Peter Dale Scott
RMJon23
Dale Scott's 3-vol Seculum epic poem, starting with _Coming To
Jakarta: A Poem About Terror_ (started around 1980, pub in '88), then
_Listening To The Candle: A Poem On Impulse_, then finally _Minding
The Darkness: A Poem For the Millenium_, pub in 2000.
(Sombunall) RAW and EzP fans wd especially like the 3rd volume. A
Canadian academic who taught in the English dept at Berkeley for a
long time, he's an outsider academic/intellectual and he mentions
Pound and Chomsky and Zinn and Dante and others in the poems. He's
heavily infl by Pound, but nowheres near opaque.
What do you do when you're one of those people who know US and world
history like RAW/Chomsky/Zinn/Pound and you know how to access and
digest tons of information about the world situation of banks/"deep
politics" and the "deep state" (two terms PDS uses instead of
"conspiracy theory")/state-gangsters dealing drugs to finance fascist
coups...and finding out your institution - the academy - has its hand
in facilitating all this mind-boggling crime? You daily feel the
global human oppression but you don't what to do about it? Scott: "The
result is a kind of daily schizophrenia by which we desensitize
ourselves to our own responses to what we read in the newspapers. The
psychic self-alienation which ensues makes integrative poetry
difficult but necessary."
Many of you will be familiar with Peter Dale Scott the non-fiction
writer on State corruption; this version of PDS may be of interest to
some of you.
"there is something to be said
for being marginal
and even insular
at the vortices of culture."
-p.79, _Coming To Jakarta_
RMJon23
strode quickly down the levee
to an uninhabited area
thirty-five feet below
called Trinity River bottom
where he practiced
with his second-hand Mannlicher-Carcano
wrote Priscilla Johnson
not bothering to explain
that the man chasing the route
was not Lee Harvey Oswald
but a baffled FBI agent
almost a year later
checking out the fourth version
of Marina's story
as coached by the office-mate
of Jack Ruby's former attorney
a senior FBI informant
whose meeting with Ruby
on November 20
was suppressed by the Warren Commission
and whose partner had been the conduit
for payoffs from the mob
do you understand what I'm saying?
but before I had finished
the first third of this sentence
the telephone had been disconnected
no less than four times
just like six months before
with the directors of The Fifth Estate
phone call after phone call
as we hunted in vain
for the words "army intelligence"
"Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Bureau"
or maybe just plain "rifle"
and the time when Paul's voice
though just ten blocks away
was like a phone call from Minsk
I said "give us our sound back please"
and the burst of volume
sent my ear reeling
Even the lawyer
for the House Select Committee
said "I've never heard
noises like that on a telephone before"
and he never phoned back
so I can't blame you Gore
that after the fourth disconnection
I never got the chance
to proceed with my sentence
It was Bob Silvers
who explained two days later
Gore asked me to try from New York
and the operator said your extension
was not currently in service
And I can't blame the station
which stopped phoning for my views
on drugs and the contras
after we were cut off
in the middle of the broadcast
or the bleary-eyed hippie
who followed my up Telegraph
into four or five bookstores
and then back again (until
I shook him through a second exit)
saying over and over
we know who you are
I work for the FBI
sooner or later we are going to get you
and I could do nothing about it
the poor guy
was so obviously spacy
I can't blame anyone
except maybe the advice
to Odysseus from the blind man
for if a sentence
is left dangling in the mind too long
-_Coming To Jakarta_, Peter Dale Scott, poem IV.xiv, pp.133-135
ARW23
> we know who you are
> � � � � � � � � �I work for the FBI
> � � � � sooner or later we are going to get you
>
> -_Coming To Jakarta_, Peter Dale Scott, poem IV.xiv, pp.133-135
The FBI Behavioral Science Unit
has investigated extensively
and dug into dozens of alleged "mass graves"
without finding a single body,
or even a big toe.
