John Bloomberg-Rissman: Two poems from 'In the House of the Hangman'

John Bloomberg-Rissman: tattoo with quote from Walter Benjamin
John Bloomberg-Rissman: tattoo with quote from Walter Benjamin

IN THE HOUSE OF THE HANGMAN 1107

Trying to relieve the feeling of dead meat in the breast with a swim in the sea, see lots of movie type cartoon Disney Saga, work all the time, do some work to, read about body fluids, writing letters back and forth with proposals on jobs and ideas, type no answer. How do you do? Freak accident is the thing maybe? Give me a penny for your lungs man. Imagine being someone’s butler. Hey. This is Buffy and Leila, Divine and PJ in the back without them knowing about it or agree with, icons should not have to bother. This is going to go so fucking good. Otherwise, we can hold the car. Are you with me? We can hold the car to the north and playing Sheeba, Go betweens and Meat loaf on the askassa stereo. No one can reach us, we ba: generally no. No can dou. No Sir, we can accommodate. That’s a negative sir, we have escaped. We’ve set to work removing the veil of anxious subjectivity and clotted multi-syllables from their writing, to go for a walk and to take nothing (no phone, no iPod, no iPad, nothing) except for a pad and pen. When they saw an image that they would otherwise take a picture of, they were to stop, sit down, and write the image as they saw it. No commentary. The ticket should emerge from the sidewalk not as evidence of “a lonely night,” but as a ratty piece of paper with the numbers 1446-2023. However, putting this into the context of several recent articles about the accelerating pace of “cyber-attacks” on U.S. infrastructure — that is, “the pace at which America’s electricity grids, water supplies, computer and cellphone networks and other infrastructure are coming under attack,” in the words of the New York Times — as well as news that NYC’s elevators and boilers are now seen as potential targets for cyberwarfare (hackers “could increase the speed of how elevators go up or down,” perhaps crashing them to the bottom of the shaft), the idea of garage doors being hacked by radio signals emanating from the ocean by belligerent foreign powers takes on the air of, say, Red Dawn, as remade by Bob Vila. Oh, and that “vanilla” you ate may actually be crushed beaver anal glands – The idea that humans walk in circles is no urban myth. I have no control over my emotions. I don’t know anyone who does. The Dalai Lama, maybe, but I don’t trust him, not since seeing him shake hands with George W. Bush. The challenge in observing them is to overcome the blurring of Earth’s atmosphere. A ‘90s technique called Speckle imaging uses very short exposures to effectively freeze out the atmosphere. With Speckle, the “winning” star was S0-2, which orbits around a central dark mass in 16 years. This proved the existence of a black hole at the galactic center. But S0-2 was the only short-period (<20 years) star revealed. To carry out a fundamental test of general relativity, you need at least two stars with short orbits. Fortunately, since then a revolutionary technology called adaptive optics has arrived. This technique corrects for the effects of the atmosphere in real-time, distorting a mirror in exactly the opposite way that the atmosphere distorts the starlight. This enabled our discovery of S0-102, which takes a mere 11.5 years to orbit.

               [Note: Sources: Trying to relievewe have escaped:
               Stina Kajaso, “Strypvaffla” (tr. Google), at
               http://sonofdaddy.blogspot.com/2012/10/strypvaffla.html
               SONOFDAD, 6 Oct 012; Weve set to workfrom their
               writing and to go for a walk1446-2023: Susan M
               Schultz, “Documentary Poetry & Being in the World”, at
               http://tinfisheditor.blogspot.com/2012/10/documentary-
               poetry-being-in-world.html Tinfish Editor’s Blog, 6 Oct
               012; However, putting this into the contextVila: Geoff
               Manaugh, “Garage Warfare”, at
               http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2012/10/garage-
               warfare.html BLDG/BLOG, 6 Oct 012; Oh, and: JBR; that
               vanilla” … anal glands --: Melanie Jones/watchdog.net,
               email rec’d 6 Oct approx. 7:04 PM PDT (concerning some
               flavoring substance called castoreum); The idea that
               humansurban myth: Imp Kerr, “Triple-Decker Weekly,
               29”, at http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/shines-like-
               gold/triple-decker-weekly-29/ The New Inquiry, 6 Oct
               012; I have no controlGeorge W. Bush: John Olson,
               “Not So Sweet Emotions”, at
               http://tillalala.blogspot.com/2012/10/not-so-sweet-
               emotions.html Tillalala Chronicles, 6 Oct 012; The
               challengeto orbit: “The Discovery of the shortest
               period star in the Galactic Center: S0-102: To be published
               by Science in the October 5, 2012 edition”, at
               http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~ghezgroup/gc/research/S02_S0102_orbits.html
               UCLA Galactic Center Group, as seen 6 Oct 012]

6 – 9 October 2012

 IN THE HOUSE OF THE HANGMAN 1110 

Such were the two objects, the shotgun and the tape recorder, that interested the Araweté the most: an instrument that increased the productivity of the hunt, and an ideological apparatus reproduced the singularity of the voice. Production and reproducibility, nature and supernature, eating and singing, animals and gods. Fuck I hate fireworks. The only thing that’s worse than fireworks are real bombs, which is aggravatingly Platonic I know. And then I stared at a tuna slab. That would have been me, skimming the moss. They are Laura Palmer wrapped in plastic and washed up on the beach trying to speak through old film footage, through her diary. The voices begin to speak toward something coherent and abruptly stop: you can’t be a slave, Pa Ubu. You’re far too fat.

