Confirmed for Altered Scale 2

This blog is associated with the multimedia Internet arts journal AlteredScale.com.

Altered Scale 2 will be out in September and highlight the work of Maria Damon as featured artist.

The following are confirmed:
Rock & roll and folk-rock from The Magnolias, Chris Funkhouser, & Julia Douglass.

Interview with Rebecca Weaver on The Loft Literary Center. (More interviews on Twin Cities Literary Community are scheduled to be taped.)

Interview with jazz artist Zacc Harris on his album "The Garden."

Poetry from Carl Dennis, Pulitzer Prizewinner, John Bennett, Buck Downs, Mark DuCharme, Karen Garthe, Geoffrey Gatza, Anne Gorrick, Mark Heuring, Larry Gilmore, Crag Hill, Mary Hilton, Bruce Holsapple, Hunter James, Gail Lukasik, Laura McCullough, Sheila Murphy, Jane Joritz-Nakagawa, Richard Raver, Kathleen Rooney & Elisa Gabbert, Spencer Selby, Larissa Schmailo, Marc Vincenz. (Some have yet to come in.)

Visual poetry from Volodymyr Bilyk, Sarah Edwards, Nick Piombino, Michael Basinski, Chandler Lewis, Peter Ganick, Michael Jacobson, Sheila Murphy, Spencer Selby, Tony Rickaby, Nico Vassilikis.

Videos from Volodymyr Blyk, Donna Kuhn, Oscar Sparrow, and Vernon Frazer.

Fiction from Robert Calabrese, Kennedy Gisege, Daniel Gutstein, Rich Ives, Ted Pelton, Stephen-Paul Martin, Mark Wallace, John Colburn. (More yet to come.)

Photography from noted fiction writer Melanie Rae Thon & Andrea Canter.

Music criticism from Steven Sharp & Andrea Canter.

timely inordination by Jefferson Hansen

timely inordination

                               for larry

didn’t die in the demanding drivel

and you wanted a wanton story

to whistle and wiffle its way across

commons and countries and it did

and didn’t matter beyond mortgages

and meridians and measures gone a little

haywire because stories morph and miss

so often like the one about the chicken crossing…

why wet the whistle when a few good crumbs

will do, why tell the stumped story and

stupendous lies when we live amid the ludicrous

gone simpering and sadly awry

            a reckoning awaits any contrary counter

            a reckoning awaits the self-appointed master

            of the revels going down this week

reckoning comes not from God or karma

but pretense trips out in timely inordination

the way ridiculous demands wither of their own weight

the way wiseacre come-ons are as real as unicorns

real, yes, but also made up, like toxic salads and

bottomless bowls like gangrene implanted as

an ornament like the simple face going all sincere

to tell nothing but what isn’t and wasn’t

we could lie as often as every three seconds and

no one would notice given the right rhetoric

we could rip and tear down before the very eyes

of the inquisitors who would not notice unless wanting to

desire formulates and fashions so often the voice

the vocalizations, the squeaks and squeals

the way we torque talk into a weapon for a goal

even we could not specify

for we are the possessed the prigged

the pregnant with impossibility spewing forth

whatever does our “duty” in the stupidity

of a momentary inopportunity

we are the desiring and destracting who

destroy anything we care to rip orchestrating

just this little slip that turns to a bevy

of misjudgment and misalignment

because we are so often a mess and mess up

and so often do so intentionally and so often

don’t care beyond the momentary thrill

of knowing we did it: we are the possessed

MYND ERASER, by Michael Jacobson

Click on the screen icon in the lower right to get a full-screen version.

_______________________________

Michael Jacobson will appear in Altered Scale 2, the on-line journal associated with this blog. It will be out in September.

Michael Jacobson is a writer and artist from Minneapolis, Minnesota USA. His books include The Giant's Fence, Action Figures, and The Paranoia Machine. Besides writing books, he curates a gallery for asemic writing called The NewPost-Literate. He is also on the editorial board of SCRIPTjr.nl. In his spare time, he is working on designing a planet called "THAT". 

Jason Lee Norman, Ann Bogle, Jefferson Hansen Reading in St. Paul

Canadian writer Jason Lee Norman will be reading this Sunday at 4 pm. Ann Bogle and I will open. Come if you can.

