609 lines
27 KiB
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609 lines
27 KiB
Plaintext
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QQQQQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQQQQ]
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QQQQQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQQQQ]
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QQQQ] QQ] QQ] QQQ] QQQ] QQQ]
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QQQQ] QQ] QQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQ]
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QQQQ] QQ] QQ] QQQ] \QQ\ QQQQQQQQQ]
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QQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQ] \QQ\ QQQ]
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QQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQ] \QQ\ QQQ]
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QQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQ] QQQ] \QQ\QQQ]
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QQQQQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQQQQ]
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QQQQQQQQQQQQQ] QQQQQQQQQQQQQ]
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Volume 1 Issue 1
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SPECIAL GUESTS:
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The Gas Station Des Beaux Arts
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........................William Dubie
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Les Coquelicots
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........................John Wojdylo
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Andrei Codrescu: The WELL Interview
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........................The WELLbeings
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Honey Harvest
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........................Robert Curtis Davis
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Civil Service, Part I
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The first chapter in a six-part serial
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........................Kenneth Wolman
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CORE may be reproduced freely *in its entirety only* throughout Cyberspace.
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Please obtain permission of authors to reproduce individual works. Send
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submissions, subscription requests, etc. to rita@eff.org. CORE is available
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via anonymous ftp from eff.org (journals directory).
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__________________________________________________________________________
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Rita Marie Rouvalis, EIC rita@eff.org
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Unroll that Scroll
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CORE. The latest blaze of organized electrons to blast
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across Cyberspace.
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While I was editing this first issue of CORE, it was suggested
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to me that I print out what I had, tape the pieces end-on-end, and see
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what this did for my creative process. This idea seemed more reasonable
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than ruining what remains of my eyesight and wearing out my arrow keys.
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So, risking life and limb, I climbed onto my rather mobile chair
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and stuck the resulting eight-foot-long sheet of paper to my office wall.
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Then I stared. And stared. And stared some more. I decided that what
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was appearing before my glazed eyes was what the ancient Phoenicians
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were *really* after when they invented scrolls; they just didn't have
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computers yet.
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The Phoenicians didn't have a California-style flare for interactive
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electronic interviewing, either. Not too long ago, Romanian poet Andrei
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Codrescu was given a temporary account on the WELL (Whole Earth 'Lectronic
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Link), a conferencing and e-mail service offered by the folks who publish
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WHOLE EARTH REVIEW. For a pre-determined time span, WELLbeings (as WELL
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subscribers prefer to think of themselves) fired questions at Andrei.
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The result is cool; read it for yourself.
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Oh, special thanks to my CD collection and Hurricane Bob.
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__________________________________________________________________________
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William Dubie (dubie@tnpubs.enet.dec.com)
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THE GAS STATION DES BEAUX ARTS
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Originals ring the pumps, oil (Quaker State?)
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on velvet, each frame as slate,
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masters of mechanics, with profiles fluorescent
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as an Elvis collar--high art and octane for your dollar.
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The tiger on velvet is the one in your tank.
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Drive by a vulture for Icarus, Judas Priest,
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before your pistons need grease.
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The gallery of gas, petroleum--
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Pointillism is ink in a shirt pocket; surrealism,
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The abstracts of oil and water rainbowing the station,
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made possible by a grant from Mobil Corp.
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__________________________________________________________________________
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John Wojdylo (infidel@maths.uwa.oz.au)
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LES COQUELICOTS
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(after Monet)
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A moment of solitude. A corn field with poppies: stalks away in rhythm. And a
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hill overlooks a
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vineyard, another overlooks a village with children playing in the school yard.
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buildings modern and cosmopolitan, and cities shriek, bustle, noise. Monuments,
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churches intoxicate, noise.
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Noise.
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The countryside: silence, a gentle breeze, vineyards, lush green pastures, sweet
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dancing poppies.
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It might have been 1820. The lady wades forward, a red sea around, a wake
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behind.
