What is literature? Pound fortunately died before I was to interview him, but W.H. Auden was around, and I therefore had to interview him. But there had been many books about Auden. One friend won a huge scholarship to write on James Joyce. But after a few years, he went mad. Too much to read.

Let’s face it, anyway–literature since Byron has been dominated by fiction. Novels portray race, class, gender, war and social upheaval. I rarely read novels.

George Gordon Lord Byron, perhaps the last popular poet

I underwent analysis to please my wife. After six months I happened to pick up a book by the preeminent European philosopher, and saw that my sleepy-headed bore of a psychoanalyst had translated it. I bought the book, and read it avidly, and hated it. At our next session I mentioned I had discovered his other job. He asked, What did you think of my book?

...meanwhile, back in New York

Wednesday was my first fully functional day back in New York. I couldn’t really face yesterday, and basically stayed in bed. So I was up early today. When I’m having a hard time knocking the world into focus, for some reason, Butler’s The Lives of the Saints helps. Wednesday it was Paul. Today it’s Thomas Aquinas, the older contemporary of Dante. They never met. But Thomas’ scholastic Summa seems equivalent to Dante’s Commedia. They both thought everything essentially was knowable.

At least somebody thought they knew something once.

Andy Warhol's ambivalent Last Supper (1968) *credits at end

During my brief time of welcome at the Union Square North Factory, Andy asked me to interview anybody for his magazine, Interview. I decided to interview Daniel Berrigan, SJ, a poet and activist. Bob Colacello was Interview’s right-wing editor and he was skeptical. Nor did Dan understand Andy. Andy to Dan symbolized wealth and decadence. Colacello rejected the interview.

Interview was originally Inter-View. Gerard Malanga was the first editor of Inter-View. He viewed Andy’s magazine as an update of Charles Henri Ford‘s avant-garde magazine View. And consequently in his first issue of Gerard published poetry by Kenward Elmslie. Andy was annoyed. “No Poetry!” Andy ruled.

Poetry is not Pop Art. Catholicism however is always art.

Notes
The interviews were in Art NEWS, Small Press Review, and Unmuzzled OX [this is Michael Andre's own publication and also the name of his blog]. The Small Press Book Fair, incidentally, was offered a free billboard on Times Square, but Suzanne Ostro, who ran the Book Fair, knew no one who could do a billboard. At her request, I offered Andy a free table for Interview if he would. Naturally he agreed. But the other exhibitors were outraged. They didn’t understand Andy either but they knew they disliked him. The billboard was never done.

*image info: Andy Warhol (American, 1928–1987). The Last Supper, 1986. Acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen, 116 x 390 in. (294.6 x 990.6 cm). The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh; Founding Collection, Contribution The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. © 2010 The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Victor Vazquez, Parallel Lines, 2005, lambda impression, polyptych 40" x 60"

Feather rocks are naturally-occurring pseudo-petroglyphs. One photo records an arrangement of feather rocks. A second photo shows the same rocks with a line of white paint across each. It’s a diptych. Illegals lined against a wall seem ready to be patted down by the cops. But a white line across their backs carries into a second black “canvas” and that single line there becomes a Spanish text considering philosophic aspects of it all, it all. It’s another diptych. A couple sitting across from each other in a Parisian park wear Puerto Rican flags as hoods. The plaza of the Pompidou has pedestrians galore along with two Puerto Rican flags — one with white lines, the other with white arrows.

Victor Vazquez, Body to Body, 2005, lambda impression, diptych, 40" x 80"

Lying words fly through the air like terrible arrows and sometimes mean to  kill. The usual art normally hangs on a wall in sullen silence. The photographs of Vazquez whisper back and forth, back and forth harsh words of political discontent.

The show will continue at Seraphin until January 26.

From the window of an elevated train I scout North Philadelphia. Topless bars. Beer and shot bars. “Police” equipment: handguns, rifles, shotguns. 99 cent stores. Pawn shops. Guys congregating on corners drinking beer.

