blather (art, doctors, heaps of cards, the wig as such)

1. i got a robert smithson book as a present for me and tony on the occasion of tony's first thesis review -

a. i had no idea that robert smithson's early work was religious/tribal ... huge blotty colorful christs.

b. i read an interview w/r.s. in the book, and his ideas there about the postmodern interest me and remind me of you, jared - he talks disliking 'other-worldly', transcendent idea of art. (ex.: he argues that duchamp, in the ready-mades, is taking a urinal or bicycle wheel away from manufacturing and making it sacred by separating it from 'the world', r. smithson dislikes this separateness.) he wants to be anti-gnostic, anti-minimalist. what i like about him so much is that the way he goes about linking his art to the world is so cross-eyed ... how with the sites/non-sites he does work in a quarry in texas, say, then brings heaps of dirt in 'abstract containers' to the gallery in new york, makes maps of the site in texas, brings them to the gallery, cuts them up, shows photos of construction, etc...that his work process seems to always be traveling back and forth between the site and its image or its representation.

d. makes me think of things we have talked about

*multiple foci / double vision vs. clarity, robustness/presence of the world
*tell the truth/don't be specious/disingenous/clever vs. doubt/(how much are things in flux?)
*nouns vs. adjectives

2. a factoid - i just read that william carlos williams was robert smithson's pediatrician...

3. i forgot all the index cards, papers, etc. for the poem i'm working on at my uncle's house in new orleans when i was there with my parents over the weekend...they were kindly fedexed to me from baton rouge by my aunt and i've been scrawling all over them happily this morning. which all made me feel sad for my parents who are displaced from their work, which is currently located in an inaccessible place emptied of people. i get the feeling that my dad would move heaven and earth right now to get back to see one patient...i hope his hospital will open soon and re-establish a center for them.

4. i've been reading marjorie perloff "radical artifice"; i really like this one, there's a chapter called "against transparency: from the radiant cluster to the word as such" that i wish i had read long ago, as it puts a set of issues surrounding 'the image' into very clear terms. and this chapter discusses pound (stands for jared) and oppen (stands for catherine) and perloff herself is put in the role of standing for steve kramp - because of the immortal anecdote of marjorie perloff's lecture and steve's unintentionally marjorie perloff wig.

5. are we reading 'green man'? catherine and i talked about it on the phone and we both express our interest in taking up the gauntlet thrown down by steve. jared and steve, on re-examination, what do you think?

6. i miss you, catherine, jared, steve. catherine, i know i was all conservative and concerned about our money situation here but i do so want to see everyone - tony and i will save pennies for plane tix best as we can...