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There, a bridge! Downstream:
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narrow, meandering water, willows and other trees on either side, and a
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dusty road. Upstream:
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a splendid white castle half in shadow in the late afternoon sun.
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To her left, a row of trees far away, were they planted? To her right, over the
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A river. A city. Carts. Automobiles.
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Or poppies, as far as the eye can see.
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She longs to return, to
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relive memories, to savour experiences now that she is older and wiser.
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To savour, far from home and family, security, convenience, safety.
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What if old friendships have become
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too dim for rekindling?
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Alone. In a land of strangers. In a poppy field in a distant land for which
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she yearns.
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The Lady's little brother has joined her, and he's picked some poppies and is
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smelling them, and
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wonders how such a pretty flower has no scent. Mother and sister are not far
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behind.
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____________________________________________________________________________
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The WELLbeings (lcole@well.sf.ca.us)
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ANDREI CODRESCU: THE WELL INTERVIEW
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The voice and charming Romanian accent of Andrei Codrescu are
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familiar to many of us. His weekly commentaries on National Public
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Radio's "All Things Considered" are heard by as many as five million
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listeners.
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Mr. Codrescu is the author of more than twenty-five books of
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poetry, fiction, essays, and memoirs. His most recent book, published
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by Addison-Wesley, "Raised By Puppets Only to Be Killed by Research" is
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a collection of radio commentaries and newspaper essays.
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Just published is "The Disappearance of the Outside," a book of
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philosophy drawn from his recent visit to Romania. The material for
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this book prompted a call from MGM to discuss the possibility of a
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film. He is also the founder and editor of "Exquisite Corpse," a
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literary journal.
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Seeing his homeland again has prompted Mr. Codrescu to help with
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the country's development effort. Prior to the overthrow of the
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Ceausescu Regime, a single typewriter was regarded as a printing press,
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far too dangerous to be left unregulated. The result of such regulation
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is a country that today lacks the typewriters, copiers, facsimile
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machines, personal computers, and video cameras necessary for the flow
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and sharing of information. Mr. Codrescu is working with a nonprofit
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organization called Information Tools For Romania to encourage desktop
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publishing in Romania.
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Mr. Codrescu lives in New Orleans with his wife Alice and their
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two sons. He is a professor at Louisiana State University in Baton
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Rouge where he teaches English. He was born in 1946 in Sibiu, Romania,
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(most references say Transylvania) and came to The United States in
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1966. He has also lived and worked in San Francisco, New York, and
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Baltimore.
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Gregory McNamee (gmcnamee)
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Andrei, I'm curious to know what Romanian writers you recommend
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to American readers (which presupposes the availability of English-language
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editions of their work); what Romanian writers _must_ be translated into
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English immediately; what American writers are important to Romanian
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readers.
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Andrei Codrescu
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Greg, Romanian literature exists in suspended animation waiting for
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translators. I don't translate what I really love --poetry-- because I
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don't want to wreck it. But I can make a list of poets and novelists (and
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two poetry critics) who can probably stand up to some wreckage. Romanian
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literature is mostly poetry because poets knew how to wrap themselves in
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a special language that protected them from grosso bureaucrats whose spew
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drowned the pais for 45 yrs. It is very beautiful stuff filled with
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oblique hints for survival. We disdained prose writers and, consequently,
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have no real dissident tradition Russian-style.
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Ron Buck (macbeth)
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Andrei, them members of the poetry conference would very much like to
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have a list of your poetic works available in the states.
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Andrei Codrescu
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My new poetry books are "Comrade Past & Mister Present," (Coffee House
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Press), "Belligerence" (Coffee House), and then there are a few others
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in obscure corners of hidden bookstores in bad parts of town. Thanks.
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Bob Jacobson (bluefire)
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What's it like to be a seer in the South? I mean, have you ever gone
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"down on the bayou" or are you only there temporarily, until something
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dramatic propels you north or even back to Romania?