I wander a neighborhood at random. The consolidated library is empty and forlorn. The cashiers in the convenience stores count pennies and dollars behind inch-thick Plexiglas. I see no neighborhood-saving murals. Is this Philadelphia unredeemed?

5th and Cecil B. Moore in North Philadelphia

It is Sunday morning and in Dunkin Donuts three overweight white lowlifes confer. The man embarks on some mission and leaves his two females. A dad and his son enter. One lowlife must talk loudly to the little boy. The other nods and starts slowly to bend in that alarming, impossible manner of the serious addict — freed utterly from each and every last law, even that of the spine.

2. ART WORLD

Ray Johnson's art

The pianist, painter and poet are of three natures, utterly distinct. The poet speaks for the painter. The painter sees but what he sees he just can’t say. The art world has its own rules. A painter can abide by these laws and sometimes succeed, or he can defy them and certainly fail. Poets talk but money drives the art world. A distant pianist plays a fast blues.

3. ADIEUX, an indiscreet elegy

David Bourdon's book, Warhol

You fibbed about your schooling. To me,
You told one truth, and thus
When you started seriously dying
You kept me away from your old
Friends. They had not heard, that you
Quit high school to be a copyboy
At the Herald-Tribune. But I found no
Byline, though you told
Stories of Clay Felker. You wrote about art
But lived, you implied, dealing
Art at Christie’s, staked first by
Gratuities from grateful artists.

It As It, collaborative chapbook with words by Michael Andre and drawings by Brian Buczak

You didn’t leave a literary executor.
A newspaperman in my
Family decided when he died
His words too must rest
And trouble no one again.
Words, this poem for instance, must
Perish.  You were my friend.
You are my friend, a non-practicing
Homosexual.  Hate the dead
Refute what the bitter heart says.
Adieux to an art world.  I hate Brian Buczak
And Ray Johnson and you,
David Bourdon, for dying.

Feast of St Blaise–

Magiciens de la Terre, installation with Coffin Car by Kane Kwei. Photo courtesy of Fleisher-Ollman Gallery.

The original Magiciens de la Terre (Magicians of the Earth) opened twenty years ago at the Pompidou in Paris, united the diverse esthetics in this show, and subsequently served as a curatorial template for the dissolution of the dichotomy between insider international Big Boy art and the local outsider Little Guy stuff. Such is Fleisher/Ollman’s especial forte.

The best piece in the current show is by James Lee Byers. Byers was an insider’s outsider. The retired epistemologist, John Brockman, introduced me to Jimmy, and I published him in Unmuzzled OX.  As I continue to encounter his work years after his death, I am always struck by its beauty and brilliance, its modesty and wit. To me, Byers takes the academic beyond the vernacular into the truly Universal.

James Lee Byars, Twins Seven Seven. Photo courtesy of Fleisher-Ollman Gallery

The Village Voice, on the other hand, asked me years ago to interview John Baldessari. I published John, too, in OX. But I have unfortunately come to regard him as Mister Cal Arts Lightweight.  His reputation greatly exceeds his achievement. To me, his art is “academic” in the particular sense of “irrelevant.”  Baldessari represents Big Boy Art at its shallow pretentious worst. John is personable and charming, but that only serves to conceal his art’s vacuity — and, of course, makes me personally feel like a mean-spirited ingrate.

Of the outsider art my favorite is a wooden Australian aboriginal “shield” portraying two Joeys. You know Joey, right? The baby kangaroo? The artist goes by the name Murumuru today at Fleisher/Ollman, but 20 years ago in Paris he was called Wunuwunu. Something tells me he did not attend Cal Arts.

And who could dislike the coffin car by Kane Kwei?

But the most interesting piece in terms of the theme of the show is Trixie of the Night by Julio Galan. I loved this painting. Is it Surrealism? Or is it the “primitivism” which Breton and Freud so admired? Or should the distinction matter?

