Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.4.61.0410130130250.13234@panix3.panix.com>
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: Cyb <cybermind@listserv.aol.com>,
"WRYTING-L : Writing and Theory across Disciplines" <WRYTING-L@LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA>
Subject: Reviews of Two Works: Lanny Quarles / Alan Sondheim
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 01:30:40 -0400 (EDT)
Reviews of Two Works: Lanny Quarles / Alan Sondheim Lanny Quarles (solipsis) has created/written/produced/configured Nihon Zettels; he was kind enough to send me a copy to read. The review is my own idea. I think for anyone interested in the literature of this (not _that_) century, this book is essential. I'm fascinated by the palimpsest or palimcestual organization / organicism of the whole - but I'm also fascinated on its deep reading of medieval and pre-medieval Japan and gaijin phenomenology - both in relation to the eternal. For it's eternity, I think, that's at stake here. There are various languages within it as well as languagings, and what I consider to be stele-texts, matched in format by the book - texts which begin and end and open up kabbalah-worlds and words in the midst of others. There are positionings of male and female, demiurge and Noh, classifica- tions and lists, broken syntactics, shattered and reassembled mythologies. The text is astute, almost schizzed at times, but its open worlds are the poetics of infinity; Bachelard would have loved it. I worry constantly that works of this quality - and I'd include other work here - Joel Weishaus' or mez' absolutely brilliant web/write\rite/lit for example - will be lost, ignored, bypassed in terms of critical or even canonic acceptance. The world - and the world of distribution - are both becoming increasingly porous - it's easier than ever to find these works and absorb them, offline and online, self-published and universally published. Get this book! The Blurb: Titled after Arno Schmidt's magnum opus _Zettels Traum_ (Notes Dream), Lanny Quarles' Nihon Zettels Traum is a samizdat email-list series carried out on Wryting-L transfered to paper. Including all and some repeats of the original series of emails written after the author had returned from Japan. The author sought to re-immerse himself in the wonder and strangeness of his first visit to japan via the internet. Interspersed with bits of sampled literatures both of web and non-web origin, the author freely improvised and remixed to create a perplexing and "informatic free jazz" interpretation of his journey to and back from the land of Nihon. Price $25.00 for color copy cover and velo binding and $12.00 for a simple paper cover with hand drawn noiseglyph and signature Lanny Quarles 3236 SE 52nd Avenue Portland Oregon, 97206 ---- Sampler I've been putting my work on a DVD+ sampler. Please note this is DVD+ - which plays on almost all computers, but probably not on a standard DVD player. The work as usual is within a directory; click on a piece to view it. Because of the format, I've been able to include a large number of full-frame videowork. Much of the material is related to choreography, codework, thinking through body/language/sexuality/'the political/etc. You can also buy this for $25; apologies for the cost, but a lot of equipment went into the production/technology of the disk. Order from Alan Sondheim (sondheim@panix.com) 432 Dean Street Brooklyn, NY, 11217 ___ Other reviews in a 'standard edition' will follow within a week or so. ___