Common Good Books
38 South Snelling Avenue, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55105

Semiotics Gone Somatic Spectacle: Alan Singer's THE INQUISITOR'S TONGUE (FC2)

Notes after my reading of the novel


(The novel is set during the Inquisition. It concerns the confession of wine taster Osvaldo Alonza de Zamora, and a priest who reads his confession to a character known as "Samaritan.")


1. Wittgenstein holds that not even pain is private. Pain is signalled by a limp, a grimace, a scowl, a pointing indication. Even "being alone with pain" assumes a social from which you are alienated.

2. Cloak upon cloak upon cloak. Even an erect penis is cloaked with meaning (The Inquisitor's Tongue (264), especially when it reveals itself in an unexpected context.

3. The naked body is never naked, but the sign of a sign of a sign.

4.  "Exposing the truth of pretense can never be forgiven" (118).

5.  "Speak for yourself and become someone else or be what you can be called" (66). We represent ourselves not as we are but to cause shifts and moves in a social matrix. If we don't play the game, we will be played.

6. "The spectacle will lead us to the knowledge that other people possess interiors as dark and as turbulent as our own, the writhing made finally peaceful in the lifeless cords of sinew and shapeless mire of muscle and soft tissue, that, given time, pools upon the stones of the Plaza" (74). Ritual killing—brutal, spectacular killing where the body is tied to horses who charge in opposite directions—is replete with meaning, replete with lessons, is abhorrent and strangely true. It is a horrific act that serves to define the limits of the acceptable: You may not live here as a Jewish person. You may not do this, you may not do that.

7. "The criminal must have a deed to confess or his execution will have no meaning" (87). If need be, a confession (semi-private), any confession, must be tortured out of the "criminal" to make the public execution significant and worthwhile.

8. The theatrical stage is a social context, frame, and ritual. A certain wildness is allowable there. To show that the religious stage is nothing but theater is to court a hellfire on earth. When frames of spectacle are traversed, anything is possible.

9. Anything, that is, until the authorities crack down in a vivid and public display of the limits of the allowable: blood and muscle pool and stain the stones of the Plaza. Reminders.

10. "She would see me pulled to pieces upon the slick stones of the Plaza de la Salvacion" (135).

11. "He had already crooked his arm, signalling..." (152). Why "crooked"? To signal that this signal is itself crooked, stemming from devious motives, ensnared in a body of subterfuge, as scary as a man in a black robe behind a big desk, holding a gavel.

12. "The Inquisition waits upon the word. Is it not an expiation to serve the Auto de fé?" (189). From the perspective of the Inquisitor, "sinners" invite the pain, the public torture-to-death, the spectacle, because they sinned in the first place. To sin is to ask for the nail in the palm, as Christ did. To sin is to cordially ask the Inquisition to rip you while alive, rip you apart.

13. "The body does not suffer fully except in a state of nakedness" (192).

14. "The meaning of it is clear" (250). But not really.

15. Clarity itself is a cloak. Of a cloak. Of a cloak.

16. We clearly do not live in the Inquisition in the contemporary U.S., and it would be an act of true insensitivity to pretend we did. However, we cannot help when reading a historical novel to compare our time to the one being represented. We, too, live in a bevy of signs: simmering, contradicting, demanding, decaying, transforming. We, too, live amid spectacles that attach to the body like rope: handcuffs, blood, prison spires. Today, we often like to pretend these symbols have gone, that we live amid practicality, that our prisons are not Gothic architecture but built simply to get a job done most efficiently.

17. Efficiency is its own sign. Who we lock up is in part an ode to our love of efficiency, among many other signs (things.)

18. What spectacle or threatened spectacle is holding your body in place right now?

Kinship of Rivers at Soap Factory in Minneapolis July 28

This is taken from The Soap Factory website.

• • 
    
    Kinship of Rivers is a five-year international river project that uses collective art, poetry, stories, music, dance and food to bring a sense of kinship among the people and communities along both the Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers.

    
    The celebration throughout the day will include many different components, from music to dance, poetry to flag making, in which people from every walk of life are encouraged to participate. The gallery will be a gathering point for people to come together in celebration of the Mississippi and the Yangtze Rivers. At 6pm, The Soap Factory is hosting a performance of Ten Thousand Waves, a narrative poem written by Wang Ping set to music by Bruce Bolon. The Kinship of Rivers event will end with the completion of Tibetan mystic art: Sand Mandala, performed by Lama Yeshi Choedup, and a grand ceremony for peace and clean water.
    