Cover of The Enlightened Bracketologist, hardback version

Perhaps, however, probability theory leaves chance attenuated. If you can guess what will happen, does that make chance less random? Galileo noticed that when you repeatedly roll dice, certain numbers occur more often than others. A seven in craps rolls much more often than a two or a twelve.

And probability theory will help you win poker pots. If you’re holding two pair and then draw one card, your chance of making a full house is one in eleven.

And the art and theory of chance applies equally to, say, team sports — which brings us to The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything (Bloomsbury: New York) edited by Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir, now out in paperback.

The book is beautifully designed: lots of white space. The type is readable and daring: black and red mathematically arranged in an expanding fan. Only one artist is mentioned: the late Mr Andy Warhol. Bracketology is pop philosophy. Its first ostensible topic, however, is the annual NCAA basketball tournament.

NCAA basketball players. Image from http://www.amuseline.com/basketball-players-funny-cool-images

How many men have died from boredom during March Madness? Every March the NCAA holds a tournament to determine the best basketball “program” in the United States. 64 teams are arrayed in 32 brackets. The winner of the match between 64th seed and the 1st seed plays the winner of the 63rd seed v. the 2nd seed. Each stage of the tournament is a new “bracket.” The teams efficiently move to a Sweet Sixteen, then a Final Four, and then finally a Champion.

I can usually name the champion for the first 20 minutes after I read it in the paper. But, oh yes, I do religiously read the sports page, though I give nary a s**t for American college basketball. The bracketology process is inherently interesting. I run my eye over the progress of the brackets every March —  as I anxiously await baseball’s opening day.

Sandomir and Reiter adapt bracketology to the tournament of ideas. For instance, everyone would prefer dying tomorrow to dying today, later rather than sooner — right? What are the current “longevity strategies”? Should we practice yoga or meditate? Consume Lipitor or fish oil?  Isoflavonoids? Vitamin B-12? No drinking ? No smoking? The list is as boring as 64 American colleges.

But what, according to David Lefell of the Yale Medical School, is the best longevity strategy? Walk 30 to 60 minutes a day.

You could walk to the nearest Barnes and Noble and buy this book and you might even live longer as a result.

[We couldn't find the paperback version online yet. Here's a link to the hardback on Amazon, but better to take Michael's advice: get some exercise and walk to your nearest Barnes and Noble. --l&r]

I congratulate Ann Lee Morgan on this huge book. Of course, Oxford University Press used a computer spell check rather than a proof reader. The resulting typos are tricky because the wrong word appears rather than a mere misspelling. No doubt the contract stipulates Ms Morgan is to blame for such typos.

But more grievously the print is simply too small; and the book is therefore unreadable. My copy spits some more at the printer’s art: the cover has been clipped by the shears of some mighty press. A friend who was for twenty years the managing editor of a mid-sized Manhattan publisher told me she would have been fired if she had accepted a book with the cover so clipped by printers. She didn’t need to open it.

There are, in any case, no illustrations.

Are they thinking of selling the online version? I’m sorry, I prefer books which are books. I can only try to read this book using the magnifying glass which came with the condensed and unreadable Compact Edition of  the Oxford English Dictionary, another Oxford University Press fiasco. The Brits think they’re so damn clever. What a terrible waste of paper! This is how a people loses its empire.

Cover of Andrei Codrescu's new book, Posthuman Dada Guide: Tsara and Lenin Play Chess

I myself was named after Lt Michael Tierney killed in a trench in France in 1916. Meanwhile in Zurich Tristan Tzara protested. How can a sensible soul protest except through art and poetry and performance?  Perhaps Vladimir Lenin was not altogether sensible. Lenin also resided in Zurich at the time. Lenin protested the Great War with guns, assassination and revolution.

Revolution changes the nature of war. With Kaiser Wilhelm in Germany, the Grand Duke of Austria, and the Czar in his palace in Russia, Europe in 1916 resembled  a giant chessboard. The Monarchy, the Church and the Military sent its pawns or peons or citizens to fight and die. A current activist sums up the attitude of our leaders to our fellow citizens: fuck them. If Ludendorff had not suffered a moment of humanity in August 1918, the Great War could have continued well into the 1920s.