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And what's your opinion of the poetic enterprise? I've heard a criti-
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cism that poetry (at least in America) is declining into an an intro-
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verted, overly descriptive personal mode and losing its social context
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and content. Do you agree?
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Andrei Codrescu
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The South is a lot like the Balkans: slow, inefficient, bureaucratic,
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charming, full of stories and people who know how to tell them, a certain
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ambiguity in language born out of colonialism, stubborn insistence on the
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local, inability to say no to bad guys (like Rollins Co.), an excess of
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politeness that hides 800 forms of resentment. In short, what's good about
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it is what drives you crazy. It's a perfect place for a writer because
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there is lots of interestingly used language ready for overhearing, and
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much to observe. Even my most resolutely illiterate students can spin a
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good yarn with perfect timing, either because they grew up under the dining
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table listening to large families yammer, or because it's so hot in the
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summer you have to tell cool stories to yourself. And there are many
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varieties of home-grown craziness here that are peculiarly linked to the
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word.
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Poetry in America is another story, and at the risk of vanity here, I
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would recommend the two anthologies I edited myself, "American Poetry
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Since 1970: Up Late," and "The Stiffest of the Corpse: an Exquisite
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Corpse Reader, 1983-1988." I edited the first one because I couldn't
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find a commercial anthology to teach from so I made my own. I also
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edited it because I think American poetry's become a boring lowpaid
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whitecollar profession in the past decade, thanks to MFA Writing
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Pograms, the NEA, and other well-meaning instututional strangulation.
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It used to be (and still is, in Eastern Europe, Lower East Side, and
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wherever my friends live) that poetry was a dangerous practice rightly
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feared by nice people. A poet was considered liable to do any unpredictable
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thing at any given moment, a power few people can claim. When poetry is
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domesticated, that possibility is removed. No more Slack. Well,
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I'm in the Slack Business -- I advocate and teach it. So you can say
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that there is the Dangerous Slack Poetry made by the poets I
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anthologised (and many others of their ilk) and the Academic Poesy of
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non-threatening confession and stylistic contemplation which is the
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prefered mode of Mainstream Am Lit, a small pie with eight hundred
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thousand grubby but clean fingers in it. Alas.
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That demands a corresponding increase in attention from the people to
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whom the flow is directed, a commodity in short supply at the best of times.
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In other words, there are more producers and fewer consumers, more writers
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and less readers, more performers and less listeners. That's fine with me
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because I'm an anarchist and I don't believe in "audience." I think everyone
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should produce even if no one's buying. Eventually (I mean already!)
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somebody'll be producing Attention, hence professional listeners, etc.
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The age of Audience for Pay is here. If you give everybody a dollar
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to read your book everybody wins. I knew this kid in San Francisco,
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ten years old, used to go to poetry readings, then ask everybody
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for a dollar to be quiet. Today he's one of our most famous poets,
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Mr. John Ashbery. Just kidding, John.
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Barry Michael Balch (barry)
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My question has to do with your being a poet, going into exile and
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then becoming a poet again in a second language. Having grown up in
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American English, it's pretty transparent to me, I don't see how it
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effects me. As you became a writer again in American English, what
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did you discover about our language? What are its particular
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qualities and peculiar ones. What can it express easily and what
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only with difficulty? What does it sound like (I have a smattering
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enough of German and French to be able to taste them as sounds and
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music but strangely I don't have this experience of English).
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Andrei Codrescu
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The language switch question is one I have often pondered in both
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languages. It's a long story, but briefly, learning a new language
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(and living in it) is being born again. You have all this new sound
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and no taboos (nobody told you no-no about certain words). It's like
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being simultaneously forgiven and given license to cause more trouble.
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Romanians are wired for language more poetically, Americans more
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practically. R is more oblique and metaphorical, A is more direct and
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actual. They both feed my poetic perversions. In "Disappearance of the
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Outside," my new book (has anyone advertised more things in here?) I
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hold forth at some length about language switches. (I believe that the
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brain contains "holes" for every language, including Mongolian kitchen-
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speak, and that when you try, you just slip these langs. in the holes
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already there for them. Unfortunately, my ports are serial so I can
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only speak and think well in one lang. at a time.
