Cognitive Dissidents discussion

Ok, it's 2:35AM, I'm fairly drunk - not so drunk that I can't correct typos.. but, still, drunk.. This GoodReads group is somewhat dead-in-the-water. As such, I'm taking advantage of this opportunity to ruminate a bit about my current life.

I just witnessed David Lebrun's great documentary around Ernst Haeckel's work in the 19th & 20th centuries: particulary around radiolarian - fascinatingly various one-celled organisms from the ocean.

This inspires me. I have slides of Van Gogh's paintings & Van Gogh refrigerator magnets too & a microscope. I've been meaning to do something w/ the 1st 2 & now they're connected to the latter.

ANYWAY, back to my 'life'. The last 13 days? Oct 31: I take a train to New Jersey where I'm to meet my friend Brainpang who I haven't seen for something like 8 yrs? I'll be staying at his place. I get up around 5AM, I arrive at his place in Rutherford around 8PM.

The next day I'm carrying things for sale (2 copies of my bk "footnotes", 2 copies of my record "Mechanically Repetitive / ReRecorded Records RECORD"), my laptop, & a few other odds & ends. It seems heavy to me. Brainpang & I are en route to the Bowery Poetry Club in NYC where I'm to read as part of a Segue series curated by old friend Alan Davies (who I haven't seen since 1982?) & his colleague Christina Strong.

The audience is small - 20 to 30 people? - but it's strange to me b/c people who're there 'know who I am' - that, in itself, is a questionable & odd concept. Some of the people are 'old friends' - people that I barely know but who I've 'known' for decades: James Sherry, Abigail Child, Mark Nasdor..

I read, there're certainly plenty of controversial & difficult ideas presented, people seem to enjoy it.. Why? I'm still as alienated & alone as ever!

As I write this, I listen to a recording of the most recent rehearsal (the 36th!) of my latest big project: HiTEC (mentioned here mnths ago): Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative. This particular session is distinguished as the one where I finally reached the point of complexity I'd been planning all along: the Wheel of Fortune spins, the number it lands on marks not only the Thought Experiment to be Managed but also 2 other Thought Experiments to be possibly Managed: the one whose number is gotten by mentally rotating the WoF counterclockwise the number of the previous resting point for the WoF & the one whose number can be reached clockwise thru the same process. Confusing? Absolutely!

Back to my life: "Proteus" was wonderful, highly recommended - the about-the-making-of documentary particularly drives my interest home. But to put things in context: earlier I'd witnessed some of a BBC doc about "Prehistoric America" AND, before that, "Jason goes to Hell".

Mixed in was reading from Harry Mathews' "The Human Country - new and collected stories" - mixed in w/ trying to play the "rock boogie" riff of Frank Zappa's "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" song on piano - also mixed in w/ burning 50 CD-Rs of the 3rd report of HiTEC's progress - mixed in w/ editing the vaudeo from the 22nd HiTEC rehearsal - the 1st in wch a System named "Personality Types" was tried out by the meager rehearsal attendees: myself & Kenny Haney.

"Personality Types" involves using the Myers-Briggs personality types as a basis for playing. As I cut & paste in the titles for these - referencing such things as the artist & the scientist at the same time that I'm learning about Ernst Haeckel's own life as an artist & scientist. Nice synchronicity.

I haven't gotten a single phone call today. That's not unusual. I only get a few phone calls a wk - usually work related. I inundate myself w/ the products of humans: research & development on all sorts of scientific/cultural activity - &, yet, I have almost no friends - very few people who'd have any idea of what I'm intereted in, what I reference.

A horror movie, 2 science documentaries, my own Thought Experiments documents, music, some Oulipo lit.. What does it all add up to? Total alienation, eh?! One might think it 's fascinating, great food-for-thought, but my own experience is that people don't want such things, they want NORMALITY - over & over, the LCD (Lowest Common Denominator) rules over entirely too much. Where are YOU? The obsessive geniuses?

Wher?! Beginning with the penultimate question...& working backwards perhaps or merely t'Ward?! a possible Whe?!, Wha?!, Wh?! or Ho?!-- the inevitable questions, morphemic transformations, revisions & inversions... seeking communication in belonging against that veil of NORMALIDIOCY.. pushing against it over & under again... t'War?! Wha?! & t'Wha?! end, de'stend or 'Gain?! Rather'n t'Ward?! it maybe along side.. a long side note? My Note 'r notes on me-- maybe or mebey. Wha'evers left in abeyance after that saying.

So to relayte this-- Wor?!ing tonight finally once again on Shaman-Machine after, under, & Wit?!in such a long hiatus. Wh?!atus?! Wor?! Wor?! Wor?! to survive & receive such as other reWard?! Trudge, Drudge, & Grudge against & Withi?! those constraints of involuntary NORMALOROUS securities-- the econominious, that is, they are, we be, us am, I?! Which is a question, raising the others-- of independence, possibility, the ellipsis pressed against youtopian pulse. Desiring disentanglement from the opium slop that sustains & confines the not yet 'r ever to toWar?!
& throug?! miasmia of the autobot.

Worke?! (lettuce leaf the eye out o fit) on Labyrinth for tW?! years & spent another tW?! attempting to get it published-- finally successfully Wit?! magnificent poet JR's help & tenacious support. & take a relatively simple & straightWor?! Wor?! compared to Opusemic Shaman-Machine in Whic?! it now occupies a space as mere chapter & fragment.

In point of fact, S-M h's long since become unpublishable-- Wha?! concrete text of densely knit structureform&formstructure woven of micro&macro Wor?! units & interlocking discoursestuff, constructed more elaborately than PITHOS & projected at completion as consisting of over a thousand pages Woul?! be?!

& still Wor?! t'War?! its completion-- or desire to against that grain & scrape of Wha/! is my time.. belongs to me, hold as still mine, against the Normon of theft & reWar?!

First chapter, Antechambers, is finished-- Wit?! metastructure of Fibonacci sequence mapped into columnic structure of alternating discourse genres & remapped across numerical arrangement of knight's positions in sequence of alternating chess moves-- motivating page numbers in individual pieces "asif" each piece were such a move. Further structurally motivated concretely at the individual level of each "poem" or Piece (ie "move") by formal constraints imposed from semantic content & themes of such "movement."

"Labyrinth" having been re: begun in the visual form of labyrinth... "Gates" opening to form of orifice & pushing out of such concentric circles... "Ventriloquisms.." still not yet having found their form, but jabbering toWar?! such & such or Wha?!not.

I (there it is, that intrepid pronoun) find the more it moves toWar?! Wha?! it desires, the further it moves aWa?! from Wha?! I snese Wil?! be Welcom?!

& still I push it or it pushes me toWar?! wha?! it seems to Wan?! to be. ToWar?! itself perhaps, & against Wha?! might be read & interpreted more easily.. against the safety & security of the Normos, Logos, units splaying against the grain of what is likely to be gained in becoming or drawing to the same, the beneficent sanity of the familiar, the acceptable, & the...

...life is much more uncertain tha?! such ellipses.

Whew! Thanks for that Bruce! MAY SHAMAN-MACHINE BE PUBLISHED IN ITS FULL GLORIOUS 1,000+PP ASAP (or as soon as desirable). A Magnum Opus it will undoubtedly be. & thanks to J(erome) R(othenberg) for championing it!

& what about you other COGNITIVE DISSIDENTS out there? I see that there're new members, more people I 'know' 'nothing' about. It wd be nice to read some personal commentaries from you - if only to feel like our bubbles touch & make an opening from time-to-time.

More of the same: It's 12:45AM as I start this. Writing on Cognitive Dissidents is like muttering to myself.. Hence Beckett enters.. AND, thanks to the (truncated) eliipsi (ellipses?), so does Céline, I reckon.. Another 'typical' day in the life of this particular Cognitive Dissident: after having located an electrical junction box hidden between the wall of the basement & the floor of the 1st fl in my house, I'd decided to label the NINE wires entering it (it's overstuffed) so that I might refer back to these when rewiring. Realizing that the easiest way to deal w/ this dysfunctional mess (the power started going out, blah, blah) was to just disconnect it & cut out the old wiring, I discovered that no tool I have was adequate for cutting the DOUBLE MC (Metal Clad) so I walked to the hardware store to buy bolt-cutters - this involved using the right leg that I'd damaged while riding my bike on ice & taking a fall as a result.

Alright, yes I 'know' that this is beginning to seem like some sort of cable tv handyman show but bear w/ me right? I'm trying to demonstrate the Renaissance loneliness of this particular Cognitive Dissident in all its glorious multi-facetedness.

Throughout the day, I ran a new circuit for my (M)Usic rm - replacing the old circuit that no longer worked for the 2 original outlets. BUT, lest you think that's all that happened, I also listened to the CD-R that I'd made yesterday of the 46th HiTEC rehearsal. AND, of course, that wasn't all for the HiTEC activities: I also edited the 4th CD-R report on HiTEC rehearsals: "HiTEC 031-045" - wch I happen to be listening to for the 2nd time as I write this.

AND I'm drunk: on Avia Cabernet Sauvignon - cheap dry red wine from Chile. Exciting, eh? On top of that I witnessed a bit of the 2nd disc of Bela Tarr's "Satantango" - chosen on the recommendation of Alex DeLarge (sp?) from the GoodReads "Movies We've Just Watched" group. AND I'm reading Genet's "Querelle" AND I listened to Guiomar Novaes play Beethoven's "Piano Concerto No. 4" & "Piano Sonata No. 14".

The 'point'? I'm mixing things up: being an electrician, a drunk, an experimental orchestra founder, a student of long movies, an affectionado of classical music, a workaholic, a scholar of gay subversive literature..

AND, a friend stopped by post 11PM & gave me some fish from Wholefoods where he works. In the meantime, I'm editing the THIRTY-FIRST MOVIE that I've made documenting all the rehearsals of HiTEC so far. I'm working on the vaudio from #38 right now.

Perhaps none of this is remarkable.. BUT the movie I'm editing (that I'm currently taking a break from to write this) will be my 299th movie - all made W/ NO FUNDING OTHER THAN WHAT I'VE PERSONALLY PUT INTO THEM. THAT, I reckon IS remarkable.

It's all so 'crazy' - a friend criticized me last nite for not "living in the moment" - b/c I document so much of what I do - to wch I retort: I live in the moment (the present) AND in the past AND in the future. I write this 'knowing' that someone will read it after it's written, that it'll then represent my past.. that sort of thing.. Not recording the (M)Usic wdn't make it any 'better' (or any worse) - contrary to my friend's implication. Recording it enables me to study it post-playing, to decide what 'needs' improvement, to preserve it for the future-curious. I ENJOY recordings of other people's music, someone will enjoy mine..

BUT, I'm ALONE, alone.. alone.. Muttering to myself for 'strangers'..

tENT!

Yes, this is all quite remarkable!

Your book'em documentary has been floating from person to person's hand here in Waterloo. A small group of us are looking into starting up something similar to book'em in Canada. Will let you know how it progresses, as it progresses!

Erin! I'm glad that the Book 'Em doc is inspiring people. There're many books-to-prisoners programs, of course, & 1 of the other ones that I have some slight contact w/ is emailable @: info@prisonbookprogram.org. You might be interested in getting on their emailing list for a taste of another program that's out there. A superficial search of "books-to-prisoners discussion groups" led me to this page: http://www.books2prisoners.org/links.htm - wch had a list of some other relevant groups. ANYWAY, I'm sure that you & yr friends can find all this info easily enuf. In particular, I know that there's a national (us@) list-serv esp for people involved in books-to-prisoners programs & fellow travellers. If you can find that & join that wd probably be useful. Thanks for writing! I hope things are happening for you in Canadada (aka CacaNada).

Ha Ha! More, MORE of the SAME not-quite-really-SAME! Another day in the life of a COGNITIVE DISSIDENT. After a restless nite, I'm awoken around 10:30AM by a phone call from Gretchen telling me that I can go to Pittsburgh Filmmakers to copy the compressed file of the Hi-Def w/a shot of HiTEC's premier at the New Hazlett Theater here in Pittsburgh on Friday, Jan 9. There were 8 camcorders documenting this event: 4 static, 4 moving.

1st, I go to etta's house, where we have breakfast & discuss our ongoing difficulties w/ each other - 'airing' these problems after mnths of tension. Das ist gut.

Then, to Filmmakers. This takes an hr or so.

Then home. Throughout the day I tape 3 CDs I'd gotten from the excellent Music Dept of the local library: Salvatore Martirano's "O, O, O, O, That Shakespeherian Rag", Lou Harrison's "In Retrospect" & "Rapunzel and other works". Understand, it's not like Martirano or Harrison are my favorite composers but I've been studying experimental classical music post-1885 for at least the last 35 yrs & I've fairly thoroughly covered the 'major' composers so it's always good to study others that don't strike me as as thoroughly 'innovative' but still interesting. Hence, Harrison & Martirano - hardly slouches!

While I copy these & read their notes & LISTEN to them, I also start to load into the computer (for editing purposes) the approximately 12 hrs of footage that I have from the aforementioned HiTEC premier.

Added to this, I've been reading the July-August 1972 issue of "Art in America" wch is dedicated to "The American Indian" & wch I'm finding astonishingly excellent AS WELL AS painter Giorgio de Chirico's "Hebdomeros" & other texts contained in the same volume.

As if that weren't enuf, I screened the "Leaving Home", volume 6 of "Orchestral Music in the 20th Century" vaudeo + the extra of a document of Stockhausen's "Gruppen". This was very exciting for me. I noticed for the 1st time that the work has electric guitar in it. Judging from a superficial questioning of the internet, this is actually called for by the score but I don't recall noticing it before.

Throughout this, the HiTEC footage is being loaded - visible in the corner of my eye. Is HiTEC's "Systems Management" worthy of association w/ Stockhausen's magnificent "Gruppen" for 3 orchestral groups of about 40 players each - separately conducted? Perhaps not.. but I have to admit that "Gruppen", much as I love Stockhausen's work, has never done much for me.

Added to all this, I've been, of course, checking my email, AND cutting out the packaging for the latest CD-R report from HiTEC: "46-50". Yes, we had 50 rehearsals before our premier.

The gist here, as usual, is that I've been pouring the info/stimulation in copious quantities into my brain here in my lonely (& highly tarnished) 'ivory tower' home. Next? I think I'll try to upload a 4:00 excerpt from the Hi-Def vaudeo of the HiTEC premier to "onesownthoughts" YouTube channel & THEN witness "Jane Eyre" in VHS form. In the meantime? Get drunk? As usual, alone. OR, together w/ the residue of other busy thinkers.