My back
pack is
chock

 full of dead
bees for you

look at
them!

 I remember flying over the southern tip of Greenland, coming back from Iceland. We were on the right side of the plane for the photos and everyone began oohing and aahing at the brightness and the desolation. And I remember thinking if the plane had to crash, it should be right here. Because why? Because the architecture of data storage is inhuman. Servers don’t need daylight, so the spaces are lit by blinking power lights or eery coral-reef-like fluorescence. I mean, most of the time when I watch a Lars von Trier movie I find myself wishing I were watching it on mute. The image has thousands of possible ramifications, and yet the one that was chosen, for the most part, feels like you know how dogs aren’t really smiling, they’re just panting? and they don’t really kiss you, they just lick your face because they like salt? “Zero Sadness”: little kids that walk around looking down / not because they have low self-esteem but / because they’re looking at their cool shoes / light up and or sparkle. Before us is our flesh with the tattooed portents. A spider had somehow attached a web strand to my face and was climbing towards my nose from a pile of workbooks on the desk next to mine. I passed my hand in front of my right cheek and swung her to the floor. Teddy bear with black button eyes and black rubber ears is asleep next to the hand pump disinfectant dispenser. The dictionary is half-black and half-pink. A blue sticker is affixed to the back of the fat, little book. Inside are some drawings on napkins. I wasted in the coffee shop drinking bitter, while she searched for an electronic knuckle in the pickle shop. Flame-flaked paint. Those carpeted bathrooms. That smelly couch. Milk and tea and cookies named after a bodily process. “JULIA JULIA JULIA in my dream we were flying with a murder of crows and then you bit one of those motherf*ckers on the beak for trying to out-fly you.”

               [Note: Such were the twoanimals and gods: Eduardo
               Vivieros de Castro, From the Enemys Point of View:
               Humanity and Divinity in an Amazonian Society (tr.
               Catherine V Howard); The only thingPlatonic I know
               and And then and I staredtuna slab and That would
               have beenthe moss: Brandon Brown, “Fusees 22”, in
               Flowering Mall; They are Lauraabruptly stop: Drew
               Kalbach, “‘The sheer number of corpses which pile up’:
               Drew Kalbach on Laura Mullen’s Murmur”, at
               http://www.montevidayo.com/?p=3225 Montevidayo, 9
               Oct 012; you cant be a slavetoo fat: Alfred Jarry, Slave
               Ubu (tr. Kenneth McLeish) in Jarry Ubu; My back
               packlook at them!: Russ Woods, “Bees”, at
               http://husmw4.tumblr.com/russ_woods have u seen my
               whale 4; I remember flyingright here: William Keckler,
               “Greenland”, at
               http://joebrainardspajamas.blogspot.com/2012/10/greenland.html
               Joe Brainard’s Pyjamas (The Sequel), 9 Sept 012; Because
               why? Because: JBR; the architecturefluorescence: Kyle
               Chayka, “The Aesthetics of Data Storage”, at
               http://hyperallergic.com/58330/the-aesthetics-of-data-
               storage/ Hyperallergic, 9 Sept 012; I mean: JBR; most of
               the timefeels: Blake Butler, “I Don’t Want To Read Any
               More Books About Straight White People Having Sex”, at
               http://www.vice.com/read/dont-want-to-read-any-more-
               books-about-straight-white-people-having-sex Vice, 9 Oct
               012; like: JBR; you know how dogsthey like salt?:
               Heiko Julién, I Am Ready To Die A Violent Death, at
               http://www.scribd.com/doc/102952623/I-Am-Ready-
               To-Die-A-Violent-Death scribd; “Zero Sadness … light up
               and or sparkle: Ana Carrete, “Zero Sadness”, at
               http://mynameismud.co.uk/4-poems.htm my name is
               mud; Before uspickle shop and Flame-flaked paint
                bodily process: Adam Avikainen, “Ginger Glacier”, at
               http://www.taipeibiennial2012.org/journal/15 Taipei
               Biennial 2012; JULIA JULIA JULIAout-fly you:
               anonymous, as quoted in Julia Cohen, “Harmonics like a
               Deconstructed River Press”, at
               http://onthemessiersideofneat.blogspot.com/2012/10/harmonics-
               like-deconstructed-river-press.html $650 Apartment for
               $650, 9 Oct 012]

 9 October 2012

 [EDITOR'S NOTE. The preceding are two further installments from Bloomberg-Rissman’s epic assemblage, “an ongoing project called Zeitgeist Spam,” consisting of multiple “panels” with titles like “Altarpiece to our Beauty and Insanity” & “No Sounds of My Own Making.” While each panel has its own set of compositional constraints, he tells us, “they all involve appropriating/ sampling/ collaging/ assembling/ mangling other texts.” An earlier entry on Poems and Poetics appeared here in 2011. A prolific writer and researcher, Bloomberg-Rissman is currently working with me on Barbaric, Vast & Wild, a global/historical gathering of outsider & subterranean poetry, now in progress. (J.R.)]