_ CT III _ RAW, p.191
ARW23
>>I can't blame anyone
except maybe the advice
to Odysseus from the blind man<<
That night inspired the
"Islands of Micro-Amnesia"
in Illuminatus!
Maybe a similar night inspired
the Lotus eaters
in the Odyssey?
- CT III - RAW, p.39
RMJon23
From the Bay Bridge
on the way home from the opera
you could look down on the searchlights
of the Oakland Army Terminal
where they loaded the containers
of pellet-bombs and napalm
into black Japanese ships
over which the cranes
bent like anxious surgeons
in the calm and glassy night
_Coming To Jakarta_, 103
RMJon23
There are three desks in my office
at one I read Virgil's
descent into the underworld
at one I try to sort out
clippings of failed Swiss banks
or of slow killings on meat-hooks
in a well-guarded Chicago garage
but the third desk this one
is where the typewriter
stares at me with only
a sheet of white paper
-CTJ, p.9
(acid in Big Sur
Allen kneeling to pray
for Johnson's health
[...]
Owsley by parachute
at the Human Be-In
Mika on Carole's shoulders
on mine so they could see
the Brave New World
worms in the rose
the party's hostess
some new drug in the basement
crying like a child
CIA personnel
helping local chemists
set up LSD labs
in the Bay Area
to monitor events
[...]
women who shyly hinted
at ineffable orgies
of acid nakedness
Ed Sanders the Fugs
investigative poetics
Out demons out
RMJon23
>
> - Show quoted text -
The Planet drifts to random insect doom.....
Thermodynamics has won at a crawl.....Orgone balked at the post....
Christ bled....Time ran out.....
"Atrophied Preface" to Naked Lunch, WSB
ARW23
>> Ed Sanders the Fugs
investigative poetics
Out demons out<<
Eleutherarchy has taken to the airwaves
since the days of Dostoevsky, however, and
the freedom is there
Therefore, NEVER HESITATE TO OPEN
UP A CASE FILE
EVEN UPON THE BLOODIEST OF BEASTS OR PLOTS
"Investigative Poetry", by Ed Sanders, p.23
ARW23
> � � � � � � � � �investigative poetics
> � � � Out demons out
"The verse of the investigative poet of
genius will discharge data as if scaning
eye-brains were passing across a high-energy grid,
the vectors of verse-froth leaping up from
the verse-grids at every point. High Energy
Verse History Grids!"
- ED SANDERS, "Investigative Poetry"
RMJon23
Ed Sanders: proto-punk Fug with a degree in Greek from NYU, heavily
infl by EzP, if you read the entire _Investigative Poetry_ book, which
City Lights seriously needs to bring back into print.
RAW seemed tickled that, among other Things, Sanders published a book
of poetry called _Fuck God In The Ass_. I haven't read it. Any you
peeps read it?
On w/our poetry thread...
"Why That Abbott and Costello Vaudeville
Mess Never Worked with Black People," by Paul Beatty
who’s on first?
i don’t know, your mama
RMJon23
teenage daughters is cunt deep in shit. Is this the American way of
life?" I thought so and I didn't want it changed, sitting there in my
garden, smoking the sheriff's reefers, coal gas on the wind sweet in
my nostrils as the smell of oil to an oil man or the smell of bullshit
to a cattle baron.
-WSB, from "Roosevelt After Inauguration and Other Atrocities"
Dan Clore
> On Jan 2, 10:32 pm, ARW23 <AR...@aol.com> wrote:
>> On Jan 2, 1:12 am, RMJon23 <rmjo...@aol.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Ed Sanders the Fugs investigative poetics Out demons out
>> "The verse of the investigative poet of genius will discharge data
>> as if scaning eye-brains were passing across a high-energy grid,
>> the vectors of verse-froth leaping up from the verse-grids at every
>> point. High Energy Verse History Grids!"