    Visitors are invited to join artists Wang Ping, Ruthann Godollei, Lisa Steinmann and Lisa Erickson in making River Flags. These flags, decorated with beautiful poems and images about rivers, connect the river communities along the Mississippi and Yangtze. Already, thousands of river flags have been made by children, seniors, writers, musicians, dancers and artists, and sewn together into banners, which serve as kinetic ambassadors of peace, joy and harmony.
    
    “As the flags flutter in the wind along the shores, they release our gratitude and good wishes into the world”, says artist Wang Ping.
    
    The Yangtze and Mississippi Rivers share many things in common as the world’s third and fourth greatest rivers. Both rivers are rich with history and culture, inspiring poets, writers, artists and musicians. As the two rivers flow across the continents, giving and taking on their way to the sea, they teach us that we are all connected.
    
    Kinship of Rivers Program: July 28th

    
    10am - 7pm
    
    - Sand Mandala of Peace by Yeshi Choedup

    
    1 -5pm
    
    
    - Wind chime sound installations by Carleton Macy, recorder by Macy, yangqing by Peiju Picardo with melodies from the Yangtze and Mississippi
    
    - Kevin Conroy builds a bamboo dome for chimes. Visitors are welcome to help build the dome and bring their own wind chimes to hang on the frame. Their sound will join in the melodies from the two rivers.
    
    - Tea ceremony with Peiju Picardo from Samosa Tea
    
    - Making river flags to bring to the Yangtze River and Tibet in 2013
    
    3 - 5pm
    
    - Dumplings with the Yangtze recipe and organic ingredients
    
    6pm
    
    - Ten Thousand Waves Ensemble, lyrics by Wang Ping, music by Bruce Bolon
    
    7pm
    
    - Completion of the Peace Mandala, a closing ceremony and offering the mandala to the river. Half of the mandala sand will be given to the audience as blessing, and the rest offered to the Mississippi for healing
    
    About the artist:
    Wang Ping is a poet, writer, photographer, grant writer and fund-raiser, organizer for the trips and manager for the whole installation collaboration. Born in Shanghai, Wang Ping now lives on the bank of the Mississippi. She’s been photographing and writing about the two rivers for the past decade, and would like to build bridges across the rivers with her art and poetry and with this river project.
    
    About sand mandala:
    Of all the artistic traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, that of painting with colored sand is one of the most unusual and exquisite. In Tibetan, this art is called dul-tson-kyil-khor, which literally means “mandala of colored powders.” Millions of grains of sand are painstakingly laid into place on a flat platform over a period of days or weeks.
    
    Formed of an iconography that includes geometric shapes and a multitude of ancient spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.
    
    It begins with an outline of the mandala. The following days see the laying of the colored sands, which is effected by pouring the sand from traditional metal funnels called chak-pur. Each monk holds a chak-pur in one hand, while running a metal rod on its grated surface; the vibration causes the sands to flow like liquid.

    After their completion, the sand mandalas are swept up and placed in an urn; to fulfill the function of healing, half is distributed to the audience at the closing ceremony, while the remainder is carried to a nearby body of water, where it is deposited, to be spread throughout the world for planetary healing.
    
    In dul-tson-kyil-khor, the traditional Tibetan art form, millions of grains of sand are laid into place, in a process that takes weeks.
    _________________________
    
    Based in the historic National Purity Soap Factory in downtown Minneapolis, The Soap Factory is a laboratory for artistic experimentation and innovation, dedicated to supporting artists and engaging audiences through the production and presentation of contemporary art in a unique and historic environment.
    

    
    

Posts

Chapter 2, "Goldfinch," from the novel BACKYARD BIRDS GO BESERK by Jefferson Hansen

Diabolism 7

Lisa: “I don’t know what got into me that night, Jésus. I’m not that kind of girl. I’m really not.” We were in the same bar. With the same bartender. This time, Pity and Hiero, again in trench coats, stuck around. They talked quietly on the other side of Lisa.

Jésus: “I don’t know what got into me, at all. I’ve never been so, uhm, uhm…”

Lisa: “You were a tiger. A real tiger, Jésus.”

Jésus: “Thanks, I guess. But that’s what’s weird. I’m not a tiger. All my girlfriends have complained about how rotten I am in bed.”

