Thanks for that link, Vassilis. You've provided yet another essential service to your loyal readership out here on the Graveyard Shift, in particular those of us not unlucky enough to have been connected-up-with all that high-volume low-density hot air production. It's remarkable how an act so small as striking a match can cause such a formidable intellectual conflagration.
Among the least exciting sparks were these bits:
"Robert I'm Having A. Fit and Vanessa Know Your Place outline the movement and unintentionally foreground its inherent fraudulence in their appallingly tedious Notes on Conceptualismus: Foundations of Millennial Ennui. One basic tenet put forth in their self-congratulatory manifesto is that 'pure conceptualism negates the need for reading the work.' As the privately wealthy academic dilettante Marjorie 'The Malibu Major' Ploff writes in her snoringly boring introduction to Unoriginal but Unstoppable Absence of Genius: 'nothing now being made by conceptual poets... qualifies as poetry.'
"Other unimportant conceptual fakery includes the perpetrations of such infinitely tiresome Fluff Stuffers as Nada Nada, K. Silem ("I've got an academic license to be") Silly, and Gary ("Hi, I'm here too") Sillier-Still, who, lacking creative gifts of their own, often ransack Google search engine results to create shapeless, plodding linguistic constructions that are intentionally 'bad' or 'inappropriate', confident that no one will ever be foolish enough to attempt to read such tiresome bilge anyway.
"For more information on conceptual group-think and other contemporary literary confidence rackets, endure a session at www.ubu.bore.com or pretend to read Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing Typed Up Verbatim from the New York Times, edited by The Naked Imperial Army."
Tom, what a tour-de-force! The reverberations of your blast are just now being felt in an already groggy Hellas. In the meanwhile (and to continue conceptually), I have it from the usual crystal clear sources* that before the decade runs its course and deposits all its sediment into the delta of conundrums, Conceptual Poetry will nominate for membership into its illustrious disorder a figure so furtive that none of its leaders know of his existence—Huuklyeand Cinquor. It remains to be seen whether Cinquor will take or refuse the bait.
*The Compleat Angler’s Guide to Sucera upera and Other Assorted Bottom Fish by Eyesack Foursoreyes
I've researched this topic and learnt the consequences of terminal boredom at poetry events can include catastrophic spontaneous combustion.
ReplyDeleteSee an instance of the incipience of just such an unfortunate occurrence at far right in this photo taken at a Major Group Reading.
(BTW perhaps at this point I ought to assure you that, despite the stylistic resemblance in my first sentence, this is NOT Spam, good sir!)
Tom,
ReplyDeleteWhichever way you look at it, but preferably in the manner befitting Conceptual Poetry, these gatherings are a gas.
Thanks for that link, Vassilis. You've provided yet another essential service to your loyal readership out here on the Graveyard Shift, in particular those of us not unlucky enough to have been connected-up-with all that high-volume low-density hot air production. It's remarkable how an act so small as striking a match can cause such a formidable intellectual conflagration.
ReplyDeleteAmong the least exciting sparks were these bits:
"Robert I'm Having A. Fit and Vanessa Know Your Place outline the movement and unintentionally foreground its inherent fraudulence in their appallingly tedious Notes on Conceptualismus: Foundations of Millennial Ennui. One basic tenet put forth in their self-congratulatory manifesto is that 'pure conceptualism negates the need for reading the work.' As the privately wealthy academic dilettante Marjorie 'The Malibu Major' Ploff writes in her snoringly boring introduction to Unoriginal but Unstoppable Absence of Genius: 'nothing now being made by conceptual poets... qualifies as poetry.'
"Other unimportant conceptual fakery includes the perpetrations of such infinitely tiresome Fluff Stuffers as Nada Nada, K. Silem ("I've got an academic license to be") Silly, and Gary ("Hi, I'm here too") Sillier-Still, who, lacking creative gifts of their own, often ransack Google search engine results to create shapeless, plodding linguistic constructions that are intentionally 'bad' or 'inappropriate', confident that no one will ever be foolish enough to attempt to read such tiresome bilge anyway.
"For more information on conceptual group-think and other contemporary literary confidence rackets, endure a session at www.ubu.bore.com or pretend to read Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing Typed Up Verbatim from the New York Times, edited by The Naked Imperial Army."
Tom, what a tour-de-force! The reverberations of your blast are just now being felt in an already groggy Hellas. In the meanwhile (and to continue conceptually), I have it from the usual crystal clear sources* that before the decade runs its course and deposits all its sediment into the delta of conundrums, Conceptual Poetry will nominate for membership into its illustrious disorder a figure so furtive that none of its leaders know of his existence—Huuklyeand Cinquor. It remains to be seen whether Cinquor will take or refuse the bait.
ReplyDelete*The Compleat Angler’s Guide to Sucera upera and Other Assorted Bottom Fish by Eyesack Foursoreyes
They will learn. But it will be too late.
ReplyDelete