>>
>> - ED SANDERS, "Investigative Poetry"
>
>
> Ed Sanders: proto-punk Fug with a degree in Greek from NYU, heavily
> infl by EzP, if you read the entire _Investigative Poetry_ book,
> which City Lights seriously needs to bring back into print.
>
> RAW seemed tickled that, among other Things, Sanders published a book
> of poetry called _Fuck God In The Ass_. I haven't read it. Any you
> peeps read it?
Haven't seen that, but I have his book on Manson, The Family (various
subtitles), in three different states. Now there's another one available--
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord We�rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
RMJon23
> Haven't seen that, but I have his book on Manson, The Family (various
> subtitles), in three different states. Now there's another one available--
Oregon and what other two?
No but all seriousness aside, I'm not by any means a "true crime"
buff. I've worked in libraries and have met the True Crime Buff many
times. But after _The Family_, I'm not sure if there could POSSIBLY be
anything that could top it. It took me a week to get up the nerve to
read Chapter 41 alone. A frickin' masterpiece!
All too many times: Manson topic arises. Bugliosi's name and book.
(And the Beatles, of course. Maybe: Dennis Wilson. Maybe.)
Me: Yea, but have you read Ed Sanders?
X, Y and Z: who?
Me: Oh, well, he's probably better...well, you might want to read his
book on the Manson thing if you liked Bugliosi...
Q: I've heard of that book!
- - - - - - - - - - -
Yasseee...they don't let guys like Ed Sanders on TV. Might say
something "offensive." It would be "irresponsible." The sponsors might
object.
But Bugliosi! Hey he's a true American, weddah yas likes wots he gotsa
say or no.
RMJon23
these wordless forests
enveloping the city
from which Northrop Frye
a megalomanic-depressive like myself
wrote of the peaceable kingdom
of reforging the broken links
between creation and knowledge
-_Listening To The Candle_, p.34, PDS
ARW23
>
> RAW seemed tickled that, among other Things, Sanders published a book
> of poetry called _Fuck God In The Ass_. I haven't read it. Any you
> peeps read it?
>
No, I did not. BUT I shall!
BTW, there is another book with the "FUCK" in title:
"Fuck America" by Edgar Hilsenrath
BUT, even wikipedia has no balls to name it/list it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Hilsenrath#Works
I guess the 'spell check' can not check the word "fuck".
Is the word FUCK in any of dictionaries?
Can anyone tolerate it?
So much for the Eleutherarchy!
"Or the dance of freedom".
RMJon23
> �I guess the 'spell check' can not check the word "fuck".
> Is the word FUCK in any of dictionaries?
First one I could reach, dead tree variety: Webster's Collegiate (no
less!):
fuck \ vb [perhaps of Scand. origin; akin to Norw. dial. _fukka_ to
copulate BLAHBLAHBLAH usu. considered obscene, sometimes used in the
present participle as a meaningless intensive BLAH BLAH
"meaningless intensive"? Fuck You, Webster!
In Robert Anton Wilson's first published book, _Playboy's Book of
Forbidden Words_, there's a long entry (!) on "Fuck." I'd say look
there first.
> Can anyone tolerate it?
It seems fairly innocuous to me; when the pack 13 yr old boys on their
razor scooters are using it as a "present participle as a meaningless
intensive" on the city streets and the blue-haired old lady well
within earshot doesn't react at all, it's pretty dead.
Except to the FCC and fundy xtian assholes, of course.
> So much for the Eleutherarchy!
> "Or the dance of freedom".
Pretty sure Sanders minted that word. Best I can trans: "rule by
secrecy," but from what I can remember of Investigative Poetry (I
don't own the book, dammit!), ES meant it in the sense that RAW did
when he said you shd consider that you and your friends are a powerful
conspiracy, etc...the world isn't "doing shit to you," you are about
immanentizing the eschaton NOW.
