There was an article in the Guardian a while back ‘(Andrew) Motion, chairman of the judging panel for next month's David Cohen prize for literature, was trying to kickstart a debate on who was "the greatest living writer in the British Isles".

‘So far the engine has refused to spark into life. The suggestions are few, and one or two may be facetious: Amis, of course; the poet Tom Raworth; the novelist Lesley Glaister; the footballing penseur Wayne Rooney (why not Coleen?). ‘

I was the one who ‘suggested’ Raworth and join all the others in lamenting his passing.  I think a link and a second link got me to Motion’s website; otherwise I agree with Charles Bernstein this past October ‘If Andrew Motion is a poet, I don’t want to be a poet.’  So my loyalties as to who was the ‘greatest living writer of the British Isles’ had at least been noted in a formerly palatable newspaper.  If you ask me about the best reading I’ve ever attended his will come immediately to mind.. this one starts at 29:45..



Piri’ Miri Muli’ concerns: he uses the line break within the word a few times, including the first poem in his selected, to force an inversion of meaning within the sentence which came much more often in his verse, retaining a control of content used for anything but and other effects.  Also, having lived for a time in Mexico, he weighed in "Gaslight" on Enrique González Martínez’ owl in response to Rubén Darío’s swan..

poetry is neither swan nor owl
but worker, miner
digging each generation deeper
through the shit of its eaters
to the root - then up to the great tomato

What's up for one more day

3 shows ending tomorrow:

Petzel’s curatorial response to the Trump inauguration that includes works from long before this year and different perspectives, including a bust of Snowden installed temporarily in a park. 456 W 18th Street

If you would prefer the human foot to be red, disembodied, glowing, in groups of four, and only visible from straight ahead then Louise B. has you covered. 547 25th

Never seen before Eisenstein drawings take their place in the erotic genre at 510 26th St. Sergei the horny bastard! He even has one of an acrobat pleasuring himself as a cover for Stendal’s (sic) complete works “Egotism.” I don’t think I’m the only one who still has his Monsieur Beyle shelf by the bedside.

Also in DC a wonderful show of photos of a Rajisthani girl and her mother and sister including letters documenting her predicament by Gauri Gill at the Sackler through Sunday.

the end
of

his
tory

and th
e las

t
man

please
d to n

omen
ate

for secret
ary of t

he henho
use

t
he f

o
x

do
nald

tea
chez em

i
ly how

to
Capital

i

ze wit
hen

Sentence
S at the n

ave
l Ob

serve
tory

lit
era

l sw
amps d

rain fig
ur

at
ive

all
i

g
at

or
s stay

What's up for two more days v. F11 or +/=

Kasmin's wonderful evocation (515 27) of Brancusi's impasse Ronsin "a dead end street of ramshackle studios and workshops that had been built originally for the foreign artisans who came to work on the 1889 International Exposition.. When (collector John) Quinn made his second and last trip to Paris in the fall of 1923 - he died the following year - his happiest evenings were spent at impasse Ronsin. Henri-Pierre Roché describes an evening there in 1922 when Erik Satie was present: 'Dinner at Brancusi's - splendid. His famous cold beans puree, with garlic vinaigrette, his grilled steak... he multiplies himself, cooks, serves... there were two violins, Satie and Brancusi playing duos, teasing each other, we laugh so hard our jaws ache." (Tomkins' Duchamp) When Quinn died, Brancusi asked Duchamp and Roché (author of two of my favorite Truffaut films) to buy his works for what was then a low sum with a collector friend of Brancusi's and split them three ways. Duchamp told Pierre Cabanne he then proceeded to support himself "for fifteen or twenty years" by selling his cut of the sculptures to Roché one by one as the prices kept going up.

There's a wonderful previously unseen Ernst at the show, but I believe it was painted in Arizona and Brancusi hated Ernst for some inexplicable reason. This was, though, the general period when Ernst was preparing his move back to Paris and Man Ray was a common friend.

The show includes Duchamp's Rotoreliefs which Breton originally convinced a collector to finance and that he later made in larger number.. spiral, moving discs that recall British Vorticism. His use of movement put him at odds with Cubists "they had an absolutely clear, dogmatic line.." which led to the request to withdraw from a group show Nude Descending a Staircase, which resembled Futurism rather than Cubist scenes of someone playing a guitar or reading a newspaper with a glass of Pernod. "Always there has been a necessity for circles in my life, for.. rotation. It is a kind of narcissism.." The chocolate grinder, like the spirals anti-painterly, creates the essence of the bachelor of the Large Glass to be entered into existence by the malic molds.

Also ending this week is the aforementioned Guston - Nixon show and Hurvin Anderson at Werner 4 e 77.