But the king is never killed in chess. When it was all over, the monarchs of Germany and Austria simply walked away, former kings but free men. Lenin, however, did something interesting, something revolutionary: he killed the king. Michael Tierney died; why should the Czar live?

And chess too changed, according to Codrescu. The Great War spawned  Chess Theory. Ever read any? It’s worse than art criticism. Are you reading this for fun? Dada was desperate fun and outrageous entertainment. Eventually it gave way to serous Surrealism and the yucks stopped.  But Codrescu’s book is Dada’s witty lucid exposition. When Codrescu writes of Tzara’s French poetry, I think Codrescu is really writing of his own English work: “Tzara turned out to be a remarkable French poet, whose use of the language, uninhibited by the taboos of his native tongue(s), renewed it like a fresh spring. Tzara made French his personal playground, and the astonished litterateurs of Paris couldn’t wait to climb aboard its variety of fun rides.”

Andrei Codrescu, The Posthuman Dada Guide: Tzara & Lenin Play Chess (Princeton University Press); 235 pages; 2009

Andy Warhol screensaver, seen at Barneys Department Store, Madison Ave.

Andy Warhol and Allen Ginsberg hated each other. Allen was a windbag; Andy had a rapier wit. I met them both as interview subjects, and had prepared an hour’s worth of questions. Andy answered my questions quickly and wittily in about fifteen minutes; he then interviewed me. Allen somehow spent eight hours answering the same number of questions. It makes me wonder if Whitman, too, was a windbag. Warhol was a non-practising homosexual and practicing Catholic. Ginsberg was an active pederast. Warhol uttered some hilarious remarks about Allen in my interview; it was only after Andy died that Allen learned Andy was a church-goer. He enlisted Burroughs to co-pronounce this ludicrous judgment: Catholicism invalidated Warhol’s art.

Allen Ginsberg, seen here in a picture from the 1960s.

picture from Ishmael Sundarban’s website

No one asked Gregory Corso. Some of Allen’s best friends were Catholics, but they daren’t express it in his presence.  I got Allen to sign a limited edition to raise money to pay some of Dan’s legal bills. But Allen would not appear on the same stage as Dan. Hannah Weiner hosted a Christmas Eve party many years ago. Gregory Corso, Erika Rothenberg and I went together. At a quarter to twelve, Erika and I got ready to leave. “I’ll come with you,” Gregory said. “We’re going to midnight mass,” I told him. A look of fear and revulsion passed across Gregory’s face. “I’ll stay here,” he said.

Whate’er.

Gross Clinic-type anatomy lesson, 2009, using Stan the "Man"

Doug he showed me around the College. I liked Stan best.  Currently the most famous painting in Philadelphia is Eakins’ Gross Clinic. That’s a painting of an anatomy lesson. Doug said the college was on spring break so they weren’t dissecting anybody. He showed me a half dozen brains, then he introduced me to Stan.

Stan the "Man," a Human Patient Simulator

Stan’s a robot who is yet capable of every illness. He lies on a table wearing pajamas with a sheet up to his chin. Stan possesses, however, an extensive wardrobe. He breathes. His eyes respond to light.  He bruises. He responds to every drug.  Stan, basically, is standard. Brian, who is Stan’s boss, sits behind a one-way mirror monitoring the medical students and speaking as Stan. Doug showed me how to inject certain drugs into Stan. This was great!

Thomas Eakins, The Gross Clinic

How are you feeling now, Stan?

“Unfortunately, Doctor Andre, I fear you gave me too much of the wrong drug and I am afraid that soon, yes — wait — I feel terrible pain — I’m certain that soon —  yes, even now, I am, finally and agonizingly, dead.”

Medical error.

We didn’t have time to see Noelle the Gal.  Apparently she can get pregnant and give birth. I wonder how she resembles a certain lady robot advertised on-line?