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Jay Allison (jwa)
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OK, how about your radio commentaries? Your voice and ideas are
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refreshing on "All Things Considered" because they don't fit. Your sound
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is not standard; your thoughts are weird. What a welcome change.
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1) Are you given pretty much free reign editorially? Does your material
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always pass inspection...for instance, did NPR broadcast *all* the essays
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in "Raised by Puppets...?" Have you been censored?
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2) Do you listen to much public radio? What is your opinion of the
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programming? What might our public broadcasting system do that it is not
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doing now?
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Andrei Codrescu
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NPR has let me do pretty much what I want, which is amazing even to
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me. There are some pieces in the PUPPETS that were not broadcast for
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reasons having to do with timing -- some comments on the news became
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dated. In fact, I invited displeasure several times by being as bad
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as I could without actually saying the 7 words, and still the pieces
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were used. There are two possibilities: 1) I'm very good, 2) I'm not
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very subversive. Pass the cyanide.
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I have very few opinions about radio because I rarely listen. I like
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community radio that has ALL THE NEWS on: ideally, the station is in
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a tower where somebody can watch everyone in town, tell people about
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who's visiting who, what dogs have no leash, etc. For the longest
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time I couldn't stand to hear my voice -- now I listen as if it's
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someone else. And it is. Someone called on the phone the other day and as
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we were talking he said, "Shuddup, you're on the radio!"
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Do you really think I'm weird? I was hoping to be anonymous.
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David Newman (dn)
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Andrei, you mention the "well-meaning institutional strangulation" of the
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NEA. Should a government fund art? How?
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Andrei Codrescu
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Yes, govt. should fund art as long as it funds missiles. It's a matter
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of tax-money priorities. When we stop funding missiles, we should stop
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funding art. PERSONALLY, I think EVERY ORIGINAL GESTURE should be declared
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ART, and receive FUNDING. But if you do it twice, cut the money!
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David Newman (dn)
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Ok, Andrei, you asked for it.
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What is art?
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Andrei Codrescu
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Whatever isn't nature, 2) A friend of mine, 3) Whatever escapes analysis,
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4) The next thing I say, 5) Something even the dead can dig, 6) Etc
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Jay Allison (jwa)
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Do we have to stop now? Can't we just go to the bathroom and come back?
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__________________________________________________________________________
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Robert Curtis Davis (sonny@trantor.harris-atd.com)
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HONEY HARVEST
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In the hour of our dripping bee-harvest
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In the time of our undammed honey's golden flow
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When pollen-burdened bodies drop cargoes of nectared sweetness
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To fill the ample ambered vats within my waxy chambered comb,
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Who shall stand on the far ramparts fanning fanning
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To cool the vast and ordered industry of my hive?
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Who shall stroke the rounded belly of my favored queen?
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Who shall invade the teeming intricacies of the guarded nests
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And scorning formic acid dript from angered slavering jaws,
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Steal the sugared prize from 'neath that potent nose?
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Who shall rape the fat ripe bodies of the swollen aphid herd
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Plunder the toothsome richness of that honeyed hoard
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And stroking stroking make them yield sweet juices down?
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Listen! What lisps in sibilant whispers there on the edge of darkness?
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Quick! Plug the bungs on waxen casks brim'd full against hoar winter's frost
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Words of a necromancer's charm spin out from the damp and coiling mist
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Chilling incantations roll down the cold cold corridors of this old old earth
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I stand, am ready, unafraid; my honeyed horn is full
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I shall feed among the lilies, dance upon the high spiced mountain
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And sing the unsung satyr's song.
