Goldsmith vs. German: a private speech or stalking robert

I found an interesting intersection, a place for comparisons to be made:

The intersection between Kenneth Goldsmith's pieces Fidget & Soliloquy and Zachary German's Eat When You Feel Sad.

Their similarities of form(s) are most immediately recognizable: linear transcripts of activity, as if in a record or journal, both stripped down to each's subjective essentials. 

The thought of parsing their differences is daunting. I want to at some point begin with an investigation into the brokenness of the line between conceptual poetry and conceptual narrative, the line between conceptualism and lyricism, the line around concepts and poems, the lines intersecting the knowledge of what is written inside unopened conceptual books and the casual impersonal rendering of personal events. Basically, I'll have to invent, misapply and damage certain terminologies and distinctions. Basically, I'll have to confess how I feel about them by using very new distinctions. I want to at some point elaborate and then simplify: two separate parasitic demonstrations. 

Typists, Bloggers, Poets & Bastards, Oh My.

Over the past few days I've been overworked & unwell. In this defunct state I've spent what little time I've had investigating various poet's blogs by way of link hopping from and through the various poets' blogs I read regularly. 

I've confirmed my suspicion that there are entire parrallel poetry worlds. 

When you physically travel to a new place, the retrospective report of your experience is defined by what you did, where (specifically) you went, and whom you met. Those things, for you, are that place. The internet does not have the luxury of borders, hence each individual or organization sets about establishing and defining persona(l) parameters: the visual textual stylings of each URL, each place. For now, I'll leave collective agencies such as MySpace and Facebook out of the equation. 

One particular junket began with a link to a blog belonging to Lamination Colony editor, Blake Butler,  a recent aquaintance of mine. From there, I followed a link to Tao Lin's blog, where I witnessed a big engaging ego, fumbling empathetically and failing (to some success). Amidist the frenzy that is the comment pages of his posts, I followed links to two of his compatriots: Noah Cicero and Zachary German. I should mention that prior to following those links, I took a number of short trips  by way of Tao Lin's inter-post links associated with various discussion points (i.e. Moby, "shit-talking[s]" and more). Along the way, I found discussions relating to Tao Lin as well as to Noah Cicero and Zachary German. For now, I can't think of what to say about them, except, I don't know what they care about. There are somethings akin to Kenneth Goldsmith's notions of practicing uncreativity, but conflicting or competing with an angsty bravado. 

I spent a long while reading about "shit-talking." I can't think of what to say about that either. I simply feel more unwell. Is this this the fallout of our New Communications? The ugly juxtaposition of our (id)eas? 

I don't know. But I need further reading. These writers or "typists" are after something, exploring/ exploiting diluted scenarios and rhetoric. Something holds them together. There is a semblance of community, but is it an assembly of shared indifference on similar topics? Or is there a kind of hope? Further reading. 

Linh Dinh on/vs. Kenneth Goldsmith

Though I'm conscious enough to realize the presence of vastly different points of view being exerted throughout poetic communities, I'm still somewhat awestruck when I witness a collision of two poets' fundamental perspectives. Such collisions are invaluable insights into the poets' writings, in that they begin to reveal their acts of process, as well as their acts of understanding the other's process. For me, the recurrence and continuance of such a collision is a cornerstone of any poetic community. 

Linh Dinh and Kenneth Goldsmith are both poets I read and respect. Though I've been in discussion concerning each of their works, I've never compared them, despite having discussed topics relevant to said comparison. 

Recently, Linh Dinh wrote on his blog (excerpt):

The hot/cold dichotomy has always been a staple of the art world and attributable not just to the fashion, style of the moment but to the temperament of each individual, whose uniqueness even a Kenneth Goldsmith has to concede, although he simply calls it "taste." What makes one uncreative writer better than another is his superior taste, and so we’re back to the sad self, after all, since even ready-made clothes (and hats) make the individual...

...Minus our clothes, we become even more distinctive, since no two bodies can share the same destiny. Each of us eat, make love, smoke, throw up and die alone, no matter how many similars we’re surrounded by. Sex and sickness don't lie. And yet we’re not condemned to writing just about ourselves since we have restless eyes, ears and minds that can contain boatloads. I’m not here to express me, me alone but as many selves as possible, including you if I’m lucky. Even if I simply select, copy, paste and become uncreative tomorrow, my choices of what to notice will still define me. 

Please read the entire post for a more complete context.

His post begins with a quote from Goldsmith (on Harriet Blog) discussing our new ability to fragment and shift the self in light of technology, followed by a quote from Reginald Shepherd (on Harriet Blog) discussing his ongoing fight with Colon Cancer, HIV, Bell's palsy, and Shingles. 

Dinh's argument is a refusal to reconcile the two: 

Could someone with even a single serious illness believe that he can be "everyone and no one at all"? That's he's "infinitely adaptable and changeable minute-to-minute"? I don't think so. Hell, even a simple headache brings me back to my senses, reminds me of the limitations of my body and mind.  

