Writing Experiment (Week 5)

Here are this week's writing experiments:

1. Write a serial poem (numbered or clearly separated parts within a whole), or else a short fiction with distinct movements or transformations (see the Myung Mi Kim poems and the Carla Harryman story in your packet for examples). Consider how pauses, changes, and silences (stoppages) interact with your movements or segments. Consider how association or disjunction might help you to find creative "threads" or themes between parts of the whole. Consider how (re-)ordering and (re-)placement creates differing trajectories, associations, meanings.

OR

2. Write a poem or short story excluding one (or two!!, or three!!!, or four!!!!) of the five vowels ("Mars Cheese Castle" uses only an 'a' and an 'e' - see more substantial examples below). Any word containing an unselected vowel must be excluded. (A desk dictionary may help you in this quest for expressivity in the face of constraint). Consider how constraint both hinders and helps the writing process. Consider how the absented letter(s) affect expression, sound, tone, mood, visual surface, word choices, and meaning.

I would like you this week to devote some portion of your note taking to observations and commentary on the writing process and the end result of the creative writing you do (whether you attempt this week's experiment or not).

examples:

• Christian Bök’s Eunoia , a book of poetry where each chapter only uses one vowel (clickable chapters on the left, clicking on poem turns page)
• Georges Perec's A Void , here's a teensy excerpt of a full length novel written w/o the letter 'e' (try to imagine writing just this last bullet w/o an 'e' ?!

*** I've decided to cancel our Tues. class before Thanksgiving on Nov. 21st. Please make note on your syllabus or day-planner ***

Snippet of my blog

The phone. I said something. I was on the phone. Cell phone. It was an involved conversation. I was walking with someone. Female. Some one I’m closed to. We were walking to class. We entered, and I put my bag on a chair, intending to leave the room again (as I was still on the phone). And there was B. Flis, sitting with a notebook open before him. He was angry with me. He told me to leave the room while I was on the phone. That made me annoyed, as I was already going to do that.

At some point one of my molars came out, and I was spitting blood. It was a big molar too. My teeth fall out in my dreams when I’m stressed. Usually it’s my front two teeth, but once all my teeth fell out. I always spit blood. The more stressed I am the more blood I spit out.

Discussion Questions (week 5)

This week's discussion questions are:

• How does textual appropriation (found text) inform your reading of War, the musical? What are your ideas on appropriation in general? How is Fitterman's use of appropriation the same as and different from visual collage? How does Fitterman's use of appropriation relate to the following concepts: war, music (entertainment), commercialism, class, art.
• List all possible definitions for the word "order" (we mentioned several in class - chronological, military, social, legal, consumerist, etc.). Are there other definitions or connotations not listed in the dictionary? How does the book relate to, reflect, or utilize these differing ideas of "order"? Where do we find explicit uses or references to "order" in the text?
• Discuss the concepts of composition and arrangement and how those might inform our reading of the text. Do those terms also have multiple definitions? What is the book composing/arranging? what is it composed/arranged of? Is Fitterman a writer? a composer? an artist? a scam-artist? a historian? How might you define or classify what he is doing?
  
• Reflect on the nature of collaboration. What does it entail? imply? What significance does Fitterman's and Rowntree's dual participation in the production of War, the musical play on your initial reading of the text? How does collaboration inform, contradict, question, or confuse the construction of meaning in the text?

Some bonus features:

• Robert Fitterman reading some of his newer work (part of his Metropolis project) earlier this Spring.
• Some visual/textual work by Dirk Rowntree on Ubu Web
  

writing experiment 4

Image Search Results

To see a bald man dance with a tiger
The belly roll jiggling, tail in the breeze.
A bikini-clad ass in a fruit pie
Raising the Bar to gripe for attention.

Empty red sockets in an ashen face
Fill the holes to complete the dead man's stare.
A message of sorrow, a small, bored dog.
Drown your sorrow in a hand crafted mug!

Clint Eastwood asks if you're feeling lucky,
But before you can answer he halves your face
So your luck has drained, along with your blood
A stone depiction of your former self.

Memories, family, all that you are
When the winds of the Storm take you away.

Excerpt From notes about war, the musical

"Rob, the book is too short."
"Uh, did we put in 40 blank pages?"
"Yes."
"Uh, did we make every word in the title take up a page?"
"Ya."
"Did we put Dominoes at the end?"
"Ya."
"Pictures of stairs?"
"Yup."
"Hey, I got it! Let's repeat the same lines we already used in a conversation, but the other speaker can spit out porno titles!"
"Brilliant!"
"Now, look at this!"
"What is it?"
"I call it, the Pet Rock!"
"Brilliant!"
That's a hypothetical, but very possible conversation the author of this book had when he got to the songs I just got to. I'm trying to use humor to ease the pulsing vien in my head that's bulging in sheer rage. It's kind of working. Oh no, here's another song!
More repetition.
More repetition.
More repetition.
More repetition.
Kind of annoying, no?
More repetition, only instead of intersecting porno titles into the other half of the conversation, they use piglatin! Brilliant!