a(n)infinite(live)ness

// because some things exist and are never found //

⌘C ⌘V^[1] Apple Notes:

Begin: 01.Aug.18

Hello world. Hello from the 15:24 Chicago Brown Line train from Adams/Wabash to Irving Park. Having just departed the Joan Flasch Artists Books Collection, visiting with my friend S, and setting foot inside my now architecturally unfamiliar alma mater, having dropped a course to make room for myself (a self that I am reticent to account for needing space + time), it struck me that I felt the need to begin. And what is beginning when stopping is both a physical and mental state you rarely engage(with)? This is my best explanation:

“Hello, stop. Begin. hello, stop.”

I’ve been considering this (stop), examining it from a few angles on varied occasions, after particular encounters and recognitions of my habits with the activity of writing, discourse, and general means by which I express (anything to anyone/thing), over the years. (this here?) Is maybe an induced state of vulnerability, but more importantly a method for accountability, and perhaps a quieter means of productivity.

Hello. Stop. Hello.

In March of this year (2018) while on a panel for TNI(P)P at NYU’s Print Culture Working Group with PJ, MC, and ANG^[2] - ANG discussed their project “The Unschool MFA”^[3] which involved funding (their self-induced? self-curated?) their MFA through allowing supporters to be given access to a Google Doc at times when they’d be writing their thesis (this summation may be inaccurate, as such, one may look it up at-will, as you should). Ultimately, in that distant corner of my memory, I would say the project provide(s/d) a live audience - a measure of accountability in a situation where they had only themselves to be held to. It also made live and real an intellectual/creative labor, and arguably fostered an in/visible community.

Stop. Hello.

In October of 2017 I found myself both caged and freed by books and text and life. To be frank, I was semi-suicidal, a condition I’ve confronted since my youth coinciding with managing bi-polar II and ptsd. All things aside, when on the incline from the outside, do not discount the slippery decline of the inside. A being cannot subsist in isolation. At that time, I wrote a lot into notebooks, onto blank slips of paper then taped into notebooks, and while I cannot (or do not have the wherewithal to) sift through those pages of my subconscious - seeing as their language is not intimate at all, but as abstract as the feelings they attempted to address - what I can say is this: I found myself first in H’s car uttering these sentiments, and then at a bar with G, and on the brink of break(ing). What I uttered:

Stop.

Begin.

Utterance/ Something to the effect of:

You see I write and I pour myself into those pages and am the pages. These books are my conversation, and my work is all I have, and my work is in words, and I write because I know nothing else, but it doesn’t do anything. I am pouring into this space, this empty space, and it doesn’t go anywhere, it just stays there. It is just another space without response. What good does it do there? Does it even exist if it is never seen? It’s as if I were just moving my pain from one prison to another, and it remains nonexistent in these spaces.

(recounts of these conversations from H and G would most likely be much more succinct, and clear, or in some areas to the contrary. Which, to be fair, is part of the function of writing in my life: my memory is constantly fractured - by trauma, by drugs, by drinking, by x. This is not to say other things are not vivid, this is not say, an event as the one described ((my relationship with say, “journaling,” at this juncture)) are easily scattered. the problem here is the fragility and subjectivity of our house of memory, a house writing hopes to render consistent, though cannot account for the future reader’s personal house’s influence on its interpretation).

Stop. Begin.

Today S pulled Susan King’s “Letter Portfolio” published at the Women’s Graphics Center in Los Angeles, CA (did you know I’m moving to LA? I am.).

In one of the letters I encountered the following passage (unsure of the J.Flasch policies on reproducing images, I have simply retyped):

“[…]It occurs to me now, that so much of our life was on those pieces of paper, and it made me feel somehow glad that at least I had one half of all those years in my possession. […]

[…] I guess that’s because I’ve always loved writing to other people, instead of mumbling away to myself on paper, and then always having the promise of a response, which is not a part of journal writing for me. I think I made a blanket policy against diary writing after a 4th grade pilgrimage with my girl scout troop to the Guignol Theater’s production of the Diary of Anne Frank. I was very impressed at the age of 9, but decided then and there that I would never be able to write in my diary, what was actually happening in real life: that kind of writing was too sappy, to embarrassing to be recorded and treasured in a journal. […]

Is this out of sequence? That’s time. It’s randomly pouring at Southport and the sun is shining.

Stop.

