review of foew&ombwhnw: A Grammar of the Mind and a Phenomenology of Love and a Science of the Arts As Seen by a Stalker of the Wild Mushroom by D

Foew and Ombwhnw: A Grammar of the Mind and a Phenomenology of Love and a Science of the Arts As Seen by a Stalker of the Wild Mushroom by Dick Higgins

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This book is a gorgeous curiosity of book as art object by Dick Higgins, one of the real poets of the Fluxus conceptual art movement. I had the fortune of spending an afternoon with Dick Higgins in Chicago once through some very linked-in alliances, in fact my friend Philip and I were assigned to keep Higgins company while our other friend had to go to a meeting, and spent an hour or so talking about book designers.

This book is a prime example of his knowledge and practice in that area: it is constructed like a bible, or more accurately, a supplemental church book with similar black binding, red ink on the edge of the pages and a silk ribbon bookmark. The pages are divided into columns through which four streams of collected poems, plays, scores for actions and other run. In its structure and content it is both playful and quite serious, perfectly embodying what Fluxus is all about.

For instance, this random snippet from page 122, left column:

Two Long Performances
by Flux higgins

i.

Losing fifty pounds

ii.

Gaining fifty pounds back again

New York
February 1967

Good one, Dick. Or this more complicated selection from pages 28 and 30, left column:

Lecture Number Eight
(On Muscatel)

As early in the morning as possible,
on as inconvenient a day as possible, at
as uncomfortable a season as possible,
and having notified as many people as
possible of the forthcoming lecture, the
lecturer sets out before sunrise, equipped
with a flashlight and accompanied by

(page break)

the attenders of the lecture, to whom,
however, he says not a single word
throughout. They are led through his
favorite and unfavorable places, and he
points with the flashlight at his favorite
and unfavorable places - or where they
were or might be. It is observed that
the sun rises. (December 1964)

The power of Fluxus is that the game facet of the art distracts you enough to get you to comply and only in reflection are its effects truly felt, and as you feel them, you reflect more and feel more. It sideswipes the bullshit with which you and I come to art. For instance, that page break in the selection above I suspect might just be happenstance of printing, but I equally suspect it isn't. This guy was an obsessive book designer after all, and this is an obsessively designed book. The page break separates the preparation from the action, leader from follower, intention from result - it is the fulcrum on the teeter-totter of existence. And it may not be real at all - but it is now that I said it, and isn't that kind of psychic thermodynamic flow why we bother looking at art and think about books and contemplate our existence? Or is it?

View all my reviews.

the mark

Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band - The Mountain (lala)
Buddy & Julie Miller - Written in Chalk (lala) I listened to The Mountain for the first time in a while the other night while walking the dog, and I think that album gets the new traditionalist thing so right. No illusions - Earle set out specifically to write a set of new bluegrass classics, not songs that sounded like bluegrass classics, and he succeeded. He hasn't done an album that potent since. I think he should give the protest singer thing a momentary rest and go be the frontman for the Pogues for a while, like after they kick out Shane McGowan again. Can you picture the full power of the Pogues put in service of "Copperhead Road?" C'mon.

Anyway, Written in Chalk is a lot like The Mountain in that it perfectly hits its mark of an adult-oriented, delicate, nuanced, country-but-not duet album. It would be the best album you ever bought on impulse at Starbucks, were they to sell it there. You would buy it after hearing it overshadow Jeff Buckley's version "Hallelujah" while waiting on your latte. You would pop it into the CD player of your car which is now not as cool as the car you imagined you would be driving at this age, or put it in your iPod and walk the dog, and the clouds would cross over, making the sun look like the arms of the Lord reaching out to hug all His wretched misguided children below.
Malcolm Holcolmbe - Another Wisdom (lala) Malcolm Holcolmbe is another one of the climate-changing folky types, but with his grizzled mutterings the clouds collect and darken the earth and a few more crows are in the trees than what seems normal. I saw him a number of years back at The Red Dragon (described here) and he was a much rougher thing than is presented on this record from his salad days as a Geffen prospect, not unlike Gollum after he's spent a little time with The Ring: harder to take, but a lot more real. He'll be back on at The Red Dragon on Friday, you should holler at Chris to get a seat.

blasphemy

Frank Black & The Catholics - Pistolero - Frank Black's finest hour. It has what was right about the Pixies and what was right about his post-Pixies stuff with all novelties momentarily shelved.

