more than an extension of content.” –Robert Creeley to Charles Olson
  12. “Form follows function.” –Frank Lloyd Wright
  13. Ordinary Mind includes eternal perceptions. –A.G.
  14. “Nothing is better for being Eternal
    Nor so white as the white that dies of a day.” –Louis Zukofsky
  15. Notice what you notice. –A.G.
  16. Catch yourself thinking. –A.G.
  17. Observe what”s vivid. –A.G.
  18. Vividness is self-selecting. –A.G.
  19. “Spots of Time” –William Wordsworth
  20. If we don”t show anyone we”re free to write anything. –A.G.
  21. “My mind is open to itself.” –Gelek Rinpoche
  22. “Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound.” –Charles Reznikoff

II. PATH (Method or Recognition)

  1. “No ideas but in things.” “…No ideas but in the Facts.” –William Carlos Williams
  2. “Close to the nose.” –W.C.Williams
  3. “Sight is where the eye hits.” –Louis Zukofsky
  4. “Clamp the mind down on objects.” –W.C.Williams
  5. “Direct treatment of the thing…” (or object.)” –E.Pound, 1912
  6. “Presentation, not reference…” –Ezra Pound
  7. “Give me a for instance.” –Vernacular
  8. “Show not tell.” –Vernacular
  9. “The natural object is always the adequate symbol.” –Ezra Pound
  10. “Things are symbols of themselves.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  11. “Labor well the minute particulars, take care of the little ones
    He who would do good for another must do it in minute particulars
    General Good is the plea of the Scoundrel Hypocrite and Flatterer
    For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars” –William Blake
  12. “And being old she put a skin/On everything she said.” –W.B.Yeats
  13. “Don”t think of words when you stop but to see the picture better.” –Jack Kerouac
  14. “Details are the Life of Prose.” –Jack Kerouac
  15. Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best. –A.G.
  16. “Economy of Words” –Ezra Pound
  17. “Tailoring” –Gregory Corso
  18. Maximum information, minimum number of syllables. –A.G.
  19. Syntax condensed, sound is solid. –A.G.
  20. Savor vowels, appreciate consonants. –A.G.
  21. “Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” –Ezra online slots Pound
  22. “…awareness…of the tone leading of the vowels.” –Ezra Pound
  23. “…an attempt to approximate classical quantitative meters…” –Ezra Pound
  24. “Lower limit speech, upper limit song” –Louis Zukofsky
  25. “Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia.” –Ezra Pound
  26. “Sight, Sound & Intellect.” –Louis Zukofsky
  27. “Only emotion objectified endures.” — Louis Zukofsky

III. FRUITION (Result or Appreciation)

  1. Spiritus = Breathing = Inspiration = Unobstructed Breath
  2. “Alone with the Alone” –Plotinus
  3. Sunyata (Skt.) = Ku (Japanese) = Emptiness
  4. “What”s the sound of one hand clapping?” –Zen Koan
  5. “What”s the face you had before you were born?” –Zen Koan
  6. Vipassana (Skt.) = Clear Seeing
  7. “Stop the world” –Carlos Casteneda
  8. “The purpose of art is to stop time.” –Bob Dylan
  9. “The unspeakable visions of the individual.” –J.K.
  10. “I”m going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.” –Chuang Tzu, (Tr. Burton Watson)
  11. “Candor” –Whitman
  12. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” –Shakespeare
  13. “Contact” –A Magazine, Nathaniel West & W.C. Williams, Eds.
  14. “God Appears & God is Light
    To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
    But does a Human Form Display
    To those who Dwell in Realms of day.” –W. Blake
  15. Subject is known by what she sees. –A.G.
  16. Others can measure their visions by what we see. –A.G.
  17. Candor ends paranoia. –A.G.
  18. “Willingness to be Fool.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  19. “day & night/you”re all right” –Corso
  20. Tyger: “Humility is Beatness.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
  21. Lion: “Surprise Mind” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
  22. Garuda: “Crazy Wisdom Outrageousness” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  23. Dragon: “Unborn Inscrutability” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  24. “To be men not destroyers” –Ezra Pound
  25. “Speech synchronizes mind & body.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  26. “The Emperor unites Heaven & Earth.” –Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
  27. “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” –Shelley
  28. “Make it new” –Ezra Pound
  29. “When the mode of music changes, the walls of the city shake” –Plato
  30. “Every third thought shall be my grave” –W. Shakespeare, “The Tempest”
  31. “That in black ink my love may still shine bright” –W. Shakespeare, Sonnets
  32. “Only emotion endures” –Ezra Pound
  33. “Well while I”m here I”ll
    do the work–
    and what”s the Work?
    To ease the pain of living.
    Everything else, drunken
    dumbshow.” –A.G.
  34. “…Kindness, sweetest
    of the small notes
    in the world”s ache,
    most modest & gentle
    of the elements

    entered man before history
    and became his daily
    connection, let no man
    tell you otherwise.” –Carl Rakosi

L.09.7: READ piece

This is more of an invitation than an assignment.  Over the past year or so, I’ve been collecting the letters R-E-A-D, such as you would find at Michael’s or similar establishments, to display in my media center.

So far, all I’ve done is just prop them up, but a seventh set I bought recently got me to thinking: why not turn them into sculpture?

The invitation/challenge is to take one of these sets—or any other set you might find or create—and turn it into something visually interesting.

Here are the sets.  I have included my GAE membership card for scale.

l097_read_1

These are 4″ tall wooden letters. The book is 9″ tall and could just as well be laid on its side.

l097_read_2

Foam, 7″ tall.

l097_read_3

Cardboard, hollow, 8″ tall.

l097_read_4

Metal, open back, 6″ tall.

l097_read_5

Plywood, 8″ tall.

l097_read_6

Pressboard, 9″ tall.

Here are some potential display spaces.

l097_display_1

The entrance to the library: the 32″ band of carpet at the top of the wall, the 36″ airspace, the 27″x92″ window.

l097_display_2

The main area.  The 32″ carpet band goes all around the space, and the 36″ airspace is available.

l097_display_3

The classroom/reference area: the orange wall is 37″ tall and is negotiable.  I need for the posters up top to remain where they are.

l097_display_4

The stacks.  The blue wall is 52″ tall.  There’s a second stacks area where the wall is green, and it’s much the same.  The framed posters are hung, but everything is negotiable.  No airspace in the stacks: the ceiling is much lower and dangly bits would be too enticing.

l097_display_5

There are two of these yellow columns in the room.  Three sides of each column are available.

l097_display_6

This is a little glass display case in case anyone wanted to go all Damien Hirst on me.  It’s 14″ square, and each “story” is 12″ tall.

If you would like to inspect the space and choose a site for your work, just let me know.

Paint. Wire.  String. Papier-maché. Wood.

Freestanding. Wall-mounted. Suspended.

Ultra-modern.  Minimalist. Baroque. Figurative.  Clean. Messy.  Sleek. Intricate.

Sendakian. Willemsesque. Warholian. Nevelsonish.

Refer to reading in general. Or to a specific genre.  Or book.  Or eschew allusion altogether.

The idea would be to create something that is artistically compelling to the children who encounter it.  Astonish them. Intrigue them.  Delight them.  It doesn’t have to be “kid-friendly.”  It has to be right.  Turn my media center into a gallery for contemporary art.

If you want merely to submit a design for something fabulous, do that.  Post it here, and I’ll eventually get around to making it.