Anyone got a better read?
poetry:
for want of correspondence
with the imagination
the rich have become richer
the poor poorer
from an unmitigated exercise
of the calculating faculty
-p.196, _Minding The Darkness_, PDS, pretty much quoting lines from
Yeats, who was in turn quoting from Shelley
Dan Clore
> On Jan 2, 11:48�pm, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>> Haven't seen that, but I have his book on Manson, The Family
>> (various subtitles), in three different states. Now there's another
>> one available--
>
> Oregon and what other two?
>
> No but all seriousness aside, I'm not by any means a "true crime"
> buff. I've worked in libraries and have met the True Crime Buff many
> times. But after _The Family_, I'm not sure if there could POSSIBLY
> be anything that could top it. It took me a week to get up the nerve
> to read Chapter 41 alone. A frickin' masterpiece!
I have periods where I go through a "true crime" phase. Has to be really
extreme, though: Manson family, Ed Gein, Dahmer*, Zodiac, etc. The
Manson File put out by Amok Press is a good one.
*I have a book by Dahmer's father. It ends with an ad for I'm OK, You're OK.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Royal Academy of Reality 1132
Peter Dale Scott sounds interesting. I enjoyed Sander's _The
Family._ I think Sanders likes _The Confucian Odes_ best of Pounds'
poetry, as did Guy Davenport.
Cool thread. I had a dream last week that got me reading Wallace
Stevens for the first time. My Dante club starts tomorrow. We will
see how many kids show up.
Royal Academy of Reality 1132
of _The Family_, or so I've heard.
ARW23
wrote:
> Rule by liberty.
>
> Peter Dale Scott sounds interesting. �I enjoyed Sander's �_The
> Family._ �I think Sanders likes _The Confucian Odes_ best of Pounds'
> poetry, as did Guy Davenport.
>
"_ The Cantos _ of Ezra Pound first gave us melodic blizzards of data-
fragments. History as slime-sift for morality; Charles Olson grew out
of that Poundian concern. I don't personally believe an Investigative
Poet has to research _ The Cantos _ for clues to the future. More of
the mode of futurity might be learned by studying Pound's _ Confucian
Odes _ , certainly some of the most beautiful and varied melodies
anyone has written." - ( Ed Sanders, "Investigative Poetry", p.9)
ARW23
> On Jan 3, 12:35 am, ARW23 <AR...@aol.com> wrote:
>
> > So much for the Eleutherarchy!
> > "Or the dance of freedom".
>
> Pretty sure Sanders minted that word. Best I can trans: "rule by
> secrecy," but from what I can remember of Investigative Poetry (I
> don't own the book, dammit!), ES meant it in the sense that RAW did
> when he said you shd consider that you and your friends are a powerful
> conspiracy, etc...the world isn't "doing shit to you," you are about
> immanentizing the eschaton NOW.
>
> Anyone got a better read?
>
Eleutheria, greek - freedom!
Here is ES's interpretation: "Lawyers have a term: "to make law."
Birds, in a similar way, "make reality" or, really, they "make
freedom"
or they create new modes of what we might term
Eleutherarchy, or the dance of freedom."
ES, "IP", p.9
RMJon23
Thanks to ARW (who apparently has a copy of Investigative Poetry) and
Royal Academy for the better trans of eleutherarchy.
A few of the ishs of RAW's Trajectories were on cassette. In one, RAW
read this poem, below, and said it was one of his favorites:
THEY ARE NOT LONG
THEY are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for awhile, then closes
Within a dream.
-Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)
Dan Clore
> The Process took legal action to get the chapter about them taken out
> of _The Family_, or so I've heard.
That is correct. I have a copy of the first edition including the
censored material, along with an insert explaining that it will be taken
out of all future printings due to the legal action.