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___________________________________________________________________________
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Kenneth Wolman (ktw@hlwpk.att.com)
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CIVIL SERVICE
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a six-part serial
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Part I
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Many of the supervisors were lifers, and wore a kind of
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Civil Service uniform. Their shirts were solid, glaring
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starched-white with pre-wrinkled collars, plucked from the
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bottom of the pile at Klein's. The ties were narrow, dark,
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and looked like they'd been sewn by Ray Charles. The pants
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were strictly sub-basement, dark and coffee-stained so-
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called summer weights with razor cuffs not quite covering
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howling red socks and Navy-last clunky black shoes, scuffed
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and needing heels. Variants there were: but the first
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impression as you stepped from the elevator was of
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uniformity, a perfect blend with the bile-green walls.
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By contrast, the caseworkers were a weird mix, and
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Gelfen was one of them down to his ass-tight jeans and
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McCreedy and Shreiber boots. He would sit, when nothing much
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was going on in the office, contemplating with a mixture of
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admiration and lust the braless boobs, flat stomachs, and
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rock-crusher hips of the young women who worked with him,
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and who, like himself, had dropped into Welfare for a few
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years after college to pick up a fast dollar without
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working. For two years, since 1966 and getting his Masters
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in Sosh from Brooklyn, Gelfen had held down a desk in the
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New York City Department of Social Services, first in
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downtown Brooklyn and later, when he pulled some seniority
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and friendly strings in the Union office, in a cavernous old
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building in the East Bronx, a ten minute bus ride from his
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apartment.
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There was a voice in his back brain that would, now and
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again, warn him to get off his ass, for he was 26, too old
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to jam stupid, impressionable Child Welfare workers on the
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stairs during lunch hour, filling them with something other
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than ideals about saving the Wretched of the Earth. The
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voice would tell him to go back to grad school and/or get a
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real job, instead of mopping up after other people's
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miseries and swills. Gelfen did his best to ignore the
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voice: irritating as the job could be, at least it paid the
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rent. He lived alone in a rundown but reasonably solid
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tenement near the Harlem River, listening with half an ear
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to the music of the Puerto Rican family directly upstairs.
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Some friends had once been by, and after three solid hours
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of top-volume performances by Tito Rodriguez, Eddie
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Palmieri, and Jose Maria Peneranda, they decided that God
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was a Puerto Rican who had created ``cockroach music'' to
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smoke pot by. In any case, the Esperanza family was
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inoffensive enough, and they, for their part, were knocked
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out to have a non-complaining neighbor who would even split
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a few _cervezas frias_ with them on the front steps of a hot
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afternoon. Affectionately grinning, they referred to Gelfen
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as ``El Heepee,'' and were always ready with a friendly wave
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in the market or on the street. That, Gelfen suspected, was
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because they'd never seen the black looseleaf Welfare
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notebook inside his vinyl briefcase. Nobody who'd ever been
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on Welfare could dissociate the meaning of that book from
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the person who carried it.
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Gelfen was pretty sure the upstairs PRs were reliefers.
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The first day of the month once fell on a Saturday, and
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Gelfen, heading out at noon, spotted Mrs. Esperanza standing
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against the hallway mailboxes, practically embracing them,
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waiting for the mailman to show up with a sack filled with
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Welfare checks. Gelfen's caseload was largely Puerto Rican,
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too, and he figured he didn't think of his neighbors in
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quite the same way he did his clients, probably because the
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Esperanzas, in their turn, didn't know the truth about him.
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With his own clients, Gelfen could never quite shake
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the gnawing intuition that they were in some covert way
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trying to hustle his good nature into their pockets. He
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listened to the hard-luck stories they pitched at him with
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an arm that could have made Tom Seaver die from envy; and
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even when he was _sure_ he was being set up as the
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intermediary between the client and the City's money, more
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often than not something in their stories - a practiced
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vocalism? a facial expression? an implied threat? - always
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caused him to submit.
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_I no get my cheque, Meestah Geffen_, when he knew
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goddamned well they probably had.
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(Suppose, however, they weren't lying, and he was the
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ogre responsible for a family of eight spending the night in
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- oh Christ! - Crotona Park?)
