Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Okay, the only point the posts here seem to agree on is our disdain
for the president we somehow elected twice. To risk being anti-The WELL
Program...does anyone here remember what our choices were? Would we be
happier with Steve Forbes at the helm of a military HE'S barely heard
of and certainly never met a member of? Or perhaps we could all be
analyzing our erectile dysfunctions with that other guy. Perspective,
please.

Those who confuse Clinton's appallingly bad judgment re: staff to have
sex with might do well to remember that our fine Commander in Chief
during the Gulf War was notoriously getting it on with a staffer of his
own. Though, thankfully, Bush was infinitely smarter about it than our
current choice.

If we lust for those years, we can hold tight to the image of Dan
Quayle in 2000. 

Blaming everything that goes wrong on a figurehead ignores the
frightening issue of the creatures we've all elected to Congress.
Perhaps our scrutiny is misplaced?

And I adored Ernie Kovacs. That is all.
  

    
So I get the picture and absurdity reigns here in these United States;
and the best part of Ernie Kovacs ws that he didn't resort to the low
ball of politics to stoke our imaginations, he was a head of his times,
and I think that that kind of humor seems to have faded off the scene.
But more to the point, I think the reason is that there is no longer a
common literary thread because, "Johnny doesn't read, he surfs". I
don't know how EK would respond to the present state of affairs, but I
have a feeling he would have just continued the way he was gong. He had
a vision, he pursued it, if you were hip to it, that was fine, if you
weren't, that was fine too. Unfortunately he was dealing in the long
run with the network mentality and they were habituated to watching
quizshows of housewives breaking balloons with spatuals. I don't think
he would have been able (or had the patience) to go the "Friends"
route, he would have woundup on HBO, they'd have given him an hour
every week, a contract to do whatever he wanted, however he wanted to
do it.

As for politics and the Congress, it's always been thus if one starts
dong the close research and reading the newspaper articles and
editorials. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.We're almost at
the point where even satire doesn't work, because nothing can be
satirized anymore because everything is possible. Everything is up for
parody too, don't you think?

Funny, it seems that the rest of the Well-ites hve moved on to more
interesting or at least more current topics. Or maybe everyone has
taken Plum's lead and just thrown me out of the house of Isreal to to
speak. Maybe the fact that The Well's been bought by Salon.com has sunk
in and people are cleaning up their acts now. What do you think?

As for my disdain for the President, he's politics as usual. It
doesn't matter who's in office these days,t here will be wars and young
people will eventually die and America will soldier on. Of course one
asks who else is out there to "lead"? and what is the next economic
system which will do the trick. We have interdependent political and
economic constituencies to deal with, an Internet which is owned by no
one (for the time being)----a fine time for paranoia, don't you think?
Well we'll have to last through 2001 and let time heal all wounds.
  

    <scribbled by silly Mon 9 Jul 12 16:26>
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:48>
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:48>
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:52>
  

    
Hmm...why the delayed reaction? Here's a deal: don't coddle my vanity
and I won't kneejerk to your ploys for attention. Seems fair.
  

    

"there will come a time when you won't even be ashamed if you are fat!
WAH WAH-WAH WAH" - Frank Zappa, 1968
  

    
I'm delighted that TNB and myself have occasioned, such a large
feedback, especially being thrown out of the house of Israel by plum
now it seems like ages ago.

I really can't speculate what kind of country club the Well is being
that I was never really thrown down it until comparatively recently.
And will be dragged out of it when by comp subscription is up and I am
back being an anonymous writer trying to work on his new book, writing
my monthly (getting the monthly) for Cosmic Debris magazine called
"Walley at Witzend".

Aftter reading the "flame column" see above, I do think The Well can 
be some kind of country club, but not of fat girls (which is really
sort of insulting and besides the point because you don't need to say
that to say that The Well can sometimes reek of its own intellectual
(possibly) exclusivity). But again, I don't wish to be the vehicle for
you Mister Thomas to make your agendas. I was merely an author trying
to talk about his book and then got sidetracked. For a while I was the
bear in a bear-baiting contest which was run on here by various
members, and when that wasn't "fun" I was discarded after I was flamed.
I mean flaming is all so high school, it's like saying something on
the cyber order of "Your mother drives a garbage truck or wears combat
boots" or all of the above.