Speaking of Manson again, I also have the album of demo tapes that he
recorded. Giving allowance for it being someone's first recordings in
demo form, not bad stuff. You have to wonder how history turned out in
the universe next door, where Manson got a recording contract and became
a megastar.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord We�rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
RMJon23
> Royal Academy of Reality 1132 wrote:
>
> > The Process took legal action to get the chapter about them taken out
> > �of _The Family_, or so I've heard.
>
> That is correct. I have a copy of the first edition including the
> censored material, along with an insert explaining that it will be taken
> out of all future printings due to the legal action.
>
> Speaking of Manson again, I also have the album of demo tapes that he
> recorded. Giving allowance for it being someone's first recordings in
> demo form, not bad stuff. You have to wonder how history turned out in
> the universe next door, where Manson got a recording contract and became
> a megastar.
The Beach Boys recorded one of Charlie's songs, "Cease To Exist,"
changing the title to "Never Leran Not To Love."
Reading Michael Walker's book _Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock
and Roll's Legendary Neighborhood_ there's a chapter about the effect
the Tate murders had on the hippie/rock and/or roll vibe in Laurel
Canyon. A lot of people, after they finally busted Manson, went, "Wow!
I passed a joint to him at Mama Cass's house one night," or other
things like that. And before the bust: megaparanoia, because there
were a lot of record execs and their drug dealers who thought they
were next on the list. So many people had passed on Charlie's demos,
or had had dealings w/him re: drugs.
Charlie learned guitar from Alvin "Creepy" Karpis, in stir. Karpis was
part of Ma Barker's gang.
(I know Clore is all over this stuff; I reiterate it for those
relatively healthy individuals who never became minor Manson
scholars.)
The house where the Tate murders occured was formerly owned by Doris
Day's son, Terry Melcher, who passed on Charlie's musical demos.
Melcher produced, among other bands, the Byrds.
I like the Doris Day----> Manson connexion.
Clore: I have not read the Manson File put out by Amok, but I did read
a book by John Gilmore that was on Amok that was about Manson,
complete with police file photos, incredibly gruesome. Gilmore seems
to me some sub-species of Gonzo True Crime writer, quite a bit
different from Sanders' poetic ironic/sensibilities, which always lurk
beneath.
Another one I've yet to get to along these lines _The Shadow Over
Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control, and the Manson Mythos_, by
Adam Gorightly. Same guy who wrote _Prankster and Conspiracy_, about
Kerry Thornley.
ARW23
> THEY ARE NOT LONG
>
> THEY are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
> Love and desire and hate:
> I think they have no portion in us after
> We pass the gate.
>
> They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
> Out of a misty dream
> Our path emerges for awhile, then closes
> Within a dream.
>
> -Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)
"It is the black curtain of destiny which drops down before our
brightest dreams. How often the phantoms of joy regale us, and dance
before us --- golden-winged, angel-faced, heart-warming, and make an
Elysium in which the dreaming soul bathes, and feels translated to
another existence; and then --- sudden as night, or a cloud --- a
word, a step, a thought, a memory will chase them away, like scared
deer vanishing over a gray horizon of moor-land!
I know not justly, if it be a weakness or a sin to create these
phantoms that we love, and to group them into a paradise --- soul-
created. But if it is a sin, it is a sweet and enchanting sin; and if
it is a weakness, it is a strong and stirring weakness."
- "Reveries of a Bachelor", by Ik Marvel, 1863
Dan Clore
The Manson File can't be beat for those interested in Charlie. Gilmore's
book is good, too.
> Another one I've yet to get to along these lines _The Shadow Over
> Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control, and the Manson Mythos_, by
> Adam Gorightly. Same guy who wrote _Prankster and Conspiracy_, about
> Kerry Thornley.
Don't think I've heard of these--
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
(Wait for the new edition: http://hplmythos.com/ )
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
Dan Clore
This might also be a good time to plug Negativland's incredible album
Helter Stupid. Which BTW illustrates General Semantics perfectly. I
wonder if RAW ever heard it. He would have loved it.