This reminded me of a letter sent out to a few close friends in May or April of 2017 (maybe March?), which included the following:

1. a personal note
2. a photocopy of Joan Didion’s On Keeping a Notebook, from Slouching Towards Bethlehem, taken from a library copy^[4] of the book sans my teenage marginalia, though still from my preferred (and owned) 1979 Simon and Schuster Touchstone ed. (or what have you).
3. a scan of an excerpt contained in an old notebook that reminded me of this very passage and follows:

fig. 1-a: the mailed excerpt

fig. 1-b: how many things may be contained in notebooks since 1997

My ability to write, journal, what-have-you, had diminished. As I stated previously, I prefer the abstract, or the poetic, or the mundane recordances of events. When I encounter trivial matters in past notebooks, they serve me little purpose. Notebooks, serve, for, notes. Perhaps this is why I have a greater log of planners than journals (of which, as stated above, many were burned).

Further, what the passage from King’s work reminded me of was that I have an archive of scanned letters or photocopied letters I may have sent out. In case I may have minced words.

HOLD                 YOUR                 TONGUE

So what then is happening here? And how do these things exist? Why are you here, in this space, of which I am providing?

It is because I am so terrible at journaling, that I value words in movement and exchange, that the letter has a high price. I have labored over the letter for years.^[5] 

To journal often feels like a tomb.

To write a letter is an action, a birth, or at least it seems alive.

Sometimes, work stops. But continues. Currently, I am negotiating a life-long pension for working myself to death, through death, to breaking, and finding it destructive. The burnouts have gotten longer and result in no desire for words, thoughts, or the textual engagement I hold so dear. This is because my thoughts seem increasingly incongruous, unclear, and without conclusion. Not absent. Perhaps more abundant, but the outliers are hard to wrangle. Given I connect pieces through designing intricate webs, I have decided the only solution to this problem was to lay it out, here, on the web.

What is a letter that has no end?

What is writing for anyone?

Will it have a continuous subject?

Or am I just giving you unfettered access to a method of production for me?

Are you part of production in this case, because I am generating this publicly?

[ ... ]

a(n)infinite(live)ness is not a journal.

a(n)infinite(live)ness is not a letter.

a(n)infinite(live)ness is an attempt. to write. conversely? to write. freely.

a(n)infinite(live)ness is yet to be defined.

a(n)infinite(live)ness will start        here:

you can watch.

you can read.

if you wish, you can comment

(though you’ll need to email me).

i am, writing all of this                                 openly.

Begin: 10.Aug.2018

Two books are currently in my possession. Oddly (perhaps not) they are relevant to whatever discursive/discussion that may/may not be taking place here (which is an unknown space of occupation and development). One is Alberto Manguel’s A History of Reading. Two is Amaranth Borsuk’s The Book.

It should come then as no surprise that excerpts from these titles will become points of reflect/ion/ive analyse here.

Maybe for now, we’re just following a reader, writing.

To begin,

LISTEN^[6]

Begin: 17.Aug.2018

Purpose is an unclear organism. Clarity through purpose (or in for that matter) even more unclear. elusive. Still that is unclear.

It may have been in Susan King’s, “Pacific Legends”^[7] that is/was said, written ::::

we’re never lonesome for strangers

what if we become the stranger? or we shapeshift? one day you find yourself standing in a kitchen, the crap “marbled” formica beneath your feet with one scabbed heal rubbing sympathetically against the corner of the peeling laminate of the cabinet, and you watch the brief interactions you have and suddenly, you’re a stranger. a wince overcomes you as you examine exchanges with your closest of friends that have occurred over the last few days - months. then, you examine your character, your internal structure, and your external actions.

estranged.

is it a reaction?

dismiss this as a selfish thought. but don’t dismiss it. perhaps you are a stranger. perhaps when you leave your absence is only an essence shaped by (their) memories. as such, these shifts in perception of external actions by the others (which ultimately do inform your total being, be as little in control of them as you are, they are put on you) are to be considered. it is the only way to shape that which is left of you.

we’re never lonesome for strangers. it’s true. though in those 5 words, contained in their read, is a small reservoir held by rapidly eroding concrete.

Hello. Stop.

23. Sept. 2018

It isn’t about regularity, necessarily, but consistency. How do they differ? Unclear.

Hello.

Before rereading the marked notes and dog-eared pages of agreement and opposition we’ll take a moment to reflect. We as in me, or I. The proverbial “I”. From memory or recall of 318 pages over far too long a time span to be of any good. Then again, retaining what was contained, if worthwhile, will be available to freeform recall. Hypothetically. Perhaps that’s how one could assign any “value” on a text. Debatable.

It’s 21:24 in Los Angeles, California. 66 degrees. A full moon. The end of Virgo season for anyone following or swayed by such details, details I only look for in the after of anything.

