Mark Truscott's Blog

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George Oppen defines poetry as a process of thought. I'd say it's a process of resistance to the poem's own thinking as a form wishing to complete itself, to make a circle, to be complete. No resistance = no thought, no thought that could be called one's own, that could matter as one's own. And of course there has to be form—inherited or otherwise—for there to be resistance. Difficult to open or break a window that isn't there. (John Taggart)

Note to self: Trying too hard to co-operate during an interview makes one sound like a cheeseball. Oh well, Mitchell Caplan hosts a great show, so I don't suppose I should be blamed too harshly.Tweet

According to the preface to the 1979 edition, Arakawa and Gins began The Mechanism of Meaning to study "not simply images, percepts, or thoughts" but "more nearly all given conditions brought together in one place." They soon came to realize, however, that this focus was bringing them into correspondence with that vague something "that might [...]

Here's a quote from some previous reading. I'd like to offer it here because it's stuck with me, and because it serves as a bit of an antidote to my Arakawa and Gins post below: The piece in question, since the legs are apart, is not altogether within the dominant idea of his work. This [...]

In the interest of catching up, here's another quote from recent reading: Dramatics, Music, and the Fine Arts, which often exist precariously on the fringes of the curriculum, are regarded as an integral part of the life of the College and of importance equal to that of the subjects that usually occupy the center of [...]

Here's Grant Gee on W. G. Sebald: I knew very little about him and I came to him very late, like a year or so before I started work on the film. A friend of mine said, 'have you read this yet,' and shamefully I hadn't. There's a very good article by Rick Moody about Sebald [...]

Or perhaps the idea is always to keep something outside the mind. Memories are killing. So you must not think of certain things, of those that are dear to you, or rather you must think of them, for if you don't there is the danger of finding them, in your mind, little by little. That is to [...]

In the interest of catching up, here's another quote from recent reading:

Dramatics, Music, and the Fine Arts, which often exist precariously on the fringes of the curriculum, are regarded as an integral part of the life of the College and of importance equal to that of the subjects that usually occupy the center of the curriculum. In fact, in the early part of the student's career, they are considered of greater importance; because, in the first place, they are, when properly employed, least subject to direction from without and yet have within them a severe discipline of their own; and also because of the conviction that, through some kind of art-experience, which is not necessarily the same as self-expression, the student can come to the realization of order in the world; and, by being sensitized to movement, form, sound, and the other media of the arts, gets a firmer control of himself and his environment than is possible through purely intellectual effort.

(First Black Mountain College catalogue, 1933–34)

Here's a quote from some previous reading. I'd like to offer it here because it's stuck with me, and because it serves as a bit of an antidote to my Arakawa and Gins post below:

The piece in question, since the legs are apart, is not altogether within the dominant idea of his work. This is that the polelike figures are the core of the space surrounding them; the empty space appears to push inward on the figures, compressing them into an obdurate shaft. The dual definition is one of nothingness and meaning. Protuberances in a figure are not projections so much as they are residual points left by lines cutting inward. Giacometti uses a complicated and clever system of concave lines to force the space against the flesh.

The whole thing, but especially the bit about the protuberances as residual points, strikes me as a noteworthy moment of observation. In my opinion, observation is an underappreciated faculty in this day and age. There's a tendency to spin off into concept without regard for whether the accompanying observations are convincing or insightful. Judd's are both.

This is not to say that observation is simple or unproblematic. (As always, click the image to enlarge.)