The Well prides itself on being a new kind of communication. I'm not
so sure, maybe it's just the same old same old only it looks a little
different, has different gagets. It's like the Internet, some of it is
quite profound and some of it is just plain shit, but it one 
criticizes (and in the high school mode, all criticism is negative)
then the fur flies. Computers are only as good as their users, same
with the Internet, god knows that it's a truism than any fool can put
up a website (and many do), but because one has a website or a computer
or a high speed modem or plays Doom does NOT mean that I have to give
them credence or any sort of break. They still have to SAY SOMETHING
intelligent.

Whiew! that's off my chest.

Anyone want to know about Zappa or Kovacs while I'm in the mood? I'd
talk more except that where I'm situated right now is rather poor in
computer hook-ups and I have to use one which is a few hours from here
and toll number too.

thanks for the fish, all you who are still listening. I apprecaite the
vote of confidence. Maybe you'll let me mediate one of these things,
but on the other hand, I'm not a big fan of Salon. com, an exclusionist
club if there ever was one, ask the writers who aren't hip enough to
get their stuff published. It's an amazing marriage of convenience,
even if it's good for business, because The Well and Salon.com are at
opposite sides of the universe as far as I can see.
  

    
You're right.  Once I realized that this was a bear, and not a human with
whom I could discuss things, I lost interest.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:48>
  

    
<silly> your wires seem to be crossed---slightly as Frank Zappa and
Ernie Kovacs never really inhabited the same times and spaces save
briefly; tht Enie never played in a jazz combo at the Baked Potato
although the Nairobi Trio did perform at Carnagie Hall in the late
Fifties and to a tremendous response; as for the well being a club? I
really can't answer that qauestion because I was asked to be here, so
Im not paying for the privilege of venting---talk about a free press.

As for whether The Well is the province of hip SF cyberjournalists, I
wouldn't know that much either as I haven't met any. I do know that
journalism (cyber or otherwise) pays not a whit and that anyone who
does write does so for the electronic glory of seeing one's by-line on
line---I know I do, but then again I'ma product of the Underground
where I ws geting $25 bucks a week and somehow was able to float my
boat---that along with free eats at allthe rock and roll album release
parties I attended. It's good that there a forum for discussion, but
sometimes it's hard to keep the talk or chat buoyant and challenging.
And there are lurkers.

Nice to see you checked in <slf> long time, no hear. Has any of this
dialogue between myself and <silly> proved enlightening? Talking about
the war is futile because the war will do what it does and since it's
not declared and they're not drafting students or errant yooth, it's
all in the realm of talk; we've talked ourselves out on the losing
status via automatic weapons track though you could look up my column
in Cosmic Debris magazine accessed via my website
http://walleyswitzend.com  called Darkness at Noon---
otherwise we're still here chewing the cyberfat---
  

    
I'm ready to talk about wasting my vote on a third-party
candidate again, after Clinton's actions in Serbia.

signed -- straight Row B guy with Dylan's version of
"Dear Mrs. Roosevelt" enshrined in his living room.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:48>
  

    
Was any of it enlightening?  See, the question is kind of beside the point.
There was stuff I wanted to discuss, and I got shot down multiple times by
you for it not being interesting or whatever.

This isn't tv.  I don't come here to sit at the foot of the Master and
learn. I'm here to interact.  When the person with whom I'm trying to
interact says s/he doesn't want to, refers to discussions as 'bearbaiting'
and so on, then it doesn't appear like a good use of my time.
  

    
<http://www.junie-moon.com/wsr.html> sez:

   Ernie Watts, Grammy Award winning saxophonist plays some great
   solos on "Bijou" and "When The Sky Is Red"

And his discography informs me....

   1994 Birds of a Feather- Birds of a Feather

Hmm.  You're right.  Must have been another cat named Ernie Watts
at the Baked Potato.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:48>
  

    
I"m sorry, Sharon, just what did you want to discuss? I won't talk
about bear baiting anymore since those people have moved on to other
matters and other discussion groups. Really <slf> what's on your mind?

and <silly> you're right about Ernie Watts, but what order of
knowledge is that? Most of FZ's sidemen are still working either by
themselves or affiliated groups. My favorite of all time was/is George
Duyke, followed up by Aynsley Dunbar, one hell of a drummer, and then
there's Don Preston (an old Mother if there ever was one). The thing
about FZ is that once you got acclimated to his music and his way of
looking at American culture, you were spoiled forever. Even the stuff I
didn't like these days is pleasing. 
  