Last night in Chinatown, I attended a reading at the Poetic Research Bureau. PRB (so close to PBR). I approached the door, but I don’t know anyone anymore and no one knows me. Retreat. To a small space, away from th small space with the small group of unfamiliars that are familiar with one another. Decidedly introverted, this was not the situation for any sort of mustering of introductions. Though, I anticipate I’ll find myself there again, and familiarizing with the unfamiliars to render them familiar.

This recalled a section from Alberto Manguel’s, A History of Reading, of which it was required to read in order to discuss at convocation/orientation at UCLA on Tuesday. In particular, the section which begins on page 247, a later section entitled, “The Author as Reader.” Call this a Meandering Walkabout around the subject of the Act(ion) of Oration and (its) Relationship to Reading. Or Oration as Reading. Dual Reading. Etc. & etc.

The questions and thoughts that presented themselves to me in the back row of the hinged orange and (near) white hinged 70’s-esque chairs were not isolated to this one event, but my experience attending such “readings” or “author talks” given by authors I had not and had read over the course of my adult life. In the case of the latter, I remember how refreshed I felt if an author’s voice seemed to match what I had read.

Here is the first question: What is the role of “voice” in reading, and is “voice” tied to the idea of “authority”? Manguel doesn’t discuss the voice really, but does a haphazard dance around ideas regarding “authority” (which unsurprisingly contains “author” a swift search on the etymology of both these words confirms this intrinsic tie) and its relationship to reading and authorship. I say “haphazard” because it seems to lack any theoretical depth or merit that I (as a reader) look for, and desire. Though, as a text that presents more as a romantic musing on “the history of reading,” this is expected. It should be noted this section of the text is where most of my heaviest marginalia and feverish markup lies, not that it isn’t present throughout. But, I digress. Let us return to the PRB.

What I noticed, having no previous run-in with any of the authors reading their work, and in one case, also the work of another (so our reader is reading more in the classical sense, the words of another, which allows for another contemporary experience of the reading) was my tendency to consciously or subconsciously avert my gaze from the actual act before me. Rather, intentionally disembody their voice. This aversion was strongest when that particular author’s delivery methods felt the most poor (to me of course, they were not necessarily poor, or actually poor by general consensus). It took everything within me to try to hear their text, what they had written, through their reading, their oration and to do so without passing judgement on the text itself. We are always judging a text, whether it be read orally or textually. But because the author was present, and reading aloud before me (thereby asserting an authority), I thought surely there must be something of merit that their delivery seemed to lack. However the reading - which one should frame more as a “performance of text”^[8] - when that performance seemed “good” or possessed something the written/printed text could not carry, like in the case of Pascalle Burton, I did want to look, to see and hear a delivery as intended or as I could not in a closed room without the author present.

Whereas Katherine Coldiron may have had work that I could enjoy at a coffeeshop on a Sunday afternoon (though sadly, it appears not to my taste anyways), her delivery rendered it further uninteresting and consequently the subject of her work actually escapes me.

Now, Emmalea Russo, is an interesting case. Her delivery was fine, but it was clear to me that as much as such a work was meant to be “read” and could be “read” aloud as well, that much was lost in oration, as its ultimate success hinges on the printed word, the textual experience. Why esle would she preface the sections of her readings but showing us the pages and saying, “It looks something like this”? Further, Russo’s text clearly is the confluence of various complex poetic and theoretical mechanisms. This, in conjunction with the significance of the textual structure of the work itself, would lead one to believe a reader (or listener: what of readers as listeners, dear Manguel?) would need to sit with the text to glean something closer to its intended meaning. The qualities of this text reflect directly back onto Russo as author, who is also a sculptor - an interdisciplinary artist.

Russo and Burton lead me to something missing in A History of Reading: What is it to read a text that is visually constructed on a page, for the page? And where do we encounter the page? What is it to write for the page? And what role does performativity play in readership?

Page. Page. Page. Page. Page. Page. Page. It has many spaces.

I finished the text, the book (as it is very book), and am disappointed. Clearly my disappointment came much earlier in my reading, and this disappointment is validated in the book itself, which is frustrating. Kudos for that, Manguel. Perhaps the greatest is the misleading nature of all the reviews you see on the book, which would have lead one to believe this book also considering the contemporary reading experience. The Multi Page Experience. Beyond CD-Rom, computers, etc. One could collect the brief mentions of the technologies that now impact a reading experience and fit them neatly on one or two pages - at best. Of course, did we not expect this?

Manguel ultimately set himself to get to fall short for many readers. Of which, I am one.

Stop.

20.01.2019

Hello. Stop. Begin.

