D I U 7 15 august 94 Is there such a thing as poetic language? Whatever other tasks we may assign to poetry -- aesthetic, political, personal -- poetry will also be, will inevitably be, an ongoing exploration of what constitutes the "poetic" of "poetic language"; and should it turn out that there ISN'T such a thing, then poetry itself will not exist, will turn out to be simply another way of talking out of one's hat. There can be no argument here, for this is the rule of a tautology: If there is poetry, then what it tells us, what it EXEMPLIFIES, no matter what other subjects the poem would encompass, is the meaning of the so-called "poetic." Yet this is the one thing which poets seem least interested in exploring. They yammer on and on about everything BUT their appointed task, as if this task were an embarrassment, as if they would rather BE anything but poets. Has poetic language any value? We can't know this until we know -- or think we know -- what it is, or IF it is. And who is doing the work of telling us its meaning? Can it be that this is the last generation of poetry? That after this one, poetry will cease to exist, not out of lack of talent, not out of an exhaustion of subjects, but simply because no one cares any more to accomplish the only thing poetry CAN -- presumably -- accomplish? --Kimberly Filbee In secular world society the promise of paradise has been replaced with a world in which everyone has use of a thousand square feet or more of luxuriously enclosed and temperate-controlled living space, two cars, and a nearby shopping mall which doubles as an amusement park. Humans may be willing to destroy the viability of the earth as a suitable environment for the paradise which is the image of their greed. The world economy cannot be sustained. This is our nasty secret, as sex was the nasty secret for the Victorians. The failure to come clean poisons all of our discourse. The economy is in a condition of feedback deletion: the information it produces concerning its own over-production is read as a sign to produce more. Evesy Domar: "The economy finds itself in a serious dilemma: if sufficient investment is not forthcoming today, unemployment will be here today. But if enough is invested today, still more will be needed tomorrow... So far as unemployment is concerned, investment is at the same time a cure for the disease and the cause of even greater ills in the future." And, of course, Marxism likewise is a progressivism, based on precisely the same emotional basis as capitalism. Nothing in Marx speaks cogently against economic development producing the polluted waste land that is the former Soviet Union. I do not know which came first -- the economy or the mind -- but the psychology which corresponds to this economy has installed itself as a condition of private life. Freud read this out perfectly as eros and thanatos doing their dance. Freudian psychology is the psychology of a culture out of homeostatic control. We now need a psychology that will expose the repression not of the desire but the repression of the infinitude of the earth. --Thus, Albert or Hubert LIFE ON THE INFORMATION SUPERHIGHWAY A black man in army jacket, unshaven, hatted, asking for seventy-five cents or a dollar for something to eat as I'm putting my clean laundry into the back of my car. I don't know if I have that much but I think I have fifty cents. Reaching into my pocket trying to pull out just two quarters. How hard that is. He standing back and watching me but I not looking close enough to read his glance. Finally: Here's seventy-five cents. Thank you. Watched the whole time by two itinerant men who hang out at the laundromat. Me not wanting to meet anyone's eyes. --superunknown Playlist, Conference of the Birds, KZSC, Santa Cruz 8-1-94 Anthony Braxton/ Cut 1, 2, 3/ Live 1975 ... Celia Cruz/ Usted Abuso/ The Brilliante Best Antonio Carlos Jobim/ Scene du Lever du Soleil/ Soundtrack from Black Orpheus Saozinha/ Nal de Amor/ Saozinha sings Eugenio Tavares Maria Bethania/ Voce Nao Sabe/ As Cancoes Que Voce Fez Pra Mim ... Toto La Momposina/ Puya Puyara/ Colombie Hedi Habboubba/ (titles in arabic) Salim Halalli/ Elli Qalbou Safi/ Salim Halalli ... anonymous/ Harvest Songs and Dances/ Folk Music of India Dody Satya Ekagustidiman/ Diya/ Asmat Dream Ken McIntyre/ Home/ Home ... Trio 2 (A. Davis, J. Newton, A. Wadud)/ Who's Life/ Trio 2 Cecil Taylor/ This Nearly Was Mine/ The World of Cecil Taylor ... Ornette Coleman/ Angel Voice/ Something Else Steve Lacy/ Swiss Duck/ The Way Rashan Roland Kirk/ You'll Never Get To Heaven/ Bright Moments ... Youssou N'Dour/ Mame Bamba/ The Guide Mendes Brothers/ Angola Na Paz/ Palonkon Mirri Lobo (unspecified) ... Cesaria Evora/ Sodade/ Trance Planet Orchestra Marrabenta Star de Mozambique/ Nwaglulwana/ Trance Planet Descriptions of an Imaginary Univercity (c)irculated weekly by the logic of snowflakes nodal extension of wepress please send correspondence to cf2785@albnyvms.bitnet * * *