Geof Huth recently sent me a Christmas package with a bunch of neat things in it, including the 4-inch by 6-inch hardbound book whose cover is shown directly below:
The first three images within were “Vers t ehen,” by Klaus-Peter Dencker, “Chretiens,” by Pierre Garnier and “Word Theatre,” by Theo Breuer.
I very much liked just about all of them. I thought they were photographs taken by Geof of text-fragments and things that Geof thinks look like typography, for he has taken a good deal of such photographs over the years. On the last page of the book, however, its contents are described as “collection of visual poetry, experimental texts and works influenced by Dada and Fluxus” followed by a list of works by title and author. But there are fifteen or twenty fewer works shown in the book than listed so I’m not sure who did what. And I noticed just about nothing that had any particular artist’s stamp on it. I guess that’s what Dada is s’posed to be.
Oops, now I have it: the collection is no doubt of some 65 (!) little collections like this one that the redfoxpress (of Ireland) published! Geof is #65, which is stamped on the back cover. So I was right to begin with. I’ll leave my errors uncorrected–examples of dada criticism.
New dogma of mine: a photograph whose subject is a word or words is a photograph of a word or words, not a visual poem. I’m not sure that’s right, though. I will have to think about it.
Diary Entry
Friday, 23 December 2011, 3:30 P.M. I haven’t felt like running for ages but forced myself to do a mile this morning. I took off when my watched was at the zero seconds mark but forgot to see how many minutes past seven it was when I took off. My finishing time was X:02. I’m guessing it was 11:02 since my last time was 11:17, and I felt I was a little better this time out–though still horrible. I only ran about twenty yards before having to really push every step to keep going. It’s a mystery to me why I’m so off–I feel reasonably untired playing tennis, and I don’t just stand on the court. As for my cultural productivity today, I puttered around in my response to Jake Berry’s essay but didn’t catch fire. I was, as usual, feeling too tired to do much. I may work some more on it. (Later note: I didn’t.) Right now, though, I’m going to lie down again.
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