It’s a new year. Publishing is in question (that’s a bunch of bullshit^[9]). This document (is it a document? let’s all brush up on documents, documentalism, evidence, traces, and then the relationship between document and publishing) is in question. Sometimes, the artist, while knowledgeable and able to see and know and articulate in another language, perhaps takes some liberties. I ask this of myself, and my practices as both scholar and artist. Liberties. Permissions. I’m going to be diving back into this document (is it an archive? we may get fickle with language---something I cannot help but do---particularly terminology and keywords). I will retroactively add some notes to this paragraph as well.

In any case, we will call it a document because that is what it is in Google, and arguably is one. Whether or not it is, in fact, published, is up for debate.

This document is a space. It is for accountability (see par. 1). However, it has had no real direction. It sought to be “collaborative” but in this it falls short. This goal (collaboration) is now no longer part of its greater trajectory. It can  be, it’s optional.

But there are limitations within its form: as much as this document is available and accessible it is about as private as the notebooks it seeks to supplant that are in my closet. The human attention span is quite short. Ephemeral. Temporal. Material and Immaterial. Etc. etc.

Stop.

Hello.

So, again.        Begin.                 It is a space to be         accountable to.

It is where, the work (that lives within my mind and has no need to be manifested in a visual form ((or at least not yet)) may be cultivated.

Re / search.

Following March, it ought be much more (live). Or alive.

05.Jan.2020

Hello.

Stop.

Begin.

We’re a little shutdown aren’t we? Been putting the words in other places, other spaces, not here. No. Not here. Perhaps it just wasn’t private enough. Perhaps it just wasn’t working. Perhaps it just needs some tweaking. Perhaps we’ve grown weary of the tireless discussion. Perhaps...it takes a minute. Read another article or two.

Stop.

13.Jun.2020

Hello.

Stop.

Just drop it all in.

Record at a time.

No particular order.

It’s as private as the document from which it was pasted in from.

Hello.

My mornings often consist of chain-smoking and drinking black tea or coffee.

I like bitter things.

Slightly sweet.

It’s no wonder it feels like someone is ripping apart my insides.

Of course, “ripping” has a different nuance than “tearing” --- an experience more in-line with my psychological condition than biological.

“This coffee is ripping me apart.”

“These thoughts are tearing me apart.”

Bitterness implies a quality of dryness.

Stop.

Hello. Stop. Stop. Stop.

Oh.

Hello.

A. took me to the Art Institute to see the Andy Warhol Retrospective. Clara Porset was much more interesting. In the Museum Café they served Warhol-themed items. Elvis Sandwich; Coca-Cola Cupcake; Tomato Soup Cupcake. I hate to disappoint but Elvis ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Tomato Soup is suspiciously like dry ginger bread, and I have no comment for Coca-Cola but I can assume it is much the same. Besides, Coca-Cola has been a common ingredient used for glazing Christmas hams ever since I can remember (which isn’t very long when held up against the history of Coca-Cola).

My memory isn’t very good these days.

A. is E. and S. is A. and A. called Z., M., at least 3 times during conversation.

Stop.

What if this stopped being about being itself (as in this thing as a location that is self-referential) and just was something else? Just a public private? Would it matter?^[10] 

Tucked away in a corner where no one goes.

Stop.

Hello.

This reflects my own psychology.

Stop.

Hello.

I have a tendency to isolate myself.

You’re not supposed to isolate yourself.

STOP.

3.July.20

Hello. Stop.

There is a low-frequency on the perimeter. First. It sits there. As I open the pages on the book it feels--- peripheral. The perimeter. Yet, it is felt. In a distance. Not seen on the horizon but sensed in the air like a deep reverberation rattling the hollow of my chest. An interference, waiting. As I lay sight on the words, the characters separate themselves. I track their movement, left to right, and the frequency rises and the horizon grows closer. Each line, each paragraph becomes more distant and I align more directly with the margins and spaces between words down to the infinitesimal slivers between shapes no longer formed and I grow more and more---distant. Left to right. Left to right. The static. A hum. Overtakes me and I am no longer present but moving and and and and and I can no longer remain contained. It is as if that static has lifted me from the plane of language and thought cannot traverse the distance between it and I. It and I. I am not there. I question here for I cannot understand my new position.. Ich verstehe nicht. Ich verstehe nicht. I cannot understand such an undoing. Unding. Unding. I cannot. Ich verstehe mich nicht.

How did I progress beyond the plane so preternaturally? Or has the plane merely become a quality? This otherness of---_____.

Stop.

A body split in two. Stop.

Ich verstehe nicht. Ich verstehe nicht. Ich verstehe das nicht.

Ich verstehe mich nicht.

Stop. Nicht.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

9.Aug.20

Hello.

None of this was written in response to a present crisis. It is a mirror. It was written in response to the psychological experience of isolation that was imposed involuntarily—not by way of a governing mandate—but by the conditions imposed by mental faculties of the mind.

Stop.