Tentatively, Convenience's Reviews > by Alison Knowles

As I recall, Knowles is the one who suggested to Higgins (weren't they married?) that he call his press "Something Else" or, rather, he sd something like: "Maybe I shd call the press [fill in the blank]?" & AK replied: "No, call it something else" - in other words, she may not've intended "something else" to be a proper noun but Higgins may've turned it into that.

Anyway, I suppose I can honestly say that I'm both intriqued by Knowles' work & bored by it. In some of the works I'm familiar w/ she tends to be very low-key in just focusing on things like beans or shoes - wch is fine & marvelous & very Zen or very Fluxus or whatever but since I'm not necessarily that interested in beans or shoes it doesn't do that much for me. STILL, I like very much that she does what she does - it's so UNSENSATIONAL: she does what she does b/c it interests HER. Just as it 'shd' be.

This pamphlet collects together simple prose performance instructions wch I can easily imagine being handwritten or typed on index cards - classic Fluxus style. Here's an example:

"#5 -

Street Piece (October, 1962 to March, 1963)

Make something in the street and give it away."

I've done things like this & so've other people I know & there's a sort of openness to it that I find enjoyable. Ever on the alert for the sociopathic, though, I can also imagine harmful or malicious versions of this too - but it's the kind & gentle ones that I like & am attracted to. Knowles is CONTEMPLATIVE & seeing this pamphlet makes me interested in her all over again.

When I just did a GoodReads search for her I noticed that she, too, has a bk called "Footnotes" - published in 2000. That's a nice surprise. When I named my 10th bk "footnotes" I knew I was picking a generic name that my use of wd tweak quite a bit. I reckon Knowles has done the same.

It's somewhat remarkable to me that even though Knowles' work is perhaps focused on things of little interest to many people that she is widely published. I even have a CD of hers. So there must be a wider interest in what interests her & what she does w/ it than I might initially imagine. That makes me feel like all isn't just endless war - as it so often seems to be.