RMJon23
> This might also be a good time to plug Negativland's incredible album
> Helter Stupid. Which BTW illustrates General Semantics perfectly. I
> wonder if RAW ever heard it. He would have loved it.
I'm piqued re: Helter Stupid. I will haunt Rasputin's and Amoeba on
Telegraph for it.
Her body by the fire
Mimicked the light-conferring midnights
Of philosophy.
Suppose they are dead now.
Isn't "dead now" an odd expression?
-frag of "Etymology," Robert Hass
Dan Clore
> On Jan 5, 6:25�am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
>> This might also be a good time to plug Negativland's incredible
>> album Helter Stupid. Which BTW illustrates General Semantics
>> perfectly. I wonder if RAW ever heard it. He would have loved it.
>
> I'm piqued re: Helter Stupid. I will haunt Rasputin's and Amoeba on
> Telegraph for it.
Pandora put it on at my request, so you might try making a station with
the track as seed. (The track is most of the original album side, but
omits a little intro that appeared as a seperate track.)
You do need to know the backstory to understand the thing, though:
Negativland had a track, "Christianity Is Stupid" on the album before
Helter Stupid. There was a murder reported in the news, where some kid
axed his parents to death. The band made a press release claiming
(falsely) that the incident followed an argument over the song, and that
law enforcement had asked them not to tour. (They actually had canceled
their because of money problems.) The MSM news reported the claim as
fact, without doing anything to check its accuracy. So the track
includes stuff from real TV news reports, along with a lot of things
about other incidents where bands have been blamed for inspiring crimes.
This doesn't begin to describe the brilliant satire. In short, you have
to hear it.
RMJon23
> RMJon23 wrote:
> > On Jan 5, 6:25 am, Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> >> This might also be a good time to plug Negativland's incredible
> >> album Helter Stupid. Which BTW illustrates General Semantics
> >> perfectly. I wonder if RAW ever heard it. He would have loved it.
>
> > I'm piqued re: Helter Stupid. I will haunt Rasputin's and Amoeba on
> > Telegraph for it.
>
> Pandora put it on at my request, so you might try making a station with
> the track as seed. (The track is most of the original album side, but
> omits a little intro that appeared as a seperate track.)
>
> You do need to know the backstory to understand the thing, though:
>
> Negativland had a track, "Christianity Is Stupid" on the album before
> Helter Stupid. There was a murder reported in the news, where some kid
> axed his parents to death. The band made a press release claiming
> (falsely) that the incident followed an argument over the song, and that
> law enforcement had asked them not to tour. (They actually had canceled
> their because of money problems.) The MSM news reported the claim as
> fact, without doing anything to check its accuracy. So the track
> includes stuff from real TV news reports, along with a lot of things
> about other incidents where bands have been blamed for inspiring crimes.
>
> This doesn't begin to describe the brilliant satire. In short, you have
> to hear it.
Yes! I read about this in the Re/Search book titled _Pranks 2_.
Dan Clore
Practically everything from RE/Search is great, but the two Pranks
volumes stand out.
Another work by Negativland that RAW readers should know is ("seems to
me"?) The ABCs of Anarchism, which includes readings from Alexander
Berkman's classic The ABC of Anarchism (note the subtle difference in
titles), samples from punk songs, etc.
RMJon23
in the Blakean challenge
to build Jerusalem
first Yeats and above all Pound
overvexed by the stress
of trying to integrate
a world that is insane
lapsed like Blake himself
from the strength of their passions
into specious hatreds
of inventing enemies
I am making so much of this
needing to realize
there is no clerisy of poets
in an age striving to believe
that poetry makes nothing happen*
-frag from _Minding The Darkness_, PDS, 186-187
*-seems to refer to Auden's pessimism about poetry in the Age of
Anxiety?
Royal Academy of Reality 1132
I saw a book by Mr. Scott on the Kennedy assassination at Borders
Saturday.