    
I have this idea, see about how inkwell.vue functions. I might be
wrong, I might be right. That for the chattering classes, the sport
comes from prose inventions, and when the group thinks that the
inventions are done, they move on. These inventions can be about
politics orwar and famine, guns and noses (say, there's the name of a
pretty good band), or insomniac's revenge for all that matters.
Inkwell.vue can be a forum or a platform, but the interest lies in
finding new blood, with new ideas.
Now some times the ideas aren't so new as are the writers who are
questioned; sometimes they ideas are hard to take, sometimes they're
not. I myself haven't figured out what this confabulation of
individuals is all about though I do think that those who read the
Sunday Ny Times should see a piece in the business section on Salon.com
and their business sense or lack of same. Oh just a little fly in the
self-congradulatory ointment to be sure, but nevertheless an
interesting article to contemplate. But I guess that's cyber business
and if amazon.com can have a company which has a high proced stock but
pays no dividends than I suppose that Pt Barnum's addage of suckers
being born every minute will have to be revised some I suppose.

But getting back to inkwell.vue, I wonder who really lurks out there?
maybe we should have a topic called "literature as fast food" and see
what develops. I dunno, I say that high school education ought not to
be compulsory and Smolin replies and then nothing. I didn't write TNB
to be thrown into the void of cyberspace, but then again I never know.
Any takers? comments, ad hominem attacks? ambushes? all's fair in love
and war and cyberspace I suppose.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:49>
  

    
You started out on a bad foot, in re Salon, since many
people who frequent this conference like the writers and
writing that's appeared there.  To talk about it as an
"exclusive cybersnob" club (my paraphrase) seemed like sour grapes
whining (at least to me).   Not that tunnel-vision in 
Internet publishing venues is nonexistent, but I wouldn't
want to confuse that with targeting content to appeal to
a projected reader demographic.  
  

    
Look, maybe it's the fact that I lived in New York for twenty years
and had a chance to see how literary politics are played; Salon is very
well-written, but for me, it's very thin. It's trendy, slick, but
ultimately it reflects the values of the Internet as I see them.
Anyway, I did not call Salon an "exclusive cybersnob club", it was
<silly>. Anyway, one of the the problems we do have in this country at
least in terms of discourse is that, for the most part, most people
think of criticism is terms of the negative. Which is a very high
school notion,ie/ all criticism is negative instead of observational
--- it's not sour grapes, it's the fact that after having lived in and
amongst the NY literary scene for twenty years, I can spot literary
politics a mile away; I have little patience with literary politics.
Sorry to offend, that's the way I feel and this is NOT a comment on the
people who enjoy it.

nice piece of work <silly>, put that together with a sound collage,
some video loops, and you've got yourself a numbah-one MTV rap video.
Do you do poetry slams too? Look, the LA Times also has good reporters,
and occasionally they're allowed to write good stuff, but at least to
me it never seemed like it was as "serious" as the times, but then
again the NY Times suffers from the same sort of politics only it's
less "nouveau" comparatively, than what goes on in the LA Times. Still,
your poem is a great piece of work and would work as a performance
piece, provided we still had an anti-war movement. But come to think of
it, like I told my students at Williams, every generation has its own
war like or not. And I suppose the mess in Kosovo will mutate and
spread like a virus. And as we began the century with WWI or should I
say the first Balkan Wars, so will we end it. And the will will end
with a bang, not a whimper.
  

    <scribbled by silly Sat 7 Jul 12 16:49>
  

    

Silent Night/7:00 News
It wasn't just war news, because I remember hearing about Richard Speck
murdering student nurses in Chicago in there, too...

FWIW.
  

    
In re: David's musing in #319 about how Inkwell functions, it seems to me
we're making it up as we go along. Every interview has its own dynamics;
it's its own mini WELL conference, in effect.