After reading the Goldsmith quote again, I do find a lack of empathy, almost as if he is suggesting that there is no "one" to empathize with. He seems to be attempting a great reversal: identifying the self-degrading monstrosity of post-modern modes of communication, and then declaring it/them a highway for the rapid transit of our newly fragmented forms. I can't help my excitement at the temptation to shrug off the full girth of my meaning-laden SELF, and rocket off in every direction aimlessly. But this multitude of rockets, a DNA of RSS Feeds, might also be so many escape pods, abandoning ship without destination(s). In fairness, these analogies are oversimplified, as I've claimed them as my whole self. And to clarify, I am not speaking specifically of what Goldsmith does, but what might be done in light of our fragmentation (or is it in light of recognizing our fragmentation?). 

Is the preservation of SELF more empathetic than the acceptance of the fragmented SELF?

I really don't know. 

I've had a horrible stomach flu for the last few days. I mustered up all of my fragments and we convened on the couch, watching one ineffectual film after the next. It was all I cared to do. 

It is difficult to consider fragmentation (the sort revealed through email blasts and watching movies on my iPod on the subway) a kind of practice. It is more often a symptom or consequence of individual choices, some of which seem unavoidable, short of complete isolation. Could it be that all art practices are born of symptoms? 

If person X works to explore the possibilities of fragmentation, while personal Y works to preserve the SELF, can they communicate with each other? Can they empathize with each other? As a potential recipient of both of their communications, can I hope that an XY compound is stable? 

But of course, X & Y are only variables. 

Dillon Westbrook Listens to Kenny G

Following Kenneth Goldsmith's reading at Mills College, Dillon Westbrook posted the following entry: [partial excerpt]: "If I'm only managing information when I "write" and don't know it, and you're [Goldsmith] managing information when you "write" and do know it, what difference is there in the literature we produce? It's probably the case that a google search could find every word I used in this post printed in newspapers printed today, but that knowledge isn't part of my writing practice. Could the difference between what I do and what Kenneth does really consist only in that notion being in ,or not being in, either of our heads? If so, I think Kenny G alone has resurrected the importance of intentionality from the jaws of modernism (I really hope that sentence actually exists, verbatim, somewhere in today's papers)."

And now I'm stuck on the same question(s). Could it simply be a matter of why he manages information vs. why we manage information? In this case, is that the point, to convey the virtual and real-time overlap of modern communication/ meaning? Though it could be considered part of the same question, a second factor could be what or which information he chooses to manage, vs. the general indiscretion of a public, our misapprehension where clear decisions are concerned. 

Kenny G Moor

I first began to realize the potential of boredom (as technique) during my initial visits with William Moor. The name Kenneth Goldsmith didn't stick with me at the time, but I certainly remember William telling me about his having (re)typed the entirety of an edition of the New York Times. Shortly after, William began to (re)type most of the (then) recent Harry Potter book into an amazon review of the book's listing. 

I just read something by Goldsmith to the effect of... If it doesn't exit on the internet, it doesn't exist. Which immediately brought to mind how much of William's work was nowhere, but on the internet: his amazon reviews, his endless email inquiries [what culminated as his thesis, which I believe he planned to submit as a forwarded email].

And yet, if you search for William Moor, you'll find his Amazon reviews, but you won't find, for lack of a better phrase, a poetic context. Whereas, Goldsmith's primary search results are overwhelmingly crowded by links to information, interviews, and 'works' hosted by academic and artistic institutions. Also, Goldsmiths works, a(bound) in books, recordings and video. Kenneth Goldsmith's work is Kenneth Goldsmith working. He seems to advocate to his readers/ listeners a desire to diminish, if not eradicate, the intellectual self, but his own practice undermines this impulse by (reluctantly or not) giving way to the cult of personality, which, in this case, strongly relies on his associations with academies and institutions. 

And yet, there is no inherent hypocrisy, in that he relinquishes the rights to his own name, his own personality, advocating a practice which he seems to earnestly act upon. 

 

William exists (on the interweb) as a phenomenon of manufactured normal thoughts on ordinary things. Goldsmith exists (on the interweb and elsewhere) as a practicioner of practicing the re-manufacturing of language. 

William is generally self-sabotaging as an artist, almost ensuring a certain level of anonymity in regard to his internet writings. There is, of course, no reason to NOT suspect Goldsmith of closet anonymity. Aside from his not-so-anonymous role as DJ Kenny G on WFMU, he may very well be functioning under a variety of pseudonyms, if not nameless (ala wikipedia, chatrooms, products reviews). Identity theft can be practiced among his students in the haven of his classroom, so perhaps he's found a similar haven for himself somewhere along the out rim(s) of the internet. 

I've only just begun to investigate the work and persona of Kenneth Goldsmith. I understand that tonight, across the country, he is reading at my former home, Mills College, in Oakland, CA. And two former colleagues of mine, Lara Durback and Greer Gainer, have collaborated with him on a 'broadside suite,' something I look forward to seeing. 

ALSO, he dresses very well.