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Or, _Meestah Geffen, I need de money to buy meelk fo'
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de babee_ which had been fathered on her by a common-law
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_esposo_ who was supposed to be in Puerto Rico with his
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mother, but who was, in the meantime, stopping by to screw
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the broad every night until he dropped.
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(But what if she was for real? What if Miguel Serrano,
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age 21, father of four children by three women, was in fact
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taking R & R in Mayaguez, and the chick was playing it
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straight? Gelfen imagined reading in the _News_ that her
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little girl, suffering from a massive absence of calcium,
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was lying wet-eyed and scared in Lincoln Hospital, dying.)
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Or, _I canno' work, Meestah Geffen, I hab de asthma_, a
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crock of shit for sure, because the guy looked like he could
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acquit himself honorably in the ring, and probably was
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driving a cab in Queens or Brooklyn, where he wasn't known.
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(But what if he really _did_ have asthma, better known
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as the Puerto Rican endemic disease? Gelfen had been in
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Welfare about four months when he saw a woman client die of
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an asthma attack on the floor of the Fort Greene Intake
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unit, and he puked from a combination of horror and disgust
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at the poor woman's contorted, royal-purple face trying like
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hell to suck in those final breaths.)
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So despite not-infrequent suspicions that he was being
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gotten the better of, Gelfen followed the line of least
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resistance: like his coworkers, he phonied records, wrote
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duplication grants using different codes to cover his
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tracks, and unless his own ass was near the fire, let his
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clients get away with the fruits of their creativity. It was
|
|
easier than following the City's policy manuals, which
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|
prescribed an investigation process worthy of Scotland Yard:
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|
checking the rent and utility receipts; checking the
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|
closets, the drawers, the kitchen; checking in, above, and
|
|
under the beds; checking school records to make damn sure
|
|
the family _had_ all the kids it was collecting on. Nobody
|
|
did this anymore except a few old-line caseworkers who had
|
|
joined up back when the job title precisely described the
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function and m.o.: _Social Investigator_. Gelfen's training
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supervisor for his first few months had been a huge Jamaican
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ex-cop who loathed Welfare clients with a near-religious
|
|
passion and probably (imagined Gelfen) loathed himself for
|
|
sticking around to indoctrinate Trainees with the glee of a
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|
CIA man into the secrets of sniffing out the unwashed
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|
jockstrap, the half-used tube of Delfen, the semen-stained
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|
bedsheet, even (a grand catch!) the set of works in the
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|
bureau drawer. Gelfen, for his part terrified of this
|
|
limbo-dancing Jack Johnson who still kept his carry permit
|
|
and snub-nosed .38 in his desk, went along with the process
|
|
and did the whole number on his first clients, who he was
|
|
sure came to hate him with a hatred only prisoners could
|
|
feel. When he was transferred to a regular casework unit at
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|
the end of three months, he put the huge Jamaican behind him
|
|
and assimilated into the common run of things as described
|
|
to him by a coworker his first week:
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|
``You come in at 9:04. You shuffle some papers from one
|
|
side of the desk to the other. You go across the street for
|
|
breakfast, check out some chicks, buy some cigarettes, get
|
|
the _Times_, go back to your desk by ten, read, smoke,
|
|
answer a few phones, generally fart around, go to lunch from
|
|
twelve to two, float around the office from two to four,
|
|
work like hell from four to five, and go home.'' Gelfen,
|
|
enervated by the weight of the job when done By The Book,
|
|
fell right in line: laid back most of the time, made
|
|
desultory visits when the mood hit him, and picked up his
|
|
paycheck every second Friday. The only times it got tight
|
|
were for three days following the 1st and 16th of each
|
|
month, when Intake looked like the flight of the Hebrews in
|
|
_The Ten Commandments_, a room jammed floor-to-ceiling with
|
|
half-fed people who _no get de cheque_.
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To be continued next issue . . . .
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<<<<<~~~~~~|~~~~~~>>>>>
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August 1991
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