1999 remade/remodeled

XTC - Apple Venus Vol 1 - There has been a lot of chatter about the "15 albums that changed your life" meme from the folks that were there with me at the time, and a fair percentage of it was about XTC. We are all pretty much in agreement about the greatness of Skylarking, though it didn't make my list because I can't really say it changed my life as much as added color to it. I took the meme to be records that altered the course of things, and Skylarking just confirmed certain trajectories.
Add to that the fact that I just received the Dukes of Stratosphear (XTC psychedelic novelty side-project) reissues in the mail and they sound as hilariously potent as they did twenty years ago, when they were crafted to sound like they were twenty years old already, XTC is front and center in my thinking. I am nursing the idea of turning 20+20 myself this month and looking at how my 20th anniversary reissue of my 20's novelty act is holding up, and I think it's improved with age.
And somehow, this is the first time I've ever listened to Apple Venus Vol 1. It is XTC with all the frenetic spasms wrung out, leaving perfectly tended fields of harmony and seamless songcraft. It's probably well I didn't hear this back in 1999 - I wouldn't have liked it. I was on the cusp of the Christ age and spent entirely too much time thinking about The True Christ Iggy Pop and the rounded edges and sometimes cloying lyrics of Apple Venus would have bounced right off me like a beach ball glancing a cactus, it's taut shiny skin unfazed by my needles.
The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies - Now this, I would have loved in 1999, because my non-Iggy moments were focused on the Really Realism of alt.country and this great Kinks moment from the 70s would have wedged in perfectly with my jam of '99, Wilco's Being There (even though it was 3 years old by then. I got into Wilco through the Mermaid Avenue record) which resembles it in a number of ways. In fact, I'm surprised this hasn't come up more as one of the foundation documents of the whole alt.country thing - it's a lot closer to the actual practice than Gram Parsons ever was. All that pointlessness aside, this is a great, great record, like practically every Kinks record is by the time you get around to listening to it.
Elton John - Honky Chateau (lala) Elton John has little to do with discussion except that I have never listened to this record in its entirety until now either, and Rhapsody suggested Honky Chateau after the Kinks. Elton John during my life of sonic cognition has been largely terrible, "Who Wears These Shoes" being what I immediately and unfortunately think when I think "Elton John." Had my stepbrother known this and not been too busy grinding down to darker 40s of his own that ended in 1999 (which also has nothing really to do with this either) he might have sat me down at some point and corrected my thinking, for he was a massive Elton John fan. And my baby sister had a baby at 4AM this morning, and both are doing fine and that probably is incidental to the discussion too (or rather this discussion is incidental to that), but like everything else in this, needs to be said.

Luna - Bewitched (lala) Welcome to the world, Luna Elizabeth Cook. This is one of your uncle's favorite records.

[The Record Crate] I am socially networked to capacity

I am socially networked to capacity. I have my blog comments go to my email, my Twitter feed updating my Facebook, all accessible on my current phone, nursing a lukewarm desire to upgrade to a better phone. I get music streamed to me by subscription services like Rhapsody, and listen to music free on lala.com. I am like that famous evolution poster of a fish crawling out of a lake, then on four legs, then stooped on two, then walking upright, with an additional image of a man whose posture is slumping back toward the simian, peering into his phone. I might have a problem.

And just when I thought there was no more dust to cast into the digital wind, I found Blip.fm, a service where you can post a song immediately, and have it post to Twitter, then Facebook, than the cosmos. So here I will demonstrate with a few acts you should check out this week. In person. From my Twitter feed:

cookalexv: Matt & Kim are so cheery and immediate that it feels like they were spawned by social networking sites ♫ http://blip.fm/~2mld7 5 minutes ago from Blip.fm

cookalexv: You never know exactly which personality of Kool Keith will present itself, but they are all pretty entertainin... ♫ http://blip.fm/~2mlfz 3 minutes ago from Blip.fm

cookalexv: Just to show that you don't have to be forever chasing after the latest, hippest thing to use this, Hoobastank ... ♫ http://blip.fm/~2mlkn 4 minutes ago from Blip.fm

cookalexv: MONOTONIX! MONOTONIX! MONOTONIX! ♫ http://blip.fm/~2mmcw less than 20 seconds ago from Blip.fm

cookalexv: If a 65-year old blind blues singer like Bryan Lee is up on here, you can do it too. ♫ http://blip.fm/~2mm1h less than 10 seconds ago from Blip.fm

C’mon… you can even bring your phone and can update your status that you went. Just remember to tip your bartender, unless there is an iPhone app for that now.

Wednesday, March 4

Matt & Kim (early) at Spanish Moon

The Molly Ringwalds at The Varsity

Thursday, March 5

Benjy Davis at a free Abita Beer event at Red Star

Friday, March 6

Malcolm Holcolmbe at Red Dragon

Monotonix at Spanish Moon

Rebirth Brass Band at Chelsea’s

Bright City Lights at Click’s

Rudy Richard at Teddy’s Juke Joint

Saturday, March 7

Kool Kieth at Spanish Moon

Secret Annexe, Field Day, and Jean Claude Seagal at North Gate Tavern

Project H and Slackjaw at Click’s

JJ Johnson at Teddy’s Juke Joint

Sunday, March 8

Bryan Lee at Teddy’s Juke Joint

Tuesday, March 10

Hoobastank at The Varsity

Sha Cha Chicken @ China Taste, Baton Rouge, LA

So good - it reaches the meager success line I seek in cheap Chinese food by being quick and hot and surpasses that with a shocking flavorful spiciness that I am still tasting an hour later, along with fried rice that tasted like something besides wok oil.

[outsideleft] Stop Me If You've Heard This Dinosaur Joke Before: Morrissey and U2

Once mighty forces that roamed the earth, the persistent embodiments of U2 and Morrissey may not pack the wallop the once did, but you still watch as the trudge by. (more...)