Thursday, January 14, 2010

Catch Up with the Impossible Object

Unfortunately, even though there's been a lot of traffic to the blog lately, there haven't been many updates. I'm still doing some slower moving trudge work with this project, perhaps moving towards a synthesis or disintegration; as well, faster moving projects elsewhere have called for my attention. I'm not sure yet whether an "end" is in sight, and every time I think this project is running on empty, a new strategy or opportunity extends it.
For those new to the site, I'm arraying some links to its past media highlights, as well as annotations about things yet to be done, and some long-standing wishes for the project that will hopefully be fulfilled in the new year.

Patersongs: This is one of my favorite aspects of the project: songs composed from the text of Paterson. There has been an open invitation to artists and musicians to compose these songs for the site, although many who promised a long time ago still haven't followed through! Just to let you know, I'm still waiting. And still on my wishlist is a punk/thrash/girl band version of the Marcia Nardi letters.

The Locust Tree (Joanne Hsieh and Jesse Roy)
In Spite of the Grey Mystery of Time (immaginarium light outreach inner-youth center with Joe Milutis)
Sam Patch! (Joanne Hsieh and Jesse Roy)
To Make a Start Out of Particulars (Joe Milutis)
The Skeleton of Peter the Dwarf (Graham Stowe)
Look for the Nul (Joe Milutis)

As one can tell from the last link above, sometimes the video content has a tenuous relation to the poem or even the city Paterson itself, and I used my toy camera to document more absurd, drifty, or plainly disconnected territories, in the search for a more non-local idea of this localized epic. The blog and its momentum brought me to Patterson, Georgia; Hudson, NY; Paris, France; Brussels, Belgium; and other
terra incognita. These pieces are the more "junky" spontaneous and properly blog-like materials.

Exploring Paterson in Patterson, GA
(with Clark Lunberry)
Reading the Geological Cross Section Passage 20 meters Under Paris (with Jonathan Wonham et al)
Thinking about Paterson at MoMA
Paterson in the "ruins in reverse" of Hudson, NY (with Max Goldfarb)
Paterson for Bird Watching (with Jackie Goss and Michael Gitlin)

Sonic experiments with Paterson material form the core of the project, and may come together at one point into a documentary, or remain disaffiliated blog data--both of which would suit me fine. In the spirit of Williams' work, it is always a dilemma when faced with the choice between unification and fragment. Yet to be incorporated are interview materials recorded (and previously posted) with Herb Blau, Jeanne Heuving, and the folks at the Kelly Writers House, as well as some materials that I hope to record in 2010.

Make a Song Out of That Completely (with Joe Ruffalo et al)
Listen to It! (with Bob Perelman et al)
It's the Locality (with Lytle Shaw, Bob Perelman, Amelia Arenas)
Have You Ever Been To Paterson? (Amelia Arenas, Bob Perelman, Carole Maso, Lytle Shaw, Joe Ruffalo)
Blocked (Bob Perelman, Lytle Shaw, Amelia Arenas)

Seattle has taken me far afield of New Jersey, so one of my favorite new things has been a subtitling of the 1956 film Invasion of the Body Snatchers with, among other things, snippets of Paterson. I plan to do the whole movie, although, truth be told, the project slowed once I hit the "action" scenes (the ambiguity and mystery of the more "everyday" scenes seemed to lend themselves more to this experiment.)

Los Ladrones de Cuerpos, episode 1
Los Ladrones de Cuerpos, episode 2
Los Ladrones de Cuerpos, episode 3 (the virtual reality episode)
Los Ladrones de Cuerpos, episode 4
Los Ladrones de Cuerpos, episode 5 (the Jack Spicer episode)

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