Lisa: “You were a little scary. But you weren’t rotten.” She sipped her wine. “But talking about scary! That roommate of yours, the Wolf.”

Jésus: “I don’t have a roommate named ‘the Wolf’. What are you talking about?” I live with a couple women in their 30’s and this little Chinese guy from Toronto.”

Lisa: “Then who bit me?”

Jésus: “Nobody bit you. You’re not accusing me of biting you, are you?”

Lisa: “No. Your roommate. The Wolf. He bit me.”

Jésus: “I don’t have a roommate named ‘The Wolf’.”

Lisa: “Then who bit me?” Her mouth hung open, and her brown eyes went round and haunted. “My God, that’s right. There was no wound in the morning. When I woke up there were no teeth marks. And he drew blood.”

Goldfinch 1

American Goldfinches stand about five inches tall and feed at vertical tubes holding thistle seeds. They perch on small dowels situated right under small holes they can peck their small, conical beaks into. In the summer, the vibrant yellow male cannot be missed. The female is less noticeable. Sociable birds, they tend to hit the feeder in groups.

Goldfinches do not sit still for long. Nervous and chirpy, they flit and bounce from dowel to dowel for no apparent reason.

The Narrator 7

You can call me “Goldie,” or “Cindy.” You may still call me “Jackson,” if you like. However, the name “Jay” may have become old hat by now, if you prefer.

Diabolism 8

“Jésus, I’m feeling antsy,” said Pity, his round albaster face hanging like the underside of hell. “Let’s move around.”

“You mean you want to barhop.”

“No, let’s move seats. Let’s get a different view.” He grew agitated, and gesticulated grandly, in a manner unusual for him. “Let’s go sit on the other side of the bar.” The bar was a large oval with the bartenders moving about in the middle.

“Hey, that sounds good,” said Lisa. She popped up and skittered down behind the bar stools, finally selecting one about halfway down one side of the oval. I took a spot opposite hers.

Chris, the tall young bartender, in a white shirt and black tie, scowled at us. “Are you guys trying to mess with me?”

“No, haven’t you ever needed to get a different view? Just try something else out? Just do something new?”

“Jésus, are you all right?”

“What do you mean? I feel great. I got all this energy. Don’t know where it came from.”

“Stop picking on him, Chris,” said Lisa. “Can’t a guy just be keyed up?” He mumbled something about how we couldn’t expect him to be saving our seats if we acted like that, then shook his head and went to wait on someone else.

Pity sat down next to me. He spoke quickly, his fleshy face bouncing. “What do you say, man, what do you say? Hey, I watched this TV show last night about dolphins. Turns out that if kids with autism swim with them when they’re young, they get cured. I wish my nephew could have done that. He’s 16 now. He wouldn’t have autism. I’m a member of Cure Autism Now.” Pity took a quick, jabbing peck at his beer. “Some people don’t believe in that. They don’t think autism is something that should be cured. They believe we need to accept people just as they are. Now I believe that, too, but you got to be realistic about things, know what I mean? You can’t just be idealistic. Now, take this job I had once. Teaching calculus at a Prep School. You know that some of the rich parents call the shots. But I decided I had to be absolutely fair and true and did all I could not to know the status of the kids’ parents, and if I did find out I tried to forget all about it right away. Well, ignoring that sort of social reality in that kind of setting is like trying to ignore gravity, my man, my man Jésus. It’s just the fact, the foundation, the basic IS. I got nailed, man. I held everyone to the same standard, and some rich parents did not approve when I disciplined their kids. No way. They had this administrator interview my students to try to drum up stuff on me to get me fired. Guess what? Her conclusion. ‘To a person, your students said they learned more about math from you than from any other teacher’. So the next year they hired an outside consultant to come in and write me up like I was the worst thing going. I got the job I have now as an accountant before they fired me.” He took another peck at the beer. I could see he was about to keep going, but I jumped in.

“The insipid dialysis of unneeded organs costs the taxpayers untold numbers of seeds and thistles every year,” I said. “We need to fornicate in new patterns.”

Pity jumped in. “Man, Jésus, my man, you can’t force the issue on the thing. It’s the thing, not the issue and not the idea. Like the untold brick that bumps the brat. Like the instant of the seismic shiver and the dimpled downsize. Like the—“

“Hey,” I interrupted, “medical devices such as the Pacemaker save lives but what about souls? Why save a life if the life ain’t worth living?”

“When did you start saying, ‘ain’t’, my man?”

“Hey, it just popped out. When did you start saying, ‘my man’ all the time? You’re so straight—” Before I finished Pity grabbed his pint glass and hopped off the stool. He practically skipped to a booth where Hiero and Lisa sat. I turned to my right and engaged this couple who seemed on a date. Why would I bug them?

“The riff went instantaneous and we cried out the ensemble of the nightmare,” I began.

“Right on, man,” said the guy. “Look, we’re in the middle of something.” I ignored him and talked to his back about how the underside of music, even the most upbeat and celebratory, even the most gushy of Mozart, must always hint at the weird, the subversive, the taboo, the ghastly, the …

The Narrator 8

All the diabolical birds were born in 777 AD. None of them die. They flit from body to body like parasites, possessing them, turning them to “personalities” other and ridiculous. The sober gone stoned. The drunk gone straight. The shooters gone clean. The jailed gone confusedly free.

It’s all in good fun.

Sometimes games rule the world.

Not everyone thinks birds are evil. A friend of mine keeps them as pets.

But I know some birds thoroughly.

The Narrator 9

Trait psychology holds that each individual can be described by a list of adjectives and nouns, known as ‘traits’. For instance, a person is introverted, optimistic, has a good sense of humor, is well-adjusted, and so on.

This is bunk. Yes, people have habits they fall back on frequently. A person has a way of greeting strangers, a way of behaving around the parents, a way of cheering up when feeling alone and isolated.

But these habits are fragile and changeable. A flip of the coin. A slight alteration in the laws of nature. A quantum bubble working through the neurons.

The birds.

There is no getting a grip on a person. We are all capable of most anything given the right situation.

Goldfinch 2

Molting: The Goldfinch loses all but its wing and tail feathers in the spring. In the fall it loses all of them. After the autumn molt, the goldfinch turns a duller color. During the nonbreeding season, finches love one another and are quite gregarious. However, when breeding and building nests, the males in particular become quite territorial.

Blue Jays may kill the young and steal eggs.

Diabolism 9

I flitted over to the booth where the others sat. Lisa was chattering quietly about how she wanted to steal the dollars and coins—the tip—lying on the booth behind her. She said she had never done that before.

            Hiero said, “That’s not like you, Lisa. Let’s talk about The Simpsons. It’s the longest-running show in TV history. When it started, there were no animated situation comedies…”

            Pity spoke over him. “I am your friend, Lisa, and I stand behind you no matter what you do short of genocide.”

            Lisa was looking around the bar, waiting for her chance. “Hey, Lisa, sister,” I said, “why do you want to do that? Where’s the kicks? Where’s the fun? Hey, the waitress may be a single mother.” She leapt up and swung around, then swiped the money in a gesture swifter than aerosol spray right as it bursts from the button.

            Dolly walked over, roses tattooed to one forearm, a falcon on the other. A big head of red hair frizzy and down to the shoulders. Sometimes she was mean, sometimes sweeter than sugared tea on an afternoon of incineration.

            “Lisa, why did you steal my tip?”

            “I didn’t steal your tip. I don’t know what you are talking about. Talk to the manager if you have a problem.” Dolly stood above us, her mouth a straight line.

            “Know what I keep for a pet?” asked Dolly. “A falcon. Do you know what a raptor is?” Lisa shook her head ‘no’. “A bird of prey. They feed on other birds, on mice, other weak things. I like falcons.” While she said this she reached into her pocket in her apron. Something clicked. “When I have problems, I don’t go to no manager.” She showed us the handle of the switchblade, the tip still in the apron pocket. “You guys are regulars. You’ve always tipped well. I would hate to lose you—in any way whatsoever. I would hate to lose you in this way, or that way, tortured this way or that way.” She stared at Lisa. “Cough it up, bitch.” Lisa reached into her pocket and gave her the money.

            “I’ll put it down to your not being yourself today. Could happen to any of us.” She leaned over, her thick forearms on the table. “You mess with me again, well, you know.”

            “Hey,” I said, “What do you feed the falcon.”

            She stood back, folded her arms, and stared at me. “You know that exotic pets store on 38th? I buy dead frozen mice by the bag, thaw them in the micro. I’m not supposed to do that, but I don’t got all day to let them thaw on the counter.”

           

Goldfinch 3

Toward predators, the goldfinch’s only protection is alarm calling.