Wednesday, January 25, 2006
1/25
In the thick of reading the book for the last time before indexing/page proofs, which is rather unglamorous and really tiresome. Plus I’ve been up since 4 a.m., so kind of brain dead, with not much to say. Having sick kids is no fun…
Made all of the known fixes that the manuscript needed today (from last week’s notes), and solidified my MMU lecture schedule. Not too much time for anything else, although I did read a few recent entries of Bob Grumman’s Po-X-cetera blog regarding the anthology Writing to be Seen, a humourous blog from a NY poet (I think Jim Behrle is the guy’s name), and even a bit of Silliman’s blog, and just finished writing the travelpod entry for our weekend in KL that I started a couple of days ago.
Funny email from Clemente Padín (Uruguay) today. I’ve been in touch with him recently because one of his images is in my book, and recently panicked upon discovering that the image I had intended to use was from 1998 (the book purports to cover the era 1959-1995). So I asked him to send an earlier piece, to which he replied, “I can’t even remember my name and you expect me to remember the dates of my poems?” Anyhow, we worked it out, and I should be able to get a legitimate image in their (or, alternatively, say the original image was made earlier!).
A few exchanges with Ben F., my photo muse, too, who wasn’t aware of aisyalam until this morning. He was glad to hear about it, but also commented,
It's too bad the blog has killed the listserv. i always did enjoy the give and take of that. i do sometimes write comments for blogs, most recently at Mark Scroggins Culture Industry (http://kulturindustrie.blogspot.com/) some stuff about poetryand philosophy. But the comment fields are not well archived, they tend to disappear with blogger glotches and spam eradication sometimes does 'em in too. Besides which, it's a much more top-down form of dialogue than ye olde listserv.
His nostalgia for listservers was not echoed by another (kinda grumpy) scholar (who I will not name) I’ve been in touch with recently, who sent a note that clearly was not pleased with the route listservs had taken in recent years:
Also, the demise of listserv'slike webartery (which for the last years has been completely dominated bychat-freaks, shameless self-promotors, andwould-like-to-be-but-have-no-chance-in-hell-of-ever-becoming "artists") didn't help to keep up interest. Is there any listserv out there which*is* interesting?
For my own part, given all of the crazy creative & critical activities and other demands of my life, I haven’t been able to maintain a focus on any listserv in years, and have not really missed it. And the broadcast (& potential, but for me minimal for response) dynamic of blogging is alright, although I will admit that this has quickly become an obsession. Like Monday night, no matter how tired I was, I had to post Monday’s entry: it couldn’t wait until Tuesday a.m. Well, we’ll see how it all unfurls in the long run. I was charmed to see – thanks to PJ’s Nomadics blog – that our old friend & co-conspirator Maria Damon now has a blog (Nomad Ink, http://nomadink.blogspot.com/), so it does seem to be a mighty trend, even though quite a few of us are coming to it late, like a second wave.
So, Blog on, you crazy poets (& don’t forget to backup your thoughts somehow because we all know systems crash). Speaking of crashing, I’ve got to. G’night from Cyberjaya, CF
In the thick of reading the book for the last time before indexing/page proofs, which is rather unglamorous and really tiresome. Plus I’ve been up since 4 a.m., so kind of brain dead, with not much to say. Having sick kids is no fun…
Made all of the known fixes that the manuscript needed today (from last week’s notes), and solidified my MMU lecture schedule. Not too much time for anything else, although I did read a few recent entries of Bob Grumman’s Po-X-cetera blog regarding the anthology Writing to be Seen, a humourous blog from a NY poet (I think Jim Behrle is the guy’s name), and even a bit of Silliman’s blog, and just finished writing the travelpod entry for our weekend in KL that I started a couple of days ago.
Funny email from Clemente Padín (Uruguay) today. I’ve been in touch with him recently because one of his images is in my book, and recently panicked upon discovering that the image I had intended to use was from 1998 (the book purports to cover the era 1959-1995). So I asked him to send an earlier piece, to which he replied, “I can’t even remember my name and you expect me to remember the dates of my poems?” Anyhow, we worked it out, and I should be able to get a legitimate image in their (or, alternatively, say the original image was made earlier!).
A few exchanges with Ben F., my photo muse, too, who wasn’t aware of aisyalam until this morning. He was glad to hear about it, but also commented,
It's too bad the blog has killed the listserv. i always did enjoy the give and take of that. i do sometimes write comments for blogs, most recently at Mark Scroggins Culture Industry (http://kulturindustrie.blogspot.com/) some stuff about poetryand philosophy. But the comment fields are not well archived, they tend to disappear with blogger glotches and spam eradication sometimes does 'em in too. Besides which, it's a much more top-down form of dialogue than ye olde listserv.
His nostalgia for listservers was not echoed by another (kinda grumpy) scholar (who I will not name) I’ve been in touch with recently, who sent a note that clearly was not pleased with the route listservs had taken in recent years:
Also, the demise of listserv'slike webartery (which for the last years has been completely dominated bychat-freaks, shameless self-promotors, andwould-like-to-be-but-have-no-chance-in-hell-of-ever-becoming "artists") didn't help to keep up interest. Is there any listserv out there which*is* interesting?
For my own part, given all of the crazy creative & critical activities and other demands of my life, I haven’t been able to maintain a focus on any listserv in years, and have not really missed it. And the broadcast (& potential, but for me minimal for response) dynamic of blogging is alright, although I will admit that this has quickly become an obsession. Like Monday night, no matter how tired I was, I had to post Monday’s entry: it couldn’t wait until Tuesday a.m. Well, we’ll see how it all unfurls in the long run. I was charmed to see – thanks to PJ’s Nomadics blog – that our old friend & co-conspirator Maria Damon now has a blog (Nomad Ink, http://nomadink.blogspot.com/), so it does seem to be a mighty trend, even though quite a few of us are coming to it late, like a second wave.
So, Blog on, you crazy poets (& don’t forget to backup your thoughts somehow because we all know systems crash). Speaking of crashing, I’ve got to. G’night from Cyberjaya, CF
# posted by chris funkhouser @ 5:49 AM 
Comments:
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Chris,
I can't take listservs. I'm on only one low-traffic one for my profession and two fairly low-traffic for art. In one of the latter, I've set my email up so that I never receive messages from a couple of posters, which cuts the volume down by half (and the annoyance by a lot more).
The advantage of blogs for me is that I can read the thoughts or writing of people whose thoughts or writing I'm interested in. Listservs often devolve into argument, and people usually post too much.
The trouble with blogs, tho, is clear: The head of the pack in blogged conversations is always the blogger.
Geof
I can't take listservs. I'm on only one low-traffic one for my profession and two fairly low-traffic for art. In one of the latter, I've set my email up so that I never receive messages from a couple of posters, which cuts the volume down by half (and the annoyance by a lot more).
The advantage of blogs for me is that I can read the thoughts or writing of people whose thoughts or writing I'm interested in. Listservs often devolve into argument, and people usually post too much.
The trouble with blogs, tho, is clear: The head of the pack in blogged conversations is always the blogger.
Geof
hey chris thanks for the shout out. i'm discovering a new world. at first when i read what ben f had to say about blogs (i agree, they're a bit solipsistic until you enter into them, then a whole world of interlinking nodes of monads (damons, nomads, you name it) i read "spasm eradication" what a great concept, i.e. spasmodic eradication of ___ fill in the blank. sounds like a ws burroughs concept. eradication through spasms of orgasms. anyway, fun to learn of your whereabouts and hi to